Icing on the Cake

Day 31

Making puff pastry was surprisingly therapeutic.

After yesterday's mayhem and the repeated warnings about how difficult the dough is to make, I wasn't feeling so confident about what was going to happen today. Turns out, a little patience can go a long way.

Puff pastry, known as pate feuilletee in French, is a time-consuming process that starts with a detrempe (flour, salt, cold water and a small amount of butter). Once combined and chilled, the beurrage (a large amount of cold butter) is added. The mixture is carefully rolled and "turned," which basically involves folding the dough to incorporate the butter and make layers. The dough heads to the fridge after every two turns.

The class completed six turns and will revisit the pate feuilletee Tuesday to make bande de tarte aux fruits, or a puff pastry fruit strip.

In addition to the puff pastry, we made a triple-layer genoise—a classic, airy French cake made with whole eggs, sugar and flour. It was accompanied by a coffee buttercream frosting and sliced almonds.

I think everyone in my class is ready for three days off, thanks to Labor Day. This week might take the cake for being the most trying thus far in culinary school.

Doughs and Don'ts

Day 30

We started off on the wrong foot.

I'll blame it on the fire alarm, which sounded right

before the exam. Then we took the test, which didn't go over well for many of the students. Finally, we started in on Day 4 of pastry, a lesson on doughs and tarts.

That's when things got hairy.

Many of the students don't have pastry experience, so there was a major learning curve to be had. It was especially tough considering the high temperature and humidity, which made the butter in the dough quickly melt. Frustration abounded. It seemed we reverted back to Level 1 mentality, making stupid errors and causing the chefs anguish.

By 11 a.m., everyone was at each other's throats—and it just went downhill from there. I have to wonder if this is what it's going to be like in Levels 5 and 6 when we're in the restaurant kitchen. We better take it up a notch or it's going to be ugly.

For today's recipes, we used the pate sucre and pate brisee (the doughs we formed a couple days ago, thank God) and

made an apple tart, pear tart and quiche Lorraine. I wish it was as simple as it sounds. Tomorrow is just going to be tougher, as puff pastry is sure to take over half the day.

Let's hope everyone keeps it together and doesn't blow up.

After the kind of day I had, it was nice to have some plans that forced me out of my apartment. Ryan and I headed to a rooftop bar in the Flatiron District, and the New York views (and perhaps the cocktails) brought a smile back to my face.

This city has its way of making you forget about the day's problems.

Foaming at the Mouth

Day 29

I'm beat.

It felt like all I did today was whip egg whites. Virtually every recipe involved a meringue or whipped cream—or both. Chocolate mousse, chocolate souffle, cheese souffle, fruit souffle, cream puffs... the list seemed to go on.

And it didn't help that it felt like a sauna in the classroom, as the chef was "getting us used to working in a hot kitchen," which meant we did the whipping by hand with all the ovens on 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

So I'll admit I'm taking the easy way out tonight and posting pictures. Hopefully you'll give me a break, 'cause I don't want egg on my face.