This Monday was our scheduled Fruit Carving class with Chef Armando Baisas. Needless to say, after so much chocolate and mousse cakes in the last couple of weeks, dealing with fruit was extremely refreshing!

Chef Armando works in the production kitchen overseeing prep for both the school’s restaurant and the pastry & cuisine classes. Chef Armando is, well, ridiculously talented.
If you google him, you’ll find his incredible fruit carvings..

and his many ice carvings..

He’s basically a “Master Carver”, and has been asked to guest judge competitions so that he couldn’t compete (true story!)

During our workshop, Chef A showed us many quick and “easy” (well, at least that’s what he made it look like) fruit carvings, from animals, to palm trees, to simple but more elegant ways to present cut fruit.

We managed to all carve so much in so little time! It was amazing to see so much fruit in the kitchen. Generally we’re quite limited on fruit because it is used mostly as garnish for plated dessert, but this time, we each got our own honey dew, cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple, and so much more!

Here is what I carved in the two hours or practical!

Erin & I with our swan carvings!