Boutique Desserts By French Master Pastry Chef

I am having serious withdrawal symptoms, as I've spent the last two days amidst the wafting aromas of freshly baked dacquoise, cuiller, genes, ......

Finally, I enrolled myself in one of those fancy smancy courses offered by the French Culinary School, aka HTC, (with retail outlet known as gourmandines) under the tutelage of

JEAN-FRANCOIS ARNAUD,
Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France - M.O.F.

Actually this was made possible because of a gift voucher, given to me by my dear friend (aka the WOMAN I AM SCARED OF), for my 40th, which was to attend any one day course conducted by Monsieur Arnaud. As this was a 2 day course, I was allowed to pay the difference to attend. Trying to get into the golden triangle, by 9am, wasn't exactly my cup of tea, and wondered how the minions who do work in that area can take the congestion day after day. And I couldn't fathom why they would want to start at 9am, and have to contend with all that rush hour traffic. Then I knew, coz this course is actually "work", as most of the attendees were professional chefs, hailing from KL hilton, Genting, KL convention centre, etc etc. One of the ladies even came all the way from Bangkok!!!

First, we were given an introduction, by Bruno, one of the chefs in HTC, (I love the French accent, and when they speak English), and very systematically, Jean Francois explained (translated by Bruno) what we would do for each offering, each layer, etc etc. Very fascinating. We were told that we would only see the finished product at the end of the 2 days, which really made the build up even more exciting.

Well, as I do not have my camera or memory card with me here, today, the complete post with photos will have to wait. The repertoire was as follows:

Chocolate Jasmine Flower Entremet
Blackcurrant Chiboust
Dacquoise Walnut And Coffee
Opera
Lemon Praline With Lemon Macaroons
Strawberry Pistachio Tart
Lemon Strawberry Entremet With Printed Joconde
Passion Fruit Apricot Mousse

Of course, being the jakun that I was, very shyly raised my hand and said, "excuse me, what is ANTREMAT" ....French chef replies, "oh, ontromay, it means, ze cake, sort of like a gateaux". Haiya, say so lah, Cake. Actually, I bet none of the tai tais present there knew what an entremet was either.

One tai tai (or more likely, see lai) asked the chef, "oh, do you use dairy or non dairy whipping cream".... I looked at her aghast, and whispered, "eugh, no one eats non dairy whipping cream, its revolting"....she looked a bit miffed, but later on I found out, looking at the pictures of her cakes, proudly displayed in her digital camera, she uses that fake stuff on all her cakes. One look at that shocking white finish is enough to make me gag. Now now let's not be bitchy. But SERIOUSLY, fake whipping cream, IMHO IS inedible. If you need the cake to be decorated nicely, and not melt, and want to make it look like cream.....I think I'd rather go for buttercream. (not the Wilton variety which uses shortening....ugh) Even the French chef looked a bit puzzled at the question about fake whipping cream. Hallo, do you use fake chocolate in your cakes lady?!!! or fake rice in your rice?

Anyway, just to give yall a teaser, here are few pics of the first cake....unfinished, of course. It's amazing what make up can do. This is why you can never recognise a bride on her wedding day. Quite tragic right, when your children grow up, and look at your wedding pictures, and ask "mommy, who's that woman next to daddy".

To be continued. ...