Articles from December 2022

We were lucky with the weather….

An early start, and amazingly everything packed into the car (just). The freezer was emptied the night before, transferred to the neighbour across the landing who I think was expecting a few containers of ice cream and certainly got that (6 flavours) but also a whole chocolate hazelnut ice cream cake and some pieces of other ice cream cakes …. it was a shame ice cream week was so late in the course. At least it found an appreciative home! We baked the pizza and the remaining dosa for lunch and headed out on the road at 6 a.m. Lovely sunrise in the relentless sunny Las Vegas Valley…

A sixteen hour day saw us out of Nevada and traversing California via Bakersfield, north of Los Angeles. We elected the coastal route to avoid snow and for the most part succeeded though fog provided some tough driving on the coast once we got through the pass down from Tehachapi. Very dense at times, and people drove far too fast to be able to stop in time if there was something ahead…. It relented at Fresno, but seemed to take forever to get to Sacramento after that. We passed miles of heavily laden orange trees, and leapfrogged with a pickup truck heaped high with oranges. I lucked into the outer lane at one point at a roadworks stretch where the lanes were separated and we marvelled at the miles long stretch of congestion in the inner lane – the poor souls were eventually diverted onto a parallel road and had to work their way back through a traffic light back onto the highway. I reckon we saved an hour there by good luck….

The temperature dropped dramatically at sunset and Debbie navigated carefully through the curves in Mt. Shasta park. The water levels in Shasta Lake were stunningly low, with “waterfront property” a thing of the past, houses and cabins now perched well above a rocky rim with a precipitous drop below to the lake. Mt. Shasta was gorgeous, snow covered and illuminated by moonlight. Not much fun driving at night but we were headed for Eugene Oregon where a booked hotel was awaiting us and finally crossed the Oregon border. Our first gas up there revealed that you are not allowed to self-serve gas – by law it has to be done by an attendant, who had no idea why but when the pump would only eke out gas slowly it was suddenly okay to finish the pumping ourselves (cold and foggy out again at this point). We eventually rolled into Eugene and with a couple of U-turns were finally at the hotel… definitely ready to crash.

Another early start saw us reach the border in early afternoon after some interesting rain deluges, mixed rain and snow, dry and sunny (Seattle 6C and of course the express lanes were closed for the week before Xmas for roadwork – happily only a short slow down). Snow started just south of Bellingham but the roads were eminently driveable, and mostly cleared, all the way to the border – where we breezed through and it was imminently evident that BC wasn’t doing any road clearing. What a contrast, and what a mess – the same storm that wasn’t presenting a problem in Bellingham and north was paralzing Vancouver, yet again. The main artery to Vancouver, Highway 99, had clearly not been plowed at any point making driving extremely treacherous – it was a nailbiting trip up to East Vancouver to drop Debbie off, and then turn around and get back to Tsawwassen before too many cars started to spin out and plug up the routes…. Of course, with no plowing and consistent traffic it soon compacted and became sheets of ice underneath, so was very happy to tuck the SUV into the garage at home for the night.

First tasks of arrival were to top up the hot tub, which had stopped circulating as the water level had dropped below minimum (slow leak discovered shortly before I left, no time to fix), and I worked hard to get the yuzu and mandarins covered for the winter before dark as the predicted lows surpassed the living range of those trees (particularly young, not quite established trees). Thanks again to my friend Dean, who constructed bean obelisks earlier in the year for the garden which doubled as patio light supports/frame for Remay – much easier than the system I used last year of tomato supports.

I waited out the horrendous rush hour(s) and traffic horror on the roads today post freezing (the snow froze into sheet ice and traffic was either crawling, or spinning out and blocking the route during rush hour – predictable) before retrieving Kasha from Pitt Meadows. Truly awful road conditions in sections but happily not too much traffic… Kasha was happy to see me, friendly but not ecstatic and willingly but not eagerly came away with me. She has obviously had a great vacation as well!

Snow is falling hard as I write, predicted to continue all night and the thing that is most obvious is the SILENCE. After so long in a big city, and an apartment complex where you can hear neighbours, it is blissful. Not only is snow a sound absorber, there is nobody out there driving around!

And so the adventure ends.

Packing up and heading to the great white north tomorrow – finished with a graduation ceremony, a large sized certificate from the State of Nevada, a glass of champagne and a lot of pastry tasting. I rolled out in a near sugar coma and fortuitously met my neighbour on the way in, gifting him many containers of different flavoured ice cream and a chocolate hazelnut ice cream cake….

And it is goodbye to the chocolate crocodile in our lunchroom!

Tomorrow Debbie (Étienne’s partner) and I head off to the great white north. Hard to believe the course is over!

It is the Amaury show this week, apparently no hands on apart from scaling for the week this a.m. The week’s schedule is demos of his signature pieces, though I tried hard to get us some hands on experience doing sugar globes as it sounded like we were going to be released early today (a no go but people appreciated the attempt).

We blasted through the scaling in an hour though it was expected we would take all morning to do it. Yay team! As a reward, after scaling we were sent to finish deep cleaning, and then a Q&A with Amaury. Lunch was supposed to be followed by the first demo of his signature pieces (compass, clock, taco, cigar, coconut, mushroom, pavolova, and drum) but there was a drop in from the head of Chef Rubber and Cristophe Rull ( US chocolate champion, French origin) who gave us their life stories, a pep talk/reality check about the industry and rewards from it, and offered a Q&A. Good I think for the young aspiring chefs, especially as so many of them want to open their own bakeries. Tough life, as most people are not willing to pay for good pastries.

The relentless sunshine continued, although the overnights are getting chilly enough for reports of ice on the windshields when the cars aren’t parked under cover. Out cycling on Saturday I was initially regretting just wearing a sweater and not my rain jacket as well, which cuts wind better – there was a bit of a breeze and it was definitely chilly in the sweater. But by the time I went up a few hills, and the sun was higher, it was a moot point, back to warmth and overheated! Though I never did take off my sweater, on the way back it was definitely tempting.

The trail was pretty as always, and more people out than I usually see. At the main wetland visitor centre (which the cyclists bypass) there was a cleanup crew busy at work picking up garbage and debris. Apart from the usual careless and thoughtless human littering, flash floods bring a lot of debris down, including things like refrigerators, tires, etc., hence intermittent cleanups are needed. The preserve is a living filter system for the water as it runs through to Lake Mead, and so very important to curate. Only one roadrunner visibly out today, scurrying across the trail.

When home, LaTrek was dissassembled and put to bed in her suitcase in the afternoon, ready for her next adventure. Packing has begun! 5 more sleeps….

Sunday saw more packing, a nearly last foray to Trader Joe’s for veggies and dairy, and pickup of Debbie at the airport. Mystere (Cirque de Soleil) in the evening was pretty amazing – weird as all their shows, but this one more traditionally acrobatics and gymnastics, and the performers were fabulous. Debbie hasn’t been to Las Vegas as an adult, so some time was taken on the strip to see enough to repell her for the next ten years….no time to take her to see the good stuff, the outdoors within reach of the city.

And, another first for me here today – we had actual rain! Heavy at times, but by the time we got out of Mystere the roads were completely dry and the clouds had gone.

And so we enter the last week of the course…

A picture is worth a thousand words so enjoy the pictures! My freezer literally cannot fit any more.

Sooooo much fun making these entremets, and some of them are to die for….can’t wait to get home to play in the kitchen….

A real feeling of wrapping up – class picture, and thoughts moving to home and Christmas, as well as future plans for most of these folk. Pop-up quiz today identified real progress on my part from the beginning of the class. Seven more sleeps to go….

We finished our first cake today – Chocolate mousse surrounding layers of: chocolate sponge; raspberry confit; crunchy feullitine layer; chocolate sponge; sweet pastry disc.

It was given a dark chocolate mirror glaze with a crunchy chocolate collar yesterday. No credit to us for the finishing touch today, though it was fascinating watching the water cutter do its magic on a sheet of chocolate, making the decorations. They were carefully sprayed and placed atop our masterpieces… Happily got a picture before transporting it home during which one side was damaged in the container. I’m positive it will still taste good!

The process of layering continued most of the day, with each cake getting layers added one at a time, into the freezer in between to make the joining easier. The need for good organizational skills was evident once more, though generally so many different varieties would not be simultaneously in production.

We mirror glazed the fingerlings with different coloured mirror glazes, and put them onto sweet pastry cutouts we had made yesterday.

The opera cake was assembled and remains to be glazed tomorrow – interesting to see such a different way of assembling.

And finally, we learned how to make more chocolate decorations, again of different colours, shapes and sizes, and will put the finishing touches on everything tomorrow for the buffet.

Stay tuned!

The layers are mounting – pistachio joconde is now soaked with exotic fruit syrup and then topped with 2 exotic mousse/pistachio sponge layers, mango pineapple crémeux layer, an exotic mousse layer then pistachio sponge… (seven layers so far).

Opera cake is in construction. Amused to see the coffee syrup here was made from instant coffee in a jar, whereas I carefully brew many cups of espresso in my best machine with good coffee beans to make up the coffee base. Will be interested to see how this one tastes. It was described as “French tiramisu”….

Dark chocolate mousse now surrounds our two layers of chocolate sponge sandwiched with crunchy hazelnut, raspberry confit and milk chocolate mousse, and it has been given a mirror glaze coating and a sweet pastry disc base. Decorations yet to come.

Carrot cake was baked and layered with mango passionfruit crémeux then creamcheese mousse with a side covering of pressed sablé.

And so the day went on…. Layer this one, freeze it, prepare another mousse, refrigerate it, use another mousse to surround the layers in another smaller finger, freeze that. Interesting stuff, and very useful. Some experimentation is in the offing with quince flavouring when I get back!

Good organizational skills are a requirement of a successful pastry chef, especially with respect to time management. The planning that goes into these classes is pretty impressive, and our current teacher is clearly a master of this (the same chef that managed ten different types of bread simultaneously when we were doing bread week). I suspect really good things could happen if one got him in charge of an ER ….

We were sent home with raspberry, caramel, pistachio, raspberry, chocolate and vanilla éclairs made yesterday.

Decorating and assembling will occupy most of tomorrow and Friday. Stay tuned for the spectacular buffet.

Genoa Bread, genoise, dacqouise, Joconde. Hazelnut, chocolate editions of same.

And the best Paris Brest I’ve tried outside of France. Yummm. Look forward to sharing that one!

We are making the building blocks of what I suspect will be a flurry of variations on Thursday and Friday and a spectacular buffet. More Crémeux produced today to showcase the variation between using different firming agents; citrus crémeux using yuzu and kalamansi smelt heavenly.

We made chocolate mousse and inserted our layered cake from yesterday in a mould to be surrounded by the mousse layer.

Speculoos cookies and sweet paste for the bottoms of the entremets were produced – the speculoos cookies were delicious! A Belgian specialty.

We decorated eclairs at the end of the day and learned about the various options. I was happy to learn that the ones we made are freezer friendly, from glaze to filling.

And at lunch we got a taste of the chocolate bomb made last week (layers of vanilla and chocolate icecream with a raspberry insert, glazed and surrounded by mini macarons, on a Sablé Breton base), and the gluten free brownie dessert.

My partner was absent today and the ingredient I got today to scale for all the recipes was…. sugar. Regular, powdered, brown, and invert sugar. And just because that wasn’t enough, almond powder as well (used in ALL the sponges). Happily classmates are great at stepping in to help because, good grief, I had three rows of marking tape spread from one side of my table to the other with labels for the scaling!

It was a busy day!

Making the building blocks for Layered Delights to come – Crémeux of many flavours (vanilla, chocolate, raspberry, pistachio, caramel, passionfruit/mango) and some was used to fill éclairs.

Moist chocolate sponge was made, and Chocolate Dacquoise piped into rings, baked then covered with croustillant (basically a crunchy chocolate layer) then topped with raspberry confit, then another dacquoise layer – to be continued tomorrow with insertion into a mousse and then likely glazed and decorated.

Lessons in glazing – chocolate glaze made today, with a review of neutral glaze.

We bid adieu to Chef Francoise who heads back to France until the next class. We are in the final countdown (9 days left) before course completion and all are racking their brains for secret Santa gifts – what do you give someone you don’t know well, who has no room in their luggage and is leaving the next day on a plane?…. that eliminates the neutral bottle of wine, the edibles, and anything bulky….

On Saturday I headed south towards Rivers Mountain Trail, near Lake Mead/Boulder City – weather forecast had a predicted high of 18C, and sunny skies. It started out cloudy but soon cleared and roads were quiet even though I left relatively late (8:30 a.m.). Had originally intended to head again north of town towards Lee Canyon in Mt. Charleston Park but further research showed it wasn’t a low altitude canyon as I had thought, rather was the ski resort which I hadn’t found last trip! As ski season is starting there this weekend, an abort seemed prudent…

With only a brief detour due to wrong turn the trailhead was easily found. Those highway diverging points are very confusing as the highway number labels are constantly changing even when you continue on the same road – Richa can attest to this… It was rated at the trailhead as moderately challenging to strenuous – not sure that agrees with my experience, it was a lovely, gradual and well marked trail that switchbacked steadily up the valley and the hill. Blissfully quiet, surprising for such a lovely trail with nice views at the top…Perfect temp for hiking comfortably in capris and short sleeves. Still only four cars in the parking lot when I got down; ?was everyone Xmas shopping? Lovely interlude with bonus vistas and a workout in the warm sunshine.

Sunday saw the usual trek to Wetlands Preserve to ride the desert trail and around to Las Vegas Lake. Lovely as usual, and the roadrunners were out in force – saw 6 of them in different parts. Getting the hang of the trail except for that one pesky hill that always makes me hike up – too short a run-up to it, and too steep to get the bouncy LaTrek up it… knocked a bit of time off today, though. I was optimistic and shed my leg warmers at the far end of the trail, so had to keep moving to keep warm – it was 16C when I was out but not super warm for short sleeves and shorts.

Have only had very brief showers in Las Vegas the entire 8 weeks here – one solitary morning where the roads got a little wet, but nothing more. The mountains have seen some snow, though.

A brief stop at Ethel M’s chocolate factory on the way home to check it out – a botanical cactus garden was advertised as part of it. It was a HUGE complex, with a window to watch production which today was chocolate bars and panning. Gigantic machinery and everything done by automation… prices were not cheap, they were charging $2.50 per piece. I was intrigued by the one labelled “silky prickly pear cream” so tried it out – tiny bonbon with crude red cocoa colouring, it didn’t snap, the walls were too thick but the ganache flavour was good – floral and citrus together, although a bit too sweet for my taste. A 5/10, and the colouring of the others was also pretty basic. Definitely for the mass production market, albeit better quality than “Pot of Gold” types…. The cactus garden was decked out with Xmas lights, I suspect a nice display at night, and was big – pleasant sitting in a corner of the garden soaking up some rays and listening to the birds in the Joshua Tree singing, happily louder than the cheesy Xmas music being piped throughout. Good display of cactus, at least what could be seen through the Xmas decor!

And so we head into the second to last week, entremets, one of the modules I’ve been looking forward to….