Nine months, boys and girls, that how long I was in the Pastry program at ICE, and what do I have to show for it? Everything! For starters how about my final project! A celebration cake complete with gum paste flowers! I’m quite proud of my flowers, I can’t believe my stubby fingers made them!

Going back to school (I have a Bachelor’s in Digital Design) was hard work, I was working full time, going to school 3 nights a week, losing my Sunday nights, volunteering at Food events, trailing to find my externship, writing essays on the different components of laminate dough amongst a lot other little essays that covered topics I wasn’t even aware were topics at all until school started.  Hard work, however, that paid off! I am happy as a Clam (whatever that actually means!), and the externship I chose has been great.

Ready for more cake shots? Even the back is cool!

I could talk write forever, the radio version is that this was an amazing experience, and it’s only the start, I have so much to learn still. (Like piping large shells, seriously I couldn’t pipe decent Shells if my life depended on it!)

Edit: I’d like to add that this cake’s Color Palette was inspired by Alphonse Mucha’s Reverie (below),I have been obsessed with Art Nouveau since forever!

What you see above is the Frosted Pound Cake Souffle, with frozen strawberry lemonade and yogurt sorbet, it was my favorite dessert of the evening (we tried a lot of them!), the Souffle was absolutely delicious total comfort food, the frozen strawberry lemonade with the Sorbet was bright and worked perfectly with the Souffle and the frosting. I had been thinking about this dessert for weeks, and it was ever bit as good as I imagined. (That doesn’t happen that often.)

This Poached Rhubarb Tart above came with almond sable, earl grey tea ice cream (my favorite Ice Cream Flavor!).

Below is the Strawberry Tarragon Fizz, with crème fraiche sorbet and meringue, it was very tasty, the fizz specially. Tarragon paired Strawberries is something I was just introduced to in school and I have to say it’s very good, peeps.

Below is the scrumptious and beautifully plated Chocolate Custard Brownie with roasted cinnamon cream and espresso granite!

Now here comes the really cool part (seriously there’s more), the GM spoke to us during our meal, and turns out he’s a CIA alum, I was there with my friend  Dessertolicious (and our husbands as well), we told him that we go to ICE and also that we chose Oceana because Chef Jansen Chan’s Grapefruit Gala demo we both attended last year was full of awesome.

Come Dessert time Chef sent us the remaining desserts we did not order! How cool is that?!?

“Carrot Cake” Cheesecake with candied walnuts, coconut lime sorbet. Rich and very tasty! Let’s take a minute and enjoy that plating shall we?

Milk Chocolate – Cashew Sundae with angel food cake croutons and bourbon sabayon. The Bourbon sabayon was my my favorite part of this dessert only because I’d just made my first sabayon the day before! Don’t take this as a diss to a very yummy dessert.

As we all sat there enjoying the post amazing meal glow, talking about all the incredible desserts we tried, who stops by to greet us if not Chef Jansen Chan himself!

He was very cool and gracious chatting with us for a while, our topics ranging from bread starters, bread kitchens and summer fruits going all the way to externships (being on lesson 8 and all still that’s bit far off).

The perfect ending to a perfect evening and I’m very happy.

ps: The savory part of the meal was very good as well, best fish I’ve ever had.

This past December, I was fortunate to attend the Texas Sweet and PastryScoop Grapefruit Gala at FCI alongside with my friend and demo buddy Dessertolicious. Presenting this Demo was the awesome Jansen Chan, he’s the executive Pastry Chef at Oceana and quite honestly one of my heroes!

The delectable pretty thing above is a White Chocolate Grapefruit Parfait with Honey Sabayon, it was very good. (Not to toot my own horn; that’s also a pretty good shot for an Iphone pic)

My favorite (and mind you they were all amazing) was the Tarragon-Grapefruit Soup with Mascarpone Gelée & Dark Chocolate Sorbet below, seriously tasty and so so beautiful! The Mascarpone Gelée and the Soup were insane!!!

We also had the pleasure to watch the chef  make the Île Flottante (Floating Island) of Grapefruit Anglaise and Milk Chocolate Sorbet, again delicious.

We also sampled Steamed Chocolate-Grapefruit Cakes and Chocolate tarts with Grapefruit marmalade and Coconut tuiles, but for those pics you might want to check out PastryScoops flickr set, as my humble Iphone shot weren’t as nice as the ones above.

This was my favorite demo to date, FCI had a cocktail before it started and while I didn’t drink (it was noon people) yours truly did enjoy the hors d’oeuvres and writing this post brought back memories of the crazy good Pastrami on Rye with Grapefruit Moustarda.

Chef Jansen Chan was charming and invested in showing us what he was making and also in answering our questions. I can only wish Oceana take interns from ICE, I’d be delighted to work there.

For now what I can is eat at Oceana someday, which you can do too and also if you haven’t had enough of this Grapefruit madness read RunnersKitchen account.

I’m off now to find some Pastrami and Grapefruit, thanks for reading!

Part two of this deliciousness odyssey presents you dear reader with my two favorites from my visit to de Gascogne (which I also call Heaven!)

The Raspberry Framboise is my kind of desert! The vanilla custard was so light and pure, the raspberries perfectly ripe and plump! They worked so beautifully with the cake around it and the vanilla custard. It was like music was playing in my mouth and I am not kidding.

Now for the breakthrough my favorite Tiramisu of all time! I realize yours truly seems to be hyper enthusiastic pretty much on every post but this is real thing (cue song).  Let’s start with the presentation, semi sweet chocolate coffee cup (come on!)  filled with a  fresh, well balanced Tiramisu, not heavy on the coffee, or coffee liqueur at all! So balanced, so light and incredibly decadent at the same time.

Everything we tried at de Gascogne tasted crazy fresh, and you can tell everything is made with skill, care and high quality very  ingredients.

Montreal I bow to your bakeries! As I said before this trip was one of my bestest weekends ever! Thank you to my friends who took us to all these great spots! And thank you Montreal!!!

A bien tout!

Peeps, Ms Cherryspoon has been on this eating blogging path for a short while compared to my other blogger friends. However the knock my socks off bakeries have started to become somewhat less frequent. Fortunately there are places like Pâtisserie de Gascogne. (ooh la la!)

This traditional Montreal bakery has been knocking Quebecois socks off since 1957 and the founder’s rag to riches stories is even published. A very awesome friend had the thoughtful and brilliant idea to take husband and I there.

This Halloween (Halloween?!? Yes, this trip was all the way back in September) themed cutie pie, in case you can’t tell,  was a very good Pumpkin pie, the crust was delectable and the filling so light and fresh the spices were present but not overpowering there and the pumpkin still tasted like such. Little secret, first pumpkin pie I ever enjoyed!

More yum to come!