Playing with sugar and my beef with buttercream (day 4)

Quote of the day: "California? Oh yes, that place filled with nuts and raisins" - Chef Schorner, referring not to the produce but the human inhabitants of the Golden State

Today I played hookie. I'll get that out of the way now. I skipped my usual 3-course lunch at the CIA and went to McDonald's for some fries and a filet-o-fish. And diet Coke. And yes, it was glorious. One good thing about playing hookie though, is that I got back from lunch early, and Chef Schorner taught me how to play with sugar and create cool sugar domes. Sweet!

Moving on -- today we finished frosting and decorating our cakes. Let me just say for the record that I hate buttercream. It's fickle and fussy and it doesn't like me. However, with a whole lot of help from the chef and repeated attempts, I'm happy to have produced my first buttercream-filled cake. I happen to think it's pretty hot. ;) We also sliced up our puff pastry for palmiers, and made a yummy apple tart. I think that might be my new pie!

Dinner today was at the American Bounty, which serves up, well, America's bounty. I had the soup sampler (which included four soups ranging from cheddar beer to alligator gumbo), the free range chicken cooked two ways (stuffed, and sausage), and the vanilla panna cotta with spiced earl grey sauce for dessert.

And with that, the last day of boot camp is upon us. Tomorrow we bake up our palmiers, finish our fruit tarts and figure out what other pastry goodies await us in the future. Oh, that and I have to go home. :(