My first exam at pastry school! Wooo hooo! It consisted of a 1 hour written exam, and a 3 hour practical. We didn't know what was going to be on the practical, so we had to be ready for everything. Each of us had to make a large tart, 2 tartlets, and a cookie. There were 4 different sets, and Chef Claudia assigned us a number corresponding to a set, and that was what we had to make.
I had to make the French nut tart, 2 ganache tartlets, and the bourbon pecan cookies. In my opinon, this was the hardest grouping. The French nut tart required a lot of things to be made perfectly, and then combine them perfectly- basically a lot of things could go wrong. The ganache tartlets are easy, but the decoration is a pain in the ass. The Bourbon pecan cookies- whatever.
I whizzed through my written exam (it was easy, and I had studied) and started planning for my practical with my remaining time. I was a little bit shaky at first, darting around, making sure my station was clean, while doing 3 tasks at once. I felt confident about my timing though. In the last 20 minutes, I was rolling. My French tart came out beautifully, and I was making my ganache tartlets. I rushed through that a bit too much, and whisked my ganache too roughly and incorporated some air bubbles. I tapped it a couple of times, hoping to release some air, and poured them into the shells.
Then I checked my cookies in the oven to rotate them. They were flat. They're supposed to be 1/4" thick, which is how I cut them. I must have mis-scaled. My heart sank. I decided to finish baking them anyway, so at least I could show something to the chefs. They had to rest in the fridge for an hour, so there was no time to remake them. There was nothing I could do. Flustered, I finished the decoration, and presented my product.
Chef said my nut tart was perfect. Great crust, perfect filling, perfectly baked. She said my ganache tartlets were good. Perfect crust, ganache a good consistency, but I had some air bubbles still and my decoration was a bit shaky. This I knew. She came to the cookies, and said "it broke my heart when I saw these cookies". She said I must have mis-scaled something (likely the butter or the sugar). We had to halve the recipe, so it is likely that I messed up in the scaling. She said that my procedure, and the ultimate taste and texture of the cookie was good though.
I was really bummed. In a bad mood for days. While happy I did something "perfectly", I couldn't believe I would make such a stupid mistake. I thought the best I could do on my test was a 66, given that one of my pieces was garbage.
Then I got my results back. A 103 on my written test (I got everything right, including the bonus questions), a 95 on one of my class days, a 97 on the other, and a 95 on my practical. Average for the unit was a 97. I could not believe it. This test was a sham- I deserved a much lower grade on my practical. I can't say I'm not happy, though.
Way to go....
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