"If The Problem Can Be Solved, Why Worry?..."

"If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will do you no good." - Shantideva

I don't have much to say, really. At this point in time, there are lots of thoughts and emotions flooding me. I feel overwhelmed, but not just with school. This time of year is always full of activities and events, from now until about the 6th of January. It's a lovely time of year - I enjoy the lights, the decorations, the treats, the gifts, the snow (when I don't have to clear it or drive in it), etc. But it definitely gets overwhelming. I know that Christmas isn't really about those things, but we still participate and get stressed all the same.

Right now, however, I am thinking about and worrying over school. I know that worrying does no good, and I haven't failed an exam yet, but still. I'm not the luckiest person in the world, it would be just my luck that my last exam in the course would be the first one I'd fail! (haha) Anyway, we have 3.5 days of class left, and the exam. This exam requires us to come up with two plate designs that include an individual dessert, a sauce design and another decorative element, put together in a relatively short amount of time. It has become exhaustingly clear to me that plating desserts is not my strong suite. I have known from a very young age that I never wanted to work as kitchen or serving staff in a restaurant, so I don't anticipate ever needing to use this aspect of pastry in real life, but alas, I must pass the exam to get my diploma. I still haven't come up with my designs or made a concrete decision on which dessert I'll make. *sigh* The exam will be Wednesday afternoon, but I'd like to practice at least once before the exam, so I need to come up with something soon!

Here are a couple other individual plated desserts we made last week. I didn't take pictures of all of them because some of the recipes didn't work out right and didn't make very pretty desserts.

Citrus-mascarpone filled cannelloni, sitting on a cherry compote, with citrus sauce and lemon-thyme ice cream

Chocolate moelleux cake with creme anglaise and raspberry coulis decor