We had our test first thing this morning. I think I did ok! We'll see next week. I also found out that everyone that took the ISG exam for first level sommelier passed, which means me too. I just don't have a hard copy!
We had a lecture on cookies and then on dessert sauces. Cookies are a diverse group of small sweet cakes or pastries described and categorized by how the dough is prepared and shaped for baking. There are eight basic methods for shaping cookies, which give the different types of cookies their names:
1. Hand-cut or Rolled Cookies: i.e, Sugar Cookies
2. Bagged or Piped Cookies: i.e Spritz butter cookies
3. Dropped Cookies: Chocolate Chip or Oatmeal Raisin cookies
4. Sheet Cookies: Brownies or Blondies
5. Bar Cookies: Biscotti
6. Icebox Cookies: Shortbread cookies
7. Molded Cookies: Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Teat Cakes
8. Wafer Cookies: Tuiles and Pizelles
I have to say, I had to "suspend disbelief" on some of these as they are not the way I have been taught before. But, when in Rome......
Next Chef Lexie talked about dessert sauces:
1. Pouils-which is fruit puree, thickened or unthickened
2. Chocolate-not just melted chocolate, but chocolate with something else in it-cream, butter, liquor
3. Caramel-which is a stage in sugar cookery, caramel plus liquid = sauce (cream, coffee, liqour, water, pureed fruit). The more liquid you add, the thinner the sauce.
4. Reduction-wine, fruit juice or poaching liquid that is reduced to a syrupy sauce
5. Sabayon-cooked egg foam (yoks only). This can be sweet or savory. The formula for this is 1 oz yolks to 1 oz booze to 1 oz sugar.
6. Custard-creme anglaise, which is stove top custard with the texture of melted ice cream.
After this short lecture, we broke into our individual kitchens to make the items on the menu given to us yesterday. Alan and Corey from our group made Tomato Gruyere Tarts with a small salad dressed with vinaigrette. Geoff and I made Vichyssoise (cold potato leek soup). I have to say, I think our kitchen was the most relaxed. Some of the students freaked out at being on our own with no recipes! We got pretty good marks from Chef Lexie and Chef Dale. (Chef Pete left last night to go to Phillie to see family.) We got our dishes out on time. There were a few criticisms: the tart, which was a "amuse busche" or "amuse poo-poo" is suppose to "amuse the mouth" and be just one or two bites, max. Ours was a little bigger than that, though not by much! Our soup, though tasty, had a "sour" note to it-not sure what that was from-according to Chef Dale. Hot plate made roast chicken with Sapaina and Duchess potatoes. Pastry made Marjolaise-hazelnut meringue with chocolate ganache and buttercream. Everything tasted good!
As this is our half-way point, a few of us went out for a drink to celebrate. Hard to believe the first month in the kitchens is over!!! Then it was home. Paula and I decided to change our dinners out to Saturday so we could enjoy them more! I think we are going to try the restaurant 1515 (part of the address also). I'll let you know if the restaurant is good or not, lol!
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