Bragging Rights, Yo

It's a dark chocolate farewell to pastry school -- bittersweet.  Get it? 

(exasperated sigh)

Farewell to ironing those heavy chef coats, to tying a neckerchief every morning like a boy scout, to toting that ridiculous tool box everywhere, and to wearing that embarrassing cap that makes everybody look bald.  

(I feel like it's important to remind people bi-weekly that I have bangs, you know). 

I moved to Arizona almost a year ago without knowing anyone here and having no real idea what to expect from pastry school.  And now I've managed to come out on the other side with only a few minor cuts and burns, I know that I definitely prefer American buttercream over French/Italian/Swiss, and I've made like 3...maybe 4 new friends.  (Wait...do my aunt and uncle count as one set of friends or two individual friends??)

From my plated desserts class: 

This class was the most challenging for me, probably because we were given a good deal of creative freedom and I prefer to stick to the regimented structure of rules and rubrics.  Plus, there was all that effort and time and work and sweat, and then when it all comes together in the end, you're almost like, "All of that work for something that small??"  I imagine that must be what pregnancy feels like.  

Creme Brulee

Bouchée filled with pastry cream

Bouchée, take: 2

Phyllo cup with apple pie filling, tuile, caramelized sugar, and  cinnamon ice cream

[When plating this dessert, Chef called me out for putting raw apples on my plate, like some kind of barbarian -- the impudence! The audacity! THE UNMITIGATED GALL! 
But I defended my decision and stood my ground.]

Apple Tart Tatin

Chocolate mousse in a tempered chocolate vessel

Poached pears

Dark Chocolate Ganache Truffles

Truffles, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge, Mango Gelée, Bon-bons, Peanut Brittle, Brown Sugar Toffee

Chocolate Showpiece

Sugar Showpiece -- pulled sugar, ice casting, pastillage, crystallized pastillage, bubble sugar, blown sugar spheres, sugar  ribbons

Wedding cake -- piping techniques: drop-string, pearl border, Picot dots, Cornelli lace

Gumpaste Flowers

Chiffon birthday cake with Swiss meringue buttercream and marzipan figurines

Getting ready this morning, I tried to make everything feel weighty and momentous as I did it all for the last time, but I was too excited by the prospect of a nap after taking our final exam to feel too serious.  It will definitely take some time to sink in though, to realize that school is really over -- not just pastry school, but SCHOOL.  Done-zo. 

While nothing is effectively changing all that much -- I'll still be living in the same place and working at the same job -- I can't help but feel like life will be different.  I feel a little like I did before moving out here, like I'm on the cusp, the precipice (Laura -- I don't really know what that means....) of some changes, and I'm excited by the uncertainty of the future.  For now though, I'll probably just make cookies and dance to this at full blast in my kitchen after my roommates leave for work.  

And so I hang up my 5 am wake-up calls and 12-hour days in exchange for 4 am alarms and a mere 8-hours on the job.  Just a 3-month externship stands in the way of me and my certificate before I'm 1 happy camper and get to [finally] go home for a spell.  

Does anyone want to take me out to dinner to celebrate?? Boys???