Last night at 7pm I turned up to the Open Lab session at School to practise making eclairs and religieuses again. During the term, LCB Ottawa would hold practice sessions for students to give them a chance to use the practical kitchen to practise recipes that they are not confident about or need some help with.
Many students in my group decided to practise making choux pastry again because it was the recipe many of us found quite challenging and time-consuming. Besides, choux pastry usually comes up in the exam, so it pays to know how to make it well.
Also, it is important to perfect our choux pastry techniques now because choux pastry comes up again later in the term (in the St Honore recipe) and also at the Intermediate level (in the Croquembouche recipe). There's just no way to avoid it if you are learning French pastries.
My choux pastry came up better this time. Remembering my mistake from the previous time I made eclairs, I took the time to clean the sides of the eclairs so that the fondant looked nice and neat. However, I made my fondant icing on top of my eclairs too wide. Chef T said the fondant on top of the eclairs should only be two finger-widths (not three, like mine were). And that I had heated the fondant way too much, so it lost its shine. Chef T then told me how to fix the fondant problem. These are examples of little things the chef instructors will teach you if you put in the effort to attend Open Lab. It costs nothing; you just have to put in the time and effort.
All in all, it was a good practice session. I felt relaxed because we were not assessed for the practice session.
We were not allowed to take our Open Lab creations home (School policy), but I was able to taste one of my coffee eclairs, and it was really yummy. If eclairs were not so time-consuming to make, I really wouldn't mind making it often. (Making the choux paste by hand really kills your arms. In my opinion, it is harder than whisking meringue by hand.)
