She Believed She Could So She Did

I survived my first exams at FPS!

Not that I was overly concerned, but of course I was stressed and worried. Especially after the first day. For some reason, I'm just slow. And half way through the exam time I get really slow as I got hungry and find it hard to concentrate. I would walk to the sink and then wonder why I'm there. Oh right, to wash my hands. >.< I knew it was time to take a break, even if it was for only five minutes to gobble down something.

It's strange, we had made everything in class that we had to make on the exam, yet the stuff on the exam came out abut ten times worse for most people. One person was so confused she put a large amount of salt in her chocolate hazelnut cake. I heated my chocolate mirror glaze too hot (the recipe has it at the wrong temp and I forgot to write down the adjustment).

This meant that my glaze didn't properly cover my cake on the sides. See photo for evidence. The gouge on the side is from the trip home.

My buttercream cake came out freaking perfect! I was very happy with it and I have my experience at The Market and my past teachers to thank for that. And just look at that buttercream to cake ratio! I didn't measure or anything, I just put it on with a mini offset. Yay! I mean the buttercream cake and the gum paste flowers were essentially put together in the last hour of exam. I turned in my final stuff on time, on the dot. Which had our intern freaking out.

But we survived.

The rest of this weekend was spent volunteering and recuperating. On Saturday the FPS held their annual For The Love of Chocolate gala (8th annual). Many students from the school were recruited to work the gala, we had to be available from 1 pm until 1 am. It was fun at times, and of course some was tedious. But it was held in the gorgeous Union League Club. the Union League Club is 24 stories tall, each floor sports beautiful paintings and works of art. There was a rumor there was even a Monet, but I didn't have a chance to see it to prove its existence.

The gala took up several floors of the club and had a 1940s Hollywood Glamour theme. There was a fashion show with dresses made out of candy and napkins and other cooking items. Did I gt any pictures or take any? No, I only had my phone and the camera on that isn't very good. I took two photos and posted them to Instagram. One was of the dessert I helped a chef plate, the other was a rose I was given by a fellow volunteer at the end of the night. I did take a few photos with my camera, and when I get a chance, I'll post them.

I got home around 1:30 am. And I took it easy the next day.

Today we started our module on bread and breakfast pasties, which is being taught by Chef Patrice. Everyone loves him as an instructor so far - he's quiet, patient, and attentive. He's always ready to answer our questions.

But the only problem with this module is the amount of product we bring home. I was discussing this with Roomie and how there's the first world problems meme, but then there are French Pastry School Problems. I'll see about putting some meme photos together. :D

So it begins, the Dawn of the Bread!!

She Turned Her Can'ts into Cans and Her Dreams into Plans

I don't usually update so soon, but I just finished preparing for the first day of exams at FPS.

Gosh darnit this is going to be something else. Class today was spent doing nothing but planning for the next three days. We received our list of products that we must make (the chocolate hazelnut mousse cake, a pithivier, gum paste flowers, and a buttercream decorated cake (chocolate biscuit this time)). I've probably forgotten one BUT I have it all written down and I'm about to pack it all in my back pack. No way am I leaving without that tomorrow.

I guess I needed to write to get the nerves out of my system. A glass of wine only does so much, haha.

To help ease my nerves I got on Pinterest and checked out the quotes section. I love quotes, silly, inspirational, tongue-in-cheek, thoughtful, any kind really. Except overly religious, I don't mind them so much as I feel that religions isn't something I need to be shouting at the world. It's personal.

Anyways.

It took a while, lots of lovey dovey quotes right now for some reason, but I found two or three that really hit home. The title of this post is one, I loved the graphics for it as well:

A nice refresher about why I'm here, I'm turning those thoughts of "I can't do anything right" into "I sure can bake" and my dreams of doing something worthwhile that I don't find boring that will make me money (eventually) into my plans of finishing FPS and hopefully getting a job that pays (as a cake decorator or food stylist or food photographer, who knows, I'm not sure yet).

And it's all well and good to be thinking about what I can get out of this, but it doesn't help when I start to think about what I must finish over the next three days. That's when this quote popped up:

If I don't accept these challenges that FPS has placed in front of me, how I can change into a more accomplished individual?

Which lead me to this quote:

I know I want this more than anything. So, I'm going to rise to the challenge, take on this three day exam, come out with my head held high (no matter what), and know that in the end, it is worth it.

It's all worth it.

"I got the impression that you've made a lot of buttercream...."

So I just finished the two weeks wedding cakes module! Ah! So much fun! I love cake decorating, even though I could still use a lot of work and practice.

The first four days we spent making nothing but gum paste flowers. However, the end result was worth it. I remember back in November when I was apartment hunting I ran into a current student of the FPS program, and she said you wouldn't believe what you would make out of gum paste. I acknowledge that it would probably be cool (thinking "I've already done some cool stuff with gum paste" </jaded>). Can I just apologize now? I had no idea.

Chef Mark is amazing at gum paste flowers and if I could spend the next 20 weeks learning from him, I would. Because, thanks to his tutelage I made these:

!!!!! 

We also made a lily and two orchids. The lily was just for practice since it has a lot of components: a center, separate petals, and stamen. It gave us a chance to get used to building gum paste flowers.

As part of the module we built a three tier dummy cake and covered it in fondant. Then we bake genoise and make Italian buttercream and assemble a buttercream cake. The last component is a croquembouche. They say croquembouche is French for "crunch in mouth" referring to the caramel that crunches as you bite into the choux pastry puffs. However, I actually think it translates to "French torture for pastry chefs" due to its complicated and time-sensitive components.

Chef Kelly, this is a shot out to you and thanks for the previous instruction on applying fondant to a cake form. I'm very satisfied with how my cake turned out and I think a little bit of experience definitely helped! As you can see in the photos below, the fondant looks nice and smooth and nearly perfect (well, for a beginner):

Full cake with the gum paste lily.

Posey on the top tier.

Close-up of the lily.

And another close-up of the top tier with 

drop string royal icing decorations and the gum paste posey.

The buttercream cake had me facing my old nemesis Italian Buttercream. For those who don't know, it took me four attempts before I was able to successfully make Italian Buttercream. That's because the method I was using was potentially not the best. FPS has got buttercream down! I want to share the secret, but I paid a lot of money for this school, so I won't. Not on this blog. But I don't think I'll be making anything but Italian Buttercream from now on. When Chef Mark first demo'ed the FPS recipe I was just.... The mind was boggled. I even said something to him about how this recipe made so much more sense. The next day he commented to me "I got the impression that you've made a lot of buttercream before" and I explained my adventures with buttercream.

Anyways, yeah, I'll probably still have a little buttercream PTSD, but I'm slowly working through it.

The final part of the module was croquembouche. Oh. My. God. The French, I love them, I love their pastry (especially chocolate croissants), but their traditional wedding cake is mad. Nougatine base (kind of like almond brittle), royal icing decorations, gum paste flowers, and caramel dipped cream puffs built into a pyramid shape. Our croquembouches had isomalt (a sugar derivative) decorations on top.

I have pictures from my phone, but only my phone. The croquembouche did not make it home. It broke when I lifted the box. I was not overly upset, I was not exactly looking forward to taking this on the 'L or the bus (or potentially walking it a half mile down the street if the bus would take longer to get to the station than it would to walk it). I was a little sad to dump it in the dumpster since I had spent two days working on it, but I had documented my experience in photographs so all is good.

That's all for now, but this week is exams. Hopefully I will have the energy/time to make a post about that experience. The exams at FPS include one written exam (that consists of multiple choice and short answer) and three days of practical exams. Meep!

Wish me luck.