Day 12- Culinary School

Well, we have come to the end of tarts and cookies. I can't believe it went by so fast! I have my first exam on Monday. It will be in two parts: written and practical. The written is only 45 minutes long and then we are given a little over 3 hours (from 6:45-10:10 or so) for the practical portion of the exam. For the practical exam we were given the choice between 2 different sets of pastries to prepare. I have chosen the first set: Classic Apple Tart, Lemon Meringue Tartlets and Spritz Cookies. It will be a challenge, but I think that is a good thing. I have been going over how to structure my time between the three desserts. I want to come into class with a written schedule to follow. I am going to practice tomorrow. I will make my pastry dough tonight (we already have prepared dough for class on Monday) and then tomorrow I will attempt to make all three desserts in a 3 hour time-span. Hopefully, I will be able to find my mistakes in my time-management and fix them before the exam, so everything will run smoothly. Wish me luck!

Now that I have filled everyone in on what is planned for Monday, here is what we made last night:

Quiche Lorriane

Linzer Torte

Brownies

The quiche were very good, although I had some difficulty with them leaking before they were baked. I think this was due to the tart shell not being cooked enough. I will try to remedy that in the near future. I want to make them again, just not this weekend. :-)

The Linzer Torte was also really good. The dough was very soft and a little hard to work with but it wasn't too bad. I was able to line the tart ring without too many problems and my lattice didn't break too much. I think it turned out ok overall. (The filling is a layer of almond cream with a layer of raspberry compote on top. Yum!)

The brownies were easy to make, but very different from any brownie I have ever made or seen before. The ingredients include: orange juice, cherries, walnuts and chocolate chips. They are topped with ganache and have a pretty intense chocolate flavor.

*Due to the exam on Monday, I will not have anything "new" to show you. However, I will post pictures of what I made and let you all know how everything turned out. :-)