A picture of me working at Sucre

I was looking at Sucrés Facebook page and ran across a photo of me. What a surprise! I probably could have held the bag better, but if I'm not mistaken I am making the Kalamansi Chocolates. You can see that some of the cavities are not coated with chocolate. That is because they had cracked. Oops! Somewhere the temperature went wrong. Most likely they got left in the freezer a tad too long. Chocolate, if you don't know, is very temperamental. Any slight change or not paying attention could mess it up. I looked so peaceful.

Last Day at Sucre

Chef Tariq Hanna and me in the Sucré kitchen.

Well, my last day at Sucre was a bit sad, but I managed not to cry. It was a fun and good experience for me in New Orleans for the past 11 1/2 months. I have learned a lot about myself. Maybe not as much about my field as I would have liked, but I did learn. I'm on to a new adventure now. Yay! Thank you Sucre for everything you taught me!

Marshmallow Test and Work

Top left: Cookies n Cream Marshmallow, Top right: S'Mores Marshmallow

Center: Lime Coconut Marshmallow, Bottom: Mint Chocolate Nib Marshmallow

This week I helped Tariq test three different marshmallows; Cookies n Cream, Mint Chocolate Nib, and S'mores. He coated the Mint Chocolate Nib and the Cookies n Cream with chocolate, and half-dipped the S'mores in chocolate. My favorite is the Mint Mint Chocolate Nib. It has this really nice minty cooling effect on your mouth and the nibs give it a little crunch. It reminds me of yummy mint chocolate chip ice cream. I was also allowed to come up with a marshmallow flavor myself and make it too. So, I came up with a lime-coconut marshmallow. Boy was it good, and I'm not even a fan of the texture of coconut. The best thing was that Tariq was impressed and really liked it. YAY! :)
I forget which day it was, but I went to pull a plug out of the receptacle, my hand was a little wet and I accidentally touched the metal part of the plug. Yep, you guessed it, I got a little shock. Oh Fun! My fingers felt weird. I won't make that mistake again.
This week I have also been working on a huge order of truffles for a new customer. It's starting to get real busy at Sucré. We have a new 2,000-square-foot-store opening Thanksgiving week at Lakeside Mall in Metairie. The store is outside the mall next to Bravo Italian, near the intersection of Veterans and Severn Avenue. I've heard they expect to open locations in Houston and Dallas by the end of 2011.

Finding my Externship

Did you ever wonder how I found my externship? Externships for Culinary or Pâtisserie students are typically required by all schools. For the Le Cordon Bleu (LCB) Pâtisserie and Baking Certificate Program, a 6 week externship is required. I set my sights on searching for restaurants or bakeries that would let me do a 12 week externship. Although 6 weeks would satisfy the requirements for my LCB certificate, I felt 12 weeks would look better on a resume and I would learn more. Face it, you only learn so much in the school.

Externships are usually unpaid. Since I was looking to work somewhere for free for 12 weeks, I looked in Atlanta (where I lived) and New Orleans (where I had family to stay with). One of these two cities were the best choice for me to save money.

Next I considered that if I was going to do some on-the-job training, I wanted to learn from a Pastry Chef who was among the best in the industry. So how to find one. Well, can you say GOOGLE.com? Yep, I just started searching. I looked for pastry chefs, bakeries, restaurants, food reviews, contest, etc., in each city. I read everything I could about each Pastry Chef. I looked at the restaurant or bakery websites. I read reviews for deserts on foodie websites. I looked for menus which listed the desserts they made. I narrowed my choices down and selected 6 places to send my first set of resumes and cover letters. Out of the 6 places, I really only had two places that I really wanted. One was in Atlanta and the other was in New Orleans. Out of the 6 places, I received 3 responses within a week, which surprised me. The other 3 places never responded at all. Choice number 3 was a bakery in Atlanta, which is high volume, has a good reputation, but to be honest, I wasn't impressed with the taste of the pastries. So I had to decide between the other two places.

Hmm! Which to choose. The Pastry Chef in Atlanta is nationally known and is very talented. It was probably a 20 mile drive one-way with a lot of traffic. Not my idea of fun, but I would have done it to work with that Pastry Chef. The Pastry Chef in New Orleans had a great reputation and the bakery was very cool. They had great reviews and the pastries were interesting and looked great on the website. The bakery was only 12 miles from where I would live and no traffic. One more thing, New Orleans is a food town, Atlanta is not. There are not very many great food towns in the United States, but New Orleans is one of them. If you have read my bio, then you know I'm partial to New Orleans and I love the food there. So I picked Sucré in New Orleans and planned to do a 12 week externship. I started my externship on August 16th. As it worked out, they hired me full time after my 6 weeks required by LCB. It couldn't have worked out better for me. If you are searching for an externship, I hope my story helps you plan your search.

20th Day of Work

Well, last week I got told that I would only be working on chocolate. YAY! They hired two people to do just macaroons. I've been very busy with work, but I'm thoroughly enjoying every moment. Sucré just put out their fall desserts. Two of them that struck my interest the most is the Pear Tiramisu and Pumpkin Chai Dobash. Yum, yum! :) And the garnish for the Pear Tiramisu is a bird's nest made out of chocolate. I get to make these by putting strips of tempered chocolate on a frozen metal sheet, and at just the right time you move them and form it around your fingers to form the nest. It's so cool, but messy.

Also last week, was the cake decorator's birthday, and as a joke they bought a cake from a grocery store. (see picture below) It was quite funny. Now, I guess you may be wondering why we thought it was funny. Remember, there are many pastry chefs and cooks working here and instead of baking this girl a cake, they gave her a production made sheet cake.

Just today we found out that Whole Foods Grocery stores in Louisiana are going to be carrying Sucré's chocolate bars. I get to make them! :)

Click here to see the chocolate bars without the wrappers.

French Macaroons Recipe

Want to know how to make French Macaroons? One recipe is posted on the Sucré website.
Click here to see the recipe.

There is a cool video on how to make French Macaroons,
Click here to see the video.
When watching the video, after the macaroon is baked, you'll see the final assembly of the macaroons. After the macaroon is cooled, we match the halves so each half are approximately the same size and pipe the filling and put them together. During this final assembly I can do about 350 per hour.

5th Day of Work - Macaroons

I would have to say that by far the toughest things I have done at Sucré is lifting the 40 qt. mixer bowl in order to pour out the marshmallow on the sheet pans. The second toughest to do is all the leaning over required in working with the macaroons. I think it is the height of the table tops and the distance that I have to reach over the table while piping.

On part of Thursday and Friday, I matched and piped the filling in about 2,000 macaroons in a little more than 6 hours. This is much faster than when I started doing this. Averaging around 333 macaroons an hour is a very respectable rate of production. I was impressed with myself and am quite proud of picking up the pace.

On Saturday, I helped make the macaroons for breast cancer month. They are pink and beige macaroon shells, and are filled with a toasted almond butter cream and strawberry jam. They are yummy. My first week as a paid patisserie cook went really well.

1st Day of Real work

I've done it! Last Saturday was the final day of my externship. I have sent in my last time sheet and journal to Le Cordon Bleu. After 144 days of school and 30 days of externship, I have completed my Patisserie & Baking program at Le Cordon Bleu. I will still have to attend the graduation later.
Today at Sucré I made candied pecans and worked in chocolate world. Then I heard the good news for the day. They realized that I have completed my externship and so now I am going to be paid five days a week. Meaning I have my first full time job. Yay!!!! :)

Day Off

Today was my day off. I had my hair cut today and cooked dinner for my grandparents and aunt. I've been cooking dinner for them every Wednesday and today I cooked Chicken Parmigiana. It came out terrific. Today I'm posting a picture of the chef jacket that Sucré gave me. Also there is a close up picture of the embroidered Sucré logo on the jacket.

27th Day of Externship

Sucré.

3025 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70115

Today I made more BAC dough, scaled out cake mix and other stuff for Tariq. I made some interiors for desserts, an order for a restaurant (customer) and then 50 pecan squares. So I was busy all day. Even though it's work, I get a great sense of accomplishment from doing it.

I thought I would just include a picture of the Sucré store front. I don't work at the store location. I work at the Confectionery (kitchen) which is much larger and a few miles away from the store. There, the baking, chocolates, gelato, etc, is done. Also internet orders are fulfilled from here.