Ferrandi Paris Diary: week 1 recap.

We are well and truly into the thick of it now, folks. I began my course at Ferrandi Paris about 2 weeks ago now, so here's what's been happening and how things went during the first week.

We started off on Thursday, April 3rd. Those first two days, Thursday and Friday, were orientation days. We were shown around the school, had our uniform fittings, received our tool boxes and sat for presentations on the program we would be participating in as well as the final exam projects we'd be working on.

The school is huge, spanning 4 floors with multiple "labs", 2 on campus restaurants where students are tested on their skills and an incredible library filled with resources that are sure to inspire.

We had uniforms provided to us from Bragard as part of our tuition, chefs jackets, pants, aprons, hats and a pair of shoes. Which all have a great fit and feel to them, bringing a lot of comfort to our learning experience. We were also given our toolboxes, which are filled with anything and everything you could possible need for your time in the pastry lab, scales, spatulas, knives, scrapers, whisks, brushes... You name it, it's in there.

On Friday, we arrived to the class room and began to go through the requirements for our creativity project. Essentially, we have to design a product, from start to finish, based on the techniques and recipes we've learnt in class. we were given a list of themes that we each had to choose from, for example there was a viennoiserie, a light chocolate, an exotic fruit, a spice dessert and a trompe l'oeil dessert, just to name a few. I picked the "red fruit" theme and you'll have to stay tuned to see the progress with that one.

The same afternoon, our chef Arnaud Bonnefoy organised for us to attend a tea time at Hotel Plaza Athenee, a beautiful, grand five-star hotel where we tasted a variety of 6 different desserts and were given a tour of their pastry kitchen. Overall an incredible and inspirational experience.

Come Monday we were ready for our first real week to begin, and this week was spent making tarts with chef Arnaud. Throughout the week, we worked in pairs and each group picked a tart or two to focus on. Monday through Wednesday was spent on mise en place (prep work), Thursday was about final touches and baking everything so it would be as fresh as possible for Friday, when we finally assembled and displayed the tarts.

What was on the menu:

Apple & Hazelnut, Strawberry & Rhubarb, Black Sesame & Black Berry, Apple Tatin, Lemon Yuzu, Buckwheat Orange & Chocolate, Rice & Apricot, Exotic Fruit, Mont Blanc, Honey & Honey & Reine des Prés.

It was great learning from chef about the different techniques and methods behind making these tarts, drawing inspiration from various places and being able to bring it all together in a product. My personal favourites were the Apple Tatin and the Lemon Yuzu.

Each tart has several components which we made over the span of the entire week. The shells and some fillings were made and frozen until we were ready to bake them, keeping them as fresh as possible for the final assembly day. Various fillings like curds, jellies and mousses were made over the next few days as some needed to be divided into moulds and frozen before we were able to use them. Overall a bit of a lengthy process but, definitely worth the wait.

We then had the obligitory taste test followed by some group photos. Overall concensus was that the Apple Tatin, Black Sesame & Black Berry and the Lemon Yuzu were class favourites.

And just like that, all that was left to do was take what we wanted home and set the rest aside for charity pick up. All of a sudden our first week was over and we all couldn't be prouder of what we had achieved.

Coming up next week... Viennoiserie & Bread!!

Thanks for following along!

There is still so much to see, learn and experience, and I can't wait to share the rest of my adventures with you!

Until next time, from Willoh.