I had my final demonstration on Friday! The chef made an intricate chocolate and orange mousse cake. The practical for this demonstration is actually our final exam, so I won't have a chance to recreate the cake at Le Cordon Bleu but I will definitely try back at home. We finished off our final class together with a champagne toast, I can't believe how fast my classes went by.
I now have a lot of time off to prepare for my exam on Thursday, and all of this free time has led me to miss some American staples. I found the store "Thanksgiving" which sells imported American products like oatmeal, pop tarts, muffin mix, fluff, chips and salsa etc. The products are much more expensive than in the US but it was nice to see them! I also went with three friends from school, two Americans, and one Canadian, to "Breakfast in America", a true American Diner in Paris. The food was enormous and delicious, they even had bottomless coffee!

This past Sunday I finally climbed to the top of Notre Dame. The view was beautiful, and it was especially nice to get a different perspective on my neighborhood. I also went to the wine museum of Paris, it is filled with tons of old tools and artifacts pertaining to the creation and consumption of wine. You can see the variety of old wine bottle openers on the left.
I had a pretty full week of class, we made the three kings cake, pastry twists, chocolate and pistachio log cake or "buche" cake, and a hazelnut with chocolate ganache cake. I had my final practical yesterday, so I won't be taking home any more baked goods from class. Then I have one more demonstration on Friday, and the final exam next Thursday!

This past weekend I went to Venice with two friends from my foyer. Venice was beautiful, but full of tourists. We tried all of the Italian classics, pizza, pasta, and gelato, they were all good, but not necessarily better than what I've had in the US. We made Brioche in class on Friday, the dough itself isn't very difficult, the real trick is letting it rise overnight and learning the specific molding techniques.
This week we also made a mango charlotte, it's basically a shell of ladyfingers, soaked with syrup and topped with mango mousse. The mango was bit much for me, but my favorite part of the practical was torching the pineapple decoration. Today we made a Mogador cake. It consists of a chocolate genoise cake, with a hidden layer of raspberry jam, topped with chocolate mousse, and a smooth raspberry jam finish. The cake was delicious, but I warmed my chocolate a little too much before incorporating it into the mousse so my final product wasn't homogeneous. The chefs have been trying to teach us how to gauge the temperature of chocolate by touch, now I see why it definitely takes some practice.