"Group B Mafia"

Here is one of the nicest photos of the "Group B Mafia" (a nickname given to us by Chef Hervé) -- Group B of Superior Pastry (Term 2, 2009). This photo was taken in the Student Lounge, five minutes before the start of our practical class on 4 June 2009. All twelve of us just decided to get on the couch to pose for a photo. It was completely spontaneous, and the photo turned out well.


(Click on photo for a larger image)
[Many thanks to the photographer -- a classmate from Group A, who happened to be walking by and was asked to take the photo for us.]

In the photo above, if you look at the back row, the first (Christine), second (Hanna) and fourth (Danielle) students from the left were the three students who were chosen to participate in the post-secondary baking section of the Skills Ontario Competition in early May (two representatives and one reserve). The two who ended up representing Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa came first and second in the Competition (i.e. they were provincial champions). Hanna first and Danielle second.

The winner of that provincial Competition (Hanna) -- who is also one of my housemates in Wilbrod House -- then had the chance to represent Ontario in the Skills Canada Competition (a national competition) in late May, and she came first again (i.e. she is the current Canadian champion)! Congratulations, Hanna!

Here are photos of some of Hanna's competition practice cakes, chocolates and petits fours (she practised for months leading up to the competitions in May, under the guidance of Chef Hervé). Aren't the cakes and chocolates beautiful?

Petits fours in the foreground, mousse cake and plated dessert in the background


Mousse cake on a display stand that is made completely from poured sugar (the rose is made from pulled sugar)


Chocolate box with chocolate bonbons (all handmade)


Buttercream cake with pulled sugar roses

I'd been taking photos of Hanna's practice cakes every now and then, but I was asked by the chefs not to post any of these photos online until after the competitions, hence I am posting them now.

For the Sake of Completeness (Re: Practical Exam)

As I have done in previous terms, I will include some information about the final exam and my exam results here.

The cakes and chocolate bonbons for our Superior Pastry exam were:

Group A
* Apricot Tart, Rum (molded chocolate) and Pâte Amande Cafe (dipped chocolate)
* Entremet Vanessa, Tea (molded chocolate) and Rochers (dipped chocolate)
* Bûche de Noel, Honey (molded chocolate) and Caramel Chocolate (dipped chocolate)

Group B
* Apricot Tart, Rum (molded chocolate) and Pâte Amande Cafe (dipped chocolate)
* Entremet Fruit des Champs, Praliné (molded chocolate) and Palets Or (dipped chocolate)
* Bûche de Noel, Honey (molded chocolate) and Caramel Chocolate (dipped chocolate)

Each student only had to present one of the combinations above (--> one cake + one plated dessert, 10 molded chocolates and 10 dipped chocolates). Five hours to complete the tasks, including tempering chocolate.

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The exam was worth 30% of overall marks. The other assessment components of the course were the exam sugar showpiece (worth 25%), the written exam (worth 10%, and the student transcript indicates I scored over 9% on that), and the regular practicals (worth 35%).

My student transcript for Superior Pastry (photo below) shows I was pretty weak in my organisation and presentation on exam day, and that's no surprise to me.



I think the chefs were fair in their assessment of my skills. They had a set of marking criteria, and I did not fulfill the criteria as well as my classmates (I know that in my own heart).

Having said that, my organisation may not have been the best in the eyes of the chefs (and in comparison with my classmates), but it was how I wanted to do things, e.g. I deliberately left the Praliné filling to the last because I wanted to pipe the Palets Or first, before I got too tired and had to pipe with shaky hands (I have shaky hands even at the best of times, and it just gets worse as I get tired). I was aware I was slower than I could have been, but it was the only way I could keep from getting too nervous (or too panicky) in an exam situation. Like everyone else, I tried to cope the best I could. I didn't want to stress out like I did in the Intermediate Pastry exam.

This exam was the first exam I had enough confidence to do things my way, and that, for me, was a breakthrough. When I presented my cakes and chocolates, I felt I had done enough to satisfy the minimum criteria. In my mind, my Entremet Fruits des Champs for the exam was better than the one I made in the Lesson 2 practical, and my Palets Or dipped chocolate were more even in size. I was glad about this because it meant I was making progress. And I am happy my exam cake and chocolates tasted good enough to score 22 out of 30.

As I look back, I'm pretty amazed I managed to learn so many (sophisticated) skills in pastry in the nine months at LCB Ottawa. If I had just gone to a TAFE college (vocational skills college) in Australia, I reckon I wouldn't have seen and learned French pastry techniques at such a sophisticated level and in such a systematic way.

Yes, the chefs at LCB Ottawa do have high expectations (and they push the students hard), but they also teach techniques systematically. The program was designed to introduce more challenging techniques as we go along, and that was what I liked about it. In educational terms, we were provided some "scaffolding" each step of the way, and it gave us a better chance of succeeding overall.

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A special thank-you to all the kitchen stewards (aka dishwashers) for their assistance in our practicals. Without their help in washing the pots and bowls during our practicals, life would have been tough. As it was, they saved us time and made sure we had clean utensils to work with. For that, I am most grateful.

[Aside: We use many pots and mixing bowls (and the mixer a number of times) in each of our practicals, and if we had to wash everything ourselves, we would not have had as much time to concentrate on our cakes or chocolates.

By the way, I recall I actually washed some pots, bowls, dishes and other kitchen utensils in Production Kitchen while volunteering there one day (just out of sheer curiosity), and found that it wasn't as easy as I thought. It takes some skill and quite a lot of experience not to splash water everywhere. When I first tried "doing the dishes" in Production Kitchen, I ended up soaking wet and I nearly gave everyone around me a shower... :D Washing up in a commercial kitchen is nothing like washing up at home. Hence my respect for dishwashers now.]

The Best Thing about Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa...

I attended the LCB Ottawa graduation ceremony yesterday. It was such a surreal feeling to finally graduate with a Pastry Diploma. Everyone is asking me how I feel now. Am I sad or happy to be leaving? The truth is, it hasn't quite sunk in yet.

Pastry is one of the most challenging things I have ever tried to learn, and I would even say a little more challenging than earning my PhD degree -- because even though it is not easy to complete a PhD degree, I felt it came to me more easily than learning to bake. You see, by the time I got into the PhD program at university, I could read and write quite well. But when I enrolled in the Pastry program here, I could hardly bake. In Basic Pastry, I struggled with piping, with making a genoise sponge cake, with Italian meringue, with chantilly cream, with everything... Literally. Then the struggle continued in Intermediate and Superior Pastry. Nothing related to baking came easily to me. I guess I just need a lot of practice to become comfortable with it.

However, I have absolutely no regrets. It was good to learn a new skill and experience the discipline required to become a pastry chef. I believed it was possible to learn to bake well even if you didn't have the natural flair for it that some people are fortunate enough to possess. It is like learning a new language or playing the piano. Not everyone can excel at it (because it depends on so many factors), but everyone can achieve some level of competency, if they practised, persevered and found some coping strategies whenever they encountered problems or difficulties.

If you asked me what was the best thing about Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa, I would say without any hesitation: The Chefs.

For me, it was wonderful to be taught by the best of the best. The chefs taught us many things -- techniques and skills (both macro- and micro-skills), aesthetics, problem-solving and coping strategies... And they had high standards and expectations, which spurred us on to achieve more than we thought we could.

Furthermore, I appreciated their patience with me, even though I sometimes did stupid or crazy things in class or in production kitchen. For instance, the first time I made pâte à choux in Basic Pastry, I put all the ingredients (except the eggs) in a pot, thinking I had to cook everything together. Chef T had to tell me to discard everything and start again, which I did... I burnt caramel at least once, stuffed up the pastry cream and Italian meringue a few times, forgot to put whipped cream in the white chocolate bavarian cream, made "lifeless" marzipan leaves (just to name a few things) ... I am glad the chefs weren't exasperated. Well, maybe they were, but they did well not to show it. :D

I was always grateful for their feedback and critique of my creations, even if I didn't always agree with their opinions (note: ninety-nine percent of the time, I agreed with their assessment). I am glad they continued to give me constructive criticisms. As a former academic, I can tell you the worst thing for a student is to receive no meaningful feedback. It doesn't matter if the feedback is sometimes a bit hard to swallow, as long as it is ultimately a worthwhile learning experience. Being classified as a "Lost Cause" would be the saddest thing that could happen to a student.

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To all the chef instructors,

I owe you a debt of gratitude for all that you have taught me, for inspiring me, for being patient with me. Thank you!

SP Final Exam

It is all over now! I did my Superior Pastry Exam today (8 June 2009). It was a lot less stressful than my Intermediate Pastry exam, because this time I was not as worried about the cakes on the exam list (except for the Millefeuille, which still worries me). Also, I decided to try a new strategy today -- I stopped to take a sip of water when I felt myself stressing out. It forced me to take a deep breath, and I could calm down again.

I was hoping to get the Apricot Tart as my exam cake, because I have had practice rolling out tart dough in Bistro Bleu, and I can do a streussel quite well now (having made a horrible mistake with a batch of streussel while I was doing stage not long ago, and having had to make another batch in mass production)... But, as luck would have it, I picked envelope number 8 and got a mousse cake (Fruits des Champs mousse cake). Fortunately, I have not had any major disasters with mousses ever since I failed miserably with my Marquise au Chocolat in Intermediate Pastry (where my mousse was hard like concrete).

We made the Fruits des Champs mousse cake in Lesson 2, and this was what mine had looked like then:


This was what my exam cake looked like today:

Same recipe, different design

As you can see, I made sure the top of the cake was not too red this time (I remembered Chef CF's comments from last time). I knew I would have to use the dark glaze this time, and I was not confident about marbling on white glaze, so I practised piping intersecting lines (at different angles) on a plate at home last Monday. Plan A was to do the lines at about 135-degree angles, but criss-crossing so that the lines would looked like a net (a pattern I remember from my childhood). Plan B was this design I used today (lines at 90-degree angle, a design which I had used on handmade cards before). I ended up doing Plan B because it was simple and I was running short of time.

I believe my white chocolate mousse and raspberry coulis insert inside the cake were fine today, though I almost had a heart attack when all three chefs (Chefs H, CF, and T) came over to taste my mousse as I was pouring it into the mold. It was the "uh-oh" moment -- for a moment, I wondered if I had forgotten something vital in the mousse (I have been known to forget things, which is not good). I was pretty sure I had put the gelatin into the pastry cream (since I had used the timer as a reminder), so I began to think maybe my mousse was not the right consistency, and doubt started to creep in... It was a scary feeling. I have no idea why the chefs did this -- I mean, the chefs do walk around and inspect things, but seldom all three inspecting the same thing at the same time (unless there's trouble). Anyway, I breathed a sigh of relief when they said it was ok.

I didn't get a chance to take any photos of my chocolate bonbons (dipped Palets Or and molded praliné chocolate) or my plated dessert. I was glad I practised the Palets Or last week, because I was able to pipe them much more evenly this time. It gets better with practice.

I took longer than usual to temper chocolate today, because the heat and humidity in the pastry kitchen simply made it harder. After I used the seeding method, the temperature of the dark chocolate stayed at 33 degrees Celsius (even though I kept stirring the chocolate, trying to cool it down), it just wouldn't come down to 31 degrees. I had to use the tabling method to bring it down to the optimum temperature of 31 degrees.

Then I found that the chocolate would not set quickly in the mold, so I had to put the mold into the fridge... Every little step just took longer than usual.

At the end of 5 hours (without a break), I was able to serve the required items, though I felt I could have done a few things better or differently. Isn't that always the case?

It was certainly not my best effort, but it was not my worst either.

After the exam, each of us were treated to a glass of champagne and some finger food by the School. It was nice to be able to spend some time relaxing together... Then most of Group B went to Angelo's for some pizza and chicken wings. As we were happily chatting away, it dawned on us that this was our last time together as a group, which made us a little sad. This was a good group to be in, because we have never had any fights or serious disagreements. We always did what we could for the good of the group, and we were supportive of each other. We shared ideas, tools, ingredients, cleaning duties ... and, most of all, we had a lot of fun!

Thank you for the wonderful memories, Group B!

SP Special Lesson: Lard Sculpture (photo gallery)

Chef A taught us how to make lard sculpture the other day. It was the last demo class we had for Superior Pastry, and it was a fitting way to end the course.

In lard sculpting, we use styrofoam to form the basic shapes, and using skewers and toothpicks, we connect/join all the shapes together, then we cover the styrofoam with a thin layer of lard, which is not at all easy to work with, but it is an interesting experience to work with it for the first time. After that, we used various tools (e.g. cake modeling tools) to create texture on the thin layer of lard.

I am very glad LCB Ottawa included fruit carving and lard sculpture in our Superior Pastry course, because I think exposure to these skills and art forms really helps to stimulate our imagination and creativity.


Chef A's lard sculpture, which he made in order to show us basic skills in lard sculpting


Here's what my classmates and I created in under 3 hours in our practical classes (with some help from Chef A, of course)... from cartoon characters (Mike from Monsters Inc.) to animals (Penguin, Crocodile, Polar Bear) to objects (Chef's Hat, Handbag and Stilleto):
























This is my lard sculpture: A fan and an embroidery hoop. Why these two particular objects? Personal reasons, which I will not elaborate here. (No, I don't do needlework. If you gave me a choice between peeling 200 carrots and doing needlework, I'd choose the 200 carrots any day.)

Notice there is a Star Trek logo on my sculpture. It's not just because I like Star Trek; it is also because I wanted to juxtapose an actual past (people -- particularly women -- in the past used/made silk fans and did embroidery) with an imagined future (Star Trek's imaginary universe, hundreds of years from now). Or, you might even say, arts & crafts versus science fiction...(Yes, I like to think about philosophical questions, even when I am taking a pastry course.)

Anyway, it was a fun workshop. Most of us felt really relaxed by the end of the class, and that was good, because we were starting to stress out about our practical exam coming up next week.

SP Special Practical: Chocolate Bonbons (Practice Session)

I am so glad that, in today's practical class that was supervised by Chef T, we had the chance to practise making some of the chocolate bonbons that are on our exam list.

Here's what I made:

From left to right, top to bottom: Coffee Palets Or (golden disc), Honey Truffle (square molded chocolate), Chocolate Caramel (dipped chocolate caramel cubes), and Praliné (round molded chocolate).

I really appreciated this practice session. I think I have improved in my piping and dipping techniques, or rather, a case of eliminating some undesirable habits. I was able to make the Coffee Palets Or more even in shape, and I reckon my dipped Chocolate Caramels were nicer-looking this time around.

When starting out in this industry, there's only one thing to do: Practice, practice, practice.

Just a few more days until the practical exam (8 June 2009)... I cannot believe I have been learning to bake for 9 months now... How time flies!

"It looks like a cemetary..."

People have been asking me if the chefs have given us feedback on our sugar showpieces. Well, Chef CF did last night.

His main comment for mine was that it looked like a cemetary because there was not enough movement in the flowers (most of the flowers were sitting on the turntable). He also said my pastillage butterfly was too thick, which I accept as fair enough.



As with my chocolate showpiece, I had put a lot of thought into the design of this showpiece. I wanted my sugar showpiece to be like a table centrepiece (in other words, like a real floral arrangement that one might use in the middle of a dining table). I chose to make a turntable as a base for my showpiece to show my appreciation to everyone in the Pastry program at LCB Ottawa (what better way to suggest pastry than a cake turntable). The flowers were deliberately arranged in an L-shape, and together with the butterfly, were meant to frame the LCB logo in the centre, thereby highlighting the logo, rather than overshadowing it.

I am somewhat disappointed that, for Chef CF, it didn't achieve the effect I intended.

I guess my sugar showpiece is open to interpretation. Whether you like it or hate it, I gave it my best shot, and did it with a lot of love. I don't regret coming up with this design.

SP Lesson 10: Petits Fours

In this lesson, Chef CF showed us how to make different kinds of petits fours -- pistachio macarons, duchesses, petits fours (pâte d'amande), sablés guitare, sablés breton, and so on.

In our 5-hour workshop today, we made pistachio macaroons, petits fours (pâte d'amande) and two kinds of duchesses. My macaroons were not baked enough, but other petits fours were basically OK (must remember to make them smaller next time). I felt really tired even before the practical started, and hence had trouble staying focused on things...

Anyway, it was just one of those days. At least I got some feedback from Chef CF about how to fix my mistakes, and what to look out for.


My petits fours (pâte d'amande) and duchesses with praliné cream


My duchesses dipped in chocolate


My failed pistachio macaroons. A lesson learnt.

SP Lesson 9: Wedding Cake Demo

In Superior Pastry Lesson 9, we saw Chef N demonstrate how to make a wedding cake, but we did not have to make a wedding cake in our practical, because we used that time for our sugar showpiece exam, which I've mentioned in an earlier post.

Chef N showed us the techniques for covering a wedding cake and some of the tools we could use for doing that. He also showed us examples of what we could use to decorate the cake. Here's the one he made:

The two hearts on top of the wedding cake are made with blown sugar.


It is certainly an unusual-looking cake... I'm glad Chef chose to show us something different from the usual form of wedding cake.

Exam Sugar Showpieces: A Photo Gallery

Here's what my classmates presented in their sugar showpiece exam: