So, today was my very first lab day as a pastry student. It was quite overwhelming, to be honest! All in all, the lab was five hours of pure, non-stop baking.  My instructor started off by showing us what NOT to do... there's a lot that can go wrong whilst baking. He made six batches of chocolate chip cookies using different ingredients in each. Some with butter, or margarine, or shortening... some with white sugar or brown sugar... some with different amounts of baking powder and baking soda... It was a lot. He ended by showing us the correct recipe and how the batter should look. By that point, I was pretty overwhelmed by all the possible mistakes I could make. So we all made our own batches of cookies. Half with chocolate chips (my favourite) and the other half with walnuts (...which I don't like). In the end, my cookies turned out very well! I hadn't messed up after all - other than the fact that I sort of burnt myself- ! The only thing that went wrong was that my largest pan of cookies got "taken" by another student by mistake (at least I hope by mistake...). So I was one pan of cookies short, but it was fine because I still had plenty. My instructor also added that mine looked perfect!  After everyone was done baking their batches, we practiced our piping skills. The instructor had us piping rosettes and other designs on our benches. The room was SO HOT (because of all the ovens being on) that the butter cream was all melting. So needless to say, my rosettes were not the best. It was all an interesting experience, though! I had classes after this long period of baking, but it was nothing too interesting. Tomorrow, we're continuing with the baking labs and will be making other types of cookies. We shall see how it goes!

Here is a photo of my beautiful "First Day of Labs" cookies!