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Sculpting in fruit

Posted on August 19, 2017August 23, 2017 by Bee Stewart

‘Sculpting in fruit’ was first published on bee-bakes.com, October 6, 2014

Friday turned out to be one of the best, funniest and worst days in the lab so far. We made the most amazing things—we sculpted with fruit! Firstly, we made a Tarte aux Pommes which is another classic French tart. It consists of a pastry base covered with apple compote and layered with slice after slice of thinly cut apples. This is a feat in itself. Each piece needs to be around 2mm thick—thinner and it falls apart; thicker and breaks on the curves. I somehow managed to cut all the apples the right thickness and did a pretty good job of layering them the correct way. We were all foiled by Chef though, who was appalled what happened to them in the oven (they looked ok to us) and got them out of sight when we weren’t looking. Apparently they were burnt and soggy? Anyway, on burning things he has a habit of coming and turning up my stove when I’m cooking and it’s twice resulted in me burning things—bad Chef. The last time it was with my apple compote and luckily I got the apples out of the pan before they actually burnt, and then he demanded “who’s burning something”. To which I replied “That would be me, because someone turned up my apples” and I eye-balled him! Opsie, supposed I should watch myself in preparation for the real world!

Next we made Tarte Multifruits—oh my yum. This is yet another classic and one which we made with a tasty Sablé Breton base (delicious and biscuity), a touch of crème pâtissière and multiple fruits stacked like a sculpture on top, then glazed to glossy perfection. Amazing. Apparently these days it’s the fashion to have the fruit arranged in abstract forms with some ‘height’, no sign of the crème pâtissière and no sign of symmetry. Therefore it wasn’t appreciated that I used the kiwifruit as a type of art deco scallop border with a chaos of fruit sticking up from behind. Cue head shaking from Chef. Apparently he didn’t like anyone’s…oh well the fruit stacking resulted in much hilarity so it was all good.

We had our first ‘buffet’ display for the course which was exciting. We displayed all of the pieces that had made it to the end of the week on one of the benches and had our pictures taken. It was great to see everyone’s cakes all lined up—so colourful and amazing to see some of what we’d achieved in one week.

The bad bit was that we received our grades. I’m not happy with my grade, but it’s not that bad. I’m more annoyed with myself as many of the things I’ve made before and I think I should have done better. I probably should have asked why I got that score, but I think it could be that I’ve been a bit slow, so this week I need to up my game! On the upside, I got told to continue to be funny…I think I’ve become some kind of class clown. It could have something to do with be pretending to be the dying orange during the demonstration of peler à vif which sounded like ‘peel alive’ to another girl and me, but I think actually translates to ‘peel quickly’. The Russian girls in the class are going to have amusing demonstration videos to play back when they go home.

Aside from the lab classes we had our first French language lesson. I didn’t really know what to expect from the class as I wasn’t sure what level the other students would be at. However, it turns out that most of the class speak at least the basics, with only a couple of the girls speaking nothing at all. The professor said that ours is the first international class that she’s been able to speak in French in and that normally it takes the entire lesson for the class to introduce themselves! She’s recommending that we speak French in the labs, which I’d quite like as I need to practice. Looking forward to a class in a few weeks where she will take us to the local market to tell us about the produce.

On to the weekend it was Oktoberfest in the Village. One of my fellow students was supposed to go to Oktoberfest on the weekend, but because French class was shifted to Friday she couldn’t make it. So we had it here! A few of us cooked German sausages, sauerkraut and potatoes at my place and afterwards we went to the one bar that opens after about 21h. It was fun and we had a good laugh, but on Sunday when I went out I found a note stuck to the front door saying, in Google translated English, “make no noise after 22h”—we had left at 22:30 and laughed on the way down the stairs…Tonight when I came home from general classes it had been removed and stuck to the internal glass door, just in case I hadn’t seen it.

Welcome to French village life.

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One week in the village

Posted on August 19, 2017August 24, 2017 by Bee Stewart

‘One week in the village’ was first published on bee-bakes.com, October 2, 2014

It’s one week today since I arrived at ENSP, my new school! I’m feeling slightly broken and sleepy, but happy, too. Here’s a run-down on things as they happened since I last updated.

I spent a fair bit of Saturday trying to make the apartment more homely and then spent the rest of it out with people from school. We all arranged to meet up and try ‘bar-hopping’, as one of the hopeful youngsters called it. But what it really meant was checking out the local café-bars (about two) and then somehow getting roped into walking 60kms (ok, slight exaggeration) to some random destination to go to a nightclub with an English woman and three crazy Russian and Ukrainian girls. Not sure how this happened, but it turned out to be hilarious, with me having a moment of panic, too late, along the lines of what on Earth am I doing here, I’m old enough to be their mothers (ok, another slight exaggeration…slight).

On Sunday three of us decided to go for a wander around the village and we ran into the group of bakers we arrived with. So about eight of us ended up meandering far out into the countryside in search of an equestrian club…? We enjoyed the views along the way and found a farm selling fresh milk products and eggs. We followed this up by doing what we were told on Orientation Day and ‘researching’ at one of the local pâtisseries. On Monday it was preparation for the week ahead. This included resting, ironing clothes, food shopping for the week and catching up with some of the others for a sneaky kebab…about the only take-away in town! Then it was early to bed in order to wake at 04:30am.

I awoke at 03:45am.

After checking a dozen times to see if I had everything I should have, I arrived at school half an hour early and into class at 05:45am—we all did. Chef told us we didn’t need to get there that early. I guess we were all a bit excited—who knew how long it would take to walk in the morning!

After a very detailed introduction to the kitchen and facilities and another nightmare, I mean ‘get to know you session’, we started on our lessons. Just like that and we were making things! I piped something on my first day! Here’s a run-down of what we did in our first seven hours:

Made pastry for a Tarte au flan (a basic, but tasty custard tart).
Made crème pâtissière for the flan (which I would have to be about the only person who caught it on the bottom of the pan).
Filled and baked the flan.
Made another type pastry for Barquette aux Marrons and Dôme Ganache.
Made an almond filling, a chestnut filling and dark chocolate ganache. Filled, baked and topped Barquette aux Marrons and Dômes Ganache.

I think that was it? Cue panic to get the kitchen cleaned for the next group without succeeding.

Day two was so much better in the kitchen. I felt like we understood how it all should work and we seemed to achieve so much more in the same time. I arrived 10mins early, but unfortunately so did the 100 or so French CAP students—not good in the locker rooms. However, I had my proper uniform so I felt in the baking mood in my houndstooth trousers and giant clown chef jacket.

We glazed our flan, made two more types of pastry, another basic tart, Tarte alsacienne (an apple tart with an eggy-custardy filling), topped and dipped the Dômes Ganache in chocolate (quite proud of mine), topped an dipped the Barquette aux Marrons in sticky fondant (very tricky) and we managed to clean the kitchen on time! We also got to view the professional student’s work—amazing. I can only hope that one day I’ll be able to make things like that.

Today it was choux pastry and more crème pâtissière with Éclairs à la vanille and chouquettes on the menu (the latter being for breakfast). In the afternoon we had our first non-lab class of Food Science. This class is guaranteed to make us never want to eat anything again, especially eggs, for fear of bad micro-organisms. I also found out that if I want to keep my own chickens and use their eggs I will have to get a business licence for the eggs…so soon I could be operating Bee Bakes and Bee’s Chickens Lay…

So, there we have it—one week of village life down, 21 to go!

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O-Day

Posted on August 19, 2017August 23, 2017 by Bee Stewart

‘O-Day’ was first published on bee-bakes.com on September 29, 2014

Today is Monday. It’s the fifth night at my humble abode, in a tiny village of Yssingeaux in the middle of France. So much has happened since taking the bus from Lyon on Thursday afternoon, it’s almost hard to remember.

Thursday was when it really hit that I’m actually doing this. Nick had arranged for a fancy lunch for the two of us, prior to taking the bus, and as I was getting ready for lunch I suddenly felt a nervous sickness in the pit of my stomach and didn’t think I could go through with lunch! The last time this happened was when we got married in Australia. Half way through the reception dinner, as I was tucking into green beans soaked in lemon olive oil and topped with parmesan cheese, I suddenly remembered that we had to dance the Charleston as a surprise for our wedding guests after dinner and I couldn’t eat anything else.
This time, however, I was determined not to let it stop me and so we ate in style at the new Paul Bocuse restaurant that has opened in our quartier, Monplaisir. Housed in a beautifully redecorated belle villa bourgeoise, the Marguerite Restaurant seemed like a fitting farewell before heading off on my culinary adventure.

In the afternoon, after saying goodbye to our hysterical furball, Fortie, (I think he knew I was leaving) Nick drove me to the airport to meet up with the rest of the students. They were easy to spot. Waiting in the grand hall for the airport train station was a group of people from all parts of the world, all guarding massive bags of luggage, ready for several months in a foreign country. After we realised there were people delayed thanks to Air France strikes, Nick waved goodbye and left me to get to know my new classmates. We eventually all boarded the bus to the château school a few hours late. Cue sleeping for several hours while being stuck in peak hour traffic.

Much later, we arrived at the school and were greeted by various members of staff while waiting for the Programs Manager who had shown Nick and me around the school in August. We were pre-warned that he is always late and after waiting for several ‘five more minutes’ he finally showed. Then it was off to a three course welcome dinner in the château restaurant (of course there is always dessert) and then shuttling us off to our new homes.

I got a place on my own! Yay! There’s room for Nick and Fortie to stay and it’s just off the centre ville. It’s just around the corner from a large square with fountains and apparently where the Thursday market is held. While it’s old, has ugly paint and wall paper, has some kind of water hammer issue and reminds me of uni accommodation in Ballarat, the location is so good and I have a view, over rooftops, to the mountains and the setting sun.

After a rough sleep due to waking up every 15 minutes to loud bangs from the water pipes of my neighbours downstairs, it was up to the château for Orientation Day! On Saturday I met up with a group of people from the course and we all realised that we couldn’t actually recall much of what happened on O-Day… It was one of the longest days ever, especially after the sleep issues. Starting at 8am we waited around for ‘five more minutes’ till everything was ready before entering the large teaching kitchen where we spent the rest of the day. Here’s what I remember:

– a constant supply of juice, hot coffee and tea and multiple pastries.
– trying on chef’s outfits to find the right size. Three chef’s jackets and two pairs of houndstooth chef trousers coming my way.
– going through and checking the Pâtisserie Tool Kit. That’s right—tool kit. Complete with a cute tool box. Whisks, spatulas of all shapes, the biggest knife, chocolate thermometer, things I don’t know how to use etc etc.
– ‘getting to know you’ session, otherwise known as ‘my nightmare’ session. Each student had to tell a little story about themselves and how they came to be at the course. I don’t even know if I made sense, but I got there in the end.
– lunch in the château with more dessert.
– visit from our main pastry chef. We discovered there were a few more things we needed for our kits, including a fork and a spoon…should have brought some from home.
– visit from the La Poste. Random, but informative for students from overseas needing bank accounts and mobile phones.
– class timetable! Oh my…first week is four days of 6am starts…interesting…
– too many questions.

After all that and a lot of talking, I was almost delirious. All I wanted to do was run off to the very far away supermarket and stock up on some basic supplies and go to sleep. And so I did.

More later!

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A visit to my new school

Posted on August 18, 2017August 23, 2017 by Bee Stewart

‘A visit to my new school’ was first published on bee-bakes.com, September 16, 2014

In less than two weeks’ time I’ll be leaving for pâtisserie school: exciting! I’m not going to lie and say that I’m not nervous—I’m not one of those people who think you must say everything is like, super-fantastic all the time. It’s not a good idea to dwell on the negative things, but it’s also not a good idea to pretend all’s dandy when it’s not, either! It is what it is; a spade is a spade etc. So there you have it: I’m nervous…and well excited, too! Bring on piping!

A couple of weekends ago Nick and I took a journey into Auvergne, the region of France I’ll be studying in. It was our second Big Fat Greek Wedding Anniversary (BFGWA)* so we thought we’d have a weekend away and check out the countryside. Last year for our first BFGWA we drove ten hours to south of Bordeaux, ate at the only place open, McDonalds, crashed in a hotel in an industrial park, got a speeding fine driving back to Lyon the next day—all just so we could pick up a gorgeous wee puppy. So now it’s the BFGWA and the AFA (Arrival of Fortescue Anniversary) weekend.

Anyway, I digress. Nick and I stayed in Le Puy-en-Valey which is down the road from my new school and home of Puy lentils, in case you thought it sounded familiar. For anyone who plans to visit France and wants to see more than the usual tourist sites in Paris, Provence and the Côte d’Azur, I would really recommend taking a road trip into this part of the country. It was once a volcanic area, but has been dormant for several thousand years. The result of the volcanic activity is that there are now kilometres of rounded hills called ‘puys’ and volcanic craters which make for amazing viewing. The first time we drove by Le Puy-en-Valey I thought we had somehow teleported to South America or anywhere but Europe. There were chapels and a giant statue of Mary teetering on the top of rocky outcrops and the undulating countryside wasn’t what I’d expected to find in France. Now I’m going back to this region for five months!

After checking out Le Puy-en-Valey and nearby Polignac, we headed to my new village, Yssingeaux, and had a two hour tour of the facilities at the château school, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Pâtisserie. Yes, that’s right people: my school is in a château—oh là là! There were several kitchen labs stocked with Kitchen Aids and industrial mixers, more stainless steel benches than you’d see this side of a stainless steel factory and lovely looking stone bench tops for pastry. Classes were ‘practising chocolate drizzling’, choux pastry was baking in the oven, prize winning sugar sculptures graced the windows and student work lined the hallways. The air was heady with the scent of sugary goodness as we peeked into freezers that provided a glimpse of the intricate cakes I’ll soon be making. Student’s miniature wedding cakes stood proudly in the foyer, while a staff member’s giant sugar sculpture design was constructed in one of the teaching rooms in preparation for the MOF**… In short, it was all happening.

The village itself is quite small with around 7000 people living there. Apparently the locals love the students because they bring so much business into the town, which is a good thing for me with my bad French! The Programs Manager from the school warned me that it will be a bit of a culture shock moving to a small place where everyone knows what clothes you wore to the supermarket the night before. He warned me that it will take some getting used to as all the shops close early. When I pressed him to define what ‘early’ meant, thinking 16h or similar, he said 19h…seven in the evening. Even though it’s been a few years since I lived at home, after growing up on a farm in rural Australia near a town where the shops closed at 17:30h and shopping happened fortnightly or weekly, at the most, I think I have a fair chance of surviving. Especially after living in the UK where there are odd Sunday trading laws that result in 24h supermarkets closing early on Saturday night to be able to re-open late on Sunday morning, making impromptu Saturday night BBQs impossible. A place where department stores open half an hour earlier on Sunday for ‘browsing’ time before you’re allowed to buy. With a little bit of effort, I think I can adjust…

There was an air of business and purpose about the château patisserie school, even though I was assured that it was a ‘quiet time’ because most of the students had gone out for an industry field trip. The staff and the chefs were extremely friendly, helpful and courteous and answered my long list of questions. At the end of the tour I asked Programs Manager what I could do to prepare for the course, meaning what should I read up on, buy, study etc. His reply was: I’d say prepare mentally and physically for the course… After that, there’s only one question left that no one can answer for me but time: just what have I got myself into?

*We were married twice: once in Australia and once in Greece six months later, hence the differentiation between wedding anniversaries!

**Meilleurs Ouvriers de France is a prestigious award given to artisans and competitions are held every four years. See the movie Kings of Pastry to get a taste of the action.

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What’s in a name?

Posted on August 18, 2017August 19, 2017 by Bee Stewart

‘What’s in a name?’ was first published on bee-bakes.com, September 1, 2014

The French language can be difficult for some people to learn—like me, for example. After a lifetime of love and interest in the English language: reading novels, reading about language, participating in grammar discussions, making mistakes and generally enjoying the workings of my own language, you would think that I’d pick up French easily, but nooo. My French tutor, Joëlle, assures me this is quite common, but I think she’s just trying to make me feel better!

As with most languages there are tiny differences that can make all the difference. Anyone who’s learnt a language will tell you that the slightest mispronunciation of a word, the change of a single letter, can mean that instead of asking for bread at the bakery, you’ve asked for something obscene. So, I just wanted to do a quick post on the words associated with my new career. So here goes and hopefully I’ll get it right!

Pâte [pat]

Pastry, as in I’m making pastry for the apple tart.

Pâtisserie [pat-iss-rie]
A cake shop, or in some places bakery covers it all, as in I’m going to the bakery to pick up a birthday cake for Mel.

Les pâtisseries [le pat-iss-rie]

Pastries, as in I really like baking cakes.

Boulangerie-pâtisserie [boo-lon-gher-rie / pat-iss-rie]

A bread bakery and cake shop in one, as in I’m going to the bakery to get some bread rolls and lamingtons.

Pâtissier [pat-iss-i-ye]

A male pastry chef.

Pâtissière [pat-iss-i-yair]

A female pastry chef.

As you can see there is a difference between the words Pâtisserie (shop) and Pâtissier/Pâtissière (chef)—very slight in writing, but very different in pronunciation.

So there you have it for today’s French lesson: I am going to be a pâtissière and one day I might work in a pâtisserie making lots of pâte.