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!