For the practical exam, Groups A and B had the following exam cakes:
Group A:
Opéra
Délice Caramel
Douceur Chocolat
Group B:
Opéra
Petits Fours (pâte à choux)
Triple Chocolate Bavaroise
For the bon d'économat (i.e. memorising the ingredients in the exam recipes), every Group B student was given a different recipe. That means, there were 11 different recipes (taken from the exam list that I posted not long ago). I got the recipe for the 2 tarts, which I had studied, and I remembered most of the quantities of the ingredients. I had actually memorized the ingredient list for all the exam recipes except the Chocolate Bonbons (3 kinds).
Below is a photo of part of my student transcript:
I was quite surprised I did fine in almost all components (techniques, organization and presentation). I thought I had done badly with my techniques. What happened was, my initial batch of pastry cream was terrible (I don't know what went wrong, I just knew I wouldn't eat it, let alone serving it up to the judges), I made the decision to discard it immediately and make a second batch, which thankfully turned out fine. I thought the chefs would penalize me for having to make the pastry cream again. And, of course, I struggled with the fondant glazing - I couldn't get the right temperature and consistency for the fondant glaze and I was quickly running out of time... The fact that I managed to get the fondant glaze on the petits fours (I don't remember how) and serve them is incredible to me.
This time around, I didn't do so well on taste (I had scored highly on taste in my BP exam). But then, I knew the taste of my petits fours was not that great. Not when I had to take a few shortcuts with the flavoring of the fondant glaze. (Thank goodness the chef had shown us some time-saving shortcuts with the fondant glaze during the demo, and I remembered them. I am just sorry I had to resort to them.)
Anyway, I will make sure I am not under this type of pressure again. I cannot make food taste good when I am under so much pressure.
The way I look at it, I can either change the situation or change my behaviour. In an exam situation, I have no control over the exam conditions, therefore I will have to adjust my behaviour to cope with the situation. However, when I am out in the workplace one day and I have some control over the situation (e.g. my own business), I would adjust the situation.
