Whirlwind of a Week

Good to see you all, I hope life is treating you well.

It’s just me again, sitting in my room and contemplating what life would be like without sweet things. I have come to the conclusion that life would be utterly horrible without cake, or chocolate or delicious pavlova.  But then again I am very biased since I am training to be a pastry chef, none the less I still think life would be boring without dessert.

Just like life would be boring without dessert it would also be boring without stressful situations and difficulties. The most recent difficulty I have faced was just yesterday when I had my first practical assessment for the paper ‘Foundation Pastries’. Let me talk you through my horrible, stressful yet very rewarding day: It all started when my alarm didn’t go off and instead of waking up to my alarm at 5.45am I was awoken by noisy girls in the bathroom, which I thought was very strange since I was usually the first one up. So I looked at the time on my phone and it said 6.50am, I had to be at AUT at 7.30am sharp. I was mortified to say the least. I literally leaped out of bed put clothes on, splashed my face with water and sprinted out of the house without having breakfast, brushing my teeth, having a shower, or doing my hair. It was a very low point in my life. Luckily I made it to the bus stop just as the next bus was pulling up, I was freaking out about being late so I sprinted from the bus stop to the changing rooms. I looked terrible, I probably smelled terrible but I made it on time with 2 minutes to spare.

Everything was going great through the assessment, I was half an hour ahead of schedule and I was in a rhythm, less stressed and actually enjoying the chaos around me. Until I decided to glance into the oven and notice my Pitivier was a disaster. The entire inside had oozed out from the pastry and it looked like someone had sat on it then decided to trample on it a little. So as usual I panicked. So much for cool, calm and collected. I ran up to the chef and asked if I could possibly have some more puff pastry, which he kindly gave to me. Feeling like I was going to faint from the heat, having no breakfast and stressing out, I put my head down and whipped up another pitivier in 10 minutes.  While that was baking I finished off my choux buns, fruit flan and even had time to do some dishes. Luckily my pitivier came out of the oven just in time and looked 100% better than the first one I made.

It was judging time, by that point I was so emotionally and physically exhausted all I wanted was to pass and get out of that kitchen. The chef came over; inspected and very much surprised me by giving me…  a 98% overall mark!! I was so relieved and over the moon that I had accomplished that mark. Now that it’s over I can relax and look forward to learning all about cakes in our next paper.

Speaking of which I made a mistake in my last blog, I thought we were doing the sponges, torten and gateaux paper next but we are actually doing the foundation cakes paper. I am so extremely excited for this next paper and will put some recipes up that we have learned next week.

So that was my stressful yet rewarding week, I apologise for the lack of recipes but because of the last two weeks being filled with assessment work I have none to share with you. 

Let me know if you have any questions about pastry, the recipes I have shared with you, or if there are any recipes in particular you would want me to put up.

Have a great week and remember without stressful situations we wouldn’t appreciate the wonderful things in life… Like dessert.

B.