Big Day

So Monday was the big first day. I arrived at the school around 9:30am. Didn't sleep at all due it being a million degrees in my room, nerves about school and nerves about taking the city bus. However, I made it to school on time and in one piece and I have managed to figure out Ottawa's transportation system. So that's good news! Some of you know that I was really stressing about that one even before I had left BC. We had an orientation at 10am, which was quite fast paced as our first class began at noon. We got our Patisserie Bible, which includes all of our recipes (It only states quantities and ingredients, no preparation. We have to right that all down!). We received some more Patisserie books, our scale, our balloon whisk, our knife kit and our uniform. The uniform consists of hounds tooth pants, a chefs jacket with the Le Cordon Bleu logo, a white apron, two white towels, a hair net and a chef's hat. We had to buy our steel-toe shoes separately though.

 

 

 

Yup, I look hot

 

 

After orientation, we headed in for a seminar. Our chef who we will be working with most often is very nice. He's French born (as are all of the chefs at the school) so he is slightly hard to understand as his accent is quite thick. I spent the next three hours, taking notes on different types of sugar and butter and the components of an egg. I kept thinking, I spent four years in University studying English and the Arts and now I'm sitting in a classroom learning all there is to know about butter...and I'm loving it!

 

We finished our seminar around 3:00pm and headed for a break. At 3:30pm we had to be back for our first Demo. We had the same chef as in our seminar, who proceeded to demonstrate the techniques for making a number of different dough types.

 

                                                                        1. Pâte sablée - which is a Shortcake dough

                                                                        2. Pâte brisée - which is a Shortcrust dough

                                                                        3. Pâte sucrée - which is a Sweet dough

                                                                        4. Pâte à foncer - which is a Pie dough

                                                                        5. Damier - Chocolate and vanilla short cake (the 

                                                                                              checkerboard cookie)

 

 

 

Pâte sablée  Nantais

 

 

Damiers

 

 

 These are pretty good. We only had to make the dough for our Practical class Tuesday though. And only for the Pâte sablée, Pâte brisée and Pâte sucrée. Eventually we will have to know it all though. So practice, practice practice!!