Pain Part Deux

Every month in patisserie, we repeat the same topics as the month before making different thing.  This week we revisited bread and got to do the one bread I wanted to do more than anything else in pastry…croissants!!!
 
Croissants are tricky little suckers to make.  I tried cutting them out by eye like chef did and ended up with some big ones and some baby ones.  Next time, I think I’ll measure them!

We tried out two different recipes, turning one into croissants and the other into two different pastries, pain aux chocolat and plies pistache.  The main difference between the two recipes was that the one we used to make the pastries had butter in the detramp, or beginning dough, which made it a bit denser than the other.  I liked the croissant recipe better since it turned out lighter and fluffier.  It would be interesting to try and make pastries with this recipe to truly taste the difference.

 

We used some of our remaining puff pastry from previous weeks to make chausson mangue, a coconut, mango and cardamom filled turnover.  Chef came up with this flavor combination when he had a large class of students from India.  I’m glad he did.  These were amazing and surprisingly simple to make.  All you need is some puff pastry and this recipe for the filling:

 

Mango, Cardamom and Coconut Compote

250 g mango compote

1 g cardamom

35 g coconut powder

 

1- Mix all ingredients together. 

2- Roll out puff pastry and cut into ovals.  Spread a little melted butter on the outer edge of the bottom of the oval.  Put a scoop of compote in the middle.  Fold over and seal.

3- Bake at 170°C until golden brown.

We also made baguettes, another French specialty.  Since I’ve seen so many people walking around with them, I was excited to make them myself.  My baguette here turned out so much better than the baguettes I made in culinary school.  I can totally understand why the French eat them with everything!

My favorite for the week was the fougasse aux tomates confites et basil.  Tomatoes…good.  Basil…good.  Put them together in bread?  GOOD!

Here’s all the creations from the week.

From left to right you have baguette, pain aux chocolate (chocolate croissant) and chausson mangue, fougasse aux tomates confites et basil (tomato basil bread), cake café (coffee cake), plies pistache (pistachio filled pastries), brioche Providence (brioche with chestnuts, orange and chocolate) and croissants.  I was a busy little bee this week!!

Next week we go back to cakes and the sugar rush hits once again...