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.