Today we had our first exam! The written went fine, they graded while we worked on our practical. Got an A-, which I'm fairly happy with, I lost points when I wasn't as explicit as apparently necessary...next time! Then, there was the practical. They told us that the first one should result in finishing early for some. Not so much. The deadline was 1:30pm, about half of us made it, the earliest time being 1:29. We finished at 1:30. Not a second to spare.
Lets start at 9:15, we find out we're making Baked Fruit Tart, Banana Cream, and Gingersnaps. My first thought, was oh! easy! Wrong. The fruit tart, yes, the banana cream, not so much. For both, pastry cream, a starch bound custard as the base is required. Like all custards, this one is a bit tricky. Starch is added as a stabilizer, but because egg contains alpha-amylase you have to vigorously whisk it for two minutes while boiling, otherwise your thick cream more resembles simple syrup and tastes starchy. This is after successfully tempering the eggs. After rolling out my tart doughs (I hate rolling out tart doughs), I made the pastry cream. Due to time restrictions I was also attempting to get my ingredients for ginger snaps prepped. I step away two seconds and my milk is about to boil over! It's supposed to boil, but not that much! I saved it, but not without a bit of spilling and a look from the head chef to indicate he had noticed this. Dangit. Oh well. I finish it, and it looked perfect. RELIEF. For the banana cream the pastry cream is whipped and rum is added. I added too much rum, on purpose. I noticed it helps disguise any mistakes a bit (not that there were any to my knowledge), and I think it tastes much better. The chef agreed, during my evaluation he noted my pastry cream tasted really good! Then, when taking my tartlets out of the tart liners one breaks! There are four, we need to present four. The chef looks at me and says, it happens, move on. So I did. Still, frustrated! Then after pipping decore on my tarts someone slid theirs a bit to close in the fridge and messed them up on one! AH! At least that wasn't my fault! Everything else luckily went smoothly. At the end I was 80% satisfied, though given the time restriction, I don't know that I could have done much better.
Time for the evaluation, I'm nervous. Overall, very strong apparently, just minor decore things and my Brisee was tender, but not quite flaky enough. I hate brisee, it's impossible! You have to cut in the butter and manage to keep small pieces of butter intact so that when you roll they "smear" and when baked melt, create steam and cause the tart to be flaky. All while adding very, very, little water and managing not to overwork! I'm getting better, but I think it's one of the harder things to do. I don't know my score for this, but it seems to have gone well. Other groups didn't finish on time, had under baked products, custards didn't set, and things that are far worse than my errors. I know I can't expect perfection right away, and I'm getting better at being OK with this, I'm working along side people who have been in the field for years, or who already went through culinary school, and I'm generally on par with them, and occasionally better. But, I don't always feel my products are my personal best.
Despite the fact that I haven't eaten all day (had to work through lunch), and my back and feet ache incredibly I feel great! I feel accomplished just getting that done! And now that I know what to expect, I know how I can improve for the next exam (next week!).
So whats up next? Pate a choux! Which I've only ever used to make chicken and dumplings from Keller's Ad Hoc. In the locker room a girl in Pastry 2 just laughed when we said we start that tomorrow, and said "good luck." We'll see what she means...We're also making Eclairs, while interesting I actually don't like them (too sweet!). We also have new partners, hopefully we'll mesh as well as my current partner and I did. My new partner has been through culinary and is incredibly fast, so I'm quite excited to work with her! So now, on to studying leavening mechanisms and previewing recipes (we wouldn't dream we would get the night off would we?!)
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