Last Week's Pretty Cakes and a Cuisine Catastrophe

After completing basic cuisine and pastry, I thought I had a good idea about what I would be learning in intermediate.  Boy was I wrong.  The cakes are so much prettier than the more rustic desserts we made in basic pastry!  This past week we made 2 beautiful cakes, one Jamaique and one Fraiser.  The Jamaique combined chocolate cake, mango-passionfruit mousse, coconut mousse, and a delicious topping of fresh tropical fruit.  The Fraiser was a bit more traditional, with genoise cake, vanilla pastry cream, loads of strawberries and a meringue topping.  

Every day in cuisine demonstration, we are taught 3 recipes, one of which is always a dessert.  I find this convenient and it definitely makes for a more well-rounded meal, giving everyone a better idea of what desserts might pair well with what entrees.  Of course, in practical classes we don't have to make all 3 recip

es, just the main course along with the appropriate garnishes.  

We have one new chef, who speaks perfect english.  He is also teaching us a lot about keeping our work areas tidy and well organized, a lesson I desperately needed.  I have had him supervise 2 of my practicals so far, one of which I completely bombed.  We were making potato gnocchi with a basil cream sauce and I decided NOT to dry my potatoes after boiling them and before running them through a food mill.  Because of this small error, the gnocchi fell apart upon cooking and turned into a runny, floury paste.  Needless to say, I was very disappointed.  At least my duck "salmis" turned out well.  It was one of the more confusing poultry recipes we have used.  After browning the duck, we roasting it for a very short time, then removed the breasts, thighs, legs and wings, cooking them all completely differently.  

Until next time... Bon Appetit!