Cakes and Nature!

We made lots of cake last week.  Ok, well in English we made cake, but one of the many bizarre things that a French person knows inherently without thinking, and consequently has difficulty explaining in English, is the difference between entremets and gateaux.  Whereas in English, we only have the one giant concept of "cake" which encompasses a fairly large spectrum, the French have divided it into two categories.  As chef was trying to explain which dessert was an entremet or a gateau, he frequently couldn't justify why it was one way or the other, and kept stammering that "it's just something that we know."  I guess it's difficult to search for logic with the French, as everything seems to be just a matter of feeling correct rather than being black and white like I'm used to.

Anyway, what I gathered from our very precise lecture (not!), was that the entremets are more creamy and must be chilled--ice-cream cakes in the US would probably be considered entremets here, for example.  This one is called Giverny, and has a very thin layer of cake on the bottom (called biscuit in French) that is soaked in Cointreau syrup, then a layer of pistachio bavarios, another layer of Cointreau-soaked cake, and then the raspberry mousse you see on the top.  Very springtime and light when you cut it open and see the pastel green with the pink.

My Giverny!

 We also made Succès, praline buttercream between two layers of almond meringue.  It has a very exciting decoration on top.

Pre-decor Succès

cooked sugar

almond-dipping!

It forms a little tail!

Sugar wasteland

Succès

Detail of decor on Succès

 Then we got to play with chocolate for the decoration of our other cakes, Forêt Noire, and Feuille d'Autumn.

playing with chocolate!

my Forêt Noire (chocolate cake, chocolate chantilly, vanilla chantilly, and griottines)

My Feuille d'Autumn (French meringue base, dark chocolate mousse, almond meringue, buttercream, and sheets of chocolate to decorate the top)

 We also made Opéra cake (a glorious chocolate and coffee mouth-explosion).

Here is a lovely spread of our work:

Spread of our week-long work

We also have been taking oenology courses so we can learn the basics about wine.  We only get 5 classes, but they are 3 hours long for each course.  The first course was an overview and basic explanations about cépage, terrior, and savior faire.  The second course, pictured below, we learned about wines in the Northern regions of France and got to taste a Reisling from Alsace and compare it with a Rully from Bourgogne.

Working hard in wine class

Oh my gosh--side note.  I got to meet Hervé This on Monday!  He wrote a book that I devoured this summer called Molecular Gastronomy.  He is absolutely brilliant, and they say about him that he is the man who unboiled an egg.  BUT, he gives guest lectures every 3rd Monday of the month AT my school!  It was incredible.  I was just sitting in the back of the classroom in awe.  It was just so interactive and informal, he sat amongst us in the audience seats and had volunteers perform the experiment in front.  He kept asking hypothetical questions so that the audience got the feeling that we were the ones discovering it all.  What a wonderful set up, and a great way to learn.  I wanted to talk to him more but he had to leave pretty quickly after the lecture.  Anyway, I also met this woman at the lecture who is a piano teacher (according to her, her students are the best in France).  But she works a lot with comparisons of music and food--her students, at performances, have to create a dessert or a dish that characterizes their piece, and the audience eats it while they play.  How cool is that!!  She has a blog, La Cuisine au Piano, http://www.lacuisineaupiano.com/, it's pretty interesting.

This past week we made more cakes, and also got to work to make desserts for the dinner shift at the school's restaurant (11am until 11:30pm).

My Roulade griottines (before glazing)--This is very thin spongecake rolled up tightly with raspberry jam and cut into rolls; it's filled with vanilla bavarios and griottines (alcohol-soaked cherries)

One of the plated desserts for the restaurant, Feuillantine choco praliné (plating design by Annegret)

We made a classic French cake called "moka."  It has a coffee geniose cut into three thin layers, between the layers is coffee butter cream, walnuts, and rum-soaked golden raisins.  Then the top has a very intricately piped decoration, which was very challenging, but I loved it!

My Moka--I'm proud!

Next, we made a cake called "Mogador."  It has a chocolate cake layer on the bottom soaked in a raspberry liqueur syrup, topped with a thin layer of raspberry jam, then smothered with chocolate chantilly cream, left to harden in the fridge, then topped with a very thin layer of buttercream so that the rapsberry glaze shines a bright and intense red on the top.  It was extremely delicious (we got to taste it in class), but I decided to give it to my next-door neighbors instead of putting it in the fridge with my cake graveyard (I really have way too many cakes in my fridge right now).  And it was great because I learned that my neighbor is a piano teacher (because I accidentally interrupted a lesson).  So maybe I can trade cakes for lessons--who knows!  I'd love to have some informal lessons again, or maybe I'll ask the lady with the best students in France!

My Mogador

Our class!

Finally, we made what is called "mont blanc."  It consists of French meringue piped into a pieshell-shape and put into the proofer to harden, then it's filled with crème chantilly and candied chestnuts, and then some chestnut cream is piped through a very thin tip to look kind of like spaghetti, and it's topped with a large candied chestnut.  Personally, I don't think it looks very attractive to eat a cake that looks like a bowl of spaghetti, but it's apparently a classic.

My Moka, Mont Blanc, and Mogador

The past 2 weekends have been SO nice.  I have made a point to get out and walk and see green and beautiful things.  Last weekend I finally explored the Bois de Boulogne, which is a 5 minute walk from my apartment, and is 2100 acres of absolutely beautiful, very green forest land.  During the weekend it's completely full of runners, cyclists, roller-bladers, families with little children, dogs, and nature-lovers during the morning/day, however I've been warned that during the night it's haunted by prostitutes and weird-folk, so normal people, and I stay away by night.  Anyway, I love it and I'm so happy that I have such easy access to un-manicured green now--in Paris, most of the green that is there is so nicely landscaped and pretty, but it's nothing like the uninhibited nature you can find in the US.

Entrance to the Bois de Boulogne

So crisp and green

I really liked this three-headed tree

lots of cyclists and runners use this road--and there's a horse-racing track just across the way

This made me laugh--it's a post put there just for dogs to pee on

my neighborhood

 And Sunday of last weekend, I went to a large outdoor marked near the Bastille with Ben, Annegret, and her friend Jessy.  We had a lovely brunch afterwards and then Annegret, Ben, and I went for a nice long walk around central Paris, along the Seine, and went to the Pantheon and the Jardin des Plantes.  It was a gorgeous day.

Walking along the Seine on a lovely Sunday afternoon

Ben and Annegret in front of the Pantheon

Inside the Pantheon, it's magnificent

This pendulum proves that the Earth is moving

 After our walk, Ben had to go teach a class, so Annegret and I walked through the fifth and sixth arrondissements.

On my walk with Annegret through the Luxembourg gardens

 Fridays at the Louvre, people under 26 can get in for free!  And they have music, theater, cinema, and various performances, and of course, you get to walk around in the Louvre!  I got to meet some very good friends of Ben's.  We had a yummy traditional French dinner afterwards, and then some delicious Italian gelato.

From the Egypt exhibit at the Louvre

Yesterday, I went to Versailles :)  It's one of my favorite places IN THE WORLD!  And I get to go there for free too, since I'm a student in the European Union.

Versailles! and some little French boy-scouts

Look at all the gold!

Throne room, complete with a pipe organ

You know, just a ceiling in a room, no big deal

Ceiling of the hall of mirrors

Diana, goddess of the hunt

just look at the ceiling!

love the contrast

Glorious!  

A nature trail inside the queen's nature area

Where Ben and I stopped to have a little picnic

Two Weeks in a Blur

I'm so happy--I did really well in art class today.  He really liked my watercolor.  Our art professor is an incredible artist, of course, but he is also an MOF (Meilleur Ouvrier de France), which is a huge title and a high honor.  Only the MOFs can wear red white and blue stripes on the collar of their chef jacket--apparently if you don't have your MOF and you wear the stripes, you can be arrested.  Anyway, he is a wonderful teacher and has a beautiful way of looking at life, he's always encouraging us to look at things in different ways.

We are taking art class to be able to prepare sketches for potential clients.  It also helps, I imagine, in presentation and plating of desserts.

My watercolor with Chef's nice comments

We have spent a lot of time working with puff pastry, feuilletage in French.  We made pithivers, chaussons aux pommes, and jalousies a couple weeks ago.

My pithivers, chaussons aux pommes, and jalousies

Close-up of my pithivers

Take-home box!

I really enjoyed working with the puff pastry.  Pithivers is made of puff pastry with almond cream inside, and then intricately carved.  The chaussons aux pommes are puff pastry pouches with apple sauce inside, then carved like little leaves.  Jalousies are puff pastry with almond cream inside carved kind of like Venetian blinds.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a little electric piano.  88 weighted keys and a pedal! AND, the salesman gave me a pair of REALLY nice headphones (50 euros) for free just for "being nice."  I was so happy that day and the walk all the way to the metro, the metro ride, and the walk home with the 15 kilo (~30 lb), 4.5 foot long box didn't even phase me because I was just beaming!  And to top it all off, when I arrived home, the concierge gave me a package that had arrived--it was a care package from my mother!  And it had all sorts of cute things inside.  I have the best Mom ever.  Anyway, I play the piano every day now and it is a vital part of keeping my sanity.

We also made palmiers.  This is puff pastry, the last 2 turns of the pastry, however, are rolled out on granulated sugar instead of flour, and then it's folded like this:

And cut like this:

And it makes this (mine got a little over-cooked because the students in charge of the oven weren't really sure what they were doing yet, oh well, I guess we're all learning):

Palmiers

Chaussons Italiens, palmiers, and

We made praline by hand (it takes a good solid 20-30 minutes of stirring), I think I'm going to end up with massive right-arm muscles.

I am just amazed by how inexpensive really good cheese is here.  I got this entire wheel of camembert for around 2 euros!  And it was DELICIOUS, even if it did make my entire apartment smell like cheese every time I opened my refrigerator.

After we worked so much with the puff pastry, we started working with pâte à choux last week (the kind of dough used to make eclairs, for example).

This dough takes a lot of effort to make and is very unlike other doughs in its production.  It produces a sticky batter that is piped into whatever shape is needed.  The dough then puffs up and is very suitable for filling with creamy deliciousness.  Here is Chef poking holes in his empty eclairs, so that he can fill them with chocolate crème pâtissiere:

Filling:

Stuffed eclairs:

Then a chocolate fondant is spread over the tops:

The eclairs were SO good, they were my breakfast all week, and my bedtime snack sometimes :)

We have made many things with the pâte à choux, including religieuses, and something called a Paris-Brest.  This is mine, before baking.  It's just choux pastry piped in rounds with almond slices on top:

Then it's baked, cut in half, and crème au beurre pralinée (buttercream flavored with praline) is piped in the inside.  It's pretty tasty.  Oh, and the praline used to flavor the buttercream is the pralines we made by hand the other day, that we ground up into a very fine paste using a machine called robot coupe.

We made mille feuille for the school's restaurant last week.  These are three of them.  Mille feuille consists of a thin layer of puff pastry, some sort of filling (for example, one of ours used pastry cream flavored with anise liqueur, then a solid layer of raspberries, then another layer of puff pastry, another layer of anise cream and raspberries, then one more layer of puff pastry.  Mille feuille literally means "thousand layer." The one with the orange slices on top has dark chocolate and cointreau cream--mmmmm!  And the one in the front with the powdered sugar is the traditional way of making it, with rum-flavored pastry cream:

So I really love my new little studio-apartment.  The small size of it is actually growing on me.  What do I need a ton of space for?  I don't.  It is just right, I think Goldylocks would approve.  Here's the view from my kitchen

My couch/bed--the poppies make me really happy!

  View from balcony:

I'm so happy because this week we are working on cakes!  Lots of layering and frostings--and it's the first time we haven't had anything to take home for several days in a row, because we do a little work on each cake every day.  He told us yesterday that we have made enough cake to feed ~480 people in just 5 hours!  But I'm really anxious to finish at least one of them so I can take it home!

This week has been really nice, I got to meet Marcie and Woody's daughter Jennifer, her husband, and their friends who are all here visiting Paris from Kansas City.  It has been so amazing to meet so much of my family that I haven't really known before.  And they kept recounting various scandalous stories of my grandpa, which I love to hear about.  Jennifer is really great though, she has a lovely perspective on life, speaks her mind, and carries herself in a very pleasant manner.  I hope to see more of them while they're in town.  But I've been so unhappy that I haven't had any desserts to bring them this week--it's very unusual.

We switched partners today in class, and since there are only 9 students in our class, Annegret has been working with Chef up until now, but now Chef and I are partners.  It's a really great opportunity because it's learning from a different perspective.  I'm very happy about the change.