Two weeks to go....

Sorry I've been MIA. The wonderful internet in my apartment has been down for over a week. So annoying. But maybe it's for the best, as there's been a lot going on. I'm going to make this one quick too. Just a little update as I'm borrowing internet from the school lobby.

So we got our marks from presentation day and I received 20 out of 20! Yay! I knew the slides would distract them. We also had our third exam blanc, which was even harder than previous ones. When I have more bandwidth at my disposal, I'll share the pics. It'll be exam 3 and 4, as this Wednesday and Thursday is our 4th blanc exam. This one will be most like the final. Two days. The first dedicated to all things pastry and flour. The second for ice cream and chocolate. Chef says that since we'll have more time, we'll also have more stuff to do. God help us. It's a serious push to get everything done as it is. And presentation will count for more this time too. There's a rumor that we'll have to present 8 different plates, in addition to the big desserts. I'll let you know how it goes. Then Friday is the final techno test. I need to be studying for this right now. There's a lot to memorize. Chef is a big fan of charts with numbers. Unfortunately, my brain isn't so into it. Again, I'll let you know how it goes.

In other news, I have received some exciting news about possible accommodation in Strasbourg. Please cross all fingers and toes that it works out. I would LOVE to have that off my list of worries.

So that's about it. It's crunch time now. I really can't believe I've been here for 5 months. And I can't even imagine that I'll be working in a REAL pastry shop in just 3 weeks!

Okay time to hit the books. Really sorry for the lack of pics. I'll fill the next post with food, promise.

À bientôt!

Food TV Debut

Here it is. Presentation day. I ended up writing my speech/presso the night before. Go figure. I did my best to keep it interesting and add a bit of humor. Difficult when I'm not always entirely sure what I'm saying. But I got through it. Here are a few photos...okay maybe more than a few.

 American and a little bit Danish (explained through marzipan).

 Putting the mic on.

Florence was my assistant.

 Another one of the fantastic slides Nate made for me. I think they really helped me look more professional.

Rolling out the rings. In hind sight, I should have done all but 2 or 3 before the presentation. There were more than a few awkward pauses. I mean, there are only so many times you can ask if anyone has questions. This is where I inserted my decoration humor.

I explained that it's tradition to decorate with flags. Like this...

But flowers are very popular, too...

But if it's a wedding cake, you can't forget about the bride and groom...

And at this point, why not throw on a few firecracker decorations....

Oh la la!! Je pense que c'est trop! (Too much!!) Personally, I prefer a simple kransekage. Comme ça...

I got a few laughs. And it broke up the boring rolling section. Anyway, while it baked I made the icing.

Putting the icing in the bag.

 All baked ready to cool. (I used the blast freezer to help speed up the cool down).

 Something must have been funny.

Saying something interesting and using my hands to get the point across.

 Putting together the puzzle before I use the icing. Always a good idea, or things can get messy.

 

 Building the cake, piece by piece.

And voila! A kransekage. Again. This one was a little crooked.

But not to worry. It was gobbled up fast!

There you go. My food TV debut. As you can see, the whole thing was videotaped. I'm not looking forward to that show. Who the hell knows what I was saying. And I'm terrified it's going to end up on the school's website. Ugg. I'll let you know. And thanks again to Nate for all your help. Especially for watching me practice my speech more than once through video skype, even though you took Spanish. You're the best.

Alright. Off for walk number two today. Gotta work off the exceptionally bad consumption week I had. Damn ice-cream. It gets me every time!

Bonne journée!

Fun run.

Well we all had the day to test out our recipes. And mine turned out better than I expected. I mean, the process was really quite easy. So easy, I was able to make two and prepare the dough for my presentation on Wednesday. It's chilling in the fridge as I type. Some parts were dryer than others, but being it was my first time and all, there really weren't any disasters. Here's a little step by step if you're interested.

Start with the proper pans. Old school Danes did it by hand, and I think most still do. But I'm a new school semi-Dane, I use the pans.

Remember to spray the pan so the dough doesn't stick. And it would. This stuff is sticky.

  The dough is super simple: 455grams (1lb) of almond powder.

455g (1lb) of powdered sugar.

And 160g (or 4) egg whites.

Add about 40g of the egg whites into the almonds and mix. Add all of the powered sugar and continue mixing. Then gradually add the rest of the whites until the mixture is homogeneous.

Then pack it up in plastic and put it in the fridge to cool overnight. (Today I rolled it out flat and put it in the blast freezer for an hour. That seemed to do the trick.)

When it's nice and chill, you can roll it out into little sausage like rings. Even is the goal. That is, unless you're cool with leaning cakes.

Lay them in in each of the 16 rings and pinch together the ends. Bake in the oven at 205ºC/400ºF for about 10 minutes. I ended up putting mine in for closer to 15min. But it all depends on the oven.
After they're baked let them cool in the pan before you start building.

Start with the bottom and use the icing as mortar.

 Keep building...

...and voila! Kransekage.

Like I said, for the first go at it, I'm happy. But as my second batch was much more fragile and dry, I can tell I'll have to play around with cooking times and temps.

As for decoration, honestly I think they look best as is. Often people stick flags and flowers and little firecracker thingies on them. But they all look a bit tacky to me. I made up some marzipan flags last night. So I'll have them ready as examples, but I think clean is best.

So there you go. Now I need to practice explaining all of this in French. Oh mon dieu! I'll get back to you on that.

Bonne nuit!

Procrastination = higher calorie intake.

And that's saying a lot from a girl in pastry school. I've been trying to write this presentation all day and you'd think I'd have enough pressure by now to really get into it, being that it's Sunday afternoon already. But I still keep putzing around. Write a little, then eat something. Write a little, then google. Write a little, then eat something again. I've already had two bowls of coffee (cause we don't have any normal sized mugs, only tiny espresso cups), done two loads of laundry and washed all the dishes. Now I'm writing about not writing. Pathetic. Okay okay, I'm going. First draft due in two hours!

Picture Happy

Here we go. I was a little snap happy yesterday. But we did some fun stuff so I thought I'd share. In the morning we worked on another plated dessert. I forget what it's called. Something about a floating meringue. It's fairly simple with its three parts. Crème anglaise, meringue and sugar dome, or nest or barrel, or ball. Whatever shape you make your caramelized sugar.

Here's my first sugar dome.


Then Chef came over. "No, no, no, no, no. You've got too much fat on the metal. And it's too thick. Let me show you..."
Gotta lift the sugar high, so the stream is thinner and lighter.


Make sure you drizzle it even and regular so you have a strong structure.

Then you whip up some egg whites with sugar and bake them in a double boiler. Not too long though! These look okay, but they taste super eggy. I put them in for 4 minutes, but I probably only needed 2.
So you take your crème anglaise, float a meringue on top and then cover it with a sugar dome. Voila!



Or put it in a cute little cup and scrunch up a ball of sugar, like so.

Here are a couple that Flo made. Pretty cool.

Croquembouche with chantilly cream.


Chantilly Swans. This one is squawking.

Minus the caramelized sugar, these things are irresistible. I have a deep, unwavering, unhealthy love for chantilly cream. If I was to make these for me, I'd skip the caramel and sift powered sugar on top instead.


Tam might kill me for putting this picture up, but I think it's cute. And it proves that I'm not the only one eating all the swans.


Raw pain au raisins. It's a croissant dough, filled with a little pastry cream and drunk raisins. I wasn't so sure about these.


Not until I tried them. And man. These are good. But it's all about the drunk raisins. The sober ones were not as good.


These are puffed pastry, almond and sugar little twisty things. Delicious.


And a peach and pear tarte on puff pastry. It's just alright.

A chocolate mousse cake with passion fruit and mango inserts. This one is Aldo's.


I covered mine in a caramel glaçage.

Simon's pretty green and pink.

Here's the inside. A little melty. Chef was not impressed. Our creams didn't hold up. Not like they should anyway. Something about overworking the mousse and not working the inserts enough. Here are Aldo's perfect croissants. He's been working as a baker for a long time so he can do these with his eyes closed. It's kind of annoying really.

Ohhh. But he's not perfect with everything. Here he forgot to take off the plastic before he dressed the cake.

These little cakes (I'm sorry I forgot the name). Chef made them. They're eggy inside (It was a very eggy day). It's a specialty of the Bordeaux region. OH and this is a sign that it's Friday. Everything gets thrown out on Fridays that can't be saved or given away. Creamy stuff can't be given away because people tend to save it too long and it becomes a health risk.


So sad.
So there you go. Now it's all about my presentation. Three days to write memorize and practice. Eek. Oh and I forgot to give credit where credit is due. Thank you Nate for typesetting my Kransekage recipe. And thanks in advance for my leave behind cards. Love you!

Okay. Gotta run.