Halloween Party

I went all out for my Halloween party this year. As one of my friends has a nut allergy and is also allergic to pumpkin, I had an interesting time trying to make things that seemed Halloween-y but didn't have pumpkin or nuts.

But pumpkins are so perfect for a Halloween party, so I made pumpkin shaped brownies (I made a pan of brownies and cut them out with a cookie cutter). And iced them so they'd resemble pumpkins.

I also made both chocolate and plain palmiers. Not that they are terribly Halloween-y...but they are good!

And with the left over puff pastry, I made cheese straws.

My friend with food allergies has never been able to eat pastries from patisseries, so she's never had things like a fruit tart. A classic pastry cream and fresh fruit tart seemed terribly un-Halloween-ish. But an apple tart seemed to work nicely. This is the same apple tart I made in class, just in a bigger tart shell and with better apple compote (I finally made it so that it didn't resemble apple sauce!)

Finally I made cupcakes; because who doesn't like cupcakes? I just made the vanilla cupcake from Magnolia Bakery's cookbook and decorated them with my favorite vanilla buttercream (which is my own recipe.) I decorated some to look like pumpkins and some to look like little gravestones in a grassy grave yard (I made the stones by slathering cut up brownie with gray icing and then carving "RIP" into the icing with a toothpick.) Aren't they the cutest little tombstones?

The desserts were all a hit. As was all the lovely real food that my friends so kindly brought, thank you guys!

Croissant and Pain au Chocolat

Front: croissant
Back: pain au chocolat

These were amazing! They weren't the perfect croissants, but they were better than probably 90% of the ones out there. They were light and airy, tender on the inside and flakey on the outside, and deliciously buttery. We made both plain and cheese (or ham and cheese) croissants. I made almost all of mine plain, but did make two with gruyere rolled up in them. Yum. Traditionally plain croissants are crescent shaped (hence the name) however filled croissants are usually left straight. I'm not sure exactly why, but presumably it's so that you can tell them apart. It's not too hard to do that with fillings like ham, but the cheese on its own (like other light fillings, such as almond paste) is harder to see.

The pains au chocolat, made with the same dough as the croissants, were even better; in addition to the excellent dough, they had good quality dark chocolate! We used two batons of chocolate instead of one, which is apparently how many places do it, so that was nice. The trick to making these look good, by the way, is to securely stick (with egg wash) the rolled up end under the center of the pain au chocolate. If it is off center, the whole thing will unroll as it puffs when you proof then bake it, making it look sloppy.

Currant Scones

I really like scones but I'm not a huge fan of those with dried fruit, like currants. I have to say I was quite impressed by these. They were amazingly tender and flakey, to the point that they practically melt in your mouth. This wonderful inside is surrounded by a very, very thin crisp crust formed by the heavy cream and sugar that you put on before you bake them. The were so good, I didn't mind the currants at all. Plus the benefit of using dried fruit in them is that these keep much longer that if you use fresh (and pretty much indefinitely if you freeze them...then thaw them before eating, or just eat frozen, that's good too!) I do think I'd prefer them without fruit or perhaps with pieces of fresh fruit like strawberries, but that's not stopping me from snarfing down far too many of them the way they are!

Stollen

This is a traditional Christmas fruitcake. Its shape, apparently, is meant to resemble the baby Jesus swaddled in a blanket in the manger. I have to admit, I'm not sure I see that. I have to say it's quite a nice fruitcake-y bread. I think it's more bread like than most fruitcakes, though I don't see that as a bad thing. It's quite heavy and dense and quite sweet (but only because of the layer of powdered sugar on the outside) and nicely fruited. It's certainly not my favorite thing from the viennoiserie unit, but it's not bad by any means.

Kugelhopf

Kugelhopf is a traditional eastern European fruitcake. A few people asked me if it is related to noodle kugel. While from a culinary point of view it clearly isn't, I was curious about the name, so I did a little research. Apparently Kugel means ball or sphere in German. It was used to describe the puffed-up-ness of the classic noodle kugel and the ring shape of a kugelhopf. So there you go, it is related.

That said, a kugelhopf is nothing like a noodle kugel. Firstly, it doesn't have noodles. Secondly, it is a cake not a pudding-like casserole. It's really a dense bread-like cake (or perhaps cake-like bread) speckled with rum soaked raisins and candied orange peel. There are almonds on top that are actually baked into the cake by putting them in the pan and pouring the batter/dough over them. It's served dusted with powdered sugar and a cup of strong tea or coffee (well I think it goes with tea or coffee, I suppose that isn't actually part of the recipe.) Yum!

Brioche

We made brioche dough last class and shaped it this class. It's not easy to shape the little brioche à tête rolls. In fact, I'd say that it's actually quite hard. The chef taught us three techniques for doing it, they are all hard and none of them came out quite right. At least they tasted incredible...just as buttery and tender as brioche should be!

And the brioche loaf was nice and much easier to make. Of course it tasted exactly the same, since it was the same dough.

Blueberry Muffins

I actually made these before for the Great Blueberry Muffin Showdown. These actually came out a little better, perhaps because we were running short on blueberries so the chef told us to use about 1/3 less than the recipe called for. (In case you were wondering why I think it is good that there weren't as many blueberries in the blueberry muffins, I should mention that I don't like blueberries very much.) Plus the berries we did use were quite tart, so I actually didn't mind them in the relatively small quantity.

I realize this is silly, but we got to use those tall brown muffin papers that look so café-ish. They are so pretty and you don't need to use a muffin tin (which are such a pain to clean)--so I was very happy!

Challah

Yum!

This challah is really nice, classic, slightly eggy, and beautiful. It can be done with any type of braid; we did a 4-strand braid, which I've never done before. It was quite easy and looks really nice! I used poppy seeds on top because I have a fond affection for poppy seed challah, but sesame seed or pearl sugar or just plain challah is nice too.

The whole loaf, hot out of the oven.

One of my classmates was absent and her partner didn't want their leftover dough, so she kindly gave it to me. It was quite over-proofed by the time I got it home, but I used it anyway. The rolls I made weren't perfect--they had too thick a crust and too airy. Ah well, they still tasted nice; though not nearly as nice as the loaf I made in class.

Challah rolls: not perfect, but pretty darn good--and just plain pretty.

Fruitcake Muffins

Well I never thought I'd say this, but I like fruitcake! Well, I like this fruitcake. This isn't like the fruitcake that you get during the holidays, shove in the back of the cabinets, and six months later find it and realize it's still not gone bad. This is more like a muffin packed with dried fruit for flavor. And we used wonderful dried fruits--including candied orange peel, yum!

Danish

Danish can come in any number of shapes and flavors; we made danish with swirls of almond paste and raisins. They were really delicious! Mine came out slightly less than perfect because the butter in the dough got too hard so, when I rolled it out, it cracked and left areas without butter. That made the final product a little less light and flaky than it should have been. But never mind that, they were still excellent!

Sally Lunn Buns

These were really nice. They were just a plain white roll, but not the bland ones you get in a restaurant. They had a fine, light crumb, and a delicate, not-too-yeasty taste. Mine were slightly unevenly browned, I think they needed to be rotated during baking...but we were busy baking other things, so I didn't think about that at the time.

Orange Cinnamon Swirl Bread

 

This is the dough we used to make the sticky buns. We also made this lovely bread. It had a wonderful orangey flavor and the cinnamon swirl wasn't overly sweet. Have you ever noticed that there is no cinnamon bread, just cinnamon swirl bread?  Ever wondered why that is? As it turns out, that's because cinnamon in the quantities needed to flavor dough acts as an antimicrobial and kills the yeast. Interesting, don't you think?

As I was saying, this is good bread. The texture is lovely and bread like with a dense but light crumb and, as I've mentioned, a nice kick of cinnamon that compliments the subtle orange flavor of the bread. This bread is great plain, just slice and eat. Or, if you'd prefer doing something a little fancy, it makes wonderful french toast. I make my french toast with a little bit of cinnamon and orange juice (and zest if I have it) in the egg mixture. As it turns out, cinnamon and orange bread dipped in this mixture and fried up in a pan with some non-stick cooking spray or butter comes out spectacularly.

I sprinkled the french toast with some powdered sugar
and drizzled it with real maple syrup. Yum!

Spiked Pecan Sticky Buns

Oh wow these are good!  I mean what wouldn't be good about spiked pecan sticky buns? They are sticky and sweet and nutty and just a little boozy; need I say more?

What's nice about them is the dough is actually the same dough we used to make orange cinnamon swirl bread. Two very different breads with one batch of dough. Excellent!

The sticky buns before unmolding them. Look at that brown sugar swirl!

Puff Pastry Exam

This went pretty well! I finished early and nothing came out terribly wrong, so I'm happy. Yes, my pithiviers wasn't quite as nice looking as it could be and my palmiers came out a little funky (according to the chef it's because I allowed the butter to melt when I was turning the dough, so it sort-of fried the palmiers in the oven. But still, I was very happy with everything, especially my vol au vents, which came out pretty much perfect! 

I'm happy to be done with this unit. I've really enjoyed some of what we've made, but it's been getting a little bit same-y. Plus we are going to be doing viennoiserie--breakfast pastries--yum!

Apple Dartois

This photo doesn't really do it justice--it was much prettier in person.

Yet another apple tart, an apple dartois is really quite good. It's basically apple compote filled puff pastry. It takes on this sort of elegant yet almost homey look and the taste is just lovely and classic. Delicious apple compote, light puff pastry, butter, yum!

Classic Napoleon

This was a traditional napoleon, or mille feuille, as they are called in France. It is layers of puff pastry and lightened pastry cream topped with fondant. I didn't have the easiest time putting the finishing touches on. You see, my puff pastry was really good and light and flakey. This, unfortunately, makes it difficult to spread fondant on without flaking off some of the top, which I did. By the time I finished fixing that, the fondant was too firm to make the chevron pattern come out properly. So you could see the drag marks from the back of the knife. Not that this is terribly, it's just the fondant is supposed to be liquid enough to fill them in. Ah well, the taste was not impacted by the slightly messy top, and it was certainly better for the better puff pastry. Overall, while not as perfect as the chocolate napoleon (though really there isn't any chocolate in this one, so it probably isn't a fair comparison), it is still pretty darn great.

Speedy Vol au Vents

These aren't the most exciting things we've ever made. Basically they are a pastry shell that are meant to hold either sweet or savory fillings. However we didn't fill them. So they were just shells--like I said, not very exciting.

Palmiers

I've made palmiers before, but these were better. As it turns out, using fresh puff pastry makes a difference. Plus, we chilled these for days before cutting them. This allows the sugar to turn to a syrup (from the humidity in the fridge). The syrup caramelizes much more evenly and reliably than plain sugar does.

We made plain palmiers with regular puff pastry and vanilla sugar. They were very nice; a classic.

We also made them with chocolate puff pastry and cinnamon sugar. These were amazing. I loved the chocolate puff anyway and I love cinnamon, and the combination was not a let down.  The only problem with these is mine were slightly underdone because we had to get them out when class was over, even though mine probably needed another 3 or 4 minutes. Still they tasted excellent, they were just not quite as crisp and caramelized as they should have been. Ah well, that didn't stop me from eating them!

Chocolate Puff Pastry Disks (and what to do with them)

Chocolate puff pastry disks.

The name pretty much says it all, they are disks of chocolate puff pastry. To make them, bake a sheet of puff pastry. Just before you are ready to take it out of the oven, you brush it with watered down corn syrup. After the corn syrup stops bubbling, take it out. (This makes it sweeter and somewhat water proofed.) While it is still quite warm, cut it into the desired shape (i.e. rectangles for a chocolate napoleon) or, in this case, rounds. At this point, you can do a number of different things with them.

The Banana Chocolate Tartlet, without the finish.

In class we made Banana Chocolate Tartlets. This is a terribly misleading name; they are not really tarts. Instead, they are a plated dessert. Basically you start with a chocolate puff pastry disk, top it with slices of bananas, top them with some sugar, brulée the sugar with a blow torch, and finish with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some chocolate sauce. If I liked bananas, I'm sure I would have liked this!

The finished tartlet.

Since we made these to eat with dinner and I don't like bananas, I made myself a variation on this, sans bananas. It was a chocolate disk topped with the lovely vanilla ice cream that the chef made and the equally lovely fresh chocolate sauce. Then I just sprinkled some of chocolate puff crumbs on top for good measure. It was delicious!

Yum!

I still had more disks left, so I took them home. I happened to have left over lemon curd, so I made a quasi-napoleon with lemon curd and raspberries sandwiched between two disks. In the center of the circle of berries was a small and completely hidden scoop of ice cream, for a sweet surprise. Yum.

As it turns out, lemon curd pairs wonderfully with chocolate puff pastry.

Chocolate Mille Feuille

This was amazing! This is a classic napoleon with a chocolate twist. Instead of regular puff pastry, it's made with chocolate puff pastry. Instead of vanilla pastry cream, the filling is chocolate cream. The chocolate cream, by the way, is called crème d'or. It's made by folding melted chocolate into whipped cream. I've made that before, but I call it chocolate mousse (I do know that mousse traditionally has eggs, so I knew that this wasn't officially mousse, but it seemed like the best description, because it closely resembles the taste and texture of chocolate mousse,) but I digress. Instead of fondant with thin chocolate lines on top, we used chocolate ganache with thin white chocolate lines on top, reversing the traditional chevron pattern's colors. It was beautiful and delicious! This is one of my favorite things we've made all class, and definitely my favorite thing from the puff pastry unit.

Jalousie

Sorry, I didn't get the best photos.

This, for lack of a better word, tart is made with a puff pastry crust. The crust is filled with any number of fillings, we used crème d'amandes and raspberry baker's jam. The top piece of puff is sliced with a knife and stretched slightly to make a lattice that is apparently reminiscent of jalousie blinds, hence the name. It was very tasty and quite pretty, I think!

A top view of the lattice and the almond cream and jam underneath.

Tarte Tatin

I've never been a huge fan of tarte tatins. I mean I thought they were nice and all, but I never really thought they were that great. This was that great!  Seriously, if restaurants made tarte tatins like this, I'd order them.

Basically a tarte tatin is an upside down apple tart made with puff pastry crust. So I'm not sure why this was so much better than I'm used to. Presumably it has something to do with the fact that we made this very traditionally and most restaurants don't--while easy, the traditional method is time consuming and does not produce a terribly elegant final product.

First you sautée halved and cored apples in a pan (they should all fit when they are squeezed in next to each other) with butter until they start to get brown, add sugar, let the sugar turn to caramel, add calvados (or another liqueur), flambée them, and let them continue to cook, cut side up, until they are soft but not fully cooked through. At this point make sure all the apples are cut side up--rounded side down--in the pan. Then put a disk of puff pastry (obviously it's better with homemade puff, but defrosted store bought would work fine) on top of the apples and tuck it down the sides a bit. Put the whole pan in the oven and bake until the pastry is cooked. Unmold it as soon as it is cool enough to work with, but before it has cooled down too much. To be sure you can get the whole thing out in one try, heat the bottom of a pan over a gas burner on medium/high for 30 seconds to a minute. With a sheet pan held to the pan flip over the pan, and voila, a tarte tatin. Just slice and serve, perhaps with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Gateau Pithiviers

This is not my favorite thing from this unit, but I did quite like it! It's called a Gateau Pithiviers or a Twelfth Night Cake, although it isn't very cake like. Basically it is two layers of puff pastry sandwiched around frangipane. Frangipane, as it turns out, is not just almond cream--it is in fact almond cream mixed with pastry cream. Yum.

Conversations

I'm not sure why these are called "conversations." The chef says it's because they always start a conversation. That's as good a guess as any. They are very interesting looking and very tasty. Basically, they are covered tartlets filled with almond cream. The almond and the puff pastry on the top crust both puff up and dome. This makes the royal icing that you spread on top before baking them crack and do weird things. 

The puff pastry is, of course, delicious. The almond cream is just wonderful; both the texture and taste are great. The royal icing (made of egg whites and powdered sugar) gets caramelized and slightly puffed up. Yum! 

Seasonal Fruit Tartlet

This tartlet is made with a puff pastry crust and cherry compote filling. Yum! I'd tell you more, but that pretty much sums it up.

Lattice Pears

These are impressive and impressively easy to make. Well, easy might not be the right word, but they aren't as hard as they look. Basically they are a poached pear baked on a pear shaped piece of puff pastry with a lattice of puff pasty draped over the pear and crimped to the bottom piece of pastry. The lattice is easy to make, just use a lattice cutter! (I've always wanted to use one of those.) The little decorative leaves are easy, just cut out a leaf shape (you can do this with a circle cutter, just overlap two cuts and the middle is the right shape) and use the back of the knife to make the vein pattern and "glue" them on with egg wash. Just bake and voila, a beautiful and tasty dessert.

Bande de Tarte aux Fruits

Isn't it pretty?!

This is another fruit tart. It was so similar and yet quite different. It was still made with pastry cream filling and fresh fruit on top. The only difference was that we used puff pastry for the crust instead of tart dough. That's a relatively small difference in the recipe, but yet a huge difference in taste and texture. Let me say, it's really good!

Rustic Apple Tartlets

These rustic apple tarts were quite easy to make and really delicious. Basically we cut out a round of puff pastry and stacked sliced apples on top, brushed the apples with butter and sprinkled them with vanilla sugar, and baked them until the dough was cooked and the apples were soft and browned. Yum!

Tomato Tart

This is the tart we started last class. It was absolutely amazing! The tomato custard set perfectly, it was firm and creamy and so good. And of course the crust was the usual tart dough that I love and make so well. Excellent! It was good warm and cold, though I think I preferred it warmed up. I didn't try this, but I'm thinking it would be excellent with a dollop of creme fraiche on top.

Puff Pastry

Today we started the puff pastry unit. Unfortunately I have nothing to show for it, as we didn't finish baking anything. We made quick puff pastry, which is not to hard, but I wouldn't necessarily call it quick. Then we rolled it out to make palmiers and cheese straws. We rolled out and sugared dough for the palmiers and then rolled them up. I can't wait to actually make them, I bet they're gonna be good!

We also started to make a tomato tart with regular tart dough and lots of cut up veggies. The chef then cooked the veggies and pureed them to make a tomato sauce. Next class we will add eggs and cheese to the tomato puree to make a custard that we will bake in the tart shell.