Chocolate Caramels and Sculptures

Last Friday night, my practical class made tiny chocolates filled with caramel.  We had our favorite, Chef Walter, so everything was enjoyable and serene.  I decided to make my caramel salty but on the first try I added so much salt that it tasted like ocean water, so I remade it and the caramel was parfait (according to Chef).  It was really fun learning how to make hard chocolates with a liquid center.  It involved a lot of very precise tempering and delicately layering chocolate into molds.

We got more chocolate experience yesterday when we made our first chocolate sculptures.  Most of Superior Pastry is sugar sculpting and chocolate sculpting.  We each had to temper an entire kilo of dark chocolate and keep it at working temperature for about an hour, which was no small feat.  Our chef for that practical (not Walter) said, "It is not good, but not one of your usually catastrophes."  Hooray for small compliments?  

In good news, the lady at the dry cleaning told me that my French had improved noticeably in the past few weeks and then later, I scolded a French lady IN FRENCH for cutting in line at La Poste.  I wasn't sure if I said everything right but then everyone else in like clapped and booed her to the back of the line.  It was magical.