Pastry School Diary: Intermediate Pâtisserie, Weeks 5 – 7

Weeks five through seven: Two kinds of entremet, gumpaste flowers, and plated desserts!

I haven’t had much time for blogging lately, so it’s time to play catch-up! Here are a few of the things we’ve been busy learning during weeks five through seven of Intermediate Pâtisserie:

Week Five: Gâteau Alhambra and Entremet Roulade

In week five, we tackled the two remaining IP exam dishes: Gâteau Alhambra and Entremet Roulade.

First up was the Alhambra, a decadent cake made with layers of chocolate sacher sponge, chocolate ganache, and apricot-vanilla compote, and topped with a chocolate glaçage and tempered chocolate decorations.

At first glance this one seemed very intimidating, but it was actually my favorite to make! And, I received my highest mark yet for presentation, so I was pretty excited about it.

Here is my finished cake:

Then we learned our final exam dish: a roulade-style entremet made with a sable linzer base, rolled sponge, guava gel, strawberry syrup, and a vanilla mascarpone cream.

After my success with the Alhambra, I felt good going into the practical for the roulade, and confident that I could nail it. Well, somehow I managed to follow my best-ever performance with my worst-ever one! My biscuit (the rolled component of the cake) was severely underbaked, and completely stuck to the baking parchment, making it impossible to roll neatly. I managed to finish the practical with something to present for grading, but it was a sloppy mess.

I was so disappointed with my final product that I didn’t even take a picture of it…and if I had, I’d be too embarrassed to post it! So, here is the chef’s demo cake instead–a.k.a., what the cake is supposed to look like. This is the one I’ll be practicing the most between now and exams:

Week Six

I started week six still feeling disappointed with myself after my dismal work on the roulade, and determined to redeem myself in our next practical. In it, we made a white chocolate, redcurrant, and pistachio entremet:

I felt okay about this one. However, the finished cake was supposed to be topped with macarons. Unfortunately there was a problem with the egg whites supplied for our class to use (even the chef had trouble in the demo), and we were also assigned to a kitchen with sub-par ovens. The end result was that almost every person in class had trouble with their macarons–if you look closely, you can see my sad macs in the background of some of my photos!

Next, we embarked on the unit on plated desserts. After so many cakes, I was excited about learning some new techniques, and trying my hand at some fancy plating.

First up was a basil crème brûlée with raspberry coulis, pistachio sponge, raspberry mousse, and white chocolate circlage. This one had a lot of elements to plate, but it was fun to make…and eat! I’m not usually a fan of savory elements in desserts, but actually quite liked the basil element in this recipe. I thought the practical went very well, and I was happy to earn high marks on presentation for this one:

In addition to our regular demos and practicals, we also had a fun lesson on wired gumpaste flowers. I was looking forward to this one, especially after the gumpaste flower course I attended this summer at Julia Fedorova Cakes in New York City.

We didn’t get to do any hands-on flowermaking during this lesson. But, it was fascinating to watch the chef make many different types of wired flowers, including lilies and roses:

Week Seven

Week seven continued our exploration of plated desserts. First, we learned a “healthy” dessert, made without dairy, eggs, or gluten. This plated dish featured aquafaba, blackcurrant musse, crispy cereal base, pickled strawberries, chia seed gel, and a puffed quinoa tuille. It wasn’t my favorite to make or to eat, but I was happy with my overall presentation:

For our final lesson on plated desserts, we made two kinds of soufflés: a chocolate tart soufflé and an orange Cointreau soufflé.

These were fun to make (and delicious to eat) but also proved stressful, since you only have a few minutes to remove your soufflé from the oven, plate it, and present it before the entire thing starts to collapse!

Missed last week’s pastry school diary? Read it here.

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About Rebecca:
Rebecca earned the Diplôme de Pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu London in 2020. She kept this detailed diary as a record of her journey, and as a way to help others decide if pastry school might be the right choice for them. Rebecca also holds an MSc in Culinary Innovation from Le Cordon Bleu and Birkbeck, University of London, and a Professional Chocolatier’s Certificate from Ecole Chocolate. She currently works as a recipe developer, food stylist, food photographer, writer, and pastry chef. Feel free to make one of her original recipes, or to follow her on Instagram @bastecutfold for more baking and pastry inspiration!