318°

I may not always remember that the "danger zone" for food safety is between 40° and 140°, but I will never forget that the correct temperature for pulled sugar is 318°. That's what comes from REPETITION.

I made two more batches of cooked sugar today (that's five, this week), but not before chocolate work. Chef Alex gave out the assignments: The "buffet team" made brownies (a 20-quart mixer full) and 13 half-sheets of sponge cake. The "plated" team made chocolate mousse and set up the dining room station in preparation for lunch service. Chef Alex told the rest of us, "Temper a pound each of white, milk and dark chocolate. Then pull sugar."

"We tempered chocolate on Tuesday," Sara said.

"Do it again."

So we did. The results are not that glamorous, when you just spread it out on a sheet pan, but the main thing is: it's hard. And glossy. And it has snap, when you break it. You melt the chocolate (over a water bath but DON'T get any water in the chocolate), then bring it to room temperature. You can spread some of it out on a marble slab and work it back and forth with a spatula, then return it to the bowl. In my favorite biscotti recipe, I now incorporate the white chocolate into the dough, because I've never had much success getting the chocolate to the state where you could drizzle it, and it would harden. I'm pretty sure I've got it down now.Then I made more pulling syrup, using yet another thermometer today to ensure that the mixture was heated to the proper temperature. And I got witnesses. Sarah colored hers purple, and mine, uncolored, was a pale whitish-yellow. Chef Alex told us that the heat of the mass of sugar, as we pulled and stretched it, was all in our heads ("Think cool thoughts!"), but I have blisters on three of my fingertips despite my most positive thinking.Chef Alex made the pretty ribbon.

He also demonstrated the construction of petit fours: melted chocolate on the bottom, flavored simple syrup brushed on each of three layers of sponge cake, buttercream in between and on top; the whole thing frozen for the next process tomorrow. Then Alex and Andrew built ten more, and Jordan and Sara emptied out and organized the freezer and the walk in, and Sarah and Silvia and Andrea and I did so many dishes that I left class with prunes on top of my blisters.