Culinary School - Finals!

Finals are in full swing at culinary school. It's been an exhausting last couple of days. Friday night we had fun at my hubby's company Christmas party. Then just a few hours later I had to wake up at 4:30am in order to leave the house by 5am for my first set of finals! My chocolate final started at 6am on Saturday. We had a 15 minute break for lunch and then my sugar final began. Didn't get home until 6:30pm and by then I was completely wiped out!

I couldn't be happier with how well my chocolate and sugar finals went. There were written finals at the beginning of each and then on to the practicals. Here are my chocolates that I presented to the Chef at the end of the allotted time frame.

Orange Grand Marnier rolled truffles in the chocolate bowl, molded PB chocolates colored with orange, and Palet Or hand dipped truffles textured with gold straws.


I was a bit nervous heading into the Sugar practical. The Chef told us we would be paired in 2's for our final and we each drew a number out of a bowl. I could not have been any HAPPIER with the woman I got paired up with. We worked so well together and all of our candies turned out wonderfully. The others in class were calling us the "dream team". :)

Here's what we had to present to the Chef for our grade: grape flavored taffies, nougat montelimar, toffee, peanut brittle, and sponge candy.


Today was my final in Advanced Cakes and Classical Tortes. As a class we had to prepare a grand dessert buffet for friends, family, and all the students and faculty of the school. Here are some pictures from today. There were so many desserts!

There were cream puffs filled with strawberries and pastry cream, chocolate flourless cake, mini key lime pies, dobos torte, fillo dough crusts filled with pastry cream and fresh fruit, mini apple pies, chocolate mousse, mini dessert shots, french macaroons of all colors, chocolate brownies, blondies, raspberry bars, pecan diamonds, lemon bars, coconut macaroons, biscotti...



There was a beinet (doughnut) serving station....


There were whole cakes and pies...German chocolate, coconut cream pie, cheesecake, red velvet, pumpkin cheesecake and more!


There was a crepe serving station...


And even a ton of fresh ice creams and sorbets that we learned how to make in class...


Today was another huge success in my book! I'm pretty sure my lunch today was more than 2000 calories but it was worth it. :)



This coming Saturday I have round #2 of finals in Chocolate and Sugar class. We are creating individual centerpieces from all the different techniques we learned this quarter. Should be lots of fun! Then I'm on a 3 week break.