Picking Up On Pastry

I am always a bit nervous going into work after two days off, especially when I am basically in charge of a section. Because I never know what kind of shape it will be left in, if there is a lot to do, or if it is organized the way I like it. I had spent a considerable amount of time last week cleaning and organizing, so I hoped it wasn’t messed up again. I also know yesterday was busy and short-staffed so there could be a lot to do today. I found the list left for me, which thankfully didn’t have too many jobs. I also knew the cook who had been covering pastry for me doesn’t tend to come in until about an hour later, so if I had any questions I couldn’t ask him until then.

I began with weighing out my four bread doughs, a necessity for every morning, and putting bowls in the freezer for scooping sorbet later and choosing my flavor of the day – pineapple. Then I decided to get straight to the first few jobs on my list – making a quadruple batch of chocolate mousse (my favorite) and making lime confit. Next came making a different type of chocolate mousse, which the other cook had to demonstrate for me, prepping the petit fours, scooping the sorbet, vacpacing and freezing stuff, cooking goat’s cheese tourte, etc. Next, I was getting ready to clean out my fridge (it got pretty disorganized in the past three days) and start my breads soon, when the cook informed me I needed to make three liters of crème brulée mix for twenty-five crème brulées for a function tomorrow, as well as prep fifteen apple and berry crumbles (luckily the mix for this was already made up). I think the function is being held at lunchtime, not during our service time, but it is more restaurant-type food than bar food, and this is two examples of desserts served at weddings. So I prepped those then began my breads – tomato basil, apple fennel, bacon cheddar, and cranberry knots for the starter section (which two cooks showed me different ways to form them, both saying their way was better).

Apple berry crumbles like the ones ready for tomorrow

Once my breads were done I did some cleaning and organizing and also had to assemble some delices for tonight’s service and set up the station. It was not so stressful tonight even with nearly fifty diners because we had another cook come in for service to help, so I could basically concentrate on pastry and even got some more cheese cut and all my labelling and cleaning done