Day One!

So today I decided to create a blog for family and friends to read. I haven't written in one since middle school, however I thought it would be a good way to share different things I am making or learning in class with those that I may not have time to talk to everyday.  Today was day six of this block, "Contemporary Cakes and Desserts." In this class we make entremets and petits gateaux.  For those who have never heard of these terms, it essentially is a french dessert that is served between meals.  Entremets are meant to serve 6-8 people and petit gateaux are individual portion sized.

Although I am learning and somewhat enjoying this class, it is very intense and stressful. My schedule is fairly rough and I tend to just toss and turn rather than sleeping all night. I have yet to fully understand how I can sleep so well on the weekends but during the week, I feel like I wake up every hour!  And for this class especially being tired just isn't an option. Class goes from 6:30am - 1:30pm everyday and we are required to be super prepared, scheduled, make daily game plans, meet with our partners and study every night for potential pop "queezes" as my French Chef pronounces it.

Once I look beyond the stress and chaos and really look at the products however they do look amazing, interesting, contemporary, and overall quite unique. Every day we follow a similar pattern for preparing these desserts.  All the bases (cakes, dacquoise, and cookie doughs) were prepared on Day 1 of the class by various teams. If the entremet has a cookie base, it needs to be rolled out, cut, and baked that day..and if the base is a cake, there is the option to roll it a little thinner or keep it thick ( depending on our interpretation of the dessert and individual preference), a thin coat of pate a glace is then applied ( to make the cake stick to the cake board) and finally it is cut to the correct size of the mold we are using that day.

The next step of the day is to prepare the various mousses. Typically all the desserts have two types of mousse, or a mousse and a cremeux.  The insert has to be frozen rock solid before the outer mousse can be made. Since we're using gelatin, it is imperative that once the mousse is made, whatever it is going into is ready. There is a lot of assembling obstacles to overcome sometimes, and a lot of components to gather and have ready.

In addition to all of this, we have to work CLEAN!  A lot of times it is necessary to stick dirty dishes under our station and clean them once we get a chance. The chef likes the tables to constantly get wiped down and scrubbed (about 20 times a day- no joke!) Most of our tools are kept on a sheet tray on a slider under our station, however a few must be kept in a bain marie on top of the table, this water must stay clean and hot, and therefore needs to be changed periodically throughout the day also. This all seems tedious and unnecessary now, however I'm sure it will come in handy in the future.