AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PASTRY

September 11, 2013

This week is pies and tarts. We were all required to make a sweet dough using the creaming method by hand. When I say by hand, I mean literally creaming with your hands. That was interesting, messy and tiring on the arm. I now know that if doing this, the powdered sugar should be sifted to make it easier to incorporated. I would recommend and prefer to use a mixer of some sort but in a pinch without a mixer I know it can be done this way.

The agenda today was making Key Lime Tarts, Frangipane Tarts with Poached Pears, and Fruit Tarts.  After mixing the sweet dough and let it set in the refrigerator for a bit, we rolled out the dough. 

We then used different methods to make the tart shells. One method was placing the rolled out dough on top of individual tart molds and pressed down with hand and then a rolling pin to cut the dough.

After the dough was cut the dough was lightly pressed into the mold. 

A second method used was cut the dough with a cutter and then placing the dough on the outside of a sprayed pan. 

The third method used was placing the dough over a tray mold and lightly pressing the dough into the mold.

Then the excess dough was cut away from the mold.

All methods resulted in a nice baked tart shell.

While the tart shells were baking and cooling, we made the fillings for the tarts.  The fruit tarts were lined with chocolate, filled with pastry cream, then top with fresh fruit and a clear glaze.

Fruit Tarts

The key lime tarts were lined with white chocolate, filled with a key lime filling and topped with Creme Chantilly and then torched top. 

Key Lime Tarts

For the frangipane tarts, we created the frangipane to fill the tarts which is an almond paste mixture. We had poached pears in a red wine liquid.  For the pears, we started by peeling the pears and coring the bottoms.

We created the poaching liquid from a red wine zinfandel and added sugar, vanilla bean, black pepper and orange zest and then added the pears.

The pears were then covered with a parchment paper to capture steam (not with a lid which would capture too much steam and over cook the pears).

The pears simmered for about 25 minutes on the stove and came out with a nice red coloring on them.

The poached pears were cut into thin slices and placed on top of the frangipane filled tart and covered with a clear glaze.

Frangipane Poached Pear Tart

I had never had poached pears before and they were really quite good on there own and even better with the frangipane tart.

AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PASTRY

September 5, 2013

Today we all made a butter pound cake formula. Each team was tasked with making a different flavor and then mixing it in a different method to see how the end result turns out if not mixed in the method of the formula. 

My team did a white chocolate raspberry pound cake. We added melted white chocolate to the batter and did an all ingredient in at once mixing method.  After mixed, we poured half the batter into the pans. We then took about 1 cup of the batter and mixed it with raspberry jam and dropped this into the batter in the pans and swirled through it.   After baking, we made a glaze for on top of the cake.  The glaze my teammate decided to make did not look a appealing and was a bit too liquidity to work. The chef had us make an alternate topping out of pouring fondant and then drizzle the original glaze on top. 

The concept sounded great but the end result was not a good one. It looked sloppy, the inside mixture was a pale plum color, and the taste was not good. Chalk this one up to experience of what not to do when making a marble pound cake.

Other teams made a orange vanilla, lemon vanilla, banana vanilla, vanilla with chocolate topping, and a dark chocolate and vanilla pound cake.  The dark chocolate and vanilla cake was the best and tasted wonderful.

Orange Vanilla

Lemon Vanilla

Banana Vanilla

Vanilla with Chocolate Topping

Dark Chocolate and Vanilla Marble

AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PASTRY

September 4, 2013

This week is quick breads. Each group was assigned a different quick bread to make.  My group was tasked with blueberry muffins.  

We put the muffins in a special mold so the top would have ring when flipped out of the pan.

We sprinkled the top with powdered sugar. 

I made a blueberry filling on the stove and then we filled the muffins with the blueberry topping. They were very good.

Other teams made biscuits, scones, and variations of banana muffins.

Cheese Biscuits

Scones

Banana Chocolate Muffins

Banana Nut Muffins

Banana Streusel Muffins

AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PASTRY

August 29, 2013

Today was our final day of working with pate a choux.  We broke off into teams of two and made mini desserts.  My team was assigned Swans.  

Some of the other mini desserts were eclairs, baskets, split cream puffs and mice. 

Mini Eclairs

Baskets

Cream Puffs

Mice

We also complete Napoleons, which we started on last week with our puff pastry.  We cut puff pastry into three strips and layered with vanilla and chocolate pastry cream.

 

It was then topped with white pastry fondant.

Along with colored stripes of pastry fondant.

A knife was then dragged through for design.

A crumb coat was added to the sides and cut into individual pieces.

The tops were decorated with whipped cream and chocolate.

AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PASTRY

August 28, 2013

Continuing on with Pate a Choux, we made Croquembouche and St. Honore. 

Croquembouche is basically a pyramid of cream puffs held together by caramelized sugar.  It is a French tradition for Christmas and weddings.  We started by making the cream puffs.

Once the cream puffs were baked we filled them with pastry cream.

We made the caramel.

Then we had all the components to begin assembly and started by layers the cream puffs in a circle on a plate gluing them together with the caramel. 

We continued to layer them them into a pyramid shape.

Once the pyramid of cream puff was complete, we added strawberries to the outside along with some pulled sugar.

After completion of the Croquembouche we moved on to the make up of the St. Honore.  The St. Honore is a classic French dessert made up of puff pastry, pate a choux and pastry cream.

We started by cutting puff pastry into circles and docking the dough. 

Pate a Choux was then piped in rings on top of the puff pastry.

After baking, raspberry jam was piping in the rings.  

Cream puffs were secured to the top with caramelized sugar. 

Diplomat cream was piped in between the cream puffs with a special St. Honore tip. 

Chocolate shavings were placed on top.

 Then powdered sugar was sprinkled on top.

We had a tasting and the St. Honore was good but the raspberry jam was not that great in the dessert. Traditionally chiboust cream (pastry cream mixed with meringue) is place in the rings but the Chef indicated he does not care for it made that way.  I will have try making this dessert at home with some different creams and see if I can come up with a better result.

AMERICAN & EUROPEAN PASTRY

August 27, 2013

This week is all about Pate a Choux.  Today we made eclairs. We started by making our own batch of Pate a Choux. 

We piped the Pate a Choux out for a dozen eclairs and baked.

Each person made a different filling, glaze, and decoration for their eclairs.  Mine was a simple vanilla pastry cream filling topped with a chocolate glaze, Chantilly cream, and glazed strawberries.

Some eclairs from each person were put on display in the window. They tasted wonderful.