Cooking class

For my 18th birthday, my uncles and aunts signed me up for a pastry making course at l'Institut Culinaire (The Culinary Institute) of Montreal. I just came back from the course and I'm so thrilled! It was a 7 hours intensive course where we learned all the basics of baking from making pie pastry to cream puffs. Here are the results:

Apple pie

Of course, this was my favorite, partial as I am to fruity desserts. I hope I'll have the time to pick apples this autumn to make plenty more apple pies but since I learned to make the crust, I guess I could do it with any other fruit. I'll try it with strawberries and rhubarb next.

Boston Cream Pie

I don't usually like Boston Cream Pies but the one we made that day was heavenly. I think it has to do with the fact that we used real vanilla beans to flavour the pastry cream instead of cheap vanilla extract like I usually do at home. Well now, no more vanilla extract for me!

Choux à la Crème/ Cream Puffs

We learned to do puff paste which was quite impressing because my puffs looked like little ugly blobs when I put them in the oven and when I took them out they looked perfect! The next time I make puffs, I'll fill them with ice cream and cover them with the fudgy sauce below.

Crème Anglaise

Again, I don't normally like English Cream but with the vanilla bean, it tasted so good.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Very simple to make, goes well with Ice cream

I'm prrrretty proud of myself! :)
I still can't believe that I got to learn all these recipes and baking tips in just One day. At the beginning of the day, we were given a small recipe book and I swear, at the end mine looked like the Half-Blood Prince's potion book since it was covered in so much writing ^_^
There are still many classe I would love to take at the Académie but since they are so expensive, I think I'll wait for Christmas and my birthday. *Subtle hint*