Okay. This week was a little hectic for me (read: I’m totally and completely terrified of pastry). I’ve decided to combine this week into one pastry-filled entry. It went well! My pastries actually turned out well! Not perfectly, but I’ve got to admit that I was expecting complete chaos and failure. Tiny little tarts bursting into flame. Pools of molten lava pouring out from my little oven. Locusts. You get the idea.
First up:
Pâte brisée salée: Quiche Lorraine and Pâte sucrée: Tarte aux fruits de saison. Bacon and egg quiche with savoury shortcrust pastry and a seasonal fruit tart with sweet pastry.
We made our pastry dough from scratch. Don’t work it too much and make sure to chill it multiple times in the refrigerator. If you don’t do these things, when you go to bake your crust, it will snap back down like a rubber band and you will end up with a tiny little pastry that can’t hold any filling.
I definitely learned a useful lesson about blind baking today. You really want to pack those beans or weights into the crust, bake the crust until it’s pretty well done, and then take the weights out and really basically bake the crust until it’s done. I expected my quiche to keep baking after I added the filling, but that most definitely didn’t happen. My poor quiche was quite undercooked. The filling was good, though! My fruit tart was much better! I cooked the pastry correctly, the dough was flakey and lovely, and my crème pâtisserière (pastry cream with milk and flour, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla bean) worked out quite well.
The second time.
Here’s a tip: when the recipe calls for milk, you definitely do not want to accidentally grab the bottle of cream by mistake. Read the label!!!! I can tell you, from experience, that if you follow the recipe exactly and bring the cream back up to a boil after adding all of the ingredients, your pastry cream will be ruined. You will have to start over. My little tart finally worked out so well that it was used as an example of a decent tart for another student who had limited experience with making and eating pastry.
Next up: Pâte feuilletée (puff pastry dough from scratch!!!) day one, and crêpes aux citron (lemon crepes). We also got to see Pâte à brioche day one, but we didn’t make brioche dough in practical.
Class went well. Class went well!!!
I had been dreading today’s class all. Weekend. Long. Wicked, wicked technical on making French puff pastry dough from scratch, and crepes may be the easiest thing in the world for for many people, but I’ve never really made them before, particularly not with an award-winning French chef breathing down the back of my neck and waiting to grade me. Eeeek!!!
My first batch of pastry dough was too wet, so Chef grabbed it out of my hand, threw it in the garbage, and told me to start over. I did, and the second batch was great! Then, I managed to get my brick-o’-butter softened to the right stage and NOT break it or make air bubbles while I rolled out the dough!
On to the crepes! Seasoned the pan, made the batter, and threw it in the fridge. Made the lemon sauce. Rolled out my pastry dough two more times (you need to roll it out and turn it and roll it out and turn it six times, making sure to stash it in the fridge between rolls so that it doesn’t get warm. Made crepes!
I got good reviews! Chef said my crepes were very good! My lemon sauce was good, my crepes were the right thickness and color, and the taste was good! He ate more than one bite! I’ve got to say that class today made me extremely proud.
Puff pastry day two, Allumettes au fromage (cheese allumettes using the puff pastry dough and a Mornay sauce with a roux, milk infused with onion studded with cloves, a bouquet garni, and then egg yolks and gruyere cheese) and Pâte à choux: Gougère (savoury choux buns). We also got to see Saucisson en brioche in demo! Gorgeous, heavenly Morteau sausages poached in a court bouillon and then wrapped in the brioche dough from yesterday’s demo and baked in the oven with Pommes en l’Air (apples caramelized with butter and sugar) on the side.
My allumettes puffed up beautifully and were golden on the outside and flakey in the center (though they could have used even more cheese filling) and my choux buns turned out quite well! The choux buns are actually more like a dumplings! You cook the flour with warm butter and water and keep heating it until it forms a coherent dough ball. You want to cook it and heat it as you stir vigorously. The we added the eggs and some gruyère cheese and piped the dough through piping bags to make lovely little buns. You flatten the top and cover it with a simple egg wash for baking. We also used an egg wash for the allumettes, but that one had a pinch of sugar and salt in with the egg (yolk only) and water. It really made a lovely color on the allumettes!
And finally, pastry week number one is finished! I can finally relax! Back to entrees for me!