Pastries In The Freezer

Today I was on pastry in the restaurant again, and we were expecting a whopping nine people tonight, which actually turned into fifteen. So I didn’t have a whole lot of prep to do, but wanted to be productive today. I began by scooping up tonight’s sorbet – mango, and setting up my station. When one of the other cooks was in, I got him to help me make the vanilla and lime crème brulée, as the pastry cook told me to make sure he explained it to me (I had never made it before) and parts of it are a two person job. I learned one really neat trick here – since custards tend to have air bubbles from the eggs and cream and all the mixing, if you lightly blow torch the top of the mixture in the pan right before baking, the air bubbles disappear and you don’t get that ‘eggy; texture on top after the mixture is chilled. While making the brulée, I also multitasked in cutting the sponge base for delice and making more chocolate topping for the delice.

While keeping an eye on the brulée, I weighed out the ingredients for my bread rolls, and got the baked petit fours ready and trayed up the other petit fours. Then I rolled some more passionfruit jelly rolls, which is a tedious and delicate job. I went to deliver the petit fours to the service area, and met one of the dining room managers polishing silverware. She must have been bored, because she stopped me to chat for a while, which I didn’t mind since she was asking about my experience here and I really haven’t talked much with this server, plus I wasn’t too busy today. Come to think of it, I’ve had a few servers ask me today about my experience, as they are beginning to realize I only have a few weeks left. For the most part, I have been greatly enjoying it, and I tell them this, that I enjoy working, don’t mind the long days, really wanted to travel, am not too homesick (sorry Mom), will be happy to be home (or back to school) but will miss it here too. The servers all seem to compliment me, and the particular one I was speaking with today said she heard I was just “brilliant” in the kitchen. All this talk really boosts my confidence and makes my internship all that more valuable.

Once I finished my chat, it was just about time to make bread. Today I chose to make tomato basil (a standard), mixed herb (parsley, basil, and rosemary), and oat and honey. When the server came around to ask what today’s bread flavors were, she was delighted to hear some new ones instead of the standard old bacon, onion, cheese. However, one of the other chefs said, “She’s just showing us up. I like my standard bread rolls. They are handy.” And the server said, “Well obviously she thinks of these things before she comes into work.” To which he said, “Well I have more important things to think about.” All in good fun.

A little taste of home? The other intern made a 'traditional' dish from back home - poutine.

I had all my jobs done for the day and did not want to overprep for tomorrow, as I was still in quite good shape and things can spoil quickly. Although now I wish I had because we went from 25 diners tomorrow to possibly 60. But I decided to continue my cleaning and clean out the pastry section in the walk-in freezer. 
Then, since our first diners were not booked until 7:00p.m., I made some more stuff to freeze and have on hand. That way I wouldn’t need to worry about it at all on busy days. I made cannelle mix, pickled celery, golden raisin compote, and plum chutney to vacpac and freeze. We also had to make twenty fruit skewers for something tomorrow. Service went very smoothly, and I was gone by 10:15p.m.