Fruit Tarts

I came home from class in tatters - emotionally - for having scored below a 90 on the Practical Exam for Pastry Cream. Why so glum, you might ask? If it ain't all good for the exam, then it ain't gonna work the next day when you need pastry cream for your fruit tart to present to Chef. Mais, you're thinking, couldn't you fill your tart with something else, say lemon curd? Precisely, yes, but we had made lemon curd in advance, and the school's cooler chose that time to go down over the weekend. Isn't that just like at home? We had to toss lemon curd, all eggs and milk, and completely baked cheesecakes, quelle choux.

We had time and ingredients to remake the lemon curd, but there was no room for redoing the pastry cream. (which can I just say that I had successfully executed at home, perfectly timed, but undercooked during the exam, why, WHY?)

Each of the ingredients represents money, and you can't just have a classroom full of students remaking and baking all the time - the ingredients are carefully controlled by procurement. I ended up loving the tarts I made, though I don't have enough experience yet to make the incredibly beautiful versions I saw lots of students making - their creativity was endless. Some looked like rose petals, others like geometry and works of art.

If we weren't so enslaved to the clock, I could have done much more with the beautiful green of the kiwi - my mind just couldn't whip it out on a moment's notice, and for some reason, I felt like "tourneing" the kiwi to peel it, as if it were a potato. Still, once I had some lemon curd, a few pate sucree tart shells and a little fruit, I squeezed by and finished on time.

We are now at Day 19 of Intro to Patisserie & Baking with two weeks to go, and I've learned a few important points:

It is bad etiquette to grab an induction cook top, saucepans and mixing bowls before an exam, though it's perfectly fine on other days to build your mis en place. You grab because there are not enough cook tops for every student, and working on a gas range takes much longer. You grab because there are not enough chinois strainers to go around, and you need those, too. But you must not grab.

It is tempting to follow the behavior of others, but it is not always smart. You have no idea what information they are acting on, in whatever they're making, and whether their information is any damn good. 

It is egregious to leave the room without permission or to text or take a phone call while Chef is giving a demo. Common sense, yes, but you'd be surprised.

It is downright dadgum foolish not to check the oven temperature setting before shoving in your product  during an exam.  If a chef sets the temperature - the training wheels are off and you better be sure you know what's right. We have a roomful of exam biscuits to support this statement.

It is important to respect others and to help others when possible - unless . . . TO BE CONTINUED