Oslo part I

From Italy, at 28C, here I detoured to Oslo.
Again, visiting my friends (1/3 sightseeing, 1/3 chatting and 1/3 making pastry), seem it’s easier to merge in their daily life like this.

Afterall, coming to Europe is to explore more about food, it make sense that I spent most of my time in the kitchen. The first day I was here, I was told that there’ll be a party at my friend’s home 2 days after, so it’s just time for me to have a practical lesson after I left the school. The host appeared to be really serious on the food combination. So I have to play my part well and back-up in the kitchen. I got so much fun and at last help a bit until the party finished, till midnight!
Cook, eat, talk, wash. Nothing could be more content then this~~

In the summer time, everyone is ready for holiday, even in the city, the biggest group I can find is sunbathing on the lawn.

Of course I did the same thing as they did, but I was burnt on my face right after 45 min. The sun shine till 2000 and we keep walking. Modern sculptures on lawn is the best combination here, I feel wonderful to just walked around, and around …and around…

go on… Rome

From Paris to Rome, I’d look forward to a much different world. Tasty but not fancy food, quirky people instead of poker faces, older archeology site… Some of them are valid while there are still so much different from the reality i met.

To start the journey in Rome, I gotta introduce my friend here, lou, my ex-boss client. She is my guardian in Italy.

I was living in her house for eight days and I would regard myself as a semi-tourist. This is the first time i was in Rome, the busy city is actually chaotic and filled with racers on the road. It’s not difficult to get around the city but I have to be careful of the people around. For the first two days, lou bought me to those popular tourist spots which indeed worth to visit before die.

The Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, Castel Sant’Angelo… everything was so delicate with long history. Giant sculpture made of marble, but look just soft like satan or lace. Good that we can spend some time to check that out one by one.
besides tour, she also brought me to a very nice restaurant, remind me about Shatin hotel in Hong Kong with beautiful scene and good food. Woo, food in italian version, much better ^o..^

Tour is just a minor part of my days in Rome, as the hostess request, making pastry is the most she want from me, that is also the reason brought me here.
To practise my newly learn skill, I need a lot of sweet tooth for the final product. Here I got lou’s couple, a guest from them and me, that’s quite a good combination for the tasting party.

It’s a bit different from france, ingredients preference and packaging are slightly different, I gathered the custom ingredients and go for the trail. The famous french patisserie for me is the various texture in one bite. Attractive appearance, crunchy outside, soft, creamy with certain aroma inside. So far what I learnt with the least tools and ingredients required is the Pear tart w/ meringue top.

There is no big different for the almond sablee base, but without the simple tart ring, i gotta fix it with an aluminium pie mold. It took me a while to trim the base but at last still fine. For the filling, I used fresh apple instead of canned pear, just cooked a bit longer with some juice came out, strain it after cook while it still taste fine at last.

That was such a good revision for me and for sure i’d modify the recipe soon after i’m back.
The simple visit of Rome ended up with the sweet memory from the wonderful hospitality of lou, her cats and the food. In term of all those, maybe Rome is worth for another visit in the near future!

Graduation

At last the Patisserie course end after 19 practical lessons, but I still need some time to digest and practise the recipes.

Two and half months passed in a blink, what left behind are; set of knife and uniforms, a quarter chocolate cake and the certificate with exam result.

The graduation day for basic students was not that formal. The “ceremony” was a gathering for chefs and student and I’d say the hi-light was the cocktail prepared by the cuisine and patisserie chefs. To know how French eat, that’s the good time. The finger food they made are so tasty, visually attractive and indeed complicated. I kept eating them till I couldn’t eat any more.

That’s the only moment that I had an idea flashed on my mind: Maybe I can stay for the intermediate patisserie course?

Soon after when I came back to reality, all of the rent, the transport, the poker faces, and the expansive restaurants… flushed in my head and I hold back.

I’ve indulged myself for 3 months and that’s quite enough as a retreat. I donno what’s going to happen next year but I gotta fixed my journey for the coming 3 weeks.

I’ll keep writing the blog for the rest of my day in Europe and see u all soon^o^

Though I’m on my own, I still have to move on to other places.

practical exam

After a long weekend, We were in the kitchen for the practical exam. Being the 3rd group in the exam day, nothing is too exciting as students from the other two groups told us most of the info.

Among three recipes, (pithiviers, St honore and Dacquoise)random draw one and finish it within 2.5hr. Plus to lined a tart ring with short crust pastry. Even and with 90 degree from the rim to the bottom.

I drew the easiest one, Dacquoise. If you remember the 70s marzipan rose and the butter cream with 350g butter. That’s a really exciting session while I got quite a lot of time to beat my egg white and butter cream, at the same time watched my fellow buddies work on their cake.

To make the atmosphere more like an exam, chef kept yelling and pushing us to finish asap. I’m lucky that i don’t speak French at all so that i actually ignored him and worked on my own. Some classmate told me that they are so annoyed by his mean pushing and almost made her cry!!

I beat crazy with the butter cream and when I started to assemble the rose, my hand was actually shaking. Here’s the steps:

Everything handed in on time and my cake was just fine. looking at the others with the puff pastry, I’d imagine if I made that, I must have rolled it like a tart. Exam is just like another lesson which the chef would come by and show u How to make it right. Sometimes i’d happy to have it once in 3 weeks so that I can used to work under stress and feel the excitement in the kitchen, I indeed enjoy that ^o^

before written exam

Didn’t show up for quite a while. Lazy is the reason, exam is the excuse.

I was not nervous or stressed, but some of my classmates really did. For the written exam, it’s like 40 multiple choice and true or false.
Haven’t been in an exam for almost 12 yrs., it’s so much fun to attend an exam, which is about patisserie.

To cope with such leisure topic, I better put myself in a leisure mood. So I headed to a park to study and made a visit at a nearby museum.

(These are the posters I saw in a metro, that they are actually juxtaposed in the same compartment.)

When I finished my study, under the sunshine and on the lawn, I visited Musee Nissim de Camondo. It was a living mansion at the turn of the 20th century, a part of the house was turned into a museum and remain a huge collection of painting and furniture.
Inside the house, seemed that every single piece of wood and bronze should be carved into some pattern or animals.


Typical French. but the most impressive is the kitchen. See the first time somebody has the same idea with me. The ceiling of the kitchen are cover with tiles so as greasy would be easily removed. And the cooking utensils are made of bronze, even the whisk! Oven and stove are beautifully made of iron…

Oh-la la, this is just the kitchen I want and it’s not fancy at all. And suddenly it seemed that what I did is related to the ‘exam’ i was prepare for, so, I’m still not too lazy~~

so back to the written exam, the MC Question about how many % of sugar in Chantilly cream? How much dry butter require in a croissant recipe for 1 kg of flour? What’s the temperature when sugar syrup heat to caramel?….. maybe the first time I’m interested in the content of the exam and try to find out the answer because I WANT to know.
For the recipe part, just fill in the blanks of some of the missing quantity or items within 6 recipes. It’s patisserie, other then flour, sugar, butter.. nothing is too difficult to memorize.( I got 100 for this part^o^)