La Roche-Posay, France

To quote The Simpsons: Best. Day. Ever!

Today we tackled 4 of the biggest M’s in pastry:

• Macarons
• Meringues
• Madelines and
• Multitasking

(We also made brioche and croissant dough but they don’t fit in with the M theme.)

Desserts often require the production of multiple individual components that are brought together into a delicious creation at the end of the process. That statement pretty much summarizes our day (and, to be honest, the rest of the week as well.)

The day was a bit of a whirlwind, In addition to enjoying ourselves, Sidney and Allison also want to make sure that we learn a lot while we are here. We jumped back and forth between making multiple different kinds of ganache and macaron shells, madelines, brioche, croissant and chocolate glaze and 3 kinds of meringue!

Alison showed us how to assemble macarons and then proceeded to demonstrate a few ‘over the top’ presentation techniques that illustrate the precision, creativity and finesse exhibited by professional pastry chefs.

Sidney put a layer of glaze on Tuesday’s layered mousse dessert that looked like a chocolate mirror. All of the components that we have been working on over the course of the week are starting to come together. Can’t wait for the grande finale tomorrow night!!!