So, today! Let's chronicle it shall we? Chronological style? Sounds good!
5:00am - Alarm clock goes off
5:23am - Roll out of bed, dash to the shower
5:50am - Wait for my ride out front
6:05am - Get into the kitchen
-Kitchen today was not bad. I made 2 pound cakes which turned out ok. I also made up my last Millefeuilles which I am glad to NEVER have to make again. What a shitty dessert. Also I just remembered that I forgot to give them the chocolates. Oops. I then made an Italian Buttercream. This is a very complicated icing. Let me explain it. First you make a sugar syrup (Water+Sugar) and you boil it until it reaches 116C. Think this is easy? The thing got STUCK at 103. Took like 45 minutes just to get that up to the proper temperature. In the meantime, you need to whip egg whites to stiff peaks. Yes, egg whites can get there. Then, when the syrup is ready, you turn the mixer on low and as it is beating, you pour the SCALDING HOT sugar syrup into the egg whites, without the syrup touching either the side of the bowl or the whisk that is whisking. Then you need to whip it until cool. This is tough b/c not only did you just put 116C sugar syrup in, you're whisking it, which creates friction, thus more heat. Anyway, once it's a bit more cooled, you add a CRAPLOAD of butter and continue whisking until it's all together and creamy and then you add flavouring and VOILA! Not your simple "Water+Icing Sugar" recipe, that's for sure! Anyway, mine was a total success and I love it! Now tomorrow I need to use it and my cakes and DECORATE. Which is scary.
10:30am - Theory Class
-Chef Pam has been teaching theory while Chef Richard is gone. We wrote a test last Friday that I was 100% sure I failed. So, she says "I have your tests marked, but I want to meet with you individually to go over the results." Eep. Chef Pam is the tough chef, but I haven't had her in kitchen, so I don't really have my own opinion. Nonetheless, I am nervous. So, since I'm in AM, I can either wait until 12:30 and go back to the kitchen to talk to her, or I can wait until the next day.
11:30-12:30 - Mess around the school, because there is no way I'm waiting another day to find out I failed.
-I'll just lose sleep. So, I'm the first person in line to talk to her. I got 69%!!!! Whooooo!! And the meeting is mostly b/c we can't keep the tests, so she answers any questions we have about the test. So I got her to clarify a couple things for me and she was really good and explained everything really well.
1-2PM - Meet with Personal Trainer
-I really like my personal trainer. That is going well.
2-3PM - Walk home, stop for groceries, DRAG my butt home as I am about dying from exhaustion by this point.
3-4PM - Shovel food down, watch some Oprah.
4-5:30pm - Get my costume on for the Girl Guides Halloween party!!
5:30-8:30pm - Girl Guides Halloween Party!
-This was a lot of fun! I manned the station where we got the girls to wrap each other like mummies with toilet paper. We had food, fun, and plenty of hyper girls!
8:30pm - My feet died.
And now I'm off to do some homework and go to bed. Night all!
So, I've talked about lunch at school, but now let's talk about BREAKFAST. Breakfast is awesome. Each day you get a meal consisting of:
- Omelette or Scrambled Eggs
- Bacon or Sausage
- Hashbrowns
- Pancakes, Waffles, or French Toast
- Regular Toast - White or Whole Wheat
- Sauce of some kind - strawberry, blueberry...
- Fruit Salad
- A drink
I love breakfast.
So, I'm dragging the little bro on a vacation in May. We've whittled down our choices to either New York City or Florida.
Anybody have any suggestions about which one to pick? Things you've heard, have you been there? Please comment!
Hello! Long time, no type. Well, not so long. Let's recap what I've been up to!
So...kitchen stories! This is my last week on Bread and Retail 1 before I switch to something else! We had functions 3 days this week...all at 8am. This is horrifying. We have to have food made, proofed, baked, cooled, and on trays by 7:45am and we don't get into the kitchen until 6:30am. Which means that I've been in by 6am at the latest each day to give myself enough time. Horrible. Tuesday was a horrifying day in the kitchen for EVERYBODY. Not just bread, every group. But we survived. Chef Karen is so awesome. If it wasn't for her, I think we all would have gone home absolutely miserable. However, my Tiger Bread came out AWESOME! I've wanted to make that ever since I saw it in the book and I'm so happy it turned out! Unlike that evil, evil Rye Bread! *shakes my fist at it* Anyway, here's my Tiger Bread!
Today we made Baguettes. We halved the retardation time, and it still took 2 hours longer than the shift to finish them. UGH. I was in the kitchen until noon and then Chef Pam tried to yell at me. But I wasn't taking her shit. I'm not going to set myself up for being miserable working with her. I think I'll either get along well with her or horribly with her - she's just like me. So one situation could be great, the other could be horrifying. I have a plan of attack though. Not going to say it here though - it's a strategy I've used before on people, and I don't want it revealed!! It works awesomely good.
Next week I am on Lucy Maud Lunch, so I am making a plated dessert for the lunch service. That's all I'm saying. I'll post a picture next week of what I make. And I hope it turns out good. It could potentially be horrible. Haha.
On Tuesday I met with Sue who is our internship coordinator to talk about jobs. I'm going to meet with her again in a couple weeks after I go through all the information she gave me. She's going to be putting in a call to a chef for me. The one she was thinking of is in Whistler...that could be cool...if I had a car. Whistler itself isn't a big city, which is a downside, but it's close to big cities, so if I could drive places, I would probably survive. The other downside is that she was talking about a situation where I would sign a 3 year contract...I'm not sure I want to jump into signing employment contracts. I'm not really confident enough about where I want to end up and I would like to have the freedom to leave if I end up miserable. So, I'll have to think that over. At the same time, if it's a great opportunity, it might be worth it. We shall see what comes of that!
I started a Basic Bartending class last night! This class will be something I can put on my resume and also gives me my Responsible Beverage Server Certification. It's really good to have in the industry I'm heading into. The class is $250, but they offered it to any Tourism and Culinary Centre students for only $50...so I saved $200! It's only 2 1/2 weeks long, so doesn't really add to my work load too much. Here's a drink I made at the front of the class and a picture of the Bartending Lab we're in:
That's Brittany, one of my Pastry classmates making the crazy face in the front. There are 16 people in the class and 4 of us are Pastry...a quarter of the class. That's right...we make people drunk and fat. Yay Pastry!
Tonight I had Brownies again! We've finally passed the "getting to know you" stage and now the girls are all huggy and crazy and chatty which is awesome. :) I'm in charge of handing out badges, so they all need to come to me when they get one done. So, I'm really glad I'm volunteering with Brownies and I'll definitely do my best to get involved wherever I end up moving past here.
Anyway...I have test tomorrow! So I'd better go study! Bye!
And I do NOT want to walk to school.
Too bad for me, I have to leave in 30 minutes.
So, the big question that's been haunting me since before I even came here is...where do I go when I'm done? I can go live ANYWHERE! Right now what I'm most pumped to do is move to either British Columbia or the United States. Following behind that would be probably the UK or elsewhere in Canada.
Given that I hate Charlottetown so much, I figured I should look at what about it I hate so I make sure I don't move somewhere similar. And the glaring thing that I hate is how SMALL it is and how few people are here. The population, according to Wikipedia, is about 32K, and about 58K if you consider the "Metro." Either way, too fucking small for me. Saskatoon and Regina are both hovering around 200K - Regina lower, close to about 175K.
So, I thought I'd start by taking a look at a list of cities that have a population of at least 100,000 or more in Canada. Thanks to Wikipedia, I have a base list and there are 48 cities on it. From here I can start to eliminate the places I know I don't want to live. So, the maritimes are out of it, as is Quebec.
Right now, the top city on my list is Kelowna, BC. The population is 106K in the city, or 162K for the Metropolitan area. One downside to it is that it's a tourist city...but I think it's more of a "round the year" tourist city as it has the attraction of the mountains for winter sports, but also lakes and climbing paths for summer sports. Therefore it wouldn't just DIE in the winter, like it does here. It does have an international airport, so I would be able to fly places easily. It's warm there - the coldest recorded temperature according to Wikipedia is -36...psh! It's about half the size of Saskatoon, but I'm sure that population increases due to tourists. Because it is a tourist city, I would be able to get a job in my profession quite easily. Also, it's not right on the coast, which I consider an earthquake/death trap waiting to happen.
Anyway...those are my thoughts right now. Any other thoughts? Suggestions of places to move? I figure I should start doing my research now about what it's like there, what the job prospects are like, etc. I'm meeting with our internship coordinator tomorrow to discuss job opportunities, so that's a start in that direction.
Just met with the Residence Life Manager. I didn't get the written citation lifted, but she agreed to write on it that I slept through the alarm. I figure that way at least if I have a landlord in future who phones asking for a reference, it's made clear why I was issued a written citation. And that I didn't do anything wrong.
She basically told me to just not worry about it, it's going to stay there, but brush it off. It's not meant to be a punishment, regardless of the fact that it clearly is one. I'm not so good at brushing things like this off. I'm the goodie-two-shoes who never gets in trouble. Therefore, I don't handle getting in trouble well.
Basically her stance was, "It's not our responsibility to make sure people get out of the building." Which I was a little shocked at, but whatever. I'm not liking UPEI right now, so hey, why not just add to the reason pile? Their argument seems to be, "Well I lived there and it's pretty loud. I don't know how anybody could sleep through it." And my response is, "Well I did. So obviously it's quite possible." And when I mentioned that I hadn't even been around for a fire drill and that I was surprised at this as they were holding them over a week in September, she said, "I think there was only one that week and it was during the day." Which makes NO sense to me. Most residence students are at CLASS during the day, so that's a pretty useless fire drill in my opinion. Isn't the point for people to be home and to practice evacuating so you know what the fire alarm sounds like and where to go when it sounds?
Overall...I'm just not real happy right now. I'm not liking rez, I'm not liking Charlottetown...and I don't even know what to think of my course. I guess I'm liking it. It's the only thing keeping me here at the moment. Pretty much I'm just counting down the days until I can get out of here and go somewhere else. Unfortunately the days aren't going by all that quickly. 6 1/2 more months...
Ahhh, PEI Transit. This transit system only began in 2005, so it is very new. And from a conversation I inadvertently eavesdropped on, there were a lot of people who opposed it then and who still oppose it. So, the bus system is still fighting opposition.
My understanding is that the bus system is run by a private company, but paid for by the city.
The bus fleet is supposed to match the old time "tourist-y" feel of downtown. So, all the buses look like old trolley cars:
Oh, and that includes the inside. The seats are like park benches:
Where to start about the bus system? Let's start with the good things perhaps!
- It makes me appreciate Saskatoon's bus system
- The bus is always on time here, PROVIDING it's running
- The bus drivers will drop you off anywhere you ask, not just at designated stops
- The bus drivers are very friendly and there's not many of them, so they get to know you
- The buses break down...and there are no replacement buses. And the only way you find out that the bus has broken down is by word of mouth from other people waiting for the same bus. If they replace it, it's with a 16 seater van.
- They changed the schedule in the summer so that more buses run. But all the schedules they have posted around the city? They didn't update ANY of them. So, unless you happen to have a paper copy of the new schedule, you don't know when a bus comes.
- The bus drivers are INSANE. I'm surprised a pedestrian hasn't been killed, as they don't really seem to give a crap about them.
- The bus doesn't run on Sunday at all, nor on holidays.
- They only recently upgraded to, wait for it...LAMINATION. The first pass I got was a 4 month pass that was just a piece of construction paper basically. Don't ask me how that was expected to hold up for 4 months. At the start of October they replaced that with a laminated pass.
- The bus doesn't start running until 7am and stops at 10pm.
- The way they label the routes is confusing. They don't say "Up and down University Avenue is Route #1. Any bus going there is labelled #1." Instead it's more like "The bus labelled #1 is going to be doing University Ave. for this hour. But next hour the bus labelled #5 is going to be doing it." I can't even explain it right, it's so confusing. The buses are labelled, not the routes.
So, I completely slept through a fire alarm tonight. My roommate even was knocking on my door to wake me up and she said she didn't hear a thing out of my room. I was just tired and asleep.
As a result of this, I got a written violation placed on my account for failure to evacuate the building during a fire alarm. One more and I have to pay a $100 fine and another after that and I get evicted and have to still pay all the rez fees.
I have to say I'm upset by this. It's upsetting to know that their fire system did NOT wake me up when there WAS INDEED a fire. Clearly there should be fire detectors/alarms IN the bedrooms.
And b/c of the failure of THEIR system to wake me up, I'm being punished.
Right at the moment I have to say I don't feel entirely safe living in this building knowing that.
I couldn't think of a good title.
I'm quite pleased with the outcome of the Federal Election. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Conservatives did! The Liberals lost a LOT of ground - and not just to the Conservatives. The Liberals will have to take a step back and take a look at their party. I've heard from some who want to see Justin Trudeau step in as leader - if not now, in the near future. Should be interesting!!
School is going well! We've been hammering out the bread, delivering it all over the building! Tomorrow I am in charge of making rolls for the Lucy Maud Dining Room, so I need to find some cool shapes tonight!
Just got back from selling Girl Guide cookies all night! I somehow ended up with the ADD child. But since we were walking around, she was not too terrible - had a way to expend her energy.
Last night I crashed at 6:30pm and slept right until 4:30 when my alarm went off - awesome. I'll be lucky if I get to sleep by 10pm tonight. But, tomorrow is the last morning I have to wake up early this week - then my 3 day weekend begins! I actually have a lot to do, so I should make myself a to-do list so I don't forget anything!
Sorry for the lack of blogging. I have posts I want to do, I just don't have them written - perhaps I'll add that to my to-do list!
I saw my personal trainer again today - I'm going to see her every 2 weeks. Right now I have a very difficult circuit set up. More difficult than the one my last personal trainer gave me I think.
Oh yes...the parents were here! Yay! We toured around PEI - beautiful island, but eventually got tired of seeing, haha. Here's a good picture mom took. And here's the conversation that was going on in the process of taking it: Mom says, "Shanna, that's far enough. Shanna. Come back now. Shanna!" etc, etc. 
Monday night I went over to a classmate's house for Thanksgiving supper. It was good, but you can tell that all us Pastry students don't quite all mesh together. We have definite cliques. Some of us are trying to move into a another clique as we don't like the one we ended up in first off, due to knowing nobody, and I think we are all succeeding in that slowly. But yeah - a good group, just a lot of different personalities.
Anyway, I would write more, but I'm tired and still have a bit of homework to get done. Ciao!
IMPORTANT ALERT: MSN Election Party
I have decided, on very late notice, to hold the 2nd Quad-Annual (? Every 4 years-ish anyway) MSN Election Party!!!
What we do is all log into MSN, get into the same conversation and watch the coverage together and discuss it! People from all areas of the spectrum are welcome!
If you want to come, just add soulfood77(at)hotmail.com to your MSN and put in your name/status "Invite to MSN Election Party" or something to that effect so that I know to invite you.
The party starts at 7pm EST (Ontario). That is 8pm Atlantic (where I am) and 5pm CST (Saskatchewan) and 4pm PST (West Coast).
***************
In pastry news, we began our regular rotations today. I had the "luck" of being the group leader for my first rotation.
At first I was not too freaked, as I'm on bread and bread is not that hard. Turns out bread is the hardest b/c of all the time we have to spend proofing everything. We just don't quite have enough time to finish everything. Also, I didn't think I had too much for our group to do. But I went in early so I could talk to Chef Karen and check the function sheets and it turns out we had a LOT to do. We made:
- 12 loaves of bread - 4 different varieties, so that means 4 different doughs
- 22 pizza doughs - 570g each - we still need 8 more - I just didn't get it all done (I was on pizza dough duty)
- Danish Dough
- Croissant Dough
- Ciabatta
- Focaccia
- Sticky Buns
Things were going well until one of the girls in my group cut herself with her serated knife. It was bleeding a lot and she was getting lightheaded, so I got her into the office to sit down. Chef Karen then came to check on her and I stuck around to just watch her and make sure she didn't pass out. When Chef Karen came back to check on her again, she decided to send her to the hospital. My classmate did need a stitch, but b/c of where the cut was on her finger, they couldn't stitch it, so they just taped it shut and put a bandaid on it. She's doing fine, which is a mucho relief.
CRAZY DAY!
Whew! Well, I am EXHAUSTED. My legs are just dying. Let me try to recap in a not too rambly way.
Worked the past 3 days at Zellers. When I was called to work my first shift we arranged that shift then I was told we would "Hash out a schedule for the rest of the week when you get in." Apparently that means, "I'll have a schedule for the next week ready for you." So, I ended up working the past two nights until 9:30pm then having to walk home...not cool considering I had to be up at 5am the next morning for school! After just standing in place at work and running my feet off at school, my legs are just tired and in pain today.
I haven't even hit a week of working there yet and I already got a call today to come in to cover a shift. Not a great sign. I'm going to give that place another couple weeks, then I'm going to re-evaluate whether or not I want to stay there.
My week did not start out so great. I could play the blame game, but that's a giant waste of time. Shit happens, you deal with it, that's life! I've been getting a ride to school from a friend at 6am and on Tuesday I was waiting for him and he didn't show! Ah! Takes me 40 minutes to walk to school, class starts at 6:30, so by 6:05 I was freaking out. So, I texted him, phoned him, nothing. I ended up just phoning a cab to get to school and managed to get there and get changed JUST in time for class...WHEW! Turns out the classmate just slept in...oh well! I'm quite sure he had just a bad a start as me that morning, so we just got to be slightly miserable together. :P I get to class and we're not making what I was told we'd be making! Which means I don't have any recipes to use. Which makes me mad because I SPECIFICALLY took the time to ask in theory class what recipes to bring and I was told cakes. Liars. So, fortunately my classmates rock and lent me some recipes.
Chef Richard, the main pastry chef, is headed off to Germany on Saturday for the Culinary Youth Olympics with the team from our school. He's going to be gone for a month! The Olympics aren't that long, but I have a feeling that he'll be visiting home while he's there - he's from Austria. Therefore, this week we've had his replacement come in to work with him and make the transition to taking over the class - she'll be here for the next 4 weeks. Her name is Chef Karen and she is AWESOME. She's very approachable and knows how to teach very well. I'm going to of course assume that this is because she is from the west. The last place she was working was at SAIT in Calgary, teaching the Pastry Arts course there. We were a touch worried about who we'd get as a replacement for Chef Richard while he was gone and I'm happy to say that I'm loving the replacement.
Today we started making cakes. We made Pound Cake, Sponge Cake, and Angel Food Cake. My sponge cake collapsed in the middle. :( Tomorrow we are decorating them and making the icings. So, perhaps I shall have pictures for you tomorrow.
Yesterday we had a day to just remake something, so I decided to remake the Vienna Rolls as my rolls turned out horribly the first time! I just don't quite get the rolling thing - the technique used is one that I'm pretty sure most of you don't use in your kitchens. Or if you do, none of you bothered to teach me which makes you just terrible! But yeah, after re-making the Vienna Rolls, I got the technique down! YAY! And now I have a picture for you that I'm willing to share!
A message to my bed:
What in the hell bed? Last weekend I wake up and I've pulled a muscle in my neck which STILL hurts more than a week later. Today I wake up and I've wrenched my knee! That had better work itself back to normal by the end of the day or I'm going to beat you with my pillow tonight!Anyway...don't know that I have too much of interest to say, so I'm going to tell you my story of Bulk Barn!
The Bulk Barn Saga
Right across the street there is a store called "Bulk Barn." The sign in the window claims "High Quality Bulk Food!" I read that and scoffed. Mostly b/c the signage on the outside is all bright yellow with red lettering, making me think that it's of dollar store quality. Therefore I'm thinking..."Not trustworthy food."
For school we needed to buy some piping tips. And the name Bulk Barn kept popping up. "Go to Bulk Barn" or "I got mine at Bulk Barn." Which made me go, "Seriously?" So finally I went in.
It's Nutters! Holy crap!
Apparently the east (including Ontario, I asked my friend) has this Bulk Barn store and not Nutters.
This is awesome! This store has everything I could ever need for decorating and it's just a quick hop and a skip away from home. Also if I ever do need something such as what you would get at Nutters, it's right there - sweetness.
The End.
I don't really like it. But, when a post went up saying there was going to be a presentation and cheese tasting, I said to myself, "You didn't come to Culinary School to sit on your butt and do nothing" so I signed up.
Now, I've heard that if you don't like cheese/milk that could be a sign that you're mildly lactose intolerant. I don't remember who told me that...I'm thinking Colleen though. Anyway...I'm almost wondering if that's true. Or if I was just to cheesed out that night. But by the end of the night I was sick to my stomach. But I controlled it and didn't puke all over Josh's car on the way home.
I did try about 5 new cheeses. Which for me is very good! My rules for trying new things basically is that if any of the following are applicable, I won't try a food:
- It looks gross
- Somebody told me it's gross
- It smells gross
- The name of it sounds gross
- I think it's gross based on no real reason
- Other things that would tip me off that it's gross
I was in the 2nd row - right behind the row of tables with the cheeses on them. When he opened up the Oka Mushroom, I could smell it from 3 feet away immediately. And it was rank.
But really, I tried probably 6 or 7 total - the only ones I had tried before was Mozarella and Cheddar. But by the time we got to the Cheddar, I couldn't even eat it. My stomach was churning and I was just passing all the cheeses by me. I had water but that didn't even help to get rid of the taste from my mouth. We needed mint gum or something.
So, I won't go to a cheese tasting again. But it was a good experience! Now here are some pictures!
This is Josh's perfectly organized plate. He went for the spiral method of organizing.
This is my plate - I stopped taking cheeses after the Cheddars as you can see. I went for the line method of organizing. Each line was a different grouping they had us do together.
Here was the table with all the leftover cheese sitting on it. Soooooo much cheese.
*Note for all those mothers/aunts out there - I know what you're thinking but just so you know Josh is a classmate of mine and he's happily married, so just take that train of thought and throw it away.
Well, this past week, I passed my one month milestone! So, what was "It's only 8 months" has now become "It's only 7 more months." Woot!
It's been a crazy, crazy week for me! I was asleep Monday night and got a call from Zellers that woke me up, asking me to come in for an interview on Tuesday. (OK, it was 7pm. I like to sleep early, deal with it.) So, interview Tuesday which went well. On Wednesday I was called and offered the job. Thursday I had my first shift in which I learned basically nothing. They were short people and just didn't have time to train me. So, I was supposed to be "observing" but it's hard to observe when the cashier's fingers are flying over the buttons and you don't know what any of the buttons do. I work again tomorrow for 6 hours, so hopefully I make a bit more progress then. And get some actual formal training.
As for what I think of the job...it's expendable. Not a job I'd want to be stuck in for any length of time, but it'll be ok for 15 hours a week. And I won't mind the cash to at least cover my phone bill each month. I'm also going to apply for some scholarships/bursaries and try to get some cash that way too.
So, due to the job, Thursday turned into a 16 hour day - not cool. I did not come here to get back into the habit of having days where I'm on my feet for 12-16 hours. But I just asked for Thursdays off in future. I was up at 5am so I could get to school for 6:30, was in kitchen until 11:30 - home to eat quick, then off to work. Work until 5. Home for food quick, then off to Girl Guides. It was a crazy day.
Girl Guides should be fun! I'm going to be working with the Brownies group. This is ages 7 and 8. It's every Thursday from 6:30-8, plus some weekend things if I can make it to them. And what I like about Girl Guides is that there are Girl Guides in almost every city, so wherever I end up moving, I can pick back up as a leader in the new place. Quick way to find volunteer work elsewhere. They're happy that I have my CPR/First Aid as nobody else does and one of us is supposed to have it.
We finished the evil puff pastry this week! *shakes my fist at it* My dough ended up turning out awesome. Too awesome. :( It rose so well that all my bouchees fell over! Oh well. I know how to make them not fall over next time now, even if my dough next time is just as awesome. Regardless of how it looked after being cooked...the stuff tastes like sin. So good.
After puff we moved to making Savarin and Brioche. I really like the Savarin. It's very easy to make and makes a very nice dessert. We finished off the week with Choux Paste (pronounced Shoe Paste) which so far is my favourite thing to make. SO easy, looks FANCY, and tastes DIVINE. It's not something I can ship out to you...but perhaps those I see at Christmas will get a taste. *hint hint* It tastes nothing like shoes or like paste of any kind.
Now we begin cakes! One more week of "introductory" work before we begin our rotations. So, the last week we'll cover cakes and I think a couple other things.
Anyway, here are some pictures from the week!
First off, here are some awesome cinnamon buns I made with my danish dough. The filling is a hazelnut filling with raisins and it's drizzled with a clumpy icing sugar icing. (OK, the clumpiness wasn't on purpose...*shakes my fist at the icing sugar)
I went to the Police Station to get a Police Record Check for Girl Guides. I'm given some forms and told to go into a TINY room with a really intimidating peep hole (it moves around and stuff...) to fill it out. Here's my attempt at a picture of the tiny room.
Adding the finishing touches to my Savarin. I did not make the sauce did...Josh did. I didn't like it. But it was heavy on the rum and cloves and I'm not a fan of either.