Over A Hundred Desserts By Myself

Today I got into work and got my chocolate mousse on right away. Then I was told to bake and slice some bread for the lunchtime function. I also made three trays of passionfruit jelly. While all that was on the go, I weighed out my bread dough and began traying up the petit fours, knowing the function would run late and then I would be a bit pressed for time to get everything done. I am very glad I did that. Next I balled a bunch of ice cream and sorbet in preparation for the desserts for the function. Then I prepared lime foam, lime confit, and caramel spirals, but couldn’t finish them since the kitchen was being used for the function, and I needed the stove and blender. 

After checking on orders I was debating what, if anything, I could do as a small job before I got very busy with dessert orders. Then I got my pre-order for the kids’ table, which had adult desserts on it (not impressed) so I prepped that. Then I had to help plate the mains and flash the veg. The head chef was getting mad at the chef de partie for taking too long. Once mains were out, I finished prepping my desserts and put the crumbles in the oven. I served the kids’ desserts. Then I served the adults’ desserts once the mains were clear. I had my plates all lined up and managed to have just enough crumbles and just enough raspberry sorbet scooped. I had 19 crumbles, one cold crumble, one kids’ crumble, 8 crème brulée, two kids’ crème brulée, three kids' ice cream, one kids' ice cream and sorbet, one kids fruit salad, four adult ice creams and sorbets, and two vanilla ice creams. Not very difficult items to plate, but a lot to keep straight, The kids’ desserts were away first, so I got those out of the way in the back kitchen. Then a server came back and requested another sorbet and another crumble, saying these kids were all bratty and all had iPhones and whatnot and all the adults were very drunk despite it being midafternoon. Then I torched the brulées and began removing piping hot ramekins of crumble from the oven and onto plates. Then I had to top the brulées with sorbet, the crumbles with ice cream, and the bowls with ice cream and set them on the pass. 

Here is what gets my goat. I helped plate starters and mains when I had my own prep work to do. Then once they are gone, the chefs take off for a smoke. I am left alone to plate 44 desserts. It’s not that I cannot handle it, and I am impressed they leave so much trust in me to get that done without even sticking around to watch, but they could have asked if I wanted a hand. Finally, once I was nearly finished, the chef de partie asked if I was alright, then put some plates on the pass for me. But everything was plated by then. At least the three servers seemed very impressed with me and appreciative of me catering to all the requests. 

One of the cakes from one the functions today. Looks like a chocoholic's dream!

Of course once I got all the desserts out, it was already past my usual breadmaking time. I had to get a move on, and none of my petit fours were baked yet either. I got straight to it, rolling out bread (tomato basil, onion, and walnut spice), baking petit fours, cleaning up, etc. And as if I didn’t have enough to do myself, someone else asked me to do something for them, and one of the bar workers was ready to put me to work when he saw me standing idle for thirty seconds as I waited for one of the servers to get something for me from the bar. Of course now everyone in the restaurant was somewhat behind and the ovens were in use, so I had to wait and then use the other oven, putting my bread and petit fours further behind. 

Today, my cannelles didn’t turn out right. The tops were burnt, they were sunk, and the insides were hollow. It’s ironic because yesterday I was making the mix, as I had used the last bit and knew I would be busy today. The other pastry chef came along and told me I was doing it wrong, that the cannelles would turn out hollow if I did it that way. I said that’s funny because this is how I did it the past three times and they turned out fine. He proceeded to a lengthy explanation of why I was wrong, and could tell I was looking somewhat annoyed because then he said, I’m not trying to annoy you, and I said, I know but this is how I thought it was done all along why didn’t you tell me before? And now look whose method didn’t work out…. Now I was debating what to do. Can we do without cannelles, I know we have enough of the other petit fours, but cannelles are a daily thing. I didn’t want to show the chef because he was already in a bad mood and the mold was burnt and the pastry cook had told me they are expensive that’s why you can’t use the wrong method.’ I took the cannelles out and washed the mold, which came clean very easily. Then I showed them to chef and told him they hadn’t worked out today. Thankfully he wasn’t mad, just asked to see the mix. From looking at the cannelles, he determined there wasn’t enough egg for structure. I was impressed he could tell that just by looking as I had even tasted one, and I know quite a bit about pastry, and I was ready to chuck the mix out and start again. He told me to add two eggs and blend it up again. I thanked him, and they turned out perfectly. They were just done a lot later than usual. 

Then I still had to scoop the sorbet, cut another tray of brulée, and cut up pineapple for back-up fruit flowers. We had 67 diners in tonight – with two big tables, a table of 29, a table of 12, and a few groups of girls getaways. Luckily the first table was the 29 and it wasn’t until 6:30p.m. The good thing about big tables is they get a reduced menu and I get preorders. The head chef was prepping all the apps and a bunch of the starters in advance as well. When the first order came in I had to run downstairs to sort out the kids meals and cook them. Then I helped as more starter orders came in, and helped out with some veg as well. I messed up once when one of the goat cheese starts was supposed to be gluten-free, I remembered to leave off the melba toast and put two crotins, but I forgot the fried goat cheese ball was breaded and accidentally put that on, as I hadn’t really hear chef mumble. This contaminates the entire plate, but surprisingly he wasn’t really upset at me.

I went on to do my dessert orders – a lot of hot chocolate mousse soufflés, banana tarte tatins, and crème brulées. I prepped all the pre-orders in advance, but still got some orders on top of that and again got no help. Oh well ,there is something about sending out over a hundred plated desserts by yourself in one day that makes you feel very proud of yourself and feel like you really accomplished something today. And that you ran around and sweat buckets, but that’s an entire different story. As the executive chef said to me one day, “You don’t often get a pat on the back in this industry.” And it is true, none of the chefs said good job to me today, or you’re doing great. But at the end of the day, I always hear things through the grapevine from the friendly servers. They tell me the chefs talk about me a lot, and how they really like me, will be sad to see me go, I’m a really hard worker, etc. Maybe they’ll tell me that before I leave, but for now, at least I hear it through the servers.