Day 21 Review

Blue Berries Tart

Ham & Cheese Quiche	Bourdaloue Tart
Zukini Quiche	French Apple Tart

Had our "Day 21 Review" with the CEO - Chef Christophe Megel, thot he would be quite firece but ends up he jokes quite alot and hmmm is it all frenchmen had funny facial expressions ? Cos Chef Frederic also very good with facial expressions.Anyway back to Chef Megel , well the talk from him lasted about 2 hrs but it was quite inspiring to me , and i jsut find out too ... what i am enterting is the Hospitality & Service Industry and not jsut F&B industry. Also a few things he point out was like ... hmmm TRUTH , can't help but makes my mind spining too. Also some quotes from him 1) "Always being with an end in mind" 2) "You are the CAPTAIN of your own ship". Also pointed out was "Why HUMANS are different with ANIMALS" , cos for Humans , when Stimulus , we will make a choice to create a response, but animals do not. An eg. will be if u pass a bone to a dog , it will eat it and when u pass a chicken bone , it will throw the first bone away and eat the chicken bone ... and will die ( I dunno why but they say dogs cannot take chicken bones, I wonder Y , anyone read this care to tell me ? ) Also we must have a HABIT with Skill , Knowledge and Desire to drive it.
After that had our lessons as per normal and we bake some tarts ( picture above) , was actually a bit unhappy over the TEAMWORK we are getting in the class .... but then GIVE 'n' TAKE .... cos after a few joke ... I am back to normal ... LOSER rite ?
After that , went to Ju's mother wake with Mimi and rest , quite sad case cos i think recently ppl i know are all hit by cancer , seems to suddenly it all connect to it. But glad that she is strong enuff now cos the most sad ppl is always the living one.So just have to live everyday to the MAX and enjoy what you are doing and one day leave without regrets *TOUCHWOOD*

Blue Magnolia minis

Azuki Green Tea	NY Cheesecake	Blue Berries	Chocolate Fudge
Choco Almond	Opera	Rocky Road	Molten

These are just some of the flavours offered by Blue Magnolia for their minis. < Pics taken from here

8th days of Work & Study

BlueBerries Pie

Cherry Pie

Apple Rasin Pie

Finally after 1 week I am back in school for lesson. Suppose to be there early today to TC ( aka Tok Cok) but was busy making some sandwiches for my classmates. Decided to take my "wife" ( my bike) to school today , cos 1) I am running late, 2) so that I can reach home faster at nite and 3) cos bag very heavy with the big text book , safety shoe and my barang.Anyway they neber finish my sandwiches cos most oreadi eaten but the rest was takeaway but a classmate so not so bad , nothing to waste.Anyway can see from abv , We baked PIEs today, and it all taste not bad , the blue berries pie was a bit sweet on its own , but when eathign with the cream , it actually taste better ( as both blend in so it doesn't taste that sweet) and it had a very nice crust ( cos was pre-bake), The cherry pie's fillings was good but the crust a bit not so "flakey" and lastly the apple rasin pie was good esp the crumbs on top.... So actually the perfect combi would be 1) blue berries's crust , 2) cherries's fillings and 3) apple rasin's crumbs.

BM Chocolate Cake

3 BMs

This was actually done yesterday , 3 BMs orders which I did able 80% of everything ( except the top glaze mix , the chocolate sponge inside and the birthday tag writing). I did the fillings , the cutting of sponges , the glazing , the tying of ribbons , glazing of strawberries and even the clear strips is cut by me ) Also we did some browines today for some events which was a bit EEEEeeee cos had to wear gloves and put inside to mix ... which the mixture is higher then my glaves , thus had to peet pulling to prevent the mixture form getting in contact with my hands.Oh also today when i cut the minis , my mentor actually say slightly better then the previous try. I also get to try a few cakes , esp the one that i was bio-ing - Rocky road ( very nice cos got Peanut smell/taste) Also i get to try the Azuki Green Tea ..... It was Great !!! a die die must try , esp for those who like the japanese ice cream ( the one with green tea with red beans)

Cheese Cake

Too late for updates , anyway this is the cheese cake i put base filling , bake ( but mixture not done by me), deco , ribbon tied and it was display on the shop front ... kinda of happy :P

Cupcakes for you ?

Quiches

Fondant Flowers

Cupcakes

Whole morning we were busy doing cupcakes ( about 195pc ) cos it has to be ready for pick up by 3pm , thus lunch was late today , we ate ard 3pm and the best thing is .... I told them i don't take fish cos they always go out and buy us lunch, so today the boss bought me seafood fried rice which ,,, I actually dun take seafood @ all .. thus wasted all the sotongs and prawns ( feel so bad about it). Come to think of it, they could have just bought me a normal fried rice but instead they bought seafood one ... quite welfare leh !
After all those cupcakes , I was ask to do butter cream , do layering for the blueberries cake and also help in layering the Chocolate Fudge cake. Also get to do glazing for the blueberries cake quite scary but fun anyway the mirror glaze will be know by SK II from now onwards ( cos it suppose to make the cakes look shiny like how SK II do to your face ) ha ha .
Tomorrow is Hari Raya , think might be going Mimi's place tomorrow , depends how.

First day @ Blue Magnolia ( attachment )

Ice Cream on the rock
First day reporting for work ... quite mix feeling cos dunno how it will be ... Anyway met up with the other boss and told us some of the plan the company is having but it's all T & C also we were asked to sign a contract - sort of protecting each others' rights. Also seems that we are entitiled leave and Medical benefits .... need to check with Students Affiiars next week cos not good to ask new company to print a copy for us. Anyway they really do alot of cones !!! there is 2 guys taking turns to make it and one day we will be attached that section too - die , ha ha .
We started the day by mixing the cones mix ( suppose to make like 12 tubs per day ) anyway we will take turns to do so i did it today and Guan was ask to make cupcakes for some orders tomorrow . Oh we also help to pack a few cakes and tie ribbons for the cakes orders for today. I was asked to mix blueberries fillings and it taste just like blueberries jam to me. Next i was also ask to mix some chocolate fillings and also to slice up some sponge cakes. Then i was ask to lay the cookies base for cheese cakes b4 making the quiches tarts.Think they quite trust us to do things :P ( also think maybe becos they are quite under staffs @ the moments)
Met up with Liz , Sam, Mimi after work , we went Old Airport Road for din din where we met up with our Insurance Agent ( cos Liz need to sign some stuffs) Then we procced to Geylang Serai cos they needs to do some Malay cookies shopping. After that we decided to try our luck and find this ice-cream store along East Coast Road area. It has this concept like the one we ate in Bangkok, they had this cold plate and they can mix toppings into the ice-cream you choose. They had flavours like Mrs Smith ( green apple with apple bits ), Honey Dew, nuttella , and more. Think the shop is called Ice Cream Chefs and customers actually can park behind in the pvt parking lots, just press the red button then "0106" at the carpark barrier behind the store i think. Then after that we headed home.
Oh ya btw forget to mention , the boss actually mention that after our attachment , if both parties are comfy with one another, they be more then willing to take us back after our course ends.

Muffins & Scones

Banana Muffins	Scones
Wanna Try ?	Rasins Scones

Finally after 3 off days , today is back to school again. Went back to adidas Singapore office to collect my requisition, which was supposed to be sent to Cathay instead last week but due to warehouse sent it back to the main office so I need to go pick it up myself. Met Jane and pass her some cookies and then Joey to collect my stuffs. BUT my stuffs was nowhere to be found , Joey had said that she had put aside for me and the whole carton is missing, she look and look , ask n ask but still cannot find anything. Finally she asked me what the are the stuffs i am getting and then she realize that the items had ben taken out of the carton box and left on her table ( thanks to Mei cos she needed the carton box thus she took the box and left the items on Joey's table). Left for school after that , was lucky the weather is gloomy so not too hot for climbing the "hill" Had a bit of theory and we started with Muffins and Scones. Learnt about the different methods of making them ( muffin method, biscuit method and creaming method). We did our Banana Muffins in pairs ( attached is pic of mine & Pat ) Then we did some socnes ourself and Chef demo the rasins scones and double chocolate muffins. Was cleaning in the wsing ara today and today got alot of stuffs to wash !!!! I stop halfway cos i had an open cut on my hand, so i went to help dry the stuffs instead. The best things is that while i wipe , i accidiently hit my infected left eye with the cloth .... almost wanted to cry cos was so painful !!! Oh ya forget to mention our students affairs did alot of mistake ... 3 classmates are suppose to report next week instead of yesterday and 2 more were not supposed to reports last sat but they were asked to start work last weekends .... Poor thing. Tomorrow going field trip and got home coming .... so going to orr orr soon .... Thurs starting work !!!! *Finger Crossed*

"Baking Ingredients Testing"

Sea Salt Biscuit

Care for some ?

Attached are the pics ofthe cookies we did yesterday but not enough time to bake. Surprising it taste quite good ( cos we used caribe ( thinks is 66% cocoa, which i am not a very big fan of dark bitter chocolate) and with the sea salt in it ... it was simply fantastic to me , think i will make some soon myself @ home.
In the morning, we had our "Food Testing" which means we were asked to taste 40 different baking ingredients which include different chocolate, different flour,different sugar and etc... We had a hard time esp whrn it comes to flour and sugar ( had to tell which is cornstarch , plain flour , rye flour and ets .. also like icing sugar and decorating sugar.) The worst was the 2pid cirtic acid... it looks totally like sugar !!! so on thinking it was sugar ( dunno why also since we thot it was sugar , we still tried it ) and so me and my classmate took quite a big portion and OMG it was totally sour !!!! and that is not worst .... we had to try baking soda n baking power.It really test our taste buds !
Afternoon was another round of testing , we tried on fruit puree. Most of the fruits we can tell but some were really hard esp those with mixture in it ( but suprised that i hate peach but i can't tell the white peach flavour which i thot was guava ! And also we had a few mixture like pinacolada ( coconut + pineapple+rum+lime) so was quite hard to guess , esp we got some that mix with ginger ( i think )
Today we did not made anything but instead was ask to help to measure some ingredients for tomorrow workshop for some school.... And think the Chef was a bit not happy cos the other group actually missed out sugar and milk ( did i mention that yesterday they measured the ingredient wrongly) Oh ya , also today we saw Chef Fred*** and Chef D**n " cat fight " think Chef D**n was not happy we were a bit noise while he was having his class still ( ard 5.30pm) thus think he shouted us to keep quiet and Chef Fred**** shouted back at him , something like " why are you shouting at my students" then abit exchange of words ... but i dunno how serious they are but it seems like joking with each other, yet it seems like cat fight , only they themselve will knwo the answer :P

Another Day @ School

Diamond cookies

B4 i popped into my mouth

Nothing much happen today , Lecture ws very "dry" as per normal.Nothing much happen today except 2 of our classmates was ask to go to SATS for interview. Another things is that just realized that 2 of my classmates was actually going to be attached to my fren's sister , ha ha small world... Wonder what will happen if I am the one attached to her ? Ohhh one thing we learnt today about the culture of French 's baking. The bakers who do bread will be allows to bring one loaf back for the family , the reason is that some sort of thanking him for making the bread for all to eat so they are rewarded. ( Just happen someone asked why can't we bring home the cookies we baked and the previous bread can bring home the bread they baked, so Chef Frederic explained that reasons why we can bring back the cookies is due to hygene reasons but for bread since it was a traditional and part of the culture so for bread we can bring home IF we baked it but not any other things.Attached on the top is 2 pic of the Diamond cookies we baked today , We also learnt Sea Biscuit but not enough time to bake cos the team doing the "Diamond" did wrong measurment so there was a delay cos they hat to redo all over again.

P/s : Talk with 2 BIPB001 senior and it seems that attachment to Hotel might not really be that good cos it really depends to which hotel you are attached to and whether they provide training there or do section rotation.So maybe stand alone pastry might not be too bad too. May the whole batch of us be able to learn as much as we can in our attachmenet sites :)

Drawing for me

Drawing done my my niece - Joelle

My lously day

Chef Jimmy's Show Piece

Chef Jimmy 's work

My ugly writing

Today seems to be a nice day ... as we only starts our class @ 10 am. Did the usual, had breakfast and went to school, thot y bag feel a bit lighter then usual then to realize that I left few stuffs in school locker. Reach school around 9.40am and the big shock..... I LEFT MY UNIFORM @ HOME !!!!! damm ... so "suay" sure will kena hell from Chef ... so faster called Bryan to send to me cos if I am to make my way home and back to school again ... that will be lunch time already. Anyway went to inform Chef Jimmy that I will join the class later cos I forget my uniform (dbl "suay" chef Frederic was there and think he say that no uniform then have to go back and that).
Join the class around 1030 am instead, they have already starting dealing with chocolate ... YES ... it's CHOCOLATE ... cos today we are going to learn chocolate piping. Attached is 2 pics, one is Chef Jimmy's Demo, the other is my ugly free hand- we are suppose to just draw lines n circles but I hand itchy, and feels not bad cos my lines sucks but Chef commented my writing not bad, quite even spacing just needs to be more stable and corrected my holding of the chocolate.
After lunch, the whole class had a talk with Chef Frederic regarding our concern mention in my previous post. Well P&C answers were given..... Eg. He can't take all 4 classes (cos we are the 3rd batch and 4th is coming in next Jan and that time why he took DIPB 1 & 2 is cos there was only 1 pastry instructor. Now with Chef Jimmy onboard, they will compliment one another and coming forward all classes that join will be like us. And the question on attachments, he mention that he visited 5 attachment sites (but b4 he can mention all 5, he was cut off at 2nd, he mention SATS n Bakerz Inn, which none of us was attached to any of it) But he did make sense as in not all attached site will be able to give us all the exposure cos due to the business nature. But I still think Hotel will be able to give better CV credo (I think lar)
Next we continue our lectures with chef Sony, ALL was tired n sleepy cos afternoon lecture and after a full lunch, Even the chef himself feels tired !!! ha ha . But there come another sad news.... World Gourmet Summit will be in 3rd year running (I think) and will be in SG next April again and there will be 3 scholarship given to 3 young/aspiring chef to be in 3 different category. This seems to be good news for all of us BUT that is only open to 18-26yo !!!!! Sigh even know I am not good enough for that but at least still can have a go and gain some experiences from that but because of the age limit, most of us don't even had a chance … sigh. Also I will not be attached to hotels thus chances of getting attached to WGS for the events will be 0, nil, none, never! Sigh * 2 (cos Chef Sony was telling us that since some of the major hotels will have events hosted and thus the staffs there might have chance to attached to some of the World famous chef to help them out and learn at the same time but as I mention before, only 3 of the whole batch is attached to hotel so it’s like killing out chances also. Quite low moral after hearing all these.
“Suay” things of the day 1) forget uniform 2) overage 3) no exposures

Monday Blues ....

Choux Pastry

Eclairs

Start with a fresh day looking forward to school only to find out that there might be more then meets the eye in our class. It was stated that we were suppose to studee under Chef Frederic , work in TOP hotel/patisseries as quote in the brochure as per below : -

- The first diploma of its kind in Asia, master the integrities of pastry and bread-making from the French pastry master himself, Chef Frederic Deshayes.

Note : "HIMSELF"

Faculty : You will receive instruction from the at-sunrice team of professional pastry and baking educators who have worked in the USA, France, UK, Belgium, Japan, Korea, Thailand, India, Vietnam, China, Malaysia and Hong Kong

Apprenticeship in top hotels patisseries,fine dining patisseries and standalone patisseries.

Note : "TOP"

But least did we all know , most of our classes will be taken by Chef Jimmy, Chef Frederic will most prob take us for orientation and term 4 n 5 ( as he is already taking 2 full time classes) and most of our attachements are new partners , hotel placement is only 3 pax and the rest of us ... all standalone pastry shop and stuff. Not that we had any thing against Chef Jimmy , just that we were all enrolled thinking that we will be trained under Chef Frederic himself. But now all seems different so we also dunno what is in for us now ... think we will need to sort it out with the school. This is just not fair to us cos all these was not mention to us before the course and we will assume what we read on the brochure.

Anyway today's first theory class with Chef Frederic , all was quiet cos he asked us anyone of us read pior to the class and only 1 did , yet none can answer his question. We had our afternoon class with Chef Jimmy for piping practices again and this time is piping choux pastry .... i totally suck at piping .. think getting from bad to worst ... think last time at BITC i still ok leh .... anyway more practices needed for me ... anyway attached it 2 pics i took today.