The end of a fabulous week

My first week at ESCF-Ferrandi flew by! I had a fabulous week of baking and learning and am ready to start another week of classes tomorrow. Our director spoke with us on Friday telling us that the program was going to get a lot more intense and our first week was just an introduction. I'm ready...bring it on!

On Thursday, we finished four different tarts in class - an apple tart, a pear tart with almond cream, an almond cream tart topped with slivered almonds and an apple and custard tart. The tarts turned out beautifully but we didn't get to taste them because we were running short on time, hopefully we'll get to taste them and bring them home tomorrow. My tart dough and I weren't getting along so great this week; my tart shell never looked as good as the chef's although that's to be expected, we have a vast difference in experience. Anyways, I went out this weekend to several cooking supply stores (it was like being in paradise!) and bought tools to practice. The only thing I haven't bought yet is a scale because they're so expensive! I'm going to hunt for a reasonably priced one this week because tart dough and I have a date this weekend. 

Me and my tarts

Kind of can't believe that I actually made all of these

Thursday afternoon, we were introduced to our bakery chef, the one who will teach us all about one of the things I and most French people and visitors love about this country...Bread! Bread is like an accessory here - you always see people carrying a baguette or two in their hands. Something that tickles me about seeing people with baguettes is that usually, they've ripped off the end to snack on - you just can't resist good, crusty bread. 

We learned about the 5 different types of flour that are used to make breads in France and tasted all types of yummy bread. My favorite was the olive and herbes de provence bread - incredibly delicious and probably one of the best foods on the planet. My classmates can attest to how much I love this bread - I did a little dance while eating it ;) 

We were in the bakery kitchen at 6:30am on Friday to make our first batch of baguettes. I had no idea how involved and technical a process baking bread is. You have to factor in so many elements like humidity, weather, etc. We started making the bread around 7 and guess what time we finally pulled it out of the oven...11am! Good bread takes time which is why bakers are so patient...there's no rushing the bread making process. It was amazing to take 4 simple ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, water) and have such a tasty end product. We all got to take home bread at the end of the day and the other 100 loaves/baguettes we made went to the school cafeteria and we got to eat the bread we had made with our own hands for lunch. 

Weighing the dough - baguette standards call for the dough to weigh 350 grams

Chef showing us how to transfer our bread to the oven

Bread coming out of the oven

Yummy goodness

Our school also took us to visit a well known hotel in the neighborhood, Hotel Lutetia, on Friday. We were given a tour of the brasserie designed by Sonia Rykiel, the one Michelin star restaurant and the kitchen. We were each given handmade chocolate marshmallows and pistachio spice caramels on the way out - a girl could get used to this! 

Spent the weekend shopping, exploring, and dancing. Came across a great bookstore that focuses solely on food, La Librarie Gourmande. Ran into three pastry students who are studying at Lenôtre and we talked a bit about our experiences so far. Saturday night, Laura and I tried a new music/dance place in the trendy Oberkampf area called Satellit Cafe. We had so much fun dancing to all different kinds of world music and just letting loose. When we were getting ready to leave, everyone kept asking us why we were going. The metro stops running at 2am so unless we wanted to hoof it home or pay an exorbitant amount of money for a taxi, we had to leave early. The place is open until dawn so as were were leaving at 1:15am, the party was just getting started. 

Off to get some sleep before a busy day tomorrow...