that is all for now.

lemon cream meringue tart.

simple and sweet.

this is made with puff pastry and almond cream. it's a royal pain in the ass to make, but looks impressive.

i don't think it's worth the effort.

it's topped with a chocolate nougat crisp kinda like a chocolate almond tuile.

this one just happens to have apricots.

it's called a st. honore.

it starts with a base of puff pastry which has chiboust filled cream puffs 'glued' to it with caramel.

next, you take the rest of your chiboust and fill in the rest of the tart.

is it wrong that i could eat half of this in one sitting?

oh yes you have... don't you remember?

yeah, but not one this HUGE.

this one starts with a thick 'cakier' dough called a pate breton, then there's a layer of caramel in there that sticks that vanilla cremeux to the dough.

next, you ring that with some caramelized apples.

personally, i prefer a classic apple tart, kinda like that apricot one up there, only with apples. see how that works?

this is a strawberry-rhubarb-pistachio tart.

let me break it down for you. there's a tart shell filled with pistachio cream. next you put a layer of strawberry gelee on that and a layer of rhubarb compote on that. then you cover that all up with pistachio creme legere and spray it a springy shade of green.

now, ring it with cut strawberries, cut, and serve.

a very nice pastry chef plated this up for us. she made it look as awesome as it tastes.

also, i keep forgetting to take photos of these, because i just keep eating them so damned fast.

up top there's the raspberry silk cake. it has a almond dacquoise bottom, topped with a chocolate royaltine crunch layer, then another almond dacquoise and a raspberry gelee followed by a whole lot of white chocolate mousse. this one is awesome.

next, you have the framboise cake. this one has a layer of almond cookie, topped with raspberry jam, then a layer of raspberry mousse, pain de genes - an almond cake that made the kitchen smell absolutely heavenly, followed by a layer of vanilla cremeux with candied raspberries floating in it and finally topped off with more of that raspberry mousse. it has shortbread type cookies called diamants all around the sides. this one is also awesome.

next is the banana pearl cake. this one starts with a layer of chocolate rice crispy treats, then some ganache and a chocolate cake layer, next there's caramelized bananas with rum and it's covered with a vanilla bavarian. it's glazed with a chocolate mirror glaze which is just basically poured all over the cake and then carefully, yet deliberately leveled off. this one is awesome, though in my opinion, not quite as awesome as the first two.

finally there's the chocolate hazelnut cake. it is a layer of hazelnut dacquoise, caramelized hazelnuts, hazelnut mousse, chocolate cake, and chocolate mousse. this one is also covered with that chocolate mirror glaze and is so rich i could only eat a tiny little slice. so, not surprisingly, this one is also awesome.

well, i spent two weeks making ganaches, and casting, cutting and dipping them, as well as molding chocolate shells, then filling them with ganaches, and closing the shells and finally packing all that stuff up to be given away to charity events and whatnot.

in the midst of it, i didn't think i liked it very much, but now, with the benefit of hindsight, i realize that those were a couple very calm, relaxed weeks in the kitchen, and i learned a ton about chocolate and how to deal with its persnickety tendencies.

oh, yeah, i'm talking to you, cocoa butter.

well, it was very good timing to pull off my best croissants for the exam. i'm really quite proud. the key to them is definitely to keep the dough cold, cold, cold, when you're rolling out the layers.

next up is the apple almond nougat tarts. these turned out well too, they're the last things i finished.

at the bottom are paris brest. they're supposed to look like bicycle wheels, and they're filled with a mixture of pastry cream, buttercream, and hazelnut paste. it's a bitch to make all the separate components, but what you get in the end is worth the effort.

next week, i start chocolates.

today was day two of my three-day breads, breakfast pastries, and petits fours exam.

yesterday, i turned in an ok lemon pound cake. it was baked well, but apparently it was dense - a sign of over working the batter. i find this amazing, since i mixed that one by hand. getting eggs to the ribbon stage by hand will make you break a sweat.

these are photos of what i turned in today.

beer bread - turned out fine, could've had a more random crumb.

macarons with raspberry filling. these are some of the best macarons i've made so far. good timing on my part.

a loaf of brioche. this turned out damn near perfect.

and brioche with a bee sting topping, which is basically butter, honey, and almonds. these also turned out well.

up top there are madelines, which are moist, slightly lemony tea cakes, and some apple tarts topped with a sugary almond 'nougat' mixture that isn't really like nougat at all.

in the middle there are some mixed fruit tarts with strawberry, raspberry, mango, blueberry, and kiwi and topped with a sliver of candied lemon zest.

below are some chocolate financiers. financiers are made with brown butter to give them a nutty flavor. these have some hazelnut gianduja in them along with some candied orange peel.

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up top we have an opera cake, which is layers of spongey almond soaked with sweetened coffee syrup and layered with coffee buttercream and choccolate ganache. this is one of my favorites - i used to get one of these about once a week from the patisseries in versailles.

in the middle, there are some more macarons, both chocolate and plain shells, and both filled with chocolate ganache.

at the bottom, there are  espresso mini-tarts topped with a chocolate mirror glaze. the look of them reminds me of that candy from the late 70's/early 80's - i think it was called something like toffay, or whatever, but my google-fu is not working in finding the actual name of it.

in other news, exams are coming up next week.

these all turned out awesome, especially the eclairs.

that's a blueberry tartlet, topped with streusel, and raised to the fantastical by a tiny bit of candied lemon zest and some pistachio.

and on the left in this photo there is a pear almond tart with apricot glaze and also toped with pistachio(that one's my favorite). and on the right, an apricot almond tart topped with powdered sugar and some toasted almonds.

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this is a petits fours that consists of two hazelnut-almond meringue-based "cookies" sandwiching a filling of pastry cream spiked with toasted walnuts and port wine.
they are awesome.

up top, there's a earl grey tea cake, some beer bread - the beer is in a coating that is painted on pre-proofing, and some really, seriously good blueberry muffins.

below, there is some multi-grain sourdough, some country bread in two decorative shapes, and two brioche a tete.

my day today started just after 6 am. i got to attend a class being taught by bronwen weber, a seriously amazing cake artist and a genuinely cool lady. it was a pretty amazing way to start your day. i had to pinch myself several times. i saw how she makes the chef's bust cake, a photo of which is on this page.(it was the head, not the whole chef body cake!)

anyways, tomorrow we start petits fours!

on friday, we made sourdough baguettes, pain aux raisins(though not as good as the ones i've had in france), marble cake, kugelhopf, assorted danishes including apricots, plums and pears, almond cream filled croissants, and brioche bostock.

in the top photo, you see day-old croissants sliced in half and slices of brioche awaiting almond cream.

technically, the chef-instructor made the sourdough dough and then we split it up, shaped it and baked it.

the danish dough was started on thursday, and then rolled out and shaped on friday. these by far are my favorite. especially the star-shaped one with the apricot in the center. the spiral-shaped ones are technically pain aux raisins, but they're different than the ones i had in france.

there is also a pistachio, chocolate, vanilla marble pound cake which i think got slightly overcooked.

the large, crown-like cake is a kugelhopf. it's a yeast dough-based cake with raisins baked in a special terracotta mold.

there's a funny story behind the kugelhopf involving the three kings and a peg-legged baker in Alsace... but it's probably not true.

here's a nyt link that explains a bit more about it.

i brought home nearly two grocery bags full of stuff.

actually, maybe the title should read "and the best lemon pound cake". seriously, this is the thing i'm bringing to parties from here on out. at least until i learn how to make something even more delicious, like next week.

tomorrow i'm rolling out dough for croissants.

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here we have french bread in two shapes, brioche parisenne(ludicrous amounts of butter in this – so good!), and banana bread.

this time, all of the bread was made with our trusty stand mixer, but i can't help but wonder how long it would've taken to mix all that butter into the brioche by hand. i'd guess it might take over an hour.

i'm personally not very fond of banana bread, but i have to admit that i think this one is quite nice. maybe because it's not as banana-y as most banana breads.

nothing particularly exciting to report about the making of these breads, except that the peel for getting the french breads in and out of the oven was the size of a full sheet pan - and quite awkward to maneuver.

oh, and the waffle... it never made it into the photo, but it looked like a waffle, had rum in it-among 11 other ingredients, and was so delicious i ate it before i could even get a photo of it.

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