Who wants cake?

Giant Corporate Cooking School: Rotation 3, Week 3, Day 4:

Cakes.  Gateaus.  Tortens.  Whatever you want to call them, I am three weeks into a pretty serious study of them.  Don't get me wrong, I like cake and the class is very informative.  It's the whole decorating thing that I'm not too sure about.  Fortunately, it's mostly been French style gateaus, so I have not had to break out my mad rosette piping skillz yet.  Yet.

I'll admit, I'm having a hard time with the class.  I'm okay with the product, and I think I'm fine on the written exams and the homework.  The real problem is the lab we're working in - I hate it.  Detest it.  Loathe it.  Abhor it.  It is currently the bane of my existence, an anathema, my bete noire.   (What?  I've been making French cakes, why  not break out the Francais?) But don't think I've come to this rancorous reaction lightly, I've thought long and hard about what I find so grievous about it.

BEEF #1:  It's crowded.  Waaaay back in February when this adventure began, there were about 30 of us.  So timid, so shy, so unsure of mixing methods.  Then for the second rotation, we were halved.  For this rotation, we've all been stitched back together like the big, dysfunctional family we are and then some.  So now there are now 40+ people crammed in a single lab.  Which leads directly to

BEEF #2:  There's not enough equipment.  It's early.  I've rarely had a cup of coffee or breakfast prior to class starting.  Being there on time means that I have scraped myself out of a warm, comfortable bed, stuffed myself into polyester pants, and driven across LA county; I don't want to shiv someone for a freaking mixer.  Not that it would matter if I could get one of the precious few, because THERE AREN'T ENOUGH OUTLETS TO SUPPORT THEM ALL.  I know what anyone at the school would say if  I whined (and yes, I know I'm whining) about this: "In a professional environment, you may not have all the tools you need..."  In a professional environment there won't be forty sleep deprived sugar junkies using kitchen aids ALL AT THE SAME TIME.  That's why industrial mixers exist, duh.

BEEF #3:  The layout sucks.  Maybe I got spoiled, my first two rotations were in the new building.  Convection ovens as far as the eye could see.  In this lab (in the, shall we say, less new building), there are four convection ovens and I stand next to two of them.  Now, there are plenty of conventional ovens - you know, the kind you have in your kitchen - but for some reason my classmates seem to believe that the convects have magical cake fortifying powers because they all want to cram themselves in the narrow walkway between the prep table and the oven and shove their cakes in those two particular ovens.  I don't know why either*, I use the conventional ovens.

BEEF #4:  It's either 100 degrees or 40.  And I'm wearing polyester pants, people, which manage to retain the heat when it's hot and lose it the millisecond the temperature drops.  They're magical.

And finally, BEEF #5:  The hood.  Professional ranges have hoods which are giant vents to keep the air circulation going.  Not only does it drop the temperature 40 degrees when it's turned on, but it's like standing next to an airplane ready for take off.  The scary thing is how quickly I stop noticing the noise.  In fact, after the initial jolt of it, I don't notice it until it's not there anymore and the quiet that follows it being shut off is so huge, it's deafening.  There's almost no point in complaining about it, it's a fucking fact of life for anyone in a professional kitchen.

And the real problem I have with the class?  All the reasons above are really just convenient excuses to hide behind.  I just don't like it and I haven't figured out why yet.  I dread going to school.  As hard as it is to believe, I used to happily get up at 3:30 in the morning to study before class and now I'm bargaining with time at 4:45 to slow down.  No one wins bargaining with time.  It's making me question if I've made a huge mistake.  Aren't pastry chefs supposed to love cake?  Isn't that the first thing you think of when you hear someone say they're a pastry chef/baker?  Because you know who wants cake?  THEY ALL DO.  They all want cake.

I think I may have fucked myself.  Again.

*Okay, okay I admit I know why people fight for the convection ovens: convention ovens have fans, so the heat is evenly dispersed throughout the oven which does make for more even baking.  Conventional ovens generally have a hot spot, which can cause uneven baking.  But it's really not that serious.