airy with a touch of lemon

Another week, almost done. WHAT?!

This was a hard week but after my multi-failure day (Tuesday) I worked my butt off, came in early, stayed late, and I am so glad I did because I am not feeling so behind. I still have those blasted corn muffins to get right (seriously, corn muffins... hello 10 cent box of jiffy...) and crepes.

My pies rocked!!! I was able to cut out pieces and nothing gooed or driped. Solid, the crust was super flaky on the apple and the berry pie was berrylicious. Rita and me worked on cannoli together and we were nervous that our dough was too thin. Chef told us to go to setting 5 on the pasta roller and we all tested her thickness so we knew what to feel for but we went to 5 and had super thin, almost see through cannoli dough. Putting them on the forms was tough too. We fried them last night and when Chef demoed them tonight, THEY WERE STILL CRISPY!!! Yippee! The filling is ricotta cheese, orange zest, shaved chocolate, and chopped up pistachios. I even tried one and was glad I did... mmm. Good, tasty, pass! I brought one home to Alan so he could try too. :)

Tonight in the kitchen I just had a terrible time focusing. Chef demoed chocolate cream pie and lemon chiffon pie. We got to choose which to work on. She hadn't had a student work on lemon yet so I was nervous. The recipe has sheet gelatin, I think that makes people nervous. It is also complicated... you are on the stove for some of it, whipping up medium peak egg whites for some, you have to worry about the crust... detail, man, details.

I got all set up (or so I thought and started)... I was almost to the part where I needed to add my medium peak egg whites and realized I forgot to set up the mixer and bowl. Jeesh. I have no idea where my brain was but thank goodness for my rockin' table mates!!! Rita, Amanda, and Chantel, you all are awesome. They hooked me right up.

Anyway, back to lemon chiffon... got to work on mise en place. Chef checked on me for the lemon chiffon and all was going well except my whites took forever to get to medium. I folded them in to my warm egg mixture and poured it into my pâte brisée and smoothed out the top. Just 10 minutes before the end of check off too! Phew!

Chef only had to jiggle it to know that it was right. She said it was too pretty to cut into and since she had watched me, it was an easy pass! I waited until I got home to be with Alan to cut into it. I was so nervous it would goo out and not hold but look!!! I have pictures that it held up.

And the pictures don't show it but this pie is like lemon air... I can make lemon air!!!