About Today – Day 1 of Practical Exam

I was sitting in my apartment staring blankly, just got back from school.  I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular, rather I wasn’t even thinking.  I was tired but relaxed because today went well.

Last night I had one hour sleep, must have too much going on in my mind, I woke up feeling far far away(?).  I told myself everything was going to be great today, every single recipe will turn out as planned.  Hours earlier, all my notes from classes were transfered onto my finals sheet, I visualised how each recipe looked today and they looked great in my mental rehearsal.  I primed myself to just go for it. 

(continued writing after waking up 2 hours later) … 

Last night, I practised my favorite lemon tart and italian meringue piping – but I am waiting to feed my neighbour, I was so tempted to eat it but I just measured out 100g of sugar that went into the cream so decided not to; I thought through my moka cake design and had the idea past midnight so I started practising chocolate piping from paper cone.  Earlier I had wanted cocoa flakes but didn’t find any so I thought of making moka graham biscuit crumbs but I wasn’t  ready to risk it for the finals, now I have a batch of graham biscuit stored in my oven;  I practised piping on the cake, scraped off, did again … and again, and my cake looked so badly abused but inspirational – the more I stared at it, some ideas started to flow. Ha!  (Pictures will be posted only after finals, anyway I left the camera in school).

When I got home yesterday, I felt lousy and I psyched myself to focus on today which is the real stuff.  All my revision in class just went haywire a day earlier, it was good though - it just couldn’t be worse.  Forget about the day earlier.

Today, I psyched myself before each recipe and literally thankful after completion of each.  The one thing I wasn’t satisfied was the choux paste, I love piping choux … the paste came up right today.  I was looking hard into the mixing bowl as I spinned one egg a time – the day before my choux was lumpy and I never had lumps before so other than puzzled, I was frus then about the result – I sensed someone behind me but I thought it was my partner Jennifer so I focused on dropping the egg in 1 by 1, still staring into the mixing bowl.  Suddenly I jumped when I realised it was Chef who was behind me observing.  The result after baking was a big disappointment.  Chef observed the result before, so he suggested it could be due to overcrowding in the oven in the cuisine lab.  Not sure if I would redo my choux, will decide after I complete the rest tomorrow.

Got my Theory result back – it is at 90% – 27 correct answers of 30 questions.  I actually got a wrong answer for a joconde biscuit - thought I had done many times in class. Hmm… 

Chocolate – my “heart” finally dislodged from the mold.  Yes!  I caused a hairline crack in the first one when i tapped the centre too hard.  I turned to Sarah and asked if she heard anything, she nodded, I checked my “heart” and found my “heart” was slightly cracked in the centre.  While tempering the chocolate, I decided to complete some chocolate piping for my moka cake design, halfway through there was signs of chocolate cooling off, I dumped it into the microwave oven, i guessed a tad too long at about 10s coz the second batch didn’t set just as well.  The prep for the rest went pretty well.

You know, tomorrow will be another great day!  Has to be.  The reduced butter in this brioche recipe made the brioche taste yummy, and every piece that I shape will look as it should tomorrow… lemon cream … pastry cream and moka butter cream and cake.  It will turn out great!

Again wish me great and keep me in your thought.