More Croissants, Please!

I’ve been terrible about posting and have been meaning to write this for almost a week now.  Andrew arrived in Paris on Saturday morning and we’ve been running all over France and Switzerland like crazy.   More on that in a later post!

Last week was my final week of school.  It was so much fun, but I’m also really glad it’s over.  It was exhausting and I don’t think I could fit anymore information about food in my tiny head right now.

In pastry, it was “entrements” or plated dessert week.  This week is really important for the students that are going on to an internship because most of them will be the dessert maker in restaurants (vs. working in a bakery – the internships are all in restaurants).  For me, though, we did a lot of fancy plate decorating that I will never do (sorry, friends).  We made:

• Tiramisu with a twist – amaretto ice cream instead of the traditional cream filling.  It was really delicious, but I have no ice cream maker.  But I could still use the recipe to make a more traditional version!

• An apple and pear tart with an apple-sorbet milkshake.  Also delicious, and finally something with fruit in it!  But don’t worry, the fruit was carmelized in sugar and honey.
• A mont blanc “cage” – similar to the one that we made during cake week, but this one had rhubarb jam instead of clementine and a rhubarb bottom, covered in vanilla custard on the outside.  Also delicious.

• Profiterole tart.  I don’t have a picture of this one because I couldn’t get the plate decoration to look good, so I just ate it.  The profiteroles were the best part – the rest of the dessert, I could do without.  They were sitting on top of a crumbly sweet crust, but the texture of the crust was too close to the texture of the profiterole puff and there wasn’t any cream to cut the crunchiness.

Also… Chocolate class!  I took an extra chocolate class that was after school two days in a row.  On the second day, we were there until 10pm (we were supposed to end at 7:30) finished our assembly.  Here’s what we made:

The whole thing is edible and made of chocolate.  We learned a bunch of different techniques on how to form and shape the pieces (including making a mold of different things, like the skull = awesome), how to attach them, how to color and paint it, etc.  It was a really cool thing to learn even if I won’t be making a showpiece anytime soon.  But I might have to break out the chocolate skulls for Halloween.

In cooking, it was meat week.  Finally, no more seafood.  We learned how to clean a bird and a classic French recipe.  We made:

• Pigeon pot pie: yes, I ate pigeon.  It was pretty good, but definitely not worth the high price you would pay in a US restaurant for it.  We made a little pie with cabbage just inside the bread, then a layer of sauteed mushrooms and carrots, then foie gras, then pigeon.  The best part was the crust so I’ll have to make lots of different pot pies with it – I’m thinking post-Thanksgiving leftovers, a multi-squash one, a chicken pot pie, and maybe some others!

• Chicken with crawfish: we used the vacuum-seal method (from fish week) to cook the chicken and it turned out really moist.  Just like at a crawfish boil, they were a lot of work for not very much meat.  But still really yummy.

• Beef bourguignon: a French classic.  Sort of like a beef stew with red wine sauce.  We also made our own twist on the dish the next day (above), using the same ingredients and trying to get the taste of the stew but not a stew.  I made mashed potatoes with a mushroom/red wine sauce volcano inside, roasted thyme carrots, beef, and crispy pork belly.

We had a test on the last day in both classes (!!!) – the point of the test is just so the instructors have an idea of what to put on their menus for the next month, since the weeks will repeat themselves but with different and more difficult recipes.  In Pastry, we had 2 hours to make and plate macarons.  I failed.  I was so worried about whipping my dough too much that the cookie would dry out, I didn’t whip it enough and they didn’t rise.  So obviously that’s the first thing I’ll make when I get home.  The cooking test was the beef bourguignon with our own twist – I definitely passed that one, and it was really tasty.  In the end, I have three certificates for my filing cabinet.  Andrew thinks we should hang them on the wall since we have zero art in our house still, but I’m thinking no.