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.