Jan 11 - Jan 14

This week was the official opening of the college, so we had to make something to go on display for it. Ann had us do gingerbread houses, so our week was full. There were three teams, each doing a different house. Ann gave us plans that she'd taken from a book, and we had to figure out amongst ourselves how we were going to do it.

My team had four members. I was away half the time working on chocolates though (not enough time in the world left, really!!) and one other member was the HNC girl, who was working on her cake, so she was out the entire time. On the second day though, one of the guys who had been off, came in, so he joined our group. We spent most of the first day arguing about how we were going to make it (all of the measurements given didn't match up with the shapes), but when we finally got together on what we were doing, we really got things done.

It's been a couple of years since my last gingerbread house, but it was a really good experience, and I liked that everyone in our group was contributing and we were all sharing ideas.


The gingerbread house was a lot of fun, but I still had loads of work to do on my chocolates for the competition. I spent all of thursday woking on one flavour combination: matcha (green tea). I made three different ganaches, and then added different ingredients to try to narrow down what I was after. I had an idea of what I wanted, and I thought it would be a nice peach compote or gelee. However, I couldn't get any peaches. Now, I did like some of these, and I've got a better idea of what I want now, but none of these were close enough to be finished in time for the competition. One of the things I had to make was pistachio paste. I'd made an extra ganache just for fun, and I've decided to pair that with the pistachio paste for a simple, classic chocolate.


Onwards and upwards!