use real butter

Tonight I got a hankering for burnt sugar. I love caramelized sugar and I realized that may also be why I like toasted marshmallows – burnt sugar! Flan is a perfect vehicle for caramelized sugar. I think I also just want to get a lot of practice working with candying sugar because I want to become proficient enough at elevation that I don’t have to worry about bricking it. The cool thing was when I coated the pan – it ended up (unintentionally) with a pretty neat pattern.

I got to work alone tonight in class! The focus this evening was on crème anglais, semifreddos, mousse, pâte sucrée, parfait, and assemblages. Because there were so many recipes and each group had to do two, we were allowed to decide if we wanted to work on both together or work on one each. Guess what I picked! I made a White Chocolate Espresso Semifreddo and my partner made a Chocolate Mousse Torte. I’m happy to say that years of experience (read: years of tanking recipes) has really given me a good feel for whether a recipe is right or not. The chocolate crust of my semifreddo called for 1 tablespoon of butter, but I told Shan it was far too dry and he agreed, so we bumped it up. The mascarpone mixture was supposed to be chilled, but I knew this would make it difficult to incorporate with the Italian meringue – so I kept it out of the fridge. I’m pretty confident that I can deviate from the recipe with good results.

**Jump for more butter**

I dropped Jeremy off at work today on my way to class. My pastry skills class is normally on Thursday evenings, but today, I was going to be a guest in the pastry arts class. The pastry arts class is the professional program and I was checking it out to see if perhaps I want to plunk down a large wad of cash to learn the ways of the pastry chef. Class starts at 8 am and I got there a little early. I had checked with the staff yesterday to make sure it was still on and also to verify that the instructor was okay with 1) my visit and 2) my camera. She was. The guest chef is an artisan chocolatier and the assistant in my pastry skills class works for him. Chef Will was incredibly friendly and delighted to have me take pictures.

Although we had already gone over tempering and enrobing, the PA class was doing it in far more depth and detail. Plus, it was fantastic to see how differently the chefs teach about chocolate. I learned so much more. Will told me that he is OC, not OCD, because he doesn’t believe it is a disorder. I felt as if I had stumbled upon a group of people who totally understood me. Will said being OC is an asset because, “who wants to eat shitty looking chocolate?” Many of the students asked about my PS class since several had considered taking that instead. I said it was great.

**Jump for more butter**