(no subject)
First day of Advanced Bakeshop today. Felt like fucking forever. It's a 6.5 hour class in the first place (8a-2:30p), but I know it's not so bad because we'll be doing stuff all day.
Except today.
Today we had a 6 hour lecture. On the history of chocolate. We talked about chocolate and cocoa beans from 8am til 2pm. I came home and ranted to my roommate and she asked me an innocent question about why some chocolate is better than others... and I think I talked her ears off for about 10 minutes. I explained the entire manufacturing process of a cocoa bean and about cocoa butter content, and even started to ramble on about those 70/30/36 60/40/35 numbers before I realized all I needed to say was "cocoa butter content and refinement". But I'm a loser like that.
Next Friday, we're making liquid filled truffles. And none of that powdered stuff either... takes too long. I don't remember the exact number Chef gave us, but I didstinctly remember "thousand" being said. That's a lot of fucking truffles. I do believe it's actually more than just ONE thousand, too... I'm pretty sure he said that's all we'll be doing tomorrow and we have to get them done, whether it means staying late or not. Now, if he thinks there's the possibility of staying late... on a 6.5 hour class... that's a whole heckuvalotta truffles. I made truffles before at his bakery. He's got the shells already made up... we pipe the liquid filling in the shells, pipe some tempered chocolate over the bottom to seal it up, then when that's set, we dip each one in a bowl of tempered chocolate and roll it around in our hands until smooth and put it on a sheet pan to set. Then drizzle a contrasting chocolate over them. If we get a good assembly line going, it doesn't take long at all. The only thing is, when I did this, I was one that got to dip the truffles in the chocolate and roll them in my hand. So I, in essence, had my hands in chocolate all day... and it just caked up and caked up... and sometimes I wasn't aware of how far up my arms it ended up getting... and I totally ruined one of my chef coats... there's chocolate stains everywhere. This class is going to be very difficult for me to stay clean in. I have a horrible track record with cocoa powder too. I don't even want to begin on cocoa powder. And Chef takes points off our daily grade if we get chocolate on our uniforms :(
I have homework though... we were give 8 different three-tiered ornaments. We have to draw each one of them 6 times. He grades accuracy, neatness, uniformity, and something else I can't remember, but I don't guess it matters... y'all don't really care. But these things are pretty hard to draw uniformly. And turns out, that's what our Final exam is later on in the course. Once we master drawing them, we begin piping them. And our Final Exam is, we have to pipe 25 of one type of ornament on our work table in a 5x5 grid. When we're done, we leave the room, Chef grades them... each ornament is worth 4 points. We come back in, scrape it all off, and start on the next ornament... 25 in a 5x5 grid. He says our Final Exam takes all day. And it's not even at the end of the semester. We take it with our Midterm. So that's in like, 2 months.
I actually think I'll go get started sketching some... I'm pretty bored.
Except today.
Today we had a 6 hour lecture. On the history of chocolate. We talked about chocolate and cocoa beans from 8am til 2pm. I came home and ranted to my roommate and she asked me an innocent question about why some chocolate is better than others... and I think I talked her ears off for about 10 minutes. I explained the entire manufacturing process of a cocoa bean and about cocoa butter content, and even started to ramble on about those 70/30/36 60/40/35 numbers before I realized all I needed to say was "cocoa butter content and refinement". But I'm a loser like that.
Next Friday, we're making liquid filled truffles. And none of that powdered stuff either... takes too long. I don't remember the exact number Chef gave us, but I didstinctly remember "thousand" being said. That's a lot of fucking truffles. I do believe it's actually more than just ONE thousand, too... I'm pretty sure he said that's all we'll be doing tomorrow and we have to get them done, whether it means staying late or not. Now, if he thinks there's the possibility of staying late... on a 6.5 hour class... that's a whole heckuvalotta truffles. I made truffles before at his bakery. He's got the shells already made up... we pipe the liquid filling in the shells, pipe some tempered chocolate over the bottom to seal it up, then when that's set, we dip each one in a bowl of tempered chocolate and roll it around in our hands until smooth and put it on a sheet pan to set. Then drizzle a contrasting chocolate over them. If we get a good assembly line going, it doesn't take long at all. The only thing is, when I did this, I was one that got to dip the truffles in the chocolate and roll them in my hand. So I, in essence, had my hands in chocolate all day... and it just caked up and caked up... and sometimes I wasn't aware of how far up my arms it ended up getting... and I totally ruined one of my chef coats... there's chocolate stains everywhere. This class is going to be very difficult for me to stay clean in. I have a horrible track record with cocoa powder too. I don't even want to begin on cocoa powder. And Chef takes points off our daily grade if we get chocolate on our uniforms :(
I have homework though... we were give 8 different three-tiered ornaments. We have to draw each one of them 6 times. He grades accuracy, neatness, uniformity, and something else I can't remember, but I don't guess it matters... y'all don't really care. But these things are pretty hard to draw uniformly. And turns out, that's what our Final exam is later on in the course. Once we master drawing them, we begin piping them. And our Final Exam is, we have to pipe 25 of one type of ornament on our work table in a 5x5 grid. When we're done, we leave the room, Chef grades them... each ornament is worth 4 points. We come back in, scrape it all off, and start on the next ornament... 25 in a 5x5 grid. He says our Final Exam takes all day. And it's not even at the end of the semester. We take it with our Midterm. So that's in like, 2 months.
I actually think I'll go get started sketching some... I'm pretty bored.