This week we're starting on chocolate and creating chocolate sculptures in class. I was initially very apprehensive. Not only is chocolate very temperamental (ha ha inside chocolate joke), and not very forgiving, its a mess to deal with! I have a feeling I'll be doing laundry more frequently, as my chef whites are going to invariably end up brown.
In class we practiced making molds and molded some eggs. I added some oil based coloring to my egg, though it would have shown up a lot better had we been working with white chocolate.
We used a spiderweb-like mold for the backside of the egg.
A couple of the girls in class made fish instead of eggs, and chef put together a quick sculpture using some painted chocolate and balls he molded yesterday. I guess there is no escape from fish, even in pastry.
I'm really excited about getting started on my chocolate sculpture. I have a lot of different ideas to incorporate the techniques we're learning. Chef commented on my original sketch as being too complicated, but I figure I'll have a go at it and see how much I can actually accomplish. Wish me luck!
3 comments:
Hi Diane. Question: How is your french and how are you getting by in paris?
I applied to Ferrandi and this is really the big issue that scares me. I've taken a course in french and that was pretty much it. Now I'm just using french podcast instruction.
Anyway, Ferrandi seems to be saving the fun stuff for last.
This is somewhat unrelated to your post -
I'm bouncing around the internet researching ESCF - Ferrandi and Joan P over at http://joanpan.blogspot.com pointed me in your direction.
I'm contemplating culinary school, (specifically in the pastry arts) and I was wondering what you thought of the program at ESCF? Would you recommend it? How much experience did you have going into the program?
Thank you for your time,
Amy
P.S. It's funny how often knitting/fiber crafts and baking go together.
David - I did take a few years of French, but the pastry chef speaks English for the most part. There are people with varied levels of French; some that didn't speak any at all in the beginning, but are learning a lot through classes at school. As for Paris, most people seem accommodating to foreigners!
Amy - Going into the program, I had no professional experience. I just baked a ridiculous amount on my own. I would recommend the program to anyone serious about pursuing pastry; its a lot of hard work! I'm really enjoying the program and sad that its going by so quickly!
Post a Comment