After class on Friday we packed everything up, loaded the car and set off to New Orleans!

Arriving at 8 in the morning I napped though no one else did. I definitely needed it having stayed awake all night to help keep DmentD awake as he was driving.

We met up with some people for lunch, a place called Rocky and Carlos (who have the tagline of ‘Ladies Invited’) with huge huge Huge portions. I had the spaghetti and meatballs and couldn’t finish it all! We headed over to a friend’s house and then made our way to the parade route nearby.

This was Endymion, with the theme of Tales of Sleep and Dreams. We were right at the start point, where they were injecting the bands into the parade.

My first view of a Mardi Gras parade, the sheer number of people, the large floats, beautifully decorated, elaborate decorations. The people on the floats looked a little strange with the masks but I soon found myself yelling and waving, all for some plastic beads!

We left the parade tired, but happy, weighed down by our own body weights in beads.

We went to Crescent City Brewhouse in the French Quarter for dinner. I had the most delicious duck, with a pepper gelee and an andouille cornbread. There was talk of walking to get beignets and see some of the French Quarter for the people with us who hadn’t been there before but tiredness won and we went back to where we were staying and went to bed early!

Up the next morning we spent a couple of hours relaxing before heading off to R&O’s for lunch. We quickly ran a few errands, picking up some King Cakes to bring back with us, and some other staples that can’t be found in Austin.

Then we headed back into the fray, for our next parade. Meeting up with some more friends we chatted for a while before the parade started. Today’s parade was Bacchus, with the theme Creatures of the Imagination. The King of Bacchus was Val Kilmer.

Bigger floats, a longer parade, the traditional floats that appear every year. And the people on the floats seemed to have more variation in their costumes, in keeping with the float they were on.

Maybe it was just me, but they seemed to be throwing less beads, on the other hand, the beads I did get were more of the signature beads rather than the generic ones.

It was fantastic to see, and I enjoyed it. With the bonus of being able to move around a bit more for this parade!

We left the parade and went to Lola’s for dinner (Spanish Creole, lots of garlic and oh so tasty) before picking up all our things and getting back on the road again.

As for the trip down we left about midnight, and made it back into Austin about 8ish. I had to catnap a few times feeling guilty for leaving DmentD awake on his own, catching half hour at a time.

Funnily enough we got home and fell straight into bed, only getting up when we did so I could get ready for class!

It was an awesome weekend that I thoroughly enjoyed, even though (or perhaps because) I’m still recovering from it *grins*

*pictures from Bacchus pending*

On Monday I had my work test at one of the bakeries I had interview at. It went alright, I cut and filled and masked two chocolate cakes with a rich fudgy icing, and then I made a dozen key lime pies. I was done in a hour and a half and I set off to school early. Stopping at Upper Crust for lunch, their Italian stew is delicious! Over an hour later I had a phonecall, my key lime pies had come out the oven wrong. This was odd for several reasons, for a start this was the first time I’d heard of key lime pies being baked, secondly even if they are being baked over an hour is far too long. But they said they’d let me know by Wednesday whether I had got the externship there or not.

Wednesday rolls around and the phone call comes.. They can’t decide between me and some other person, can we do a phone interview on Thursday morning? Sure, ok.. back to waiting.

So yesterday morning I’m sat waiting, I need to go out cycling, I need to shower, I don’t want to start anything until they’ve rung or you can guarantee they’ll ring while I’m in the shower and unable to answer or something similar.

The phonecall finally appears and we talk for a little while, about my last job and about me.. things that you would have expected at the main interview, but then it is just for an externship, not for a job. And at the end of the conversation I’m told… I got the externship!

I am so amazingly happy!

We talked a little more about details, it’s going to be very early mornings, a big change to my schedule (I’ll be leaving the house at half 5 every morning). But I should be finished around 5ish so I’ll get to spend evenings with DmentD. I’m going to be there for wedding season, it’s going to be busy, I’m going to have to be on my toes at all times, notepad ready to take notes on anything I need to remember. I’m so excited I can’t wait.

The past two days in class have been the nod to American decorating. We made a chiffon cake and covered it in Italian buttercream. Then we had to pipe buttercream flowers.

I’ve gained a respect for the people who can do these flowers and make them look good, but I still maintain the Americans are insane for wanting them in the first place, go for gumpaste, they look far better and much more realistic.

It’s my Grandad’s birthday today, so I piped his name onto it. Happy Birthday Grandad!

I was fairly happy with it, for my first attempt at the flowers they didn’t come out too badly. The petals for the roses needed to be spread out a bit more, and the yellow ‘generic’ flowers need more work, one was good, the others not so much. My shell border is improving, it was consistent all the way round, and my writing is getting better. The basket weave edge was a bit wibbly, but again, for a first attempt I’ve seen worse.

Today we start on the more European style cakes. We’ll make a cake we’ll decorate next week with marzipan and poured fondant, and we’re going to make the pastillage we’ll be using on a couple of cakes so it has time to dry out before we need to use it.

Then after class we’re off to New Orleans for my first Mardi Gras!

aka the Croquembouche.

We started advanced cakes on Monday, first making the croquembouche. We finished it yesterday. It’s one of two items that’s made in pairs (the other being the gingerbread house) and we scored a 94 on it, so I’m happy. It went a little wibbly at the top and the base isn’t level but I got to play about with extension icing (the loopy bits on the base) and it was fun to make. Ours won the height award for being the tallest!

I’m really excited about this unit now, there’s so much we’re going to be making and it’s all going to be great! Today and tomorrow we’ll be doing an ‘American’ style cake covered in buttercream with buttercream flowers, and then we move onto covering them in marzipan and poured fondant, modelling chocolate (we make a devils food cake for that!) we’ll be painting designs with cocoa butter on that one. We’ll spend a week on gumpaste flowers and pastillage. We’ll do a sculpted cake and then we finish off with a three tiered wedding cake where we’ll go through costings, consultations and tastings.

We had a good weekend, DmentD and I swapped cards for Valentines and left it at that. He was so touched by the card I made him that we went and got a frame for it.. Which made me all happy that he was so moved by it.. lots of being moved and happiness (yes, we’re sickening, deal with it! *grins*)

Then we bought some frames for several pictures we had needing it, and we hung them up.

We went on a trek to buy lumber and on Sunday DmentD started building the doors for the kitchen cabinets, they need to be assembled and stained, but they’re looking good.

Now they’re over, for me now at any rate, I can talk about them *grins* I didn’t want to jinx myself by telling the world that they were going well!

Our menu’s had to be in last week, so we could say what we wanted ordered and most people had spent the previous week going back and forth with Chef refining the menus to something suitable.

Then the exam started this week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we had for prep, getting as much made as possible for the five desserts.

Those three days actually went well. I finished Monday having already started on my list for what was going to be made on Tuesday, and did the same on Tuesday with items for Wednesday. Finishing yesterday with as much prep as I could get done, but about half 8. I spent the rest of the lesson reading as Chef felt bad asking me to do anything for her on a finals day.. even though I’d asked if she had anything that needed doing! I also spent the rest of the class with Chef trying to psych me out, she failed mostly.. or rather she was doing no more than I was doing to myself anyway.. I mostly stuck with obtuse answers.. When she asked if it was Four Seasons quality, I said I didn’t know, I had never been to the Four Seasons *grins*

Then the class was split in half for presentation, since grading 5 desserts for 22 people in one evening would be a bit much, and take too long. So half of us presented tonight, and each of us had a partner to act as our sous chef, fetching, carrying, weighing.. they weren’t allowed to do anything that involved a skill. And then tomorrow they’ll present and we’ll sous for them.

So, I had agreed with my partner that I would go tonight, get it out the way.

At the start of class tonight we were given our mystery fruits for our fifth dessert and we had an hour and a half to finish the other four desserts and make that one. I was done in about an hour and a quarter, the second person to get graded.

We weren’t allowed to start plating up until our names were called, and then we had fifteen minutes precisely to plate up the desserts and bring them to the table. Points were lost for being late or for being early!

Everything had gone so smoothly I was expecting something, and it happened. We pulled my (mostly) nicely quenelled ice creams and sorbets out the freezer ready to put onto the plates, having everything else plated up and about 4 minutes left. And they had all started melting! And then to top it all off I put one on the wrong plate! Muttering and cursing to myself it was rectified and the plates made it up there a minute late. I knew the quenelles weren’t good enough and that I would most likely lose points on every plate because of it. But over all I was happy with my plates.

The hot dessert, was a little overcooked but worked nicely. I am so happy with the frozen dessert, the parfait (‘everybody love parfait’) was indeed the tastiest thing on the whole damn planet and so was the ice cream that went with it – white chocolate and liquorice. The fruit plate turned out good, sadly the cheesecake was a little undercooked in the centre, but on the other hand much longer in the oven would have over cooked the tip.. lesson learned – pyramid is not a good shape for a cheesecake! And the chocolate plate, the observant among you will notice that it’s almost exactly what I had on my chocolate plate up all those weeks ago.. because it was. I was damn sure I was going to get it right this time, to make up for screwing it up the first time, and it worked perfectly. I got the highest score on it, I was so pleased with it!

So, overall it averaged out to a B for them all. But with the decorative menu I had to do, and my portfolio my overall grade for the class should still be good. Hopefully I’ll find out tomorrow, if not I’ll have to wait until Monday.

I can’t believe how quick these six weeks have gone. I’m on to Advanced Cakes next week and before I know it I’ll be onto the final class (sugar and chocolate). I am really looking forward to the cakes though, we start with a croquembouche, had a gingerbread house in the middle, and end on a three tiered wedding cake.. with some other cakes in the middle!

At least I can relax now, I just have to sous tomorrow, nothing to worry about!

We had a very busy week this week and it flew by!

The holiday plate up went mostly well. I had a few problems with the doughnuts. They’re made and then frozen (given no time to proof) so that they fry consistently, and in a restaurant situation you don’t have to keep an eye on their proofing and run the chance of them being over or under proofed when they’re cooked. So I made them straight away and put them in the freezer while I made everything else and then went and had a look at them.. they were barely frozen, the minute I pulled them out they would start melting, this wasn’t good. After talking with a few other people it seemed the same thing was happening to a lot of people, mostly the ones who were using the light beer instead of guiness. I ended up standing in the freezer rolling them into vague ball shapes (and making my hands numb) before taking them out and putting them straight in the fryer. They got a little endy where strands were coming off in the fryer but they turned out ok, and they tasted good. I think if they had had a longer time to freeze (Chef’s from the demo had been in all weekend) they would have been perfect. My shake was a little thin but everything turned out well, even the tempered chocolate.

Then we were onto the Tea Party prep. I was in the condiment group making all the quickbreads and scones and preserves and spreads. It was fun, I made a jasmine tea bread and a hot mustard bread along with a pear preserve and a lime and coconut curd. The smells from the savoury group were divine and gave me a craving for chinese! It all turned out well. We had the party last night, allowed one guest each we all had our own jobs. Mine was to greet at the door and show people to their seats, and then to mingle and talk and be sociable and make sure everything was alright. You could tell that the majority of the class were unused to serving but it went well, DmentD enjoyed himself and ate plenty!

After our guests had left we hurried about and cleared the room and then pulling the tables together we put all the leftovers in the centre for a family style dinner!

We talked about the final exam and sorted out who was going to be partners for the presentation and talked about how it was all going to work.

We finished by pulling all our ice creams and sorbets from the last five weeks out of the freezer and eating what we wanted and then had to throw the rest ready for next week.

Amongst all this I was making my brownies for the chocolate competition. I got the brownies made, and set them in the oven.. noticing after they had been in there about an hour (and we were waiting to cook our dinner) that they weren’t cooking very well.. as the carbon monoxide detector went off, once again the oven had gone off and was trying to kill us! They eventually baked (or so I thought) and I wrapped them up and left them ready to finish yesterday. I make the caramel and crush it up, sprinkling it on top the brownies for some crunch, I then make some chocolate fudge (DmentD’s family recipe, very tasty and relatively easy to make) and pour it on top leaving it to set. Last night when I get home from class I start cutting them. Starting with breaking one in half as I get it out the tin *sighs* So I have to re-jig the sizings so I will have enough for the required one hundred pieces. I score the top and start cutting… they start cracking and falling apart, the fudge and caramel coming apart from the brownies. It’s ok, this can be rectified, I can save this, but no. Not only am I breaking too many pieces so I won’t have enough, some of the centres are so gooey that I’m not convinced that they got cooked properly. So we have a big pile of fudge and brownies and I didn’t make it to the competition.

My interview on Thursday went well, I got asked to go back for a bench test. I’ll spend the morning working with them and they’ll give me several tasks to complete so they can see how I work, we can see if we all get on in the same kitchen etc etc. I’m hopeful, it was a good place.

We went shopping this morning and I got myself a new pair of smart trousers to replace the ones that broke on Monday. Thursday’s interview I ended up wearing a pair of DmentD’s smart trousers cinched tight with a belt as I had nothing of my own I could wear! Amusingly, and rather surprisingly they were not far off length wise which confused me. I was sure my inside leg was 29, has been for a while. Apparently it’s closer to 32ish, dunno when that growth spurt happened! *grins*

We should be in for a fairly standard weekend now, the usual utilities, shopping and laundry tomorrow, nothing else planned as yet.

It’s a video of a ballerina (if you see the other video of her dancing in the Nutcracker, she’s freakin’ awesome) dancing to Dragostea Din Tea (the Numa Numa song), having a fantastic time *grins* I never expected to ever see the moonwalk done ‘en pointe’ but she does it, and does it well!

We finished last week with fruit. First we had the fruit report, in partners we drew a fruit out of a hat (we got Kumquats) and then got an hour in the library to research that fruit so we could come back and give a report on it. I knew nothing about kumquats so it was actually really interesting. And, well, I’m not going to complain at getting an hour to sit and flick through books now am I *grins*

Then for the exam on Friday we had to make a fruit soup, with (here was the surprise) the fruit we had drawn for the report as the main item. We got lucky, since you can’t exactly sit and juice kumquats we were allowed to use oranges just as long as we had a kumquat on the plate somewhere!

We had to have 8 components, using a range of skills as this is the last ‘serious’ plate up.

So, I came up with a winter spiced orange soup (chilled), with poached blood orange, candied mint (surprisingly awesome), candied zest, candied kumquats (yes, lots of candying, but all in different ways), a vanilla panna cotta, an orange sorbet and a bubble sugar tuile!

My only downfall was the sorbet, it was a bit too icy so it needed more sugar.

DmentD and I had a nice relaxing weekend, we invited people round for dinner Saturday and made a huge pot of jambalaya which was delicious (I have the last of it for lunch today, can’t wait!), and on Sunday we pan roasted a chicken with a lemon, garlic and parsley stuffing.

We’re onto the final countdown in class now. We have the Holiday plate up today, mostly a bit of fun. I’m doing Valentines with heart shaped (hopefully) doughnuts and chocolate and raspberry dipping sauces and a chocolate baileys shake, with some tempered chocolate garnishes.

Then Wednesday and Thursday we have prep ready for the tea party on Friday. The chocolate competition on Saturday (I’m entering brownies) and then the final exam next week. Our final menu has to be in today. I’m kinda excited now as I can’t wait to try out my menu, but it’s still very nerve wracking, there are a lot of points resting on next week.

I’ll be making for my hot dessert a sticky toffee pudding with a date and brandy compote, a hot toffee sauce, almond pralines and a caramel almond ice cream. For the frozen dessert a blackcurrant aniseed parfait, blackcurrant coulis, aniseed tuile and a white chocolate liquorice ice cream. For the fruit dessert a raspberry orange cheesecake, a raspberry compote, raspberry coulis, basil sauce, candied basil, candied zest, an orange chip and a raspberry basil sorbet. My chocolate dessert will be another attempt at what I did for the chocolate plate up, trying to get it right this time. And for the mystery plate I’m planning a filo napoleon with lots of vanilla, simple flavours.

I had an interview yesterday, for a bakery near us. It went well, aside from my trousers ripping on the way there so spending the interview making sure my shirt covered it! Their going to let me know by the end of this week. And, this morning I got myself another interview at a place downtown for Thursday morning. I’m all excited.