From Lunch Service to Lunch Exam

Hello Loyal Readers,

School is really getting busy! First off my class had our first lunch service, for the Simple Menu module. My team and the good fortune of being placed in the baking station, my absolute favorite. The first day went relatively smoothly, apart from accidentally baking 4 types of bread instead of 5. The second day was a slight disaster on the baking front. With baking duties also comes dessert. One of the dessert options was a cream puff. Normally, the cream puff is not a difficult good to produce, however this was not the case on day two of service. One member of my team had prepared the mise en place for the cream puff dough the previous day. Somehow when the ingredients were mixed together the consistency was off and that batch had to be dumped in the garbage. The next step was to make another mise en place for dough. This batch made it to the oven but once in the oven they failed to rise, so batch number two had to be a thrown out as well. At this point, service was about to begin and the dessert really needed to be prepared. Finally a third mise end place was organized and the teacher made the final batch of the cream puffs. Thanks to my teacher Chef Dominique this dessert made it out of the kitchen and onto our customers plates!

If only our first two batches of Cream Puffs looked this good!

After a nice weekend to recover from service we started the week off with canapes in preparation for the midweek exam. Canapes, for those who are not familiar, are intricate bite size finger foods. I learnt how to create beautiful salmon rosettes, compound butters, flavored cream cheese and delicate garnishes for canapes. I actually enjoyed creating this bite size wonders, despite the tedious process it requires.

Smoked Salmon Canapes

Wednesday was exam day, and a very “interesting” day it was. The exam was testing Simple Menu items; Caesar salad, fettuccine Alfredo, and a variety of canapes. I started off with creating the pasta dough because of the resting time the dough requires. I then went on to the salad which went almost perfectly, until I nicked my finger with the veggie peeler while making Parmesan shavings. I bandaged up, assembled the canapes, and finished off my pasta dish. My exam was over but the best was yet to come.

My class had a substitute teacher during the afternoon part of the exam. This chef, being unaware of our normal exam rituals went all Hell’s Kitchen on us when she assumed we were acting rude and immature. She was corrected as soon as the yelling subsided. Events like this just add to the excitement of being a chef in training!

Looked something like this

Thanks for reading! Recipes will be posted midweek 🙂