Case of the Cordon BLUES

A gloomy peace this morning with it brings. And what a tearful 24 hours it has been. As you may have guessed, the cuisine exam did not go well. And now you know that I am a rather dramatic mourner of all things lost in testing situations.

I was given a break, or so I thought, and pulled the beef as my test recipe. I will spare you the long drawn out details of how and where I went wrong, how I couldn't get anything right, and how despite getting the easiest of the 3 recipes, I still managed to run 2 minutes late (costing me 2% points per minute off my score). This is all acceptable, until the shocking news arrived: the judges had made a horrifying discovery on my plate. It arrived to the table with a hair hidden in the carrots... Not only could this hair never have come from my head, but there was absolutely no sign of it when I checked the plate prior to leaving the kitchen. Eat your heart out lemon sole; when chef returned with this news, I was the gutted one.



And so this morning reared it's ugly head and for the first time, in I can't remember when, I had to forgo contacts for glasses.
Assessing the damage done to my living room from the previous post-assessment evening: a kicked bottle of Bordeux, two bloodied and beef-jus-stained aprons, a cell phone convulsing on the last legs of low battery, and a barrage of increasingly depressing and indecipherable text messages to anyone and everyone who would listen, I realized I was acting more like a carnivorous beast than the distinguished culinary student I am supposed to be.

With that (and with a big fat Please Forgive Me gift in route to my husband's office) I stumbled into my kitchen to resurrect another fallen hero...



With a clear disdain for travel of any kind (see their previous appearance), these pate a choux swans have become my Stay-at-Home-Swans. Let's just hope that if I get these Homebody Birds on the pastry exam they'll be suffering from a rare case of cabin fever and relish an outing to the schools patisserie...


Chantilly Crack


Ducks in a Rows


Squawk Box


Love Birds


Darcy Jones

Foray into the Foret

As the semester draws to a close I am ever more sensitive to the heat of the kitchen. The pressure is on to not just finish, but to finish strong.

So now it's time to get serious. Seriously sweet that is.


Tis the season of Creams, Cakes, and Chocolate.

This week marked a battle with genoise. Genoise, or sponge cake, is a lot like a difficult child really, you have to trick the sponge's meringue into thinking that you are not incorporating the dry ingredients, and if it's on to you it will do everything in it's power to resist. This means that if you do not fold gently, carefully, and conservatively, you are well screwed. The batter will suck all the volume out of the whipped egg whites, and your cake will collapse in the oven. This is the moment when the chef feels most like a hated babysitter.



So when not being beaten, battered, and broken I was confronting the Conan of chocolate cake:

Gateau Foret Noire (the famous Black Forest Cake).



Now it's not necessarily the most posh cake in terms of polished presentation, but this homey delight is so decadent and delicious that it will make you question why you ever order dessert out. It's just that good. Traditionally, the chocolate sponge layers are soaked in a Kirsch simple syrup, and separated by layers of Kirsch marinated Griotte cherries reduced to a compote.

But here is my culinary, or rather confectionary, confession: I hate Kirsch.

Even the smell of this intensely strong liquor makes me look for the ladies room. So in a culinary covert operation, I snuck fresh raspberries into the fruit layer in place of the cherries, and neglected to add the Kirsch to the simple syrup. And I have to tell you that while my adapted Black Forest may run the risk of being black listed by Le Cordon Bleu, I think this rogue confection beats the original at it's own game.



Even my husband, who hates chocolate, finished off nearly half of the cake in a two round sneak attack on our fridge last Friday night. And that's all the proof I need.



*Note: Do not ask me what is going on with the chocolate propeller decoration. Not my finest moment. It was 10:30pm and the purpose was to learn how to temper chocolate for Transfer Sheets. But yes, I am aware that the cake looks like it's about to take off. C'est la vie.



Darcy Jones

Sojourn with the Swans of Chantilly

It was an evening of eclairs that began with a creme chantilly cocktail, and ended with a flock of swans in my foyer.

I realize that I just painted a picture for you that sounds something like the movie The Hangover so let me start again.

Three words: Pate a Choux, or Choux-Pastry. The name derives from the pastry's baked appearance: when cooked the pastry surface resembles the head of a cabbage (or at least some ancient french chef believed so). Regardless, choux-pastry is one of the cornerstones of French Patisserie, and can weigh about a stone when filled with coffee Creme Patissiere and covered with chocolate fondant.



Choux Pastry is an incredibly satisfying thing to make if you are a baker, for it doubles in volume in a warm oven in under 30 minutes. Considering the near 48hrs it takes to make brioche, this is remarkably swift and satiating. Once cooked, Choux Pastry can also be successfully frozen and defrosted to then be filled and served. Hence the array of fresh eclairs, Paris brests, religieuses, and salambos found in any pastry shop each day.

It was quite seamless in the kitchen tonight. I wouldn't quite say 'ballerina stage' (the term used to describe the beauty of an organized and skilled chef who works about the kitchen as though his every move were part of a choreographed dance), but some of us have definitely found a rhythm.

I have made some personal progress in the patisserie. Today my eclairs (pictured above) won Best In Show, or in class at least, and my family of swans received a resounding honorable mention.


Family Cygnes

So sailing home at half past 10, glowing with the success of my good grade, and delighting in the prospect of a late dinner of prize-winning dessert, I missed the door step and proceeded to set my swans free to fly all the way across the front hall floor.

"Those babies can really move across the sky..."
Image not available.

As for them? At least you knew them at their best... As for me? Seems I need to work on my footwork in and out of the kitchen.



In Memoriam

Darcy Jones