Wow. Superior Pastry. I can’t believe we’ve already come to my
third and final term at Le Cordon Bleu!
Anyway – As you can
imagine, I (and all of my classmates) was incredibly excited to jump right
in. The Wednesday after Easter was our
first scheduled class, marked a “Lecture” on the calendar. Since lectures are typically 3-hour seminars
centered around a specific topic, I assumed we would be learning all about
sugar, sugar showpieces, and the composition of Isomalt (the sugar substitute
we will be using this term to do our sugar work).
It turns out that I was
completely wrong. In Superior, evidently
“Lecture” stands for “Demo,” so we got our wish to jump right in, and Chef
Hervé started with the first lesson.
Leçon 101
Our first Demo was just
like any other. There was no pomp and circumstance
or fancy “welcome back”s. There was just
one extra little box, written in red marker, on the whiteboard that read:
“Organization
Communication
MEP ========> “WELCOME TO SUPERIOR LEVEL”
Hygiene, Speed
SKETCH”
With this reminder of
the high level of performance we are expected to deliver (now more than ever),
Chef Hervé continued with the demonstration.
It was on a Bûche de Noël that was composed of mousses and creams (as
opposed to the one made of cake and butter cream that we tackled in Basic) and
a Soufflé Chaud au Chocolat served with vanilla ice cream (our first time
making ice cream in a practical). We
were expected to make everything the Chef showed us, right down to the little
Italian Meringue mushrooms that perch atop the Christmas Log, so our practical
classes would forever be extended from three hours to five. We are also now required to sketch all of our
plated desserts and use those sketches in class. So, for this practical class, we were to make
a large Christmas Log, a plated version, two chocolate Soufflés, and a batch of
vanilla ice cream. The Soufflés were
done in groups of two, so they went pretty quickly.
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| Chef's Soufflés with ice cream |
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| Chef's Christmas Log's. They are made of chocolate mousse with a vanilla cream filling running through the center, all encased in chocolate glaze. |
The practical went well
for me. My partner Quinn and I rushed
through the Soufflés to move on to more important things (namely: getting the
vanilla chiboust cream which was to nest in the center of our logs molded so
that it would have enough time to set in the freezer) and we were both successful. My plated dessert was a little too small and
it was mirrored from my sketch (a big no-no in the Chef’s eyes); our Soufflés
stuck to the edge a little, but tasted great; and Chef Hervé liked my
mushrooms. Even though things seemed to
go well for Quinn and me (and everyone else, I thought), evidently it wasn’t a
good day overall.
At the end of the
class, the Chef gathered us at the end of the kitchen and told us how
disappointed he was. He said that he had
heard good things about our class and that he was severely underwhelmed. It was terrible to get the “I’m so
disappointed in you” speech on the first day…especially after I thought it went
so well.
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| My Soufflé |
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| He's a handsome little bugger! |
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| My sketch. Notice that the little geometric trees are above the log, not below it. |
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| My plated dessert. It's a little too small, and Chef didn't like that it wasn't laid out the same as my sketch |
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| ...but he liked my mushrooms. |
Bistro Class
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| Always important to be able to identify crockery! |
In the Superior level,
we have a few extra requirements. We
have one extra class in the school’s four-and-a-half-star restaurant, “Signatures
at Le Cordon Bleu,” where we learn about what it entails to work in the
front-of-house in a fine dining establishment.
Seven of my classmates and I were scheduled to have this class together
in the first week – perfect!
I didn’t know what to
expect, since we were scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon (when the Bistro is
closed). We came in our uniform jackets
and black pants, and met the Maître D’ in the front lobby. He handed us a thick packet (a textbook of
sorts) to review in a private room while he got everything arranged for our
class.
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| Lists like this one (in our large educational packet for the bistro class) were usually pretty entertaining |
Yan invited us to come
shadow him one night when the bistro is open to see all that he had taught us
in action, and I intend to definitely take him up on that.
Leçon 102
After Chef Hervé made
it clear to us that the first lesson was an easy one to get us re-adjusted, he
proceeded to show us the two cakes we were to make in Lesson 2: “Entremets aux
Fruits Rouges, Crème Mousseuse au Chocolat Blanc” (a pistachio dacquoise-based
white chocolate mousse cake with a layer of raspberry) and “Pain de Gènes à la
Crème Mascarpone, Cocktail de Fruits Exotiques” (almond sponge cake with
mascarpone cream and exotic fruits).
They seemed straightforward enough, but the Chefs always make things
look much easier than they actually are.
For the practical, we were to make both cakes, each with a corresponding
plated dessert. For the plated desserts,
we are given pretty much complete freedom.
They just have to be creative and tasteful and correctly portioned and
interesting (scary!).
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| Chef's mousse cake |
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| Chef's plated desserts, complete with some basic sugar work |
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| Chef's almond cake |
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| The inside of the mousse cake. From bottom to top: Pistachio Dacquoise, White Chocolate Mousse, Raspberry Disc, White Chocolate Mousse, White Chocolate Glaze |
With Chef Hervé’s
disappointment speech still fresh in my mind, I was determined to do some great
work. I studied the recipes and spent a
lot of time designing my sketches. I was
prepared, even with Bistro Duty occupying most of my evening (see below).
In short: it just wasn’t
my day. The class started out
great. I was quickly knocking steps off
of my ordered list, and the recipes were flying by. I think I was going a little too fast,
though, or I was too determined to make Chef Hervé proud. I nearly forgot a simple step in one of the
creams (but caught myself). Then, I cut
myself (for the first time!) while unmolding my raspberry disc. I forgot a step in the Gènoa cake, so I had
to backtrack a little, and I dropped my small mousse cake after glazing
(leaving a large hole in the top which looked like the poor little guy got his
head bashed in). I don’t know where my
head was, but there is a happy ending:
My finished products were great.
I was very happy with my plates (and the Chef complimented both of them,
even saying that he “really likes” my Gènoa plate), and the Chef liked all four
of my products. Even though it was an
off-day, I was able to turn out nice desserts, which was encouraging.
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| My plated almond cake. Chef really liked the design! |
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| My first taste of sugar work: A fan that stands up on the plate. |
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| My mousse cake. Chef liked the simplicity of the design |
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| My almond cake |
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| My products from the class: a successful five hours! |
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| Looks like the sketch! The chocolate isn't attached to the cake; it's a cage that surrounds it. |
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| See? |
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| I had to sprinkle the top with pistachios to cover up the chunk I took out by dropping the little guy |
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| After cutting myself, I had to wear this mini finger glove. It didn't really get in the way for the rest of the class, though it did get some red glaze on it at one point and looked pretty gruesome. |
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| I was the sous-chef for the class (coming in a few minutes early to help set up the student stations and organize ingredients and equipment), so Chef gave me this sugar rose that he pulled to pass the time. |
The best part: After class, Chef rounded us up at the end
of the kitchen and said that he was proud of us. He said that he didn’t know what happened,
but that if we worked like that all term, we could reach a truly high
level. Awesome!
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| Positivity from the Chef: score! |
Bistro Duty
Along with our
requirement to spend five hours with the Maître D’ of the Bistro learning the
ins and outs of fine dining service, we are also required to work two five-hour
shifts in the Bistro kitchens. We would
work with the professional chefs to prepare the desserts for real live paying
customers. I was excited, but terrified.
Both of my shifts came in the second week, and I was scheduled for one lunch sift and one dinner one.
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| What a huge pot! It had to sit on four burners to make soup. |
I showed up for my lunch
shift expecting to follow a pastry chef around and do menial tasks for him or
her. Maybe I would prepare simple doughs
or rotate things through the oven and put them in their proper place. When I arrived, I discovered that there is no
pastry chef on duty for the lunch shift, so I was THE pastry person in the
restaurant.
I was scared witless.
Chef Yannick Anton, the
head of the Bistro kitchen, welcomed me with a slightly-sinister grin, then
verbally gave me a list of what I was going to be doing that day. He was so nonchalant about it, “Make an
exotic fruit salad. Make mango coulis and raspberry coulis. Make almond
tuilles. Start the raspberry mousse for
tonight, but I’ll finish it. Trim the
swiss chard.” He just listed things off
and left. There were no recipes, there
was no list on paper. I was confused for
a minute, but then I got dutifully to work on an exotic fruit salad. I found a few mangos, a pineapple, and a box
of kiwis, trimmed and diced them, sprinkled them with some salt and fresh lime
juice and voilà! Fruit Salad. I chatted with one of the chefs in the back,
and he promised to help me out. I made
almond tuilles and started the raspberry mousse; I trimmed swiss chard. I made “apple sushi” and fetched ingredients
from the basement. I did what I was
asked when I was asked. It was actually
a whole lot of fun to have so much responsibility. They trusted me in the kitchen.
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| One of the desserts for supper service |
When lunch orders
started coming in, the kitchen came alive.
We had been prepping things all morning before the Bistro opened, and it
was exciting to see those things start to get plated. Finally, the first dessert order came in. Chef Yannick came back to the pastry station
and plated the first dessert for me as an example: “Exotic Fruit Salad with
Mango Cremeux.” Since lunch is always a
three-course fixed menu, it was the only possible order I would get. His plating was beautiful, and he smiled at
me and said, “Now, they all should look like that.”
They didn’t all look
like that…but I did a nice job. As
orders came in, I quickly and dutifully plated them, set them on a little
counter and yelled “Pick up!” to let the servers know they were ready.
Yan, the Bistro’s Maître D’ was in and out of the kitchen (just like he taught us in our bistro class), and he would smile at me with encouragement.
When my lunch shift was
over, I was relieved and satisfied. On
my way out, I met the resident pastry chef in passing as she came in for her
shift. My dinner shift was scheduled for
the next day, so we didn’t spend much time getting to know each other.
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| It was someone's birthday! |
The next evening, after
Chef Hervé’s two-cake pastry demo, I reported for my dinner shift in the Bistro
Kitchen. I met Kat, the pastry chef, and
she gave me my marching orders right before I was to execute them (much easier
to remember than the Chef’s long list).
She tried to show me many aspects of the kitchen, even if they didn’t
need to be done while I was there. I
made chocolate tuilles, made crème anglaise-based ganache, baked tarte shells,
built tartes, rolled out dough and molded it for more tartes. I made ice cream canelles and scaled
ingredients for future use. Kat was
great to work with – she and I have similar personalities and the other chefs
in the kitchen, mostly young and spunky, made jokes about how we also kind of
look like one another.
About once every hour,
Chef Yannick would stroll back into the pastry station and check on our
progress, smiling and making little jokes.
At one point he decided that he wanted to practice pulling sugar, so he
set up a heat lamp back in my station to play around. When dessert orders started coming in, Kat
showed me the plating for all of them, though I didn’t plate any myself. We had a party of 26 who all were getting
crème brûlée (as part of a fixed menu), so I helped to prepare those for
delivery.
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| I helped bake, build, and make components for this four-layer chocolate tart for most of my dinner shift |
In the slow time
(though I was busy making tartes all night), Kat came and chatted with me about
her time in Superior pastry, giving me tips and hints about lessons to
come. It was fun to see photos of her
sugar and chocolate showpieces, and hear her stories of things that could go
wrong.
I felt a connection to
that kitchen. It had a really great
energy and I felt at home working there.
My two required Bistro Kitchen shifts were truly a pleasure, and they
helped me realize that I am definitely in the right industry. I can’t wait until I get a job, and I can
only hope that my future workplace is as laidback and fun as “Signatures at Le
Cordon Bleu.”
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