Two month mark.

I promised some food pics and here they are. Sorry for the delay. I'm not sure where time sneaks off to in Yssingeaux.

It was another delicious week with lots of good food. We had another go at croissants and pain au chocolate. Then we spent a day or two playing with chocolate. And we made a couple yummy cakes as well. Have a look.

The cakes in the background are Frasiers and our cereal bars dipped in chocolate up front. We've made marshmallow a few times now. It's pretty darn good, but there's something really off-putting about pink marshmallow for me. I want nothing to do with it. Not even if it's dipped in chocolate. But the other guimauve (marshmallow) we made was chocolate. And let me just say, when I get home I hope people are ready for the best rice crispy treats um, like, ever. I think this will be another staple in my future shop. And maybe my pantry.


We spent a lot of time this week on chocolate. Dark chocolate, specifically. We learned how to stabilize it so it will dry hard and not be all melty as it sits around or when you pick it up. This, (like everything else) is a tricky process. Dark chocolate has to be cooked over a bain marie (double boiler) until it's 45-50ºC. Then you pour half of it on the table to be worked and cooled to the high 20's. Then you put that mixture back in with the remaining and get it all to a consistent 31ºC. Then, and only then it will be stable and you can begin to play.

Bubble wrap mould.





We took our chocolate creations and decorated our mousse fingers. That's not an official name. I don't remember what they're called. But it's a biscuit on bottom, with a moulded mousse, all dipped in chocolate. These were mine.


Here's my Framboisier. It's a basic biscuit, cream and raspberries. Traditionally decorated with a layer of green marzipan and fruit on top. We ran out of raspberries, so I had to substitute with strawberries on top.

Writing with chocolate. C'est trés difficile. Much more difficult than even tracing type. I was having flashbacks of my type class at the Circus. Mark Brought would not be impressed with my work here. Either am I. But I'm new. It's okay.

I didn't budget my space well. I know. But I like the idea of overlapping my letters. My art teacher, however, hated it. "Never never never do this," he said. He has so many rules, and he strongly advises us to follow tradition. At first I had a hard time with this. Especially coming from an art teacher. "Never, never, never use blue. Ziss is very important," he said.

I don't know. Maybe I've been an advertising creative too long, but as soon as he said this I could only imagine blue cakes, blue ribbons and blue icing (all tastefully done, of course). Give me a challenge and I'll figure out a way to get it done. It just seems silly to me to have such a concrete rule. "Why?" I asked immediately. And he said it's because "you don't find blue in nature." Well, again, I disagree. I'm looking at a beautiful blue sky right now. "And in France we don't use blue in pastry," he added.

Okay fine. I'm in France. I'll follow the rules. I think I'll have to if I want to pass my final exam with my instructor on the jury. I'll make up all my own rules when I get home. But for now I'll play nice pretend that there's no such thing as the color blue. I'll only use odd numbers. And I'll give space to every single letter I ever write. Cross my heart.


Here's another example of frustrating. So first we rolled out some marzipan and cut/shaped it to look like a plaque or scroll. Then we torched it to add some aging effects and then I RUINED it with chocolate writing. This was so frustrating for me. We practiced and practiced on the table first, but the marzipan has an entirely different texture and well, you can see how well mine turned out. And check out the grade. Hmm. Not fun.


Okay. Enough with bad type. The good news is, my croissants are improving! Not great yet, but at least it's not 100% brioche like last time. Look, there's a few more layers and pockets of air. Yay.


We made a bunch of stuff, including pain au chocolate. This is exactly the same as a croissant, only when you roll it, it starts as a rectangle, not triangle and you add chocolate inside. In France, this is breakfast. Isn't that delightful?


This one looks really good. I'm guessing it's Aldo's. He's our only guy in the class, and he's also the best baker. He's been working in bakeries in Lima for years. Chef put us in teams this week and Tam and I were matched up with Aldo. So my future croissants are looking good.


The Belle-Hélen. It's not as pretty as the Black Forrest cake from a couple weeks ago, but this dessert delivers. You serve it cold and it just tastes happy. Almost like an ice cream cake, only more smooth, and all around better. I had more than my fair share last Friday.


Alright. I gotta go pack. I'm headed to Strasbourg this weekend to check out the town. I've heard good things and am hoping to find an internship there for September. I'll check back in next week.

Bonsoir!