Earlier in the week I had the honor of sitting on the finals judging panel for The International Culinary Center’s (formerly known as The French Culinary Institute) Pastry Program. After completing nine months of an intensive pastry arts program, the students’ skills were being put to one last final, grueling test.
The program is French in every way: students are taught to make tarts, not pies, gateaux , not cakes. There are entire sections of course study devoted to Mille Feuille (puff pastry), Viennoiserie (sweet yeast breads, like croissants, and pain au chocolat), Petit Fours, and Pâte à Choux. And, that’s just the beginning of the course. As the program progresses, students will find themselves elbow deep in tempered chocolate for bonbons , and manipulating molten lava-hot sugar for pulled flowers , and building cake stands constructed of pastillage .
As the course comes to an end the students are tested, in pretty much the same way the chefs were in the Kings of Pastry. The soon-to-be toqued chefs were to create a themed showpiece made of chocolate, poured sugar, or pastillage (more points if you use all three in some way) that holds samples of the cake, bonbons, yeast bread, and either a pâte à choux or mille feuille confection. Part of the test, too, is plotting out a production schedule and ingredient requisition, that can, most importantly, be accurate. And, a written exam covering EVERYTHING that’s been taught. All over the course of four class periods. The chef/instructor proctoring the exam watches closely to make sure the students are not running around like lunatics; that their individual work spaces are neat and orderly.
There’s no room for mistakes or calamities during this frenetic, take-years-off -your-life event. Humid conditions interfering with chocolate setting up? Deal with it. Did another student change the oven temperature while your macarons were baking? Deal with it. Poured sugar cake stand collapse? Deal with it.
Are you breathing hard now? Has your heart rate gone up a bit just reading this? Multiply that by about a gazillion and you’ll begin to understand what it’s like to go through this process. It’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Especially when you factor in that your work is going to be judged by a pastry professional whose identity will not be revealed until you’ve taken that long, lonely walk into the judging room to receive your critique.
Ah, the judging process. For about an hour and a half 3 other judges and I have been seated at a long banquet table, set with plates, silverware and constantly refilled water glasses. We may also have had 1 or 3 glasses of champagne to wash down the dainty, well-chewed and concentrated on bites of bakery product.
We have folders with all the corresponding paperwork that each student has had to submit with their projects, as well as a clipboard with the sets of evaluation forms for each student. Each item on each student’s plate will be evaluated for looks, successful use of technique, taste, and design.
Items are graded on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest grade, 10 being the best. Following the same philosophy my chef/instructors used on my classmates and me, I never give a 10 in any category. That would imply perfection, and no one but the most accomplished, seasoned chef deserves a 10. So, with me as your judge, you’re only going to get a 9 if I think you’ve really nailed it.
I take this responsibility very seriously, despite the fact that I’m guzzling champagne all the while charged with said responsibility. I poke, I prod, I cut or tear apart.
I look, I study, I stare at a morsel of food from every possible angle. I smell it. And, finally, I insert the item into my mouth where I don’t so much chew as I mush it around between my tongue and the roof of my mouth to get a true sense of texture and taste. Hmmm…the opera cake doesn’t have a detectable coffee flavor, but I am getting the chocolate and hazelnut notes. Points off. The chocolate shell enrobing the peanut butter nougat is streaky, has pinholes and feet…points off! But the filling is luscious and smooth, so it’s not a total failure. Oh my, the brioche a tete is so over baked, the poor thing could be used as a hockey puck! Another judge in my shoes might flunk this poor student for such a disastrous offering, but I take into account the other offerings on the plate, how the showpiece looks and, of course, a good dose of nerves.
Now you understand why there’s a preponderance of deconstructed food on this plate.
The last item to be judged, which carries a lot of weight in the final analysis, is the showpiece. It should be neat, well executed, look like its original sketch, reflect the theme, and, hopefully, be constructed with a combination of chocolate, poured sugar and pastillage. I hit the jackpot this time. All the showpieces in my group were really good. This one, Starry Night in Autumn, might have been my favorite.
After we have finished critiquing, one student from each judge’s group enters to discuss their score. Poor things, they’re bedraggled and bleary-eyed with exhaustion. It was, after all, about 10 p.m., too, which is not my best time of the day, either. We introduce ourselves to each other, and then I begin explaining how I’ve arrived at the scores I’ve given them. For every negative comment, I try to counter with a positive comment and a suggestion as to how to improve or correct what wasn’t right.
I like to end my conversation with questions like what the student plans to do now that school is finished, or how they liked the course, or how they developed their love of pastry. I love seeing a smile emerge while hunched shoulders relax and straighten up knowing the worst is over. This was no slacker class, I’ll tell you that. One student had lined up an internship with Ron Ben Israel , another planned to go to London to begin work, another straight on to a restaurant management course. All with such passion, such excitement and optimism to make food that makes memories for people.
These students, and others like them, are the new blood that will, like the generations that preceded them, reinvigorate and reshape confectionary arts. They, like those before them, will take those recipes and techniques, some of which date back to the 19th century, and put their own particular spin on them. And, no matter what the style or the trend, they will then follow in the footsteps of the Kings of Pastry who taught them, and will teach the craft to the next generation of pastry chefs, so that our art is never lost.
