Man, I'm tired.
I reached home at about 11pm, Bangkok's time, and that is pretty late by my own standards! I was out with my friends at a nice restaurant/live band place near school, called "Seasonings" having dinner, drinks and a great time!
I'll update the photos taken at that place once I receive them from my friends, meanwhile, allow me to go through the events for a really hectic yesterday afternoon.
First up! My practical exam for the Intermediate Level!
As you all know by now, the exam cake is purely by luck. You get to participate in a lucky draw, in which the coloured chips indicate which cakes out of 3-4 narrowed choice you'll get to do on that day. Each class's choices is different, and you won't have the same repeated cakes.
I found myself extremely lucky that day, picking a blue chip a.k.a Croquant Gianduja as my exam piece. Mew was equally lucky to be doing this cake together with me as well!
In fact, there was 5 of us who will be attempting to do this cake, while the rest got either Plaisir or Passionata.
I remembered thinking to myself when I first did this cake, that it would be nice to do this cake again for the exam so that I get to eat another round of the Irish Cream filing, but yet at the same time, I sang "There will be no next time!" to Mew when it suddenly occurred to me that there was quite a few number of components involved.
The Chocolate flour less biscuit, the feuilletine base, the Irish Cream, the Gianduja Cream, the streusel and finally, the dark chocolate glaze. It started off really alright, we were all weighing the ingredients required for the first item, and subsequently, the 5 of us was always at the same station at about the same time taking the same ingredients to do the next component. I found myself being the last at everything. I was the last to put my cake into the blast freezer to freeze, to bake, to chill etc.
To top it off, my bowls from the station was slightly different from the usual bowls. I have a few too small bowls that can't be used for beating or whisking, and the big bowls are way too large to blanchir just 40g of egg yolks with sugar. Thank goodness my neighbour, Top helped me so much, I'm eternally grateful to him for life.
He allowed me to use his bowls which he didn't have any use for it, and also allowed me to use his pots and bain marie for my own needs. He even help me prepare sieve and bowl for my glaze after he was done with his cake and have already presented his work.
I saved valuable time with his help, which at that point of time, I was pretty much 15 minutes late for presentation. This cake is super duper busy. Even back when we had it just for practical, it was already busy, let alone we still have to do everything now, on our own.
At one point though, I've got to admit, I nearly breakdown because I was already late, and yet, I still have two ingredients not scaled yet for my glaze. At that very moment, my mind just went blank, stunned for a few seconds. All I can see was the boxes of different variety of chocolates, big bowls of egg whites and yolks, butter in the bucket, weighing scales, and then I was clutching on my bowl, but my hands just won't move to collect the things I need.
Even Top, my classmate could see that my hand was shaking when I was transferring the cake over to the cardboard. That was a first - I'm not exactly known for having shaky hands.
But boy, I'm glad it was all over. I pretty much remembered on every single technique required for the cake, and hence for my technique scores, I had better scores as compared to my basic term. In fact, I was so much better than in Basic Term. =) Overall, I'm pretty happy about my cake, and my opera writing.
And that marks the end of my long 3 hours of exam.
A group shot of Group C. After a long 3 months together, I've come to appreciate my classmates better, and realised that with them, Mew and myself actually pushed ourselves so much harder because this group is intensively progressive, fast and really in great form.
Then, in the afternoon today, I went for the final demo class held by Chef Willy, who was to present his special chef' creation.
We watched a DVD on all the talented pastry chefs from France, in French, and watched in awe the beautiful, marvellous creations they have done. I particularly fell in love with one of the revisite Paris Brest they have done, and am looking forward to baking that at home this time round.
While we were watching the documentary, Chef Willy and a few assistant was prepping the dessert plates for every single one of us. I was honoured and quite proud of that! I mean, Chef Willy wor! Plating desserts for us! Heehee!!
He presented to us, a lovely plated dessert consisting of tomato molecular biscuit, meringues, sugar flakes, raspberry pieces, which is separated using Nitrogen, streusel, dollop of sour cream, greek yogurt and a nice Raspberry-Beetroot sorbet. Which is a unique combination, but interesting!
We also have pieces of Fromage Yogurt Ice cream to taste, and it was heavenly! Subtle tastes, making me wish it was bigger than just a small mini pebble stone size.
Here, he was trying to create the 'fog' effect for us to take photos.
But of course, there was a huge crowd around the table, and this is the best I could get from my angle. =)
After which, Chef announced the top 5 for the term, and all 5 was from my class!!! =)) I was super pleased for each and everyone of them, but was also slightly disappointed that I wasn't there as well. I had great hopes, but of course, I hope to do better next term! =)
Then, as with last term, we started taking photos.
Here's Jane, Mew & myself with Chef Willy. The chef that have some disillusions problem, thinking that he is a Muay Thai fighter on some days, and a Ninja on the next few days.
Mew and Jane. Sabeel, Mew and Myself.
Intermediate Group C with Chef Aum, one of the most friendly Chefs ever in school =)
L-R Top row: Earn, Gerald, Mo, Chef Aum, Beatrice (1st for IP), Way.
L-R Bottom row: Sine (4th), Top (3rd), Neaw, Hazel, Mew, Myself, Thon, Prapone (5th) and A (2nd).
One more, with Chef Marc and Chef Willy.
Ending off this post with a picture of a candid shot!
Now that I'm already done with my Intermediate level, the next term is going to be so much harder. There will be sugar show pieces to work on, and the examinations is completely different from what it is now. I hope my limited hands on sessions in class will enable me to do well for the exams. That's all I ask for.
For now, I'm going to just take this short trip back home to fully recharge myself before I come back for Superior. Until then, I hope to be able to update soon on what new bake goods I will be trying my hands on!
Till then! =)
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