First week in the Lab

Last week, our group had an early 7.30 am start everyday which means that we have to be ready in the lab by 7 am. Monday and Tuesday I arrived late around 7.15 even though I think I live the closest to the school! I now set the alarm at 5 am just to be sure I get to school at decent time now. It is always still dark when I walk out but it doesn't feel eerie, I actually quite like walking to school everyday.

I really really enjoyed last week… I even like the cleaning and all the sanitising and looking after our tools everyday... and am quite get used to washing my hands often! I feel so lucky to be in our group, our chef is definitely the best!! He is cool, quite funny, very good and very French! I notice already that he has an eagle eye and pick up on little things that I don't do correctly like when I used wrong fingers to core the apples or when I didn't use the knife as how he showed us. There are 13 of us and we get along quite well. I quickly become friendly with a few of them especially, but all of them are really nice.

Everyday we did 2 tarts and by the end of the week we made : Tarte Bourdaloue and Flan on Monday, Tarte aux Pommes and Tarte Normandie (Tuesday), Tarte au Citron Meringuée and Tarte au Chocolat (Wednesday), Tarte Linzer and Clafoutis (Thursday), Tarte aux Fruits Rouges and Tarte Dacquoise aux Fruits Exotiques (Friday). We learnt the correct technique to make pâte à foncer/pâte brisée and pâte sucré and up to last week I had never done it correctly… I was always a mess whenever I had to transfer the rolled out dough to cover my tart tin but last week I have to say that it was a breeze…

We didn't bring home our tarts on Monday and so on Tuesday I had four family size tarts to take away, luckily the weather was really nice, we finished at 4 and my Accor friend said yes the team would love them, so I took the metro to Bibliotheque François Mitterand to meet him to offload my tartes. Done hehe.. So relieved to find a willing recipient :) The following day I managed to exchange a quarter of my tarte au chocolat with quarter of a galette from a Cuisine student... and gave my tarte au citron meringuée to the neighbour who happened to have their door open. Cool! On Thursday I gave my clafoutis to a sister and kept the Linzer torte. Really like the Linzer torte, the base is really nice and shorter than the other we had done and the cinnamon notes did come through, the raspberry jam we used is of good quality and the addition of almond cream also compliments it nicely.

Chef commented on how I didn't put enough raspberry in the clafoutis... why are you shy with the raspberries? So on Friday when we made two fruit tarts and I went crazy with the amount of fruits. Both went to good appreciative homes.

Actually photos with hands on it are my chef's in action… the last one is mine! I tried to replicate his style but his tart was definitely more beautiful and less clumsy.

So everyday we have 5 hours of Pastry Lab, the rest are TA (Technique Appliquée) class with Chef, French class with Marc, and Oenologie class with Christian. Busy busy busy everyday! But I am really loving it, I find everything interesting and it's only the second week and I'm already dreading that the end is nearing…

This week, it's adventure with pâte à choux and pâte feuilletée, can't wait!

Melinda x