Man, what a week it has been! From day one I was right there in the kitchen -- they were not kidding! But before all of the baking could begin, we did have a few general things to go over. Typical things you would do when starting a new class: a brief syllabus run-down, rules, expectations, etc. Probably the best part though, was when we received our shiny, new tool kits!
Tool Kit... Wonder what could be inside?
Okay, well maybe it doesn't seem shiny from the outside, but rest assured, we each received a boat load of brand new (yes, shiny!) tools that are ours to keep! Among these, some typical things: spatulas, spoons, knives, etc. Then there were also a few more pastry specific items, like icing tips, dipping tools, pastry brushes, etc. All wonderfully shiny and brand new! As expected. Since everyone in my class is equipped with the same basic tool set -- we're allowed to replace and supplement at will -- I made sure to label my stuff to distinguish it from the rest with some very colorful Hawaiian-print duct tape!
The importance of labelling becomes very clear when you have the EXACT same setup as 13 other people.
My chef for the first half of the course, Chef Jeanne, is awesome! She's so sweet and very relatable, too. I like her a lot. Even though I just started this week, I'll definitely be sad when I have to move on from her class to the next half. BUT! That's a long ways away, so there's no need to worry.
Now onto my actual schooling!
A little bit of pastry humor: May the FOURS be with you!
Like I said, we were in the kitchen baking from the first day. My time at culinary school (just nine months!) is split up into 2 halves, 6 levels, and 17 units. We'll be covering everything from the basics -- cookies, cakes, and bread -- all the way to more advanced skills -- sugar work, individually plated desserts, and even a wedding cake! But the first unit, which I'm about half way through at this point, is cookies! Who doesn't love a good cookie? In the last week alone (which is really only 3 days, since I'm in class at night), we've made 7 different types of cookies - SEVEN! Pretty crazy to think about.
The first type of cookie we made were Diamants. They're basically butter cookies rolled in colored sanding sugar, then sliced. On Monday, we also made dough for Lunettes (oval-shaped jam sandwich cookies), but we weren't able to get around to baking them until Friday. While there is a schedule for how the flow of the class should go, it doesn't always go as planned - and how can it? Sometimes things need to be baked longer, or they take longer to prep; things happen, so we make do.
The first cookie I made in school: Diamants!
On Wednesday, we were super busy! We made (and took home) 3 types of cookies, then as a class, made one giant batch of a fourth type of cookie: gingersnaps! This was more of a demo by Chef Jeanne -- which we have almost daily, before we split into our groups with our partners and make our recipes in accordance to whatever is on the whiteboard -- simply because we ran out of time for each group to make their own batch of dough. Like I said, stuff happens, so the schedule doesn't always go exactly as planned. So, for the gingersnaps, we moved from our pastry kitchen over to one of the culinary kitchens (they have a much larger, more industrial sized stand mixer than the one that we have in Pastry Kitchen 1, which is where I'm situated), and each person in the class took turns pouring ingredients into the giant mixer.
The GIANT stand mixer filled with our GIANT batch of gingersnaps!
Assembled Lunettes! Little pig noses - Oink!
On Friday, we baked our Lunettes (the same dough that we made on Monday), which was a fairly quick process. There wasn't much that we had to do, since we left the dough refrigerated already rolled out and ready to be cut. I thought that they looked like little pig noses or buttons after they were cut out. Pretty cute, I think.
Mise en Place for the Salbée dough
After those were baked and assembled, we mise-d out (short for mise en place, which translated, literally means "everything in its place"), the ingredients for our chocolate / vanilla sablée dough, so that it was all easily set up to mix. Since we work in partners, we each took one type of dough (I prepared vanilla), and once it was finished, we wrapped it up and stuck it in the fridge to chill. This dough has a lot of butter in it, so it gets squishy and difficult to work with pretty quickly. We also did the first bake of our biscotti (which is a twice-baked cookie), and we'll finish those up on Monday.
I've seen myself grow as a baker in just this first week alone! We started off with your pretty basic butter cookie, and ended on checkerboard, swirl, and marbled cookies! I LOVED putting together the checkerboard ones, specifically. If you're wondering, I cut out those squares individually and "glued" them all together with egg wash. Used a ruler and everything! Even though measuring all the tiny little strips was agonizing, I think that the result was worth it!
Prepping those checkerboard cookies were agonizing!
Collage of Sablée dough cookies. Checkerboard, swirl, and marble
Even though the checkerboard (and other sablée) cookies were super tasty, I think that my favorite of the week were the Spritzer Cookies. I love jam on cookies, and these were amazing. Not to toot my own horn, but they were seriously tasty. I made half with strawberry jam and half with raspberry jam. I was definitely partial to the raspberry jam, but they were both delicious!
Spritzer Cookies
Class is pretty fast paced, but manageable. Our whiteboard with the daily schedule can seem overwhelming at first glance, but it's not too bad, especially once you get in the groove of things. We start class promptly at 6pm and the next thing you know it's 8:30 and time for our dinner break!
Speaking of dinner, they have a pretty cool system! With ICC being a culinary school, they obviously have a program beyond the Pastry program that I'm in. How dinner works, is if there's a night class for the Culinary Arts program (which there is right now), then the students in that class actually prepare dinner for the entire school! If not, then one of the Chef's on duty will prepare dinner. I've not had a bad meal thus far, and I can't imagine that I will.
Dinner on my first night: salad, green beans, and three different types of pasta.
All in all, I've had a great first week, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the program has in store for me! Stay tuned for my blog next week! If you want more frequent updates, you can check out my Instagram.
Thanks for reading!