We covered the following creams and meringues in Lesson 3. The chef showed us all of the following, but we only had to make some of them (the ones marked with asterisks).
** Crème Patissière (pastry cream)
** Crème Anglaise (custard sauce)
** Ganache (chocolate ganache)
** Crème d’amande (almond cream)
Crème Chantilly (Chantilly cream)
Crème Bavaroise (Bavarian cream)
Crème au beurre (buttercream)
French Meringue
Swiss Meringue
** Italian Meringue
During the practicals, Chef CF was in charge of my group, and I found I did better in class. I am terrified of Chef H (who was supervising another group of students today), and I get really nervous when Chef H is watching (Chef H is always telling me to relax, which makes me even more nervous). In contrast, I don't feel nervous with Chef CF. I guess I am just more comfortable with certain personalities.
Today I was relaxed and I got everything done on time, and all the creams turned out nicely. Even the Italian meringues were good. I did burn my middle finger when testing the syrup for the soft ball stage (which is 120 degrees Celsius). (Aside: We use syrup for making Italian meringue, and we have to dip our fingers in a bowl of ice water, then scoop up some syrup in the pot with our chilled fingers and dip the syrup in the ice water, to see if the syrup has reached the soft ball stage.)
The reason why I burned my finger was because it touched the bottom of the pot when I was scooping up some syrup. Now I have a tiny blister on the finger, but it is nothing. I imagine there will be more blisters when we do sugar pulling in Superior Pastry.
In the next lesson, we are making a lemon tart, and we will need all the skills and techniques we have learned in the first three lessons.
