The Dangers of being "Sugar Forward"

Eclairs; vanilla-rum, chocolate, coffee.
Our lead chef has referenced on several occasions how he feels about sugar. He's very for it. In fact, he has even come up with a descriptor; "sugar forward." The amount of sugar that may be consumed during the 300 minutes of class a day is astounding. Personally, I never have more than a bite at the end. This morning when I walked into the locker room a whole group of girls were standing in a circle comparing how much weight they had gained. One said "In two months I've gained 20 pounds, my boyfriend isn't happy!" Others expressed their sympathy, agreeing it was near impossible not to gain weight (excluding an absurd metabolism). The men of course, don't seem to share the problem. Luckily, the more I bake and see what goes into the pastries, the less I want to eat it...Especially when something calls for 500g butter, and 12 eggs. umm, what? We'll see how this goes once we hit bread/chocolate...

I'm excited to get into Pastry 2 (July), since thats when we actually get to be a bit more creative, have more options with how we flavor and decorate things. I'm especially looking forward to the menu planning (dessert tasting), and trying to find ways to incorporate a bit of Molecular Gastronomy into it, if thats allowed of course...

Monday: Paris-Brest, Profiteroles, Cynges. So far so good. Making pate a choux isn't so hard, but the shaping takes some practice! I'm slowly getting it!