Day 19: Paillettes (Cheese Straws)

Puff the Magic Pastry...

So we just started on Puff Pastry! It's rather interesting, but definitely a labor intensive dough to make! I can see why people charge a lot for Napoleon and things like that... Most of the class we spent just making the dough. The only thing we were able to complete was the Cheese Straws which were quite yummy. Our teacher said that they should be a little spicy so that it will make people drink more. Apparently, it's nice to serve these at the bar of restaurants so that they buy more drinks! =) Anyway, I'm not too much into spice, though I did put some in. Maybe next time we have a party, I'll make some of these for snacks...

Day 17: Croquembouche

Yes! The croquembouche!!! This is the traditional wedding cake in France!!! Ever since I saw this on Desperate House Wives, I have wanted to see one up close and personal. I never imagined that by getting up close and personal, I would be the one making it! It is a lot harder than I thought and since I haven't really seen more, I wasn't too sure about how to decorate it. I made a bunch of decorations, but I made them too thin, so a lot of them broke when I tried to attach them to the croquembouche. Since this is a wedding cake, I went ahead and made me and my husband's initials with the heart. Well, I made lots of hearts, but again, they broke. =( Actually, Mike's "M" broke too, but I just put it on anyway...

Without further ado, I present my very first Croquembouche!




















Here is my partner's croquembouche. I think she did an awesome job! Go Gina!!!
















This one is a picture of the whole classes' croquembouches! I think we all did a pretty good job! Chef Cynthia seemed impressed!

Day 16: Gateau Saint Honore, Gougere

Oh Gateau! So apparently, Saint Honore is the patron saint of pastry chefs! I went over to the Saint Francis of Assisi Church Bookstore to see if I could find a Saint Honore medal, but I guess he's not that popular... At least we have this wonderful Gateau (pronounced ga-tow with the accent on the tow part) to commemorate our saint! This was made with a Pate a Choux base and as you can see from the pictures, caramel topped cream puffs! The filling for both the puffs and the center was a wonderfully delicious Chiboust. A chiboust is a combo of pastry cream, gelatin and Italian meringue.





























The Gougere was also yummy! It is basically a classy cheese puff!

Day 15: Paris Brest, Profiteroles, Cygnes (Swans)

So here is the Paris-Brest, a Pate a Choux ring with a hazelnut praline Creme Mousseline filling (that's a type of butter cream). This one is one of my many favorites. My family was rather happy when we had to make this for my test, so they all got a taste! I was thinking about adding this cream to our product line, maybe pairing it with chocolate cake or something like that... We'll see... =)















Profiteroles, profiteroles, who does not love profiteroles?! These were made in the traditional way - with Vanilla ice cream and Chocolate sauce. I still love these as regular cream puffs, actually, the best profiteroles I personally had were in France (go figure)! When I can make the perfect Creme Legere, I will hopefully add these to the product line too, substituting the ice cream for the Creme Legere. Maybe a flavored one? Hmmm...















Cygnes or swans. I love the way these look! I was so excited that my swan bodies came out pretty decent! We actually used to sell these at the bakery early on - Chantilly Swans. In class we did not used Creme Chantilly, but rather Creme Martinique - Creme Legere with Rum and Brunois cut pineapple.

Day 11: Mini Tart Tatin, Caramel Nut Tart, Bourbon Pecan Cookies

Day 10: Chocolate Ganache, Chocolate Bavarian, Pate Sablee Cookies

Day 14: Eclairs

Here are the Eclairs we made on our first day learning about Pate a Choux. We learned a lot about eclairs, for example, the standard size of an eclair is 4 inches. Also, there are 3 traditional flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate and Caramel. In class we made Vanilla, Chocolate and Coffee. I have to admit that the coffee one was my favorite! It should be one of the new traditional ones!!! Anyway, everyone seemed to be having trouble with the Creme Patissiere that day, and so the next class, Chef Cynthia gave us some great tips to help with making non-lumpy Creme Patissiere! That's the advantage of having an experienced instructor.

Day 12: Quiche Lorraine, Linzer Torte

More Yummies

Again, I'm playing catch-up!

So, I did promise a couple of things in my last post didn't I? I think I will address the "Chef Uniform Secrets" as I wait for my hard boiled eggs to cook for my son's Easter Egg project in school tomorrow. So, I don't know if I really should be writing about this, but I figure that my 2 faithful readers may actually find it interesting, if they don't know this already. I hope that I am not breaking some chef code of honor by divulging this information!!! If I'm not in class on Thursday, you'll know why!!! I was taken by the Chef Uniform Police! =) Okay, so a few posts back, I was saying how I liked my uniform sans the checkered pants... Well, it turns out that this particular pattern on the pants hides stains very well. Basically the way the uniform was designed was to hide stains since as we all know (or may not know), things can get quite messy in the kitchen. The goal is always to keep it clean, but if you happen to get swiped by someone carrying a bowl of chocolate ganache, it won't be easy to take that off without throwing it in the washing machine!

As for the double breasted chef coats, well, it turns out that they are double breasted for a reason! If you happen to get a stain on your coat and then a customer wants to meet you to pay you their compliments, of course you don't want to go out to the dining room with a dirty chef coat! You just switch over to the "clean" side and voila, nice and clean!

And so, there it is my friends... chef uniform secrets revealed! =)

Now, for some "yummy" business!

First up - the Blueberry Clafoutis (I think it is pronounced KLA-FOO-TI). Traditionally, it is made with black cherries, but here we used blueberries. My son LOVED it because he absolutely LOVES blueberries! It is basically blueberries in a baked custard.













Here are some cookies we worked on. In the front we have fig newtons. No, not like the ones you can buy mass-produced. The shell is more "pastry-like" and well, the figs we cooked up ourselves. My husband usually doesn't go for fig newtons, but after he tried these, he changed his mind! Well, I still don't think he will eat the ones from the grocery, but if I make these again, I'm sure there is a good chance he will eat it! =)

In the back are the Spritskakor (Scandinavian Butter Cookies or they are also know as Thumb Print Cookies) with some raspberry jam. I personally liked these a lot! Maybe because I love almond paste and there was lots of almond paste in this recipe! I was thinking about making these for the bakery also, but haven't decided on what jam to put in the middle. We'll see... I guess that may just be another "Coming soon" product.













Here is a French Nut Tart or the name in our text book is "Tarte Aux Noix". Don't ask me how to pronounce this one! I know a little French, but truthfully, I'm extremely rusty. I tend to blend Spanish, Italian and French altogether... *sigh* Anyway, I also found this one to be quite tasty, though I think I put too much raspberry jam in mine. This was made with the Raspberry jam on the bottom with a thin layer of Almond. On top of that was a batter made with almond cream mixed with almond and hazelnut flours. A definite must for nut lovers!













The next 2 pictures are the little Lemon Tarts we made! We even made the lemon curd ourselves! Yes, that was our first "stirred" custard. We also learned how to make Swiss Meringue to finish them off and how to torch them. Yes, you read that correctly - TORCH them! I used a blow torch for the first time! I was quite nervous about it, especially when I started a small fire on one of my tarts, but I got over it once I saw that the mini-flame burned itself out rather quickly and you can't even tell that this happened. Apparently, the blow torch is a something we will be using a lot, so I really do have to get over it!
















Okay dear readers, the eggs are finally ready and I'm thinking I'm going to make me some deviled eggs with the extras! 'til next time (hopefully this weekend)!

Still working on it...

Okay, so I've been experimenting with our Egg Custard Pie at the bakery... I tried a few different recipes and after some modifications, I have finally settled on the one I like best. So now it is a matter of technique... I think I have it somewhat down pat, though my main problem at the moment is figuring out when to take it out of the oven! I always think it is not finished baking yet, so I keep adding a few minutes, but then I just completely miss it and it turns out over baked! *sigh* Anyway, I think I have finally come close to figuring out the approximate bake time ~ 53 minutes. We'll see at the next trial!

So, let me tell you about the new things I learned at the French Culinary Institute I was able to apply to my Egg Custard Pie experiments! Luckily, we are currently learning about custards so, my timing was perfect! So, let us start with burning eggs with sugar... Yes, you read that right, burning eggs with sugar! The first time I made the custard pie, part of the recipe says to scald the milk. In order to save time, I went ahead and started mixing the eggs with the sugar to get that ready to go before adding the milk part. Well, by the time the milk was ready, the egg/sugar mix had turned a dark color. Apparently, I had burned the eggs... =( Because of the hygroscopic nature of sugar, it absorbed all the liquid from the egg, thus burning it! Another thing I applied to my method is adding some of the sugar to the warming milk so that it doesn't burn. And finally, the third method I used was tempering the egg mixture with some of the scalded milk before complete integration.

Here is a picture I snapped with my phone of the final result from today. Of course, it is the nicest of the bunch... Hopefully I will get it perfect the next time!

A few more goodies!

I'm trying to catch up on the things we have made, but of course (just like in case), I'm falling behind! =)

Okay, so last Saturday, we made some Fresh Fruit Tartlettes. I didn't have enough time to garnish my 4 little tarts so I brought the fruits home. I let John decorate one of them and I did the other 3. Unfortunately, I didn't get to take a picture of John's tart before he started eating it, but it's quite easy to imagine - he put 2 slices of oranges and then proclaimed that he was finished and wanted to eat it. He actually took the oranges off when he ate them too!!! He's so silly... Anyway, here is a picture of the other 3 that I was able to garnish sans the apricot glaze. It was a pate sucree shell with yummy creme legere (yes, I may just be spelling these wrong again!!!) with the fresh fruits on top! I loved them! I'm thinking about making them this summer at the bakery but using mangoes as the fresh fruit. I'm not sure which other fresh fruit would match well with the mango, so if you have any suggestions, please send them my way!















These next 2 cookies are Chocolate Dream Cookies (and yes, they are quite dreamy) and Vanilla Kipferl Cookies (Viennese Vanilla Crescents). My teacher very accurately described the Chocolate Dream Cookies as a cross between a Chocolate Cookie and a Brownie. I thought they were divine! Lots-o-chocolate and a sprinkling of pecan nuts throughout made these cookies irresistible to me! And the Vanilla cookies - made with Hazelnut flour - need I say more?














Last Tuesday (3/31/09), we did a savory tart - Tarte A L'Oignon (Rustic Onion Tart). I loved, loved, loved this one, though my poor husband... He didn't hear me explain that it was a savory tart with caramelized onions, bleu cheese, walnuts and plum tomatoes and he was totally expecting to eat something sweet like all the other tarts we have been making up to this point... Well, needless to say, he took 1 bite and put it back in the fridge (at least he didn't throw it out!!) wondering what it was that he had just eaten. The good news of that is - I had the rest of that bitten piece for my dinner tonight! YUM!














We did get to bring home some cool stuff tonight, but I will make another posting probably this weekend. Mike took some pics for me but I can't get the files yet because he's a little pre-occupied at the moment (sleeping)...

Oh, before I go, I have a couple more things... First off, we had our ServSafe test today and I really hope that I passed. Second, I wanted to say that I felt like a celebrity at school today with paparazzi taking our picture - during our fire drill today. Yes, I know, it was totally unglamorous, but it must have been quite a site seeing a small sea of pastry and culinary students (in full uniform) on the corner of Broadway and Grand. Of course, there were people all over taking our picture... As we were going back into the school, a guy with a big camera (sorry Mike and photographer friends - I didn't see what kind of camera or lens he was using) came running up to us and taking our picture in quickfire mode! I turned away, thus I did not see what camera it was, but it did kind of sound like a canon... maybe... Anywho - I'm signing off for now. Some things to look forward to in my posts - of course, more goodies, but I want to give my teacher a plug because she is uber talented and she also happens to be a great teacher! Oh, and some chef wardrobe secrets! =)