Le Pâtisserie (les semaines 1 et 2)

Alright.  Time to give updates on some of the yummy things I've been learning to make in pastry class.

Week One:  Dough

Tartine Grecques

For the first week of pastry the chefs focused on teaching us a few different kinds of dough and methods to make them.  We made roquefort bread, which was basically like a soft dough with roquefort cheese added.  Normally I don't like the taste of strong cheese (or cheese in general, but I am learning to!), but this bread was so delicious that I ate my entire loaf within two days.  All three of my roommates brought a loaf home and none of it was thrown away, that's how good it was.  

brioche with pistachio and almond paste

We also made tartine grecques, which is puff pastry that in the last two folds (of the six folds we made with the dough) we incorporated a shit ton of sugar and some five spice.  Then we divided them into three pieces, stacked them, then cut them into little strips which we then baked.  The really skinny strips after being baked on their sides puff out and turn into these rectangular size pieces, which we then spread orange marmalade on and turned into little sandwiches.  These were really good but there were so many to take home that we couldn't eat them all.

The third thing we made was brioche, which we rolled up with a pistachio and almond paste that we made, then shaped them and baked them.  I'm not happy with how mine turned out in terms of presentation (I didn't cut through them enough to lay them out to look really pretty), but they tasted sososo good.

banana cake

The fourth recipe we made was a banana cake with orange cardamom jelly pieces baked inside.  This recipe was alright.  It wasn't banana-y enough for most people's tastes, but chef taught us a fun way to decorate it.  The final product was brushed with an apricot glaze and covered with coconut on two sides.  The decoration on the top are two slices of banana that we sprinkled with brown sugar, torched to caramelize the sugar, then put on top with a decorated chocolate piece.  I thought the decoration was impressive considering how plain the cake looked just by itself out of the oven.  You can go ahead and ignore the bakery wrap underneath the cake in the photo.  We don't have any square or rectangular plates in our apartment and I didn't like how it photographed when I put it on a round one, but I promise I didn't buy it from our local bakery, haha. 

panneton

The last recipe we "realized" (a word the french chefs love to say in English when speaking about recipes), was an Italian bread called panneton.  It's a sweet dough with golden raisins (soaked in rum), and candied orange peel.  I really liked it but it's kind of a hit or miss with most people here.

Week Two: Cakes

This past week we focused on making cakes.  It was pretty awesome.  We made three cakes and they were all unbelievably delicious.

the best chocolate cake ever

The first we made was a chocolate cake.  It had a ton of layers.  Chocolate dacquoise, coriander feuilltine, chocolate bitter foam, chocolate mousse, chocolate crumble (which we also used to decorate the outside), and then covered with a dark chocolate glaze/ganache.  It was chocolately heaven.  I was really proud of how pretty mine turned out too-- it was actually mistaken for the chefs!  I ended up giving mine away as a birthday present to Brett, one of the guys here, since his birthday was Saturday this week.  He and his roommates ate it in less than 24 hours, haha.  The pieces of chocolate on top that were used for decoration didn't hold up too well during transportation, so please forgive the broken piece in the photo.

brioche with pistachio pastry cream and chocolate cream

My second favorite cake we made was another brioche and pistachio combination.  It's a round piece of brioche, sliced in half, the insides were brushed with a cherry and kirsch syrup, then we piped a spiral of pistachio pastry cream and a spiral of chocolate cream.  The decoration are pieces of cocoa and pistachio.  I'm really feeling the brioche and pistachio combo, it's so good, but I gave mine away to another group of guys not in pastry because we have such an excess of pastry in our apartment.

apple and chestnut cake

The third cake (and the third in my order of favorites), was an apple and chestnut flavored one.  It has a layer of chocolate and chesnut mousse, a layer of apple biscuit, a layer of green apple jelly, another layer of the mouse, and then we sprayed it with a green colored white chocolate on the top.  The decoration is of chestnut batons (made from chestnut cream and chestnut dough) and apples.  This was really pretty, though like the chocolate cake, the decoration didn't hold up too well during transport (a 20-30 min walk from class to the apartments).  My only criticism of this recipe is that there wasn't a huge variety of texture.  I wish the apple biscuit was crunchy instead of soft.  Other than that though, the flavors worked really well and it was very yummy.

Our apartment is practically overflowing with pastries.  Four pastry students in one apartment (instead of cooking or wine students) is turning out to be a very dangerous thing.