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Weeks five and six, and the Superior Pastry afternoon tea party! I’m now sure how we’ve hit mid-term already, but here we are.
Week Five: Exam Dishes
We spent week five focusing on creating the two dishes we’ll make for our final exam. In Basic and Intermediate Pâtisserie, our final exam consisted of making one of four recipes we’d learned over the course of the term. As Superior students, we must create our own recipes.
Each of us has two make two dishes: A technical entremets (basically a layered cake, consisting of a mousse, insert, crisp base, glaze, and sponge wrap) and a plated dessert. For the plated dessert, we are free to experiment and do just about anything we want.
During two long class days, we made a trial run of each of our recipes for the chef. We received extensive feedback on what worked and what didn’t.
Technical Entremets
For my technical entremets I decided to do a play on a “millionaire’s shortbread.” My recipe consists of a banana mousse, caramel cremeaux, dark chocolate glaçage, shortbread base, choux pastry sponge wrap, and tempered chocolate decoration.
I was fairly happy with my work on the technical entremets. A few small adjustments to be made, particularly with the caramel insert (waaay too much gelatin!) But, overall, the feedback I received on taste and appearance were both pretty positive.
Plated Dessert
For the plated dessert, I still have some work to do. Chef thought that my flavors worked nicely, but that the plating itself still needed some improvement. The session was really helpful in that it got my brain thinking in different ways. In fact I’ve already come up with a couple of ideas that hopefully will make my dish much better (and prettier!)
Luckily, we now have a few weeks to work on our exam dishes at home, before we’ll need to make them again in class.
Week Six: Afternoon Tea
Week six of Superior Pâtisserie brought the long-awaited Le Cordon Bleu Afternoon Tea event. This is generally looked forward to as one of the highlights of the final term.
For this event, all three sections of Superior pastry students (about 35 of us in all) worked together to plan and execute a traditional afternoon tea. In addition to preparing all of the pastries for the event, we were responsible for everything. This included setting up tables and filling trays to working as hosts and servers and running back-of-house during the actual event. And, of course, all of the cleanup afterward!
The Afternoon Tea was beyond exhausting (two long days in the kitchen, followed immediately by the tea party itself) but also quite a lot of fun. And, it was exciting to have the chance to serve a room full of paying guests for the first time, too!
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work…
Within each of our classes, we were broken down into smaller teams, with each team tasked with creating four desserts. I served as team leader. My team made a Poirier (caramel-glazed pear mousse on a hazelnut sablé base), a lychee and rosewater macaronade, a citrus Savarin, and a savoury baby onion tatin. I think the worst part of the entire thing was the time I spent peeling and chopping 120(!!) teeny tiny baby onions–ouch!
It was stressful at times, but in the end I was really happy with how my little team–and our class as a whole–pulled together to make the tea party event a success.
Next week, we’re finally embarking on the unit I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning of pastry school–sugarwork! We’ll be working on poured and pulled sugar techniques, with the week culminating in the creation of our own sugar showpiece. I can’t wait!
Missed last week’s pastry school recap? Read it here.
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!
