I scream! You scream! We all scream for...aspic??

After 9 days of pastry bliss, I completed my Advanced Patisserie and Plated Desserts Class. Yesterday was the day of my final written exam and my practical. Though most of our classwork had been done in groups, our practical grades were based on individual organization, sanitation and our final plated product. My group was assigned chocolate mousse as our practical dish, and we were able to make the mousse as a group. Any additional garnishes, cookies, sugar work or chocolate piping had to be done individually. And the plating was entirely individual. Each of us had to assemble 3 plates of our plating design.

I put a fair amount of thought into my plate over the weekend, and although it didn't turn out the way I had pictured it, given the time we had to put it together I was happy with it. I wish I had more pictures to show my work along the way, but it was practical day so my priority wasn't exactly photography. What you see in the picture below, is a chocolate bowl with a white chocolate drizzle, a twisted tuile cookie (I made that name up) and an almond lace cone with whipped cream. The design on the plate is piped in chocolate and filled with a strawberry coulis.

There are more pictures of some of my classmates' desserts in my "Moving on Up: Sophomore Labs" album which I have linked in the right margin.

As I mentioned above, today I began Garde Manger, a course which focuses on salads, cold appetizers, pate, and any other cold buffet or cold food products. Most of these food items must be covered with aspic before plating. If you're not familiar with aspic, it's a "savory jelly used for garde-manger applications and is produced primarily from meat, fish, or vegetables." Sound a little unappetizing? It does to me too. Garde-Manger used to be for preserving food, and now it is the art of presenting food. However, it's going to take a lot of very artful presentation to make savory jelly covered pate sound, look or taste appetizing to me. I really am trying to be excited but it's hard to look forward to pate when I've been snacking on fruit tarts and chocolate covered tuille cookies for the last 2 weeks. Hopefully my mind will be changed during the next couple of days when we start production.