da-Bombe

Good Afternoon All!
Monday night's class began with a review for next week's written exam. What, you didn't know that we were having a written exam in addition to our practical? Me neither, shame on us all. After our review, chef gave us our schedule for next week. Exam on Sunday, Practical exam on Monday and internship meetings with advisers on Tuesday. This schedule is subject to change once I talk to my classmates and find that I have gotten them mixed up. Next week will mark the end of Module One, and I will be a quarter done with the course! On a sadder note, we will be getting a new chef instructor (you wont notice, I'll be calling him/her Chef as well). This last piece of news wont be greeted with such regret by some of my classmates. Chef's instructions have become more and more confusing over the last few classes, and last night's was no exception.
We were making Pate a Bombe, a French mousse-like concoction that is later frozen into a mold. The end result is like an ice cream, but not as hard or cold. It is part of a genre called "Static Frozen Desserts", static because as it is frozen it is not churned, like ice cream. It does not freeze into a solid ice block, however, because of the high sugar content and because of all the air that was beaten into it (remember, mousse is beaten egg whites combined with a base flavoring and beaten whipped cream. That's a lot of air). You line molds first with one flavor, then with another. Un-mold, cut it open and surprise! Two flavors! My partner and I made raspberry liqueur with raspberry mousse flavored bombs. Then, decorate with melted chocolate. Beautiful. Since we had time after un-molding, Chef followed this with a demo of what we would be doing in tonight's class. Pate Choux.
Pate Choux is the base for cream puffs, éclairs and croquembouche. It is a dough that puffs when baked, resulting in an outer crispy shell with an air pocket in the center...perfect for filling with ice cream, pastry cream, caramel... I have made pate choux and pastry cream before, but learned a lot during the demo, none the less. I LOVE making cream puffs, and I will do my best to allow my partner to help me out in tonight's class. This is something that I've noticed; Unless I actively try to control myself, I often take over whatever my partner and I are doing. I wind up doing the majority of the active work and allow my partner to do most of the annoying prep work- this does NOT make for a good partner. Some of you may have baked with me in the past and have noticed this yourselves- I am bossy in the kitchen and distrusting of helping hands. I tend to take over. I need to learn self control, and to this end I will attempt to be very sensitive to allowing for 'teamwork' tonight. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Sorry for the late and short post, but I'm getting hungry and tired (and if we weren't making pate choux tonight I might have just skipped class altogether).
-Bossy Pants Baer