Chef Jacques Torres Demos Viennoiserie

Yesterday I went to Chef Jacques Torres' demo on viennoiserie. I was curious to see what Mr. Chocolate would do. Obviously he is a brilliant pastry chef who made a name for himself before he opened his chocolate shop, but still a viennoiserie demo? Chef Jacques explained that other than chocolate, the first few units we study in the pastry program (tarts, bread/viennoiserie, etc) are his favorite things to make. I guess it makes sense when you think about it, there is something incredibly satisfying and surprisingly relaxing about making a croissant or an apple tart. Plus is there anything better than a freshly pain au chocolat?

First things first, he talked about yeast. He likes using fresh yeast. It is sold in bricks and kept cold. As he explained, it should always be crumbly...if it's not, it's too old. For both the croissant and brioche recipes he used, he mixed all the ingredients together, not bothering to make a preferment.

Next, Chef Jacques showed us how to make croissant dough (which can be used to make pain au chocolat and danish, among other things.) The procedure was, more or less, what we learn in class. He did emphasize the importance of a long fermentation--you should always let your croissant dough proof overnight in the fridge, he said multiple times, as it helps develop the flavor and cut the sweetness. This wasn't news to me, but it was nice to have the concept reinforced. What was news was that you can replace about 10-15% of the sugar in a croissant recipe with trimoline, an invert sugar. Apparently this will give it a good flavor and a nicer color when it is baked. I'll have to try this sometime--I'm really curious to see how it works.

Then he showed us the process of turning the dough. His method is to cover 2/3 of the rolled out dough with butter, then fold the dough up in the equivalent of a single/letter turn. Then roll out and make one double turn and then one single turn. That's it. Let proof overnight in the fridge, roll out, cut, bake, eat. Speaking of eating, he served fresh croissants and pains au chocolat. There is nothing better than a pain au chocolat fresh out of the oven--it's light and buttery and the chocolat is still melted. Gosh they were good.

For the bomboloni, he made a "light" brioche dough. Since the dough would be fried in oil, he explained, you don't need so much fat, so he cut down on the eggs and butter (but still added plenty). He showed us when to add the cold (but slightly softened) butter--once the gluten in the dough is developed enough that it pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl and forms a ball. It takes a while for the butter to become fully incorporated into the dough, so you should add it cold to ensure it doesn't melt from the friction of the dough rubbing against the bowl--you should also use a sturdy mixer or you could end up burning out the motor (as Chef Jacques almost did).

To fry them, form them into tight balls and let them proof. Then drop them into a pot of 160* oil and cook until they are golden on both sides. Take them out of the oil and roll them in granulated sugar then fill them. Apparently any filling is acceptable, Chef Jurgen (who happened to be sitting in on the demo) suggested apricot jam--his favorite. Chef Jacques scoffed (jokingly, I should add) saying that apricot jam is cheap and in France they use raspberry jam. His favorite filling is pastry cream--what he was using in the demo--apparently because when you throw a pastry cream filled bomboloni at someone it will stick to them better than a jam filled one would. Good reasoning, I think!

Filling the bomboloni

Regardless of the relative merits of fillings and how they function in food fights, the pastry cream filled fresh bomboloni he served were incredible. (A shout out to whoever was in the kitchen assisting him, you all did a great job making a ton of them.)

Chef Jacques, interestingly, will not use pastry cream powder for his pastry cream, opting instead for cornstarch. He pointed out that no one really knows what is in pastry cream powder--Chefs Jurgen and Rudy tried to object but it was futile, Chef Jacques was right, they didn't really know exactly what was in it. Honestly, I couldn't taste a difference in the pastry cream, except to note that it was exceptionally smooth--partly because he enriched it with a bit of butter once it cooled slightly.

Overall an excellent demo; I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I can't wait to try out some of the tricks he showed us at home...and then eat the results!

Chocolate Showpieces, Jacques Torres, and the Best Class Ever

Me and my class with Chef Jacques Torres

Today I had the best class ever--Jacques Torres taught it. In college, I had many professors who were leaders in their fields and I would sit in the lecture hall or at the seminar table listening intently to what they had to teach the class. This was different than that because, in addition to him teaching us and showing us amazing techniques and tricks that could only come from Mr. Chocolate himself, I got to cook in the same kitchen as Jacques Torres, not just listen to him teach (like I get to do at the demos).

Chef Jacques with the main structure of
the showpiece. The blue thing in front
of the showpiece is one of the silicon
molds that I discuss below.

We have a chocolate showpiece project coming up, so Jacques Torres--or Chef Jacques as we are told to call him--demoed how to make a chocolate showpiece. He talked about finding the focal point, designing a shape that is pleasing to the eye, and the proper proportions of width to hight. He showed us how to mold odd shapes out of chocolate using rubber or cardboard bands (which enables you to make the piece thicker than you could if you were trying to cut it out) and how to use metal rings to mold the circles for the base (again, this makes things thicker than if you just cut out the shape.) That's how he made the main structure of the showpiece.

Chef Jacques making flower petals and the tuile mold used for
curving them. Also you can see the notching in the edges of
curved pieces of chocolate that form the showpiece's structure.

He also showed us how to make abstract flowers (by forming petals with a pairing knife dipped in chocolate and curving them in a tuile mold) and paint chocolate onto textured molds--in this case to make wings for a butterfly and leaf-like decorations for the base. He taught us how to cut fluted edges out of chunks of chocolate and glue everything together. 

The flower.

Finally he showed us a really cool technique to make a kind-of dough out of chocolate that will harden properly (in contrast to modeling chocolate that doesn't harden completely). Basically you put chocolate (regular old pistoles/chunks from a bar of chocolate) into a food processor and blitz until the chocolate becomes a dough--this may require adding a bit of external heat, but don't use too much or it will met as Chef Jacques so helpfully demonstrated. Once it is a stiff dough you can mold it like clay into complex shapes--in this case, the stamen of the flower, antenna for the butterfly and decorative curvy bits to add movement to the top of the showpiece. These decorations, plus a little bit of petal dust on the butterfly, made for a beautiful showpiece. The most amazing thing about it is that Chef Jacques made it from scratch in about 2.5 hours, including gathering equipment! (To give some perspective, we have more than 8 hours to make our showpieces.) I have to say, I this makes me feel somewhat more confident about being able to make my showpiece...not to mention, I have some really great ideas for techniques I want to use. I almost can't wait until I make my showpiece...almost.

The finished showpiece.