extra extra, read all about it!

here we are. another month, another unit, another exam. how is all of this time passing by so quickly!

as this blog continues, and its readership grows (hello everyone!) i'm working on not only adding to the archive, by posting, but also further developing the blog itself, and hopefully making the framework better as i go along. to that end, i'd like to highlight a few things!

i've added a technical dictionary, and am working on a product reference guide, so that when i refer to something that we've made, or i talk about a technique we learned about in class, you'll understand what the heck i'm saying! i'm going to keep adding to and refining each as i go through the program, so the dictionary you see now, and the reference guide you will see (soon!) are very much just my way of shoving my foot in the door, as opposed to a finished product, but it's a solid start, no?

on that note, if you have any questions, about what i'm doing, about anything about pastry school in general, or what have you, feel free to ask! you can leave a comment on any of the actual posts, or you can contact me directly at bellenanasansbanane@gmail.com.

from sending e-mails to receiving them, you can now "follow" this blog via e-mail! i personally prefer using google reader, if i don't actually plan on checking the site itself, but here is another option for you to get a hearty helping of belle nana sans banane! for those interested, it's on the right hand side of the page, underneath the archive tab.

now that i think about google reader, my lovely blogger friend The Culinary Librarian actually wrote a piece about it, for those curious about rss feeds. and speaking of her, let's shed some spotlight on a few other foodie blogs!

• The Culinary Librarian: big apple foodie friend. wonderfully insightful, and one mean macaron artiste.
• The Accidental Vegetarian: another friend of mine, this time, from my undergrad years. a refreshing take on healthy (wallet AND stomach friendly!) food and home cooking. yum!
• Baking It Til I'm Making It: not actually a friend of mine (i just don't know him), but how i found his blog is actually a funny story. i was looking for a photo reference of a dessert for a friend of mine when i came across this blog, and it turns out that he's a student at my school! for a sneak peak of what's to come for me in school, check out his blog! 

now i can imagine what you're thinking. why did i have to look elsewhere for a photo reference for an item that was undoubtedly sitting in my fridge? the answer mes chers, is not a good one. it is all because of batteries. for my camera, that is. i kept meaning to pick some up, but only remembered at inopportune times. see? not a good answer, but it's the truth. but earlier this week i picked up LOTS of batteries, so from now on i will be teasing your tastebuds with photos of my classwork and more!

i want to thank you for reading, and welcome again those new to the ride. i'm sure that by next month, there will be new features, more updates, and changes to the blog that i'll be filling you in on. and now that i think about it, at just about this time next month i'll be experiencing the biggest change to my education so far--moving on to pastry level two!

until then mes chers, eat healthy, eat happy!

pâte feuilletée: written and practical exams

ta-da! an exam post that is only a DAY after the actual exam! i should be careful about setting that sort of precedent though, it's like what i've told my classes (i teach swim lessons): the problem with doing a good job is that you keep having to do so! and knowing my schedule, i got lucky this time.

read more after the jump!

a little background on our exams

i'm not quite sure how it happened, but april is already next week, and my third set of written and practical exams is close on its heels (april 6, to be exact). before another set of exams is behind me, i'd like to share the experiences of the first two with you!

before coming to pastry school, i wasn't quite sure how we would be evaluated. would it be top chef style, where we have little to no time to create, plate, and then watch it get devoured, while we're hoping that the face the instructor just made was because of a sudden and unrelated illness, or that the instructor will say we're too good for school, and it would be an honor if we would teach the class*? or maybe it would just be a series of quizzes on the technical aspects, and in the practical portions, we would have to execute a set of techniques and call it a night?

i was nervous that we would have to have everything memorized, not just for the written exams but also for the practical portion, which had the potential to be disastrous. baking is not about throwing a little of this here, and that there, and magically producing a beautiful/delicious treat, but about understanding your ingredients, the conditions surrounding them, and how to combine them to get the results you want. getting one ratio off will not only result in a wonky product, but could create a series of negative effects that could basically render your product inedible, if not for health reasons, then out of concern for one's palate. the first example i can think of is not entirely related to ingredients per se, but if you changed the temperature at which you baked a pot de crème, you could end up with scrambled eggs in a mess of chocolate, which sounds disgusting. or, for an example related to ingredient ratios, if you let water evaporate when boiling to prepare for pâte à choux, that would change the ratio of wet:dry ingredients, which would change the number of eggs absorbed by the dough, which would change the structure of the finished pastries, going from a beautifully risen choux with a perfect hollow to an eggy, web-filled, collapsed mess.

luckily enough, we were allowed to keep our recipes with us. as chef t pointed out after our second exams, and this was said with all of the love in the world, "[we] are nowhere near the level of being able to improvise and stray from the beaten path. now is not the time to be creative, but to learn the basics from which you can create." i was reading a piece on what makes good food writing, and that piece paired with chef's words of wisdom really resonated with me; if you don't know what a traditional pastry cream is, or what it tastes like, how can you talk about it with any degree of confidence, but more important for the kitchen, how can you tweak and change it when you don't know where you're starting from?

the next two posts will be dedicated to the individual evaluations, but it's helpful to know these points before going into each unit:

1.  we are given a forty five minute written exam before the practical portion. anything and everything can be asked of us in this written exam.
2. immediately following, we have three hours to mise en place, execute, plate, and clean up after our assigned products. for every minute we are late once that three hour period is complete, we lose points. for every mistake we make, we lose points. for meeting expectations, we are given constructive feedback to become better.
3. three hours sounds like a long time, but when you consider that one recipe alone can take three hours, between prep, baking, and cooling time, and we have to execute multiple products at the same time, it's really not that long at all.
4. during class, we can ask any question we have of our chef instructors. during the exam, they basically just make sure we don't burn the place down. and going from an atmosphere of calm and joy to an anxiety filled, over-heated room has an incredible impact on the entire process.

i think that's it for the basics! now head on over to the tarts and cookies post, or to the pâte à choux post, to really sink your teeth into the process.

*and no, neither have happened, and those are pretty extreme reactions, but you get my point.

second exam: pâte à choux unit

back for round two, and only a little over a week later.

this unit was extraordinarily quick, which meant that it was fewer terms and techniques to remember, but also fewer recipes to draw from, which was good...and bad. we knew for sure that we would be making éclairs, but that was it as far as guarantees. were we all going to make the same thing? or would we pick randomly like the first time? i was sort of dreading the idea of making a gâteau st honoré, because of the caramel, and i knew that we wouldn't be making a croquembouche (too time consuming), or profiteroles (no ice cream), or gougères (it was more of a fun demo, than a serious recipe made). so it really came down to the éclairs with either a paris-brest, or the gâteau st honoré.

we walked into class, seemingly prepared for what was to come, and then it happened.

i don't quite know if it was us looking forward to what we were doing after the exam (first group outing, yay pastry 1!) or if it was that sense of preparedness that did us in...but it wasn't as smooth a process as the first final. at least, i know it wasn't for me, but i don't think i'm venturing too far to say it was a similar experience for a number of my classmates. we came in with a plan, pushed hard, worked through dinner, and still most of us finished late. i was all of two minutes late, with a messy station and burnt fondant to show for my rushing.

we ended up all making the same thing, instead of picking at random. we had to prepare:

• five four inch chocolate éclairs
• five four inch coffee éclairs
• one six inch paris-brest

read more after the jump!

first exam: tarts & cookies unit

on march seventh, i had my first ever pastry school exam, finally completing the seemingly never-ending tarts and cookies unit. the objective was straightforward: take a forty-five minute written test, and execute three recipes from our unit. sounds simple enough, right?

the recipes we had to execute were randomly assigned to us on exam day, but some of us had heard through the grapevine/listened closely in lectures to deduce the following:

• no linzer torte
• no tarte tatin
• no fig newtons

and so on. really, the list just meant that we wouldn't be asked to produce a recipe that took forever, which makes sense when you think about it. we only had three hours to execute three recipes, so we couldn't possibly be asked to do something that was so time consuming.

i drew the following recipes:

• two four inch clafoutis
• one eight inch tarte aux pommes
• five spritskakor cookies

read more after the jump!

cake school is serious stuff.

in the midst of all of this exam talk, i realized i haven't mentioned something that is just as important!

in this PSA for kitchen safety, i present to you the following:

1. imagine a blob-like shape, of three inches in length, and one and a half inches at its widest points.
2. for those who cannot imagine the shape with any specific idea of how big or small that is (like me), here is an online ruler, for you to actually see that size.
3. and for yet another reference point, think about the size of an ipod touch, or an iphone, but just a bit smaller (these were the first things i could think of that were a similar size, and i heart apple products).
4. now that you can imagine that shape, translate that to my left forearm, in the form of a burn.

i am only just now recovering from a second (yes, that's second of three) degree burn that was three inches long and one and a half inches wide. in case you thought pastry school was all rainbows and lollipops, think again.

be careful of hot items folks, especially when you set them on your work surfaces.

battle wound? achieved.

a slice of humble pie.

so...i have a bit of a confession to make.

a month ago, i started this blog, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed with an ungodly amount of time on my hands, and thought wow! this is a great idea! there is NO way i could miss a post because i have set up this nice schedule and i will have things to write about once school starts and i will be happy go lucky hooray!

and then this past month happened. in the past month, i've started school, taken two jobs, turned down a third (for my sanity's sake!), and applied to countless more. i've been to three of the five boroughs, and have mastered the art of both the metrocard swipe and the balancing act that is being on the subway without having anything to hold onto. in the same week i've had to bundle up in my winter coat and have taken advantage of t-shirt weather (hello odd climate patterns). i've made twenty four individual tarts (and/or tartlets), and a few hundred cookies--thank goodness i didn't have to eat them all (sharing is caring after all), or else i would add to this tally that i gained at least a metric ton as well. i've learned an enormous amount about the world of baking and how it works and i'm only more convinced that this was the right step, even with a few mis-steps, or full-on, face-down splats on the pavement.

but you wouldn't know any of that based on what i've written here.

the past month of classes have been incredible: incredibly difficult, but also incredibly rewarding. with these classes, there is a definite, tangible output with which i can gauge my progress. all of my effort and running around the kitchen actually means something that i can not only show to others, but share with them (seriously, anyone in the new york area i need to get more food off my hands, let's chat and i will share). we're reaching the end of our first unit, tarts and cookies, and studying for my exams on monday has given me time to reflect on the past month and what it means. as thrilling as all of that is though, to me or to you, it would undoubtedly get boring to see: hey, class was great! we made a tart. it was so fun! yay! day after day. it got boring just thinking about it like that! the problem with that whole structure is that of course, we did more than just crank out tarts, but i only made notes of it as it applied to what i would need to know, not what i'd like to write about here. now that i'm in the middle of it, instead of projecting about what might happen, i think i have some solutions to better address the gap between what i promised and what i provide.

in the mean time, here is a series of highlights from the past month:

• i now know the recipes for pâte sucrée (sweet tart dough) and pâte brisée (flaky tart dough) like the back of my hand. those two are the doughs we most frequently used for all of the tarts and tartlets that we made, and of the two, for a variety of reasons, i prefer the pâte brisée. i like being able to actually make the dough by hand, instead of by mixer (although, let's be honest, i wouldn't give up the mixer entirely) and i love the finished product. pâte sucrée hits only one note for me, but the brisée has a nice quality to it that i feel better meshes with a wider variety of fillings.

• as previously noted here, i have learned how to flambé. other fun tricks? making suprêmes ("fancy" orange wedges) and other fun knife skills, making whipped cream by hand, piping onto tarts. the piping that we did two classes ago was actually the most fun: we piped with chocolate onto a ganache tart, and i had a bunch left over after my design was done, so i got to play on my work surface. i drew a heart, i wrote my name, i played around with other designs-it was all of the fun of kindergarten without being told "Don't draw on the table!"

• oddly enough i may have actually retained how to convert my units! we had a whole lecture on this, and it was so wonderfully easy. we put the conversions into practice by adapting a recipe for "chocolate heaven cookies"--i didn't actually have any of them, but i did hear that they were quite delicious.

• this is sort of a generalized highlight, and an obvious one at that, but it is admittedly nice to have a greater understanding of what each item in a recipe actually DOES for the finished product. i really appreciate the lectures we get during technique demos, because i can come out of them saying that i actually KNOW something about baking and food, instead of saying yeah i can follow a recipe, sure.

• and finally, the lowlights. or rather, the lowlight that is, in my opinion, just as important as any of these highlights. while i could dedicate a number of posts on the importance of failure to success, suffice it to say that on wednesday, i bit it. hard. i struggled with my mise en place (the set-up for each recipe), i was behind on nearly every project, i almost burned my fingers twice, my hand once, and somehow managed to not destroy my face when boiling water/caramel? sputtered on my skin. i burned my caramel twice in a row, worked straight through dinner, and in general, was off my game. but in that class, i feel like i truly gained a mentor out of my chef-instructor, a partner out of my station-mate, and some important lessons for myself. not everything i make will be perfect, and even with that in mind, i may not even enjoy the finished product just because i made it. i'm still learning, very much so, and while i aim to be a do-it-yourself-er, there will be times that i simply can't do it on my own. and that's ok. in fact, that's great-because to do everything alone is too isolationist for my taste, to be honest. now, of course, these are lessons that extend into the rest of life, and that will take some time to adjust to, but i am happy to be making these steps. i'll be happier once i make them without the trainwreck, but we're taking baby steps, right?

now, all of this talk of how i'm going to post from now on does not, in the slightest, mean that the other fun stuff is going to end. i'm just going to do my best to strike a better balance between the two, that's all. additionally, i think that i'm going to adopt a more regular posting frequency, so that anything beyond those posts will simply be extra and fun, instead of an overwhelming majority of fluff.

and now mes chers, it is time for me to return to studying. tomorrow i'm going to post about those oscar-inspired treats, but right now, i need to focus so that i can get to bed. i wish you safe and happy eating, bon appetit until next time.

be our guest and the flames of love!

before tonight's class, i had planned on writing a sweet little homage to one of my favorite songs from my favorite disney movie: "be our guest" from beauty and the beast. it's a wonderfully exciting number that fills me with childlike glee every time i hear it (but honestly, what classic disney song doesn't?).

and then there was class.

it was oddly appropriate that on a day so incredibly inspired by anything but burning love that we learned how to flambé in class. now that was thrilling to the nth degree.

seeing the pan of apple slices burst into flame just inches from me, and knowing that it was both on purpose AND my own doing was absolutely electrifying. it was also slightly conflicting, because it's a technique i'd like to practice, but when on earth will i trust myself to do so? not outside of class, at least not for some time, that's for sure.

and so, mesdames et messieurs, i give you "be our guest", a song that inspires me to create food that is both delicious and exciting enough to incite song and dance from even the cutlery, or at least a smile or two.

at least the customer service rep was nice.

well that was anti-climactic.

in preparation for the time spent here in the city before class started, i thought that i would be nice to myself and order a few books with which i'd pass my time. most of them arrived just fine and i've already gobbled them up because that's what i do--when i'm in the city that never sleeps and somewhere, might i add, that i've wanted to live for ages, instead of taking advantage of this beautiful, lively place, i hole up with a book. actually, many books. i've worked my way through a good chunk of salinger and vonnegut, and am about to dive into some lovely french lit. i digress.

this last book that i ordered, it was going to be sort of an exception to my rule. the other books had been strictly joy reading material, things i had wanted to read but never had the time to do so before. this last book was going to be both joy reading and reading with a purpose. what multi-tasking book was this?

101 things i learned in culinary school.

now i can hear you thinking, why were you getting a book about culinary school when you are actually going to culinary school...days from now? allow me to clarify. i am going to pastry school. to be a pâtissière. a pâtissière of awesome. i've found that when i outrightly say that i am going to pastry school though, that people get this image of easy bake ovens and frilly cupcakes, and...that is not what i am going to be studying. so i cheat a little. i say that i'm concentrating on baking and pastry arts (which is completely true) at culinary school. there's something about those words "culinary school" that seem to satisfy people's natural penchant to be overly concerned about people's life plans*, because quite frankly, everyone needs to eat.

so now that that record is straight, where was i? ah yes. the book. i bought 101 things i learned in culinary school because there are things that culinary students will learn that i'll never come across, which is fine, because i can't see myself incorporating a medium-rare beef patty into a dessert for example (watch, that's what i'll be famous for in ten years), but i still would like to know how to prepare a medium-rare beef patty. as much as other people need to eat, i sure as heck do too, and a lot of this whole culinary adventure is not just going to be about dessert.

i ordered this book on january seventeenth, after already having arrived here, because i found it marked down from 15$ to 5$ and figured that finding such a steal was clearly a sign that not only did i want the book, i was meant to have it. i ordered it priority shipping and it was sent out on the eighteenth. and so my countdown began: only six to eleven days before i would get my book, just in time for me to devour its tips and then head off to school.

fast forward to yesterday, and i realize, hey, tomorrow is february and i've been waiting and waiting for this book to arrive....where is it! needless to say, the countdown came and went, and i was just trying to be nice and think to myself, well, maybe they meant business days, and not just calendar days, maybe that was the confusion. (it wasn't.) or perhaps i didn't actually order it priority! (i did.) finally, after some prodding, i stepped up and e-mailed the customer service rep who had actually just e-mailed me to see if i would fill out a customer satisfaction survey about my order.

     dear [company's customer service],

            while i'd love to fill out your survey, i haven't received my order yet! help?

     sincerely,
             bellenanasansbanane

i then found the customer service phone number (which oddly enough wasn't listed on their site) and called them, but of course, after hours. since i didn't want to leave a message (because i effectively already had with the e-mail) i figured i would wait to hear from them today, and if not, i'd call again.

the response was kind enough, but not exactly what i was looking for.

     dear bellenanasansbanane,

            i am very sorry to hear your order has not arrived. the seller confirmed shipment on january eighteenth. at this point i'm afraid we have to consider it lost in the mail. i have issued you a full refund on the order. [...].

     sincerely,
            [customer service rep]

if the order somehow shows up, i'm going to let them know so that i can be un-refunded, and just so that they know the package did finally make it here. i have a feeling that something is up with the mail system that my apartment-mates have worked out, even though i have checked the mailbox and the box of mail in the apartment every day. it's a bit strange though, i've never had a package get lost in the mail, and i've sent and received things from overseas! ah well. i haven't quite given up hope, but at the same time, with work and school kicking into gear, this may get pushed to the back burner (ha! i am so funny).

i'm hoping to save up on these half-accomplished "it was meant to be!" moments so i can cash in on something big. like a kitchen aid mixer. or a totally-romantic-movie-moment-come-to-life.


on second thought, definitely the mixer.



*before deciding to go to into the culinary field, before deciding to uproot my entire life and live a little dangerously, before signing off on any of this, i cannot begin to tell you how often the "what are you going to do (for the rest of your life)?" conversation came up. and i don't need to tell you, since i'm sure that at least once in your life, this has happened to you as well. to be honest, my life plan, my five year plan, my five MONTH plan affects no one else but me (and perhaps a few near and dear to me). initially i was open to the gaping mouthed looks of horror ("THAT's what you're going to throw your life away on?!") but that's just leaving myself vulnerable to other's own fears of unrealized goals, not mine. so yes, i fudge it a little to avoid those types of conversations, but that's not to say i completely avoid the subject. if you're open to discussion, i am too. just don't foist your fears on me, i have enough of my own.