Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yes, really. We made chocolate chip cookies today. I think they needed them for a charity or for the restaurant, so they had us do them. Mine turned out okay; the ones I made last Saturday were better. Tim and I made one giant cookie as well, which I gave to one of the administrators at the school. He was pretty excited about it.

We also folded our puff pastry dough three more times. Tomorrow we will use it to make pithivier, and no, I don't know what it is yet. I know it has some sort of pastry cream in it.

What an easy day! We got out more than an hour early!

Tiramisu

Yesterday we made lady fingers for our tiramisu. Today we made the filling and the coffee dip for the lady fingers. The filling is whipped cream, mascarpone cheese, some egg yolks, and that's about it. My tiramisu is pretty, but not perfect. Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of this dessert; at the very most I can only have a small piece.

We started our dough for puff pastry, which I am a huge fan of, so I can't wait for tomorrow.

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Oh man, this cake is going to be amazing. We made chocolate mousse today for the filling, then we made icing and decorated our cakes. I used kiwi, strawberry, and blueberry on mine. I tried a piece of plain chocolate cake, and just that was incredibly moist and flavorful. I can't wait to dig into the full cake!

I have a picture. Maybe I will take a cross section of it when we dig into it later. In case I don't, here is a breakdown of what's inside the cake!
The actual layers start with a circle of meringue on the bottom, which we made on Friday, and then a layer of chocolate mousse, a layer of cake, more mousse, more cake, more mousse, and then chocolate glace icing over the whole thing.
(Ignore chocolate smudges on the cake round; it was hard to get onto that thing!)

Cake: Day 2

Today we learned how to frost a cake. It's not as difficult or as tedious as I thought it would be. We made French buttercream icing, which is disgustingly delicious, to frost our cakes.

I wanted to try writing with chocolate, so my cake looks silly. I did a heart, and my name, and my name in Arabic, and some cherries. The point is that I can do it! I really didn't know if it was hard to do. Based on my classmates' cakes, writing on cake with chocolate is best suited to girls.

Monday we are making chocolate mousse cake!

Cake: Day 1

We made two cakes today; one plain and one chocolate. My chocolate cake turned out really well, but I don't think I sifted my flour enough for the plain cake. It didn't rise as much as I would have liked.

Frosting them is tomorrow, and then I will have cake for the weekend! I'll try to get some pictures if I make them really pretty.

Practical Score and Results

Everything went smoothly and I got done an hour early! My tart was slightly overcooked, so I got docked for that, and the Paris brest filling that I (*ahem* Jose) made was broken. I didn't even know you could break a cream filling.

I ended up with a 40/46. Not bad. Chef Kupper came by when I was in the library and said my tray was the prettiest one. He wrote a 4 on it (remember, we used to get graded out of 4 in his class) and a "Good Job!" That made me feel pretty good. He said something about a future pastry chef... no thanks! I like real food much more.

There are probably seven pies/tarts in my kitchen right now.

First Day of Second Practical Exam

I got a lot done today. I thought I would be all sneaky and use some of the fillings and pastry creams that we had already made, but they were gone when we got to class. I still got a lot of stuff done.

What we have to make by tomorrow:
Apple Pie
Pear Tart
6 Eclairs
6 Profiteroles
6 Paris Brests

What I have done:
Apple Pie crust
Pear Tart crust and filling
Eclairs (just have to dip them in chocolate)
Profiteroles (same)
Paris Brests are baked, still need to stuff them

That means tomorrow I have three hours for these:
Make apple filling, roll out dough, bake pie
Fill tart, bake
Make filling for Paris Brests, fill
Dip Eclairs and Profiteroles in chocolate

And I have three hours to do just those things! I should be done early.

I think today went really well. The quiz was multiple choice so it was easy. Cleanup was hell, though!