Wow. Just wow. What a day. And, no, I’m not talking about the Rapture because apparently, if it happened Jesus left me behind. Hey…Jesus! Still here! Hellooooooo!
No, today was my first day in a professional kitchen. And, not to like, uh, jump the gun or anything, but it was amazing. The day began at 10am, which usually would be late for me except that last night Maux sang at this burlesque event called The Sassy Minx and I was there until midnight. But, it was worth it – she completely nailed it with her saucy version of “Minne the Moocher.”
So, I arrived at 10am, donned in the ugliest shoes I think I may have ever worn (why can’t nonslip shoes be attractive?), a black v-neck and some black work pants. Truth be told, the shirt I was wearing didn’t really matter as I was going to wear a white button down and an apron over it anyway. At the restaurant, the pastry department consists of a head pastry chef and her pastry cook. Bread is tackled by another team that comes in at 8pm, which means that all prep work and dessert creation has to be done by then for the day. Plating takes place in another part of the kitchen. In addition to being small, the pastry team gets the best work area in the place. It’s surrounded by windows so sunlight streams in as you’re making granola or chocolate ganache or cake and you can people watch. It’s basically like having the corner office.
My first task of the day was to make hot chocolate for the brunch service. In the kitchen there are five different places where ingredients live plus a whole ton of other areas where tools are found. I was a little lost at first, but by the the end of the day (6pm) had figured out what the pastry cook meant when she told me to get something from the “dry goods” area. Almost as soon as I had found all of the ingredients for the hot chocolate, the pastry chef was told that we didn’t actually need the hot chocolate, so I put most of those ingredients back and make the mexican chocolate ganache filling for the macarons instead. Now, I’ve actually made ganache before so I wasn’t totally overwhelmed by this ::phew:: except that I really didn’t want to screw up so I tried to be super careful when it came to scalding the cream. As usual, I heated the cream and the spices, etc. and then when it was hot, poured it over the chocolate, letting it rest for a minute before emulsifying.
Then, I worked with the “sticky goo” for the sticky buns. The pastry chef rolled out the dough, and filled it with the sugar and nuts before measuring it with a yardstick and cutting even sections and then I set those into cake pans so they could freeze and then, later, proof for the next day’s brunch service. After that, I learned how to make fancy snicker bars and learned to be super precise about making sure the layers were even so they looked good when someone cut into them. Before this, while I was working with the sticky goo, I watched the pastry chef pour dark chocolate over the ones they had already made and suddenly a lightbulb went off in my head. I was doing my truffles all wrong! Instead of dropping the truffles into the tempered chocolate and then fishing them out with a dipping fork, I should be holding the dipping fork, using a ladle to pour the chocolate over the truffle and then scraping that on the side of the bowl. Ohhhhh. Cool.
She let me try one with one of the scraps. Let’s just say hers was much, much prettier. Mine looked like it had dropped on the ground, been picked up, dropped again, and then slid onto the tray. But, I’m sure it still tasted good…even if they weren’t going to serve it. Ok, that’s not an if, that’s a they were definitely not going to serve it. I’m sure it will go to one of the kitchen staff, though.
As I was working with the snickers bars – they take a little while since there are three layers – I also watched the pair of them put together three carrot cakes and roll out adorable little carrots (which they topped with actual carrot greens!) out of marzipan. Now, I personally can’t stand the taste of marzipan, but it looks great. And, I learned how to make mini carrots! Basically you take a ball and then smoosh it a little on one end as you’re rolling it. They then add luster dust and little cuts to give it an authentic feel.
Ok…what else did I do…I watched the pastry cook pipe dozens upon dozens of perfect chocolate macarons. Watching her helped me understand more clearly how I’m supposed to pipe them so I don’t get the little hard points on top. I’m looking forward to trying mine again, and since I have a few batches of pre-mixed flour in my fridge, I think it’s time to give them a go! I also learned a great technique for baking them and for prepping the stenciled sheets (hint: two parchment sheets). Then, at the very end of the day I was tasked with making the granola, so I was pleased that they entrusted me to do something all on my own (minus the cooking part since that happened after I left for the day).
But that was just the making stuff. I learned so much today. How to be cleaner in the kitchen, how to be more efficient, how a kitchen works behind the scenes, how to prevent my marshmallows from sticking together, how to make macarons taste divine, and so so much more. In short, it was incredible.