Choux pastry and landlords that go bump in the night

I'll be able to make choux pastry in my sleep after this week! We're having a pretty choux-ette (chouette means "cool" in French) week in the pastry laboratory making some classics like éclairs, religieuses, Paris-Brest, etc. After piping out choux pastry and working with finicky fondant to make glaze, we understood why such pastries cost what they do...they look easy to make but it takes time to make them all uniform and shiny. If you looked around our lab, you would see every éclair shape possible, unless you were looking at Chef's eclairs and then you would just see perfection ;) 

The proper glazing technique

Filling the éclairs and religieuses can be quite hilarious if you put too much cream in and who knew that you filled them that way? Every time we make something new in class, I feel like I've been let in on a secret. Sometimes when I see pastry in a shop, it looks complex and perfect, but when we break down the steps to make it in class, I'm confident that I will be able to make a decent reproduction in the future. 

Coffee and chocolate eclairs

Religieuses

In other news...The women I'm renting from let herself into my apartment at 11:15 last night and scared me half to death. She then proceeded to lock me in my apartment which I didn't realize until I was rushing to catch the metro to school...craziness! Life...never a dull moment.