It has been a long time since my last post, my 8:59:59 job has been very demanding. What is an 8:59:59 job, I’ve mentioned it before, but I get the term from Sunny Anderson, she said it in a 2015 VIBE article that I think about often.  It refers to the procrastination of going into a job you don’t want to go to every morning, and waiting until the very last minute to go in.  So that job has required a great deal of attention, and has been exhausting.
One of the final modules of school was pastry.  I really didn’t think that I would enjoy it so much, but I loved it.  I would love to attend the pastry program in the future.  We made a ton of pastries, and my co-workers loved this module, they had a sweet practically everyday.

We made pizza dough and used the hearth again.  I totally need one of those hearths lol.

I was so shocked at how easy it is to make croissants, and I was so excited I asked the chef if she could show me how to make the Kouign Amann, pronounced queen amon.  It is the best laminated pastry, in my eyes.  I  fell in love with it when I went to get the famous cronut, and decided to through one ing the bag.  Thankfully chef said I could split my dough and make half croissants and half kouign amann.  The Kouign Amann is a laminated square of dough similar to the croissant, however the layers have sugar sprinkled on the butter, so tasty.

Kouign Amann

Chocolate was highly technical, but I didn’t hate it.  I think I need to try it again, to decide if I want to experiment more with it.

I even made my own chocolate bar with hazelnuts, pistachios and salt.

Cake decorating is something I definitely want to do more of, my mom took classes to decorate cakes, and I really want to take the cake decorating class at Institute of Culinary Education

This was a super impressive cake and I would pay for it, if I liked chocolate cake.

We practiced a bit of gastronomy with spherification.  This is not an egg yok, it is actually a sphere of mango puree.

Plated desserts was a really cool section of pastry, I love making things look fancy.  This was a yogurt panna cotta with a basil foam, grapefruit, and basil seeds, and an avocado cream.

My final dessert was this tart, and it was for my practical exam.  The practical exam is the test in the kitchen, we had to make a tart with a pate brisee crust, a smooth pastry cream, and top it with fresh fruit.  This was very well liked by the work crew.

Pastry has shown me that, I can be a well rounded cook, and several of the pastry chefs that taught the lessons in the modules, asked why I wasn’t in pastry, and honestly, I hope that I can explore that gift more in the near future.