when working with caramel, proceed with caution...

I came home from class today with two second-degree burns... both on my right hand - one on my thumb and one on my ring finger. And I think I burned my tongue in the process as well. I am not a happy camper right now. Lucky for me, George is arriving tonight and he will surely lift my spirits. Although I don't know if he'll be up for it considering he's driving from Philly right now and is stuck in MLK weekend traffic.

Today we made Croquembouche - a high cone of profiteroles bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, chopped nuts, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons.

Here is a picture of Chef Christopher giving us a demo on how to assemble the Croquembouche:

I burned my fingers in the process of coating the choux (baked pastry dough balls) with caramel. We had the hot sauté pan propped up on our station and were dipping our choux in the hot caramel. Each work station is instructed to have an ice-bath when working with caramel for 1. stopping the carry-over heat from cooking the caramel any more, and 2. BURNS!
The first time I burned my finger I was putting a caramel covered choux ball down on parchment paper and it tipped over, when I went to fix it the hot caramel got all over my finger. This is where my instincts instructed me to stick my finger in my mouth... hence the tongue burn.
The second burn was when I dropped a ball in the sauté pan and went to pick it out. This time I had learned my lesson and immediately plunged my thumb in the ice-bath.
I had to wear a rubber glove over my hand for the rest of the afternoon. As morbid as it may sound I was comforted to learn that a couple of other students had burned their fingers today as well.

Below is the product that caused my blisters:
I had written out "Coles" with the pastry dough to put across my Croquembouche and had wanted to decorate the tower with pretty threads of caramel, but after the burns I was fed up and didn't want to go near the caramel:

After most of the class had finished assembling their pastry towers we went on to make Austrian Dumplings - brandy soaked cherries, covered in marzipan, wrapped in the dumpling dough. These dumplings are poached, rolled in bread/sugar crumbs, then served with a cherry compote and Crème fraîche:

It's been a long week and I'm looking forward to the long weekend with George. Although, we have our second exam on Tuesday and also have a paper due that day as well.
Time to start studying... again.