{"id":1357,"date":"2013-06-08T14:57:40","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T12:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/?p=1357"},"modified":"2013-06-15T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-15T13:27:10","slug":"my-big-messy-pastry-exam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/studies\/my-big-messy-pastry-exam","title":{"rendered":"My big messy pastry exam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday I went to the Lyc\u00e9e Escoffier<\/strong> in Cagnes-sur-Mer<\/strong> to take my pastry exam<\/strong>: it was the day of the practical test.<\/p>\n

\"Examen<\/a><\/p>\n

It was the most important module of all<\/strong>, since it has a high coefficient (weight) and thus its result could determine whether I make it or break it! Basically, my diploma depends on this pastry-making part<\/strong> of the exam.<\/p>\n

What is the French CAP (Certificat d’aptitude professionnel) pastry practical exam about?<\/h3>\n

It is a 7-hour, intense test in a professional kitchen<\/strong>. Students are required to prepare items that cover all the basics<\/strong> in pastry. The subject of the exam is different for every test day, but the structure is always the same, so I knew I would have had to prepare:<\/p>\n

– A tart<\/em><\/p>\n

– An entremet (aka modern cake)<\/em><\/p>\n

– A preparation made with either p\u00e2te \u00e0 choux (aka \u00e9clair paste) or puff pastry<\/em><\/p>\n

– Viennoiseries, aka either croissants\/pains au chocolat, brioches or milk bread.<\/em><\/p>\n

Easy, uh? Well, it is not! It is a very complex<\/strong> exam because you need to be able to manage different tasks<\/strong> and baking times appropriately, all while keeping your work surface decently clean and respecting other hygiene rules.<\/p>\n

It’s the kind of stress you would experience by being a participant in Masterchef! \ud83d\ude1b Imagine that, for 7 hours!<\/p>\n

For my exam that day I had to make:<\/p>\n

– A banana-chocolate tart<\/p>\n

– A chocolate Bavarian cream cake with apricots<\/p>\n

– 12 Caramel-glazed salambos (fat oval \u00e9clairs filled with alcohol-flavoured pastry cream)<\/p>\n

– 16 Pains aux raisins (Croissant dough rolls with pastry cream and dried raisins).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My last training before the exam<\/h3>\n

Every year there are 8 subjects for this exam, which is taken in different days throughout France. By the time it was my turn, all 8 subjects had already been published on the Internet by other students \ud83d\ude42 (no recipes, just the names of the required elements in each subject) and by chance, 4 days before the exam, during the weekend, I had decided to train myself<\/strong> on one of the 8 subjects, and it turned out to be the same subject I faced last Thursday. This was the result:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3510\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nowhere near the perfection<\/strong> (Especially for the writing on top of the cake)! Not really encouraging 4 days before the final exam: the pains aux raisins were flat and more brioche-like rather than puff-pastry like, the salambos too big and unbaked, and the cake badly glazed and decorated.
\nNevertheless, this training helped me a lot because on the exam day, I knew already, more or less, how to plan my work.<\/p>\n

How my exam actually went<\/h3>\n

So how did it go? Well, not as good I had imagined<\/strong>, even though I knew all about the techniques. Unfortunately, a professional environment is tougher and messier than at home. I really have no idea whether I passed the exam or not.<\/p>\n

Worst thing<\/strong>: I failed completely the Bavarian cream (first I forgot to add the chocolate, then I forgot to put the gelatine in, so it did not melt). After half an hour wasted trying to fix the problem, I decided to remake it. Looooots of useful time wasted! \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

Stress factor<\/strong>: I was like 6 miles away from the ingredients and again, I kept on wasting time going back and forth<\/p>\n

– Banana-chocolate tart: finished but I didn’t have the time to glaze the fruits on top<\/p>\n

– Chocolate Bavarian cream cake with apricots: came out ok, but had no time at all for the decoration \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

– 12 Caramel-glazed salambos: they looked fine and regular to me; didn’t toast the almonds on top; pastry cream was a bit too alcoholic for the judges \ud83d\ude1b (they pretended they were drunk after one bite!)<\/p>\n

– 16 Pains aux raisins: all regular, but not puff-pastry like, especially because we had to use margarine. I had never used it before, but now I know that after 20 minutes in the fridge, margarin becomes armed concrete, so the dough became unmanageable for me!<\/p>\n

But alas, what’s done is done… results come out on July 8th! Still about one month of stress<\/strong> ahead! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday I went to the Lyc\u00e9e Escoffier in Cagnes-sur-Mer to take my pastry exam: it was the day of the practical test. It was the most important module of all, since it has a high coefficient (weight) and thus its result could determine whether I make it or break it! Basically, my diploma depends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[31,32],"class_list":["post-1357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-studies","tag-cap","tag-exam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}