"This is easy shit."

Croissants take three!

Much better hey? Mine always turn out a little clubfooted but otherwise, I think they turned out pretty nice. The advanced pastry chef even came in and told our class that he was very please. Good sign. I got the opportunity to troubleshoot with this batch a little too. If you begin the lamination process with croissants (which is the process of layering and rolling out the butter and dough combination) when the butter is too cold, the butter will seize and break up into chunks which is not what you want. You want a cohesive layer of butter that you can roll out to create increasingly thinner and thinner layers that will separate and become flaky during baking. Despite my knowledge of this, and probably due to my eagerness to get started, this is exactly what happened to me. My butter seized and instantly I was faced with an incorporated butter block that had broken into a million pieces. My croissant dough looked like a cobblestone street. Too bad. But totally fixable and that's the good part. I may have sworn. And I may have sworn at the inanimate object before me. School has caused me to create rather a habit out of this. But with Chef's patience (and flamboyant) guidance, I was able to save them.

This is the cheesecake, as promised. And as Chef promised to us, it was the smoothest, creamiest cheesecake I have ever had. Considerable will power was required today anywhere within three feet of that cheesecake. I'm an inspiration.

Our overflow project for today was creme brûlée. They baked at the end of the day, they will chill overnight and we will torch them tomorrow. And they are in ramekins, which can't leave school property. The only foreseeable solution I see to this is to eat them all tomorrow. Twist my arm. I am nothing if not sacrificial. The torching of the sugar crust will be interesting. I hold the blow torch the same way I hold babies: away from my body at full arms length with one eye closed.

We also made Linzer Torte today which was far cooler than I expected. Linzer Torte is one of the oldest recipes in pastry. The oldest printed recipe dates back to the 1650's. It's an Austrian pastry, named after the town of Linz in Austria. The Austrians have been an excellent contributor in the world of pastry. Would definitely give them hype on reddit.

The crust is a crumbly pastry made up of ground hazelnuts and flour with sugar. It is then piped in to the pan and filled with traditionally a red- or blackcurrant preserve which North America reliably replaces with raspberry jam.

It's really a pretty dessert. If you use jam in the middle, it is super sweet. I think it would be so good with either fresh berries in the middle or a compote or preserve with very little sugar and a little tang to balance out the sweetness of the pastry.

Chef bumped crepes today so that we could do croissants. Tomorrow is also creme caramel and pots du creme. After that we do savouries: spanikopita, onion tart, sausage rolls and samosas. Yum.

Go find a recipe that you've known for a while. Eat it because you are honouring the time honoured tradition. Thank me. Repeat.