Delicious Custards

Monday I had my practicals for custards and tuile cookies.  Tuile are the light cookies used for decoration.  Here are my finished products.

Creme Caramel

Creme Brulee

I was pretty happy with both of them (especially as I ate them afterwards).  The chef gave me a few tips on my plating.  He liked my simplicity.

Besides class I've been exploring a few different parts of London with a friend from school.  As you will notice (and as would seem appropriate for people in pastry school), we tend to go to places involving food in some way.  In Notting Hill there is a wonderful shop called Books for Cooks that has thousands of cookbooks, cooking workshops, and a test kitchen where they try out recipes from the books they sell and then serve them in a cafe.  

We have gone to Kensington a couple times mainly for the huge three-story Whole Foods Market.  Some of the highlights are the bakery, the chilled cheese room, the wine and cheese counter, and the food court where you can create your own crepe, waffle, burrito, hamburger, or sandwich. 

We had been hearing from a lot of people that you have to go to Harrods at least once, so we decided to check it out.  The iconic Harrods department store is a massive department store that has been here since 1849.  It's a beautiful building that occupies 4.5 acres and has over 330 different departments.  They used to have live animals in the store and in 2002 they hired a live cobra to guard a £62,000 pair of shoes.  We spent most of our time in the food hall (of course).  I was surprised to see a Krispy Kreme inside the store. It seemed a little out of place.  We were tempted by the chocolate bar and the gelato bar, but instead had a coffee and dessert at one of the many cafes throughout the store.