Slow Update

Wow, I really need to update! I have so much to tell everyone, there's been so much over the last two weeks!

 

I left off with our class on crescent dough. We also had a class picture that day that I forgot to post about.

 

 

 

Our next class was on Wednesday, May 15th. We had a lunch at Signatures Restaurant prepared for us by the school. Signatures is the restaurant at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. It was really good food! Although, I did have to broaden my palette a little bit. I thought I was going to be late, but I ended up being the first one there. They seated me, put my napkin in my lap and served me water until the others arrived. Felt a little awkward at first, but I did get to talk to some of the servers and they are all very nice. They are not students of Le Cordon Bleu, they are actually hired from outside of Le Cordon Bleu. I will have a chance when I'm in Superior to prepare some of the desserts and also do some serving at the restaurant though. It will give us an opportunity to see what it is really like working in a restaurant.

 

Anyway, I'm sure everyone wants to see the food now, so here it is.

 

Menu

 

 

Elegant Butter

 

 

For our appetizer, we had a choice between Asian beef and toasted sesame seed salad with bamboo shoot and green shallots or New England style clam chowder.

 

 

 

 

Asian Beef Salad

 

 

New England Clam Chowder

 

 

I decided on the Asian beef salad which certainly didn't disappoint. The beef was delicious, I loved all the flavours of the dish. I tasted the clam chowder and it was really tasty also. The presentation of soup is never as exciting as other dishes, but the taste was very stimulating.

 

Next up, our main course. We were given a choice between seared white tuna and eggplant caponata with a smoked herb dressing or braised rabbit leg with green olives, white been puree and shallot confit.

 

Seared White Tuna

 

 

Braised Rabbit Leg

 

 

Okay, so much like the venison, if you know me I'm sure you know that I just couldn't bring myself to eat Thumper. I wasn't too thrilled with the choice of tuna either. The flavour was good, but I had trouble getting over the fact that it was raw in the middle. I had a couple moments where I wasn't sure if I could eat any more but I did manage to finish everything on my plate. Win for me!

 

My favourite part was dessert. Dessert was catalane cream and churros with a shot glass of chocolate sauce. Incredible!

 

 

Catalane Cream and Churros with Chocolate Sauce

 

Yum!

 

The tea was so good and the presentation was lovely of course.

 

White Ginger Pear Tea

 

 

After lunch, we had a practical class and a demo. We had a demo on three different cakes. Chef had three hours to make and decorate three cakes from scratch. I think it was unfair to ask that of someone, even an accomplished chef, because we definitely went past 10pm. We got out at 10:45pm and I missed two buses. Thankfully, Emily offered to drive me home instead.



                                                                                1. Moka - Mocha Cake
                                                                                2. Gâteau Forêt-noire - Black Forest Cake
                                                                                3. Mexicain - Mexican Sponge Cake

 

Gâteau Forêt-noire

 

 

Moka

 

 

Mexicain

 

 

 

I absolutely love Black Forest Cake but I think my favourite was the Mexicain. All the cakes were made with a genoise sponge cake. The Black Forest and the Mexicain were made with chocolate genoise and the Moka was made with plain. All three sponge cakes are brushed with a flavoured syrup so that the cake is not dry. The Black Forest is brushed with a Kirsch syrup, which gives it a nice cherry flavour. The Moka is brushed with a plain syrup of just sugar and water and the Mexican is brushed with a Cognac syrup. The chocolate sponge and the cognac make such an amazing combination, I absolutely loved the flavour. It's definitely my new favourite.

 

Our practical on the Black Forest cake was the next day, my attempt at the Black Forest wasn't too bad but Chef did say that I should have used more syrup on my genoise. It was pretty dry. I managed to finish decorating the cake but it was a tight squeeze. (Actually, I cheated a little. Chef said to stop and I only had two more cherries to put on the top, so I quickly put those on after he had said to stop).

 

I'm going to apologize for the quality of my cake. I was unable to take a picture of it right away and the cake didn't make it immediately into the fridge, so by the time I took a picture of it the Chantilly cream was starting to melt off.

 

 

 

My Gâteau Forêt-noire

 

 

May 16th was a really long day. We had our practical on the Gâteau Forêt-noire, then we had a demo and a practical on:

 

                                                                                 1. Pâte à choux - choux pastry

                                                                                 2. Éclairs au chocolat et au café - Chocolate and

                                                                                     Coffee flavoured Éclairs    

                                                                                 3. Religieuses au café - Coffee Flavoured Cream

                                                                                     Puffs

                                                                                 4. Cygnes - Swans

                                                                                 5. Salambô

 

 

I love éclairs! The religieuses are different than any cream puffs I've ever had. They are filled with a coffee flavoured pastry cream and they are done with a larger body and a smaller head and piped with a buttercream "scarf" and "hat." The flavour and texture of them are really good, but I'm not convinced I like the presentation of them. The swans are my favourite though. They are done with choux pastry and Chantilly cream. They are light and fluffy and simple but the presentation is elegant and beautiful. Love these.

 

 

Éclairs au Chocolat et au Café

 

 

Religieuses au Chcolate et au Cafe

 

 

 

Cygnes and Salambô

 

This was probably my worst practical. These should have been easy, but I think that was my problem. I thought I had a lot of time and I wasn't going fast enough. Next thing I know, there's two minutes left and I haven't melted the fondant yet. I managed to dip them all and finish the buttercream piping but it didn't look pretty. I was actually pretty unhappy with my performance and feeling a little discouraged. Everyone kept telling me not to worry, they tasted good and I just have to practice. This is all true, but I'm used to making things look beautiful, the fact that they didn't was definitely irritating. Can't win them all I guess.

 

My Éclairs and Religieuses

 

 

That was the end of that week! And guess what? Long weekend!! Went out with the girls on Thursday night. We got out of class just after 10pm and headed to Emily's to get ready. We all (except Emily) decided to wear dresses out to the club that night, clearly not the best idea. It was cold and we went to the most casually dressed nightclub I think I've ever been in. We decided that we wanted to go to a place we hadn't been before, so we wandered around for a while looking for a place that looked good. We'd heard about Pub 101 but the line up was too long, we kept looking. We came across another club called Tequila Jack's and decided we'd make our stand there. We later found out from some people that it's one of the worst night clubs in Ottawa. We actually found that out for ourselves pretty quickly. It was really disgusting in there. A huge place just packed with really young people who all looked like they were on something stronger than just alcohol. Really wasn't my type of place. I'm not going to say I didn't have fun, because hanging out with those girls is always fun, but the atmosphere at that club wasn't great. None of us had the best time there, we all decided we're never going back. Emily was up for going to an all night poutine place, so we headed there. I didn't have any but it looked really tasty!

 

We all spent the night at Emily's, her bed is like a cloud to sleep on. It didn't matter that there were three other girls crammed onto the bed, I had such a good sleep! So good, apparently, that we slept until two in the afternoon! Went for lunch/dinner at this restaurant called the Royal Oak. It was good drinks and good food but I don't think I'll be going back. The waitress was quite rude to Emily and wouldn't serve her any alcohol even though she had two pieces of valid I.D. She said she required two pieces of picture I.D. I've never come across that in B.C. It was really odd. After that we all went home and at least for me, I had a lazy evening.

 

Saturday, Emily and I had plans to do some practicing but it was so nice out we ended up heading down to the Byward Market to just wander around. We went to Rideau Centre first because Emily wanted some new black skinny jeans and we just window shopped for a bit. Wandered around the Byward Market and went for a casual lunch and a beer. We went out that night but decided that Tequila Jack's was not our style. We went back to Pier 21 again and met up with one of her sorority friends who works there. It was pretty quiet when we first got there but it picked up as the night went on. It was really fun, a good live band and a good atmosphere. Just spent the night dancing to some good music. Spent the night at Emily's again and we were pretty much rendered useless all day on Sunday, so needless to say, we didn't get any practicing done. We resolved that we would most definitely practice on Monday.

 

I got to Emily's around noon on Monday and we had planned on hitting up Michaels for some baking supplies for our practicing and I wanted to go to IKEA to get a drying rack for my clothes. We forgot all about the fact that we were off on a Monday because it was Victoria Day and everything was closed! We tried Walmart next, but that was closed also so lunch seemed like a good idea. We did eventually get some practicing done, we tried out our genoise again. It worked fairly well, considering we only had an aluminum pie plate to use.

 

So another great week and a great weekend. I'm having such a great time here, but don't worry Mum, I still miss you and everyone else back home. I wanted to thank my family and Dustin for all the support at home. It makes things a lot easier and it's great skyping with you all. Thanks so much!