It’s hard to believe I’m almost done with week four of this unit already. The time has been flying by, and the last two weeks are guaranteed to flash by we’re going to be so busy.

First let’s catch up. I finished last week with the apple trio of desserts. Well, it was apples and pears, but I went solely with apples. I made a spiced cider poached apple with mascarpone cream and candied walnuts and a tuile (with the cutest stencil I made myself!), an apple crumble that was delicious in my opinion, regardless of what anyone else says *grins* and then I finished it off with an apple and cider sorbet that was fabulous.

Monday was a fairly lazy day, we had the resume workshop that told me nothing new, a brief period of production sorting the cart out for Ventana. And then we spent the rest of the day planning our High Tea (aside from the fact that it’s a high tea in nothing except name!). We’re going with an Asian theme, and then we were split into groups so we could come up with the menu. Savoury, Sweets and Condiments. I’m in the condiments group so we’ll be making the scones and the tea breads along with all the spreads and jams and preserves so that’ll be fun.

Then we moved onto our caramel exam. I went for a sticky toffee pudding, after being asked by Chef if I would mind, perhaps, maybe, making my own recipe for it rather than using hers so she could compare a ‘proper’ pudding to the one she had from a friend of a friend of a friend who was sure it was from a friend’s English relative. It’s a recipe that had travelled through the hands of several Chefs, I’m sure we can guarantee it had been altered and changed.

We had to make a caramel ice cream to go with it, and I made some peanut pralines to go with it too which worked really nice. We had to have a caramel garnish that was over 4 inches long to go with it.

It worked out nicely, only a few minor mistakes with the garnishes, she loved my pudding and I was the only person brave enough to get my caramel dark enough (it’s lightened so much by the cream and milk you have to get it a hairs breadth from burning). I did have the advantage though, I had already made caramel ice cream, a huge batch, for the restaurant so I knew what it was supposed to be like *grins*

I also gained 5 extra points from chef as a thank you for churning that huge batch of caramel ice cream last week. It was 4 or 5 gallons of ice cream, and with only being able to churn about a quart and a half at a time it took me a very long time.

Chef also offered extra credit for doing a children’s plate up. We didn’t have to stick to any of the guidlines we have been using (height, colour, textures etc), it just had to be fun and something that a fine dining restaurant could offer to children eating there. So I came up with my plan and went in early before the exam yesterday to get started.

I was making an ice cream cupcake! An oreo crust filled with vanilla ice cream. I then went one step further and dressed it to be a pirate cupcake *grins* giving him an eyepatch a flag and a tricorn hat made from modelling chocolate.

Everyone thought he was cute, and Chef liked him, her only comment was he was a bit big. While probably fine for a 10 year old, if it was ordered for a 5 year old it would be too much. So I gained an extra 25 points for that, making up for my two B’s!

Today we have the demo for our seasonal fruit plate exam tomorrow. We also have a fruit report, not entirely sure what happens but we pair up draw a random fruit and have x amount of time to go to the library and research it to come back and do a report.

That leaves one final plate up for next week  (seasonal) and then it’s going to be busy busy busy with the high tea and then on the last week our final exam!