Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

For a meager $600, I, and five other students interested in pastry arts, got to attend a two day seminar with world famous pastry chefs and chocolatiers Jin Caldwell and Stanton Ho. Held at our local fine pastry supply store, it was quite an experience.

We first got a crash course on tempering chocolate utilizing three different methods. I had really wanted to do the tabling method since everyone had a marble slab at their station, but there wasn’t enough for everyone to do it. I was most familiar with the direct method (using a microwave, since that was how I used chocolate at work), but the tabling seemed to be the most fun.

After that, we were taught how to make ganache. I was already familiar with this method, since I had done this at work as well. I did, however, learn a ton of new recipes. The first of which was a pina colada. I don’t like pina coladas, and I didn’t like this one. The rum flavor was absolutely killing me, and the pineapple and coconuts were too funky for my tastes. The second recipe, a Kona coffee ganache, was much better. The flavor was nice and strong and without alcohol. The final ganache was a Jasmine tea one. This was my favorite since the flavors were very subtle.

While the ganaches were being made, she passed around various products that she used. My favorite was her vanilla extract of sorts. I forgot exactly what it was called, but its smell was hypnotic. We were also taught how to make chocolate covered macadamia nuts, which were absolutely delicious. I must have had at least six of them before lunch.

When it was finally time to break for lunch, it felt really good to get off my feet and enjoy some catered food. I really didn’t want to get up and go back because my feet were absolutely killing me, and the rest of the students agreed. We got to take a tour of the refrigerated store room where they kept all their chocolate supplies, and that was lots of fun. There were quite a few new, interesting things I had never seen before.

When we came back for class, it was time to finish the truffles. That was somewhat entertaining, but I had to take a seat because my feet were beginning to ache again. When it was time for them to be drizzled with white chocolate, my parchment cone’s tip had somehow turned into a useless chisel rather than a fine point. So the truffles that I did drizzle came out in horrible globs rather than a fine line.

After that, it was time to learn some techniques. Unfortunately, this was the most boring part. The interactivity of the previous lessons was what kept me from feeling so exhausted, but just standing there for two hours absolutely sucked the life out of me. Sitting on the chair, I was beginning to doze off. Getting up and walking around didn’t help much either as I began to lose my balance and feel dizzy.

Half an hour before class was slated to end, she asked if we wanted to see more techniques or do the bonbons. Before anyone could answer, this domineering person who had been making almost all the decisions for everyone screamed, “Techniques.” He seemed to glare at anyone who might speak up against it, and so I quietly said to myself, “Oh God.” Because another half hour of standing and not doing anything seemed to be certain torture.

Interestingly, I retained a lot of information from the techniques instruction although I doubt I would ever use them at a high school level. Today was a good day in that I learned a lot of things, but I absolutely hated the fact that there was so little interactivity. Everyone had marble slabs at their table, but nobody got to use them. I was looking forward to being able to do so, and I hope that tomorrow we will.