Pastries, Cakes and Tarts…Oh My!

Week two in pastry class proved to be much “sweeter” than the first.  I love that my chef takes classic French recipes and puts a modern, creative twist on them.  Plating is everything but traditional, making the dessert look new and inventive.  We can use our creativity to design the decorations of our desserts to fit our own esthetic so everyone’s looks just a little bit different.  Although there haven’t been any elements yet that I’m completely new too, the way we are putting them together is new and interesting.  Definitely giving my pastry chops a leg up.  Three main yummies for you to feast your eyes on this week.

 “St. Honore” – Caramel Beurre Sale et Chocolat, Choux au Praline



 

Eclairs a la Cerise Griotte

 

 

And my favorite of the week…Tarte “Bourdaloue” au Vin Chaud

 

Although this tart may look complicated, it’s really a simple dessert to make.  It’s the fancy décor that amps up the simplicity of the tart to become a real professional show piece to sell in any French patisserie.  Here’s what it looked like coming out of the oven.

YUM!  I could have eaten it right then and there.  The smells of the roast pear coming out of the oven really reminded me to mulled wine…and Christmas…so here’s a new Christmas dessert to add to your table this year.  Keep it simplistic or bump up the décor and get compliments for more than just the flavor.  Start by making the crust:

 Pate Sucree

150 g butter; cut into small cubes
95 g powdered sugar; sifted
30 g almond powder (this can simply be sliced almonds ground to within an inch of their life)
pinch salt
56 ¼ g whole eggs
250 g flour; sifted

1-      In a Kitchen Aid mixer with paddle attachment, mix butter, powdered sugar, almond powder and salt until creamy. 
2-      Add egg and mix to incorporate.
3-      Add flour and mix to incorporate.  Be careful not to over mix the mixture at this point or your crust will come out chewy and not crunchy.
4-      Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Almond Cream

100 g almond powder
100 g sugar
100 g butter; cut into small cubes
100 g whole eggs
 
1-      In a Kitchen Aid mixer with paddle attachment, mix all ingredients except eggs until creamy.
2-      Add eggs and beat until the mixture has doubled in volume.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Red Wine Poached Pears

130 g sugar
1 bottle red wine
½ cinnamon stick
½ orange; zested
½ lemon; zested
1000 g pears; peeled, left whole

1-      Add all ingredients except the pears to a large sauce pot.  Bring to a boil.  Flambé to burn off alcohol.
2-      Add pears.  Reduce heat so that the liquid stays at a gentle simmer.  Weigh the pears down so that they stay submerged.  Simmer until the pears are fork tender.

To finish your tart:

1-      Roll your tart dough out into a 9 inch round tart pan.  This recipe will give you enough dough to do one large tart with enough left over to do 1-2 mini tarts as well if you would like.

2-      Remove the pears from the poaching liquid and cut into small dice.  If desired, use circle cutters to cut out shapes in the pears and reserve for garnish.
3-      Blind bake the tart dough at 160 degrees Celsius for 8-10 minutes, turning halfway through the cooking process.  You don’t want your crust to brown during this process.
4-      Once your crust has cooled, put a thin layer of almond cream in the bottom of the tart.  Layer the diced pear on top of the almond cream.  Top with a layer of almond cream to cover the pears.  Top with sliced almonds.
5-      Bake at 160 degrees Celsius until the tart reaches a brown caramel color.  Allow to cool, decorate as desired or serve as is.
 
Coming up…our first weekend away adventure!

Semaine Une Pâtisserie

There is a common stereotype that Americans have about the French.  We often picture them walking along with baguette in hand smoking a cigarette.  Now, I tried before I came to rid my mind of all stereotypes since I've never been a fan of people placing me in categories just because of how I look, what sex I am, how old I am...etc.  But, in this case, it's actually true.  Everyday I see tons of people walking the streets carrying their baguettes and smoking.  While I can't get behind the smoking part since cigarettes here are almost twice as expensive as they are in the states, I can get behind the bread.  Bakeries and pastry shops seem to be one of the few shops that stay open throughout the day.  And bread is cheap...and filling...both good things.

Which is why I was delighted that my first week in pastry class was all about breads.  Lovely, crunchy, chewy, soft breads.  Delightful!  Though we did a lot of prep work for next week, we produced two main items this week.  What's even better?  We get to take our food home with us.  None of this eat it in class or throw it away stuff.  Nothing is wasted here.  Excellent!  So here are my two recipes for the week.  Sorry that the measurements are in grams and the temperatures are in Celsius.  But in attempting to associate those with measurements and temps I already know, I've decided not to convert anything while I'm here.  I can do that later if needed.  However, there are plenty of websites out there to do that for you...so bake away!

Bread Ball with Poolish

For poolish:

150 g flour

10 g fresh yeast

100 g water (54 degrees C)

1- Combine yeast and water and allow yeast to foam. 

2 - Add flour and combine well.  Cover with a towel and let proof on the counter top for 1 1/2 hours.

For bread:

10 g salt

350 g flour

200 g water

poolish

1- Combine salt, flour and water.  Mix in poolish until dough is smooth and elastic.  Weigh out 400 g for one loaf (this recipe makes 2).  Round dough ball and proof at 15 degrees C for 1 hour.

2- Bake at 240 degrees C for 30-40 minutes then at 210 degrees C for 10 minutes.

Banana Cake (FYI...this picture was the cake my instructor did after decorating.  I didn't get a good picture of my cake.  We ate it too fast...haha!)

122 g banana

102 g sugar

12 g brown sugar

61 g whole eggs

106 g cake flour

4.9 g baking powder

20.4 g oil

40 g melted butter

50 g chocolate drops

1- In a small bowl, combine and mash banana and both sugars.

2- Mix together the flour and baking powder.

3- Mix together banana mixture and eggs.

4- Gentle mix in flour mixture.

5- Mix in oil then butter.

6- Butter and line and small loaf pan (this recipe will make 1 small cake).

7- Pour half your batter into the pan.  Gently toss your chocolate drops with flour.  Add chocolate drops to top of batter and cover with remaining batter.

8- Bake at 145 degrees C for 1 hour 30 minutes.

Next week?  Cakes and pies...oh yes...

 

What Ya Having For Dinner?

Since we've been in France, I've had to get a little creative for dinner.  Considering our refrigerator is the size of something you had in college, we can't keep a lot of food in the house.  I also don't have my usual cooking spices and whatnot so putting together dinner has been a little like being on my own personal chopped.  I stop at the market on the way home from class, grab a few things that look good and put them together.  It's been pretty fun.  Here's what I've come up with so far...

 

Sautéed Chicken with Smashed Potatoes and Haricot Verts

 

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce with White Bread we made in class

 

Baked Chicken Parmesan

 

 



Up next...what's been going on in class...

Things Are Different In France

We have officially made it through our first week in France.  As I look back over the week, if I've learned one thing it's that everything is different in France.  Even the smallest things are different.  We've learned, mostly the hard way, that if you don't have any expectations for your day, you'll be fine.  However, if you actually have an agenda you'd like to complete, there are a few important things you should know.

Distance - Since we don't have a car, everywhere we will be going will either be on foot, by bus or by train.  Mostly, we've been walking everywhere since the town we are living in is not very big.  Here's the trick.  If you ask a French person how long it takes to walk somewhere, you can count on doubling the amount of time they tell you...at least.  For example, my patisserie class is at another location than where we are staying.  I was told that it was "just down the street" and "only a 15 minute walk".  Thankfully for me, and all of us, we were led there the first day.  I don't think I would have made it had that not been the case.  True, it is technically on what the French would consider the same street.  However, there are several turns you have to make to get there.  And 15 minutes?  It's more like 30, if you're walking fast.  At least I know I'll get exercise twice a day!

Restaurants - Most everything, restaurants included, close down for a few hours in the middle of the day.  Typically from 12 or 1 to 3 or 4.  The tricky part about restaurants is that when they open back up for dinner, they aren't actually open for dinner.  Most restaurants we have seen will open at 5 or 5:30 but only for drinks.  Dinner doesn't actually start until 7.  If you come early for a drink or two before dinner, you can often spot the staff partaking in family meal, which is usually consumed at the end of the shift in America.  Just remember that you can't eat out for dinner in France before 7 and you will be fine.

Time - I could talk a lot about having to learn how to tell time en francis, but I won't.  The only thing I will say is that the way French people speak their time is very confusing.  I don't want to give it all away.  That one you will have to learn for yourself should you ever decide to speak French.  Time here in general is just different.  There isn't the same sense of urgency that there is in America.  This can be a good thing to help you slow down your pace and relax a little bit, but just be prepared that trying to get something done is going to take longer than you think it should.  Even checking out in the line at the grocery.  Trust me...less expectations are a good thing!

Some valuable lessons from my first week in France.

Stay tuned to see what I got to cook this week...

Our New House

I can't even begin to describe how amazingly patient our little one was on the trip getting to Le Cap d'Agde!  She slept a good bit, but when was awake, she played with her Leap Pad and talked about going to "my new house".  So that is what we have coined our apartment.  After all, it will be our home for the next three months, so let's roll with it.  Here it is, our new house!

 

Apartment number 59.  It's not much, probably somewhere between 500 and 600 sq feet.  But enough for us.  I can't imagine sharing the space with three total strangers, but since that's not something I have to worry about, I'm thankful.  There are two small bedrooms, a bath and a combined living area and kitchen.  The little one has had a blast unpacking her things in her room and making herself at home.  To me, it feels a bit like being back in college again as the hubs and I are sleeping on two twin beds pushed together as opposed to one bed.  But, hey, it's home.  Just outside our apartment is a nice little playground that the little one has enjoyed many times already.

She is having a blast and, not surprisingly, everyone she meets loves her.  There's also a pool, restaurant and market on site.  So, at least until November when most of the city shuts down, we don't have to venture very far off the property if we don't want to.  However, if we do decide to venture out this is just a 10 minute walk from where we are living...

Stay tuned for some of our first adventures...

Misadventures In and Outside of Paris...or...How NOT To Spend Your First Day In France

Based on my last post, I'm sure you're all thinking that after the family and I landed in Paris, we were flown on the wings of angels and placed loving in our new home in Le Cap d'Agde.  I WISH I could tell you that something even remotely close to that happened...but it didn't.  I figured this would be the best place to rehash what was probably one of the worst 24 hours of my life instead of having to retell the horrific story over and over and over again.  So, here it goes...

Our plane landed in Paris around 8:30am Paris time, which makes it 2:30am to our internal clock.  Thankfully, the little one slept very well on the plane and had a good 6 hours under her belt.  We went through border security with no problems, though I'm not sure why the little one's passport was stamped and neither the hubs or mine was...hope that's not a problem later...but these security guys aren't one to answer American questions.  Baggage claim was as expected with the exception that baggage carts are free in France.  What a concept, right?  We gathered all our belongings, strategically placed them on the cart the only way they would all fit, and headed off to find the train station.

What I had been told about the train station was that it was at the airport.  What I had not been told about the train station was that it was a 10 minute walk from our terminal.  Yeah, the airport is THAT big.  To make matters worse at first, the arrival gate was flooded with people.  The hubs is trying to manage our overflowing luggage while dodging people also carrying overflowing luggage, which was difficult to say the least.  When we finally made our way to the train station, it took a while and one very nice French lady to point us in the direction of the right kiosk in which to print our tickets.  That successfully done, we could do nothing for the next hour and a half or so but sit and wait.  See, in France, they don't post what platform your train will be leaving from until 15 minutes before the train was to leave.  We would find out soon how big of a problem this would be.

Once posted, we did our best to navigate ourselves...and our luggage that we no hated...through the crowd of people to the platform.  When the train arrived, there seemed no rhyme or reason to which door you got on.  We went to one with a relatively short line but were refused entrance to the train as one of the workers pointed us further down the tracks.  We made our best attempt to get there, but the train left us, screaming for it to stop, standing on the platform, totally frustrated.  We did manage to exchange our tickets for a later train, but given that we would be in the same predicament as before, we decided we would rent a car and drive down to Le Cap d'Agde ourselves.

Here's where I'm going to skip over some of the details.  In short, it took us an additional 2 hours to locate and secure a rental car.  There were lots of bumps along that 2 hour road, but as we finally set off in our rental car, I was glad for that moment to be out of that airport...and still married.  There was only one problem with the car...no GPS.  The company didn't have GPS.  So we would be forced to return to our childhood roots and buy a map to get us to our destination.  Thankfully, we come from a generation that still knows how to read maps.  Had I been 10 years younger, I'm not sure I could have done it.

Two gas stations and two maps later, we finally had a plan on how to get where we needed to go.  Here's where we incurred another road block...so to speak.  The car also had no navigational direction on the dashboard.  You know, that little N or S or E or W that tells you what direction your headed?  Yep, none of that...so...in short...it took us about another 2 hours just to get 30 miles or so outside of Paris.

The rest of the day and night consisted of constantly taking wrong turns on the confusing small French roads and having to drive miles out of the way just to turn around.  The French love to put blockades between the lanes of the roads and separate their exits by a good 10 miles, so if you make a wrong turn, you basically have to drive in the wrong direction for 15 or so minutes before you can turn around to the way you need to be going...paying tolls along the way, of course.

After almost 8 hours in the car (the total amount of time it should have taken us to get all the way to the school), we pulled off into the town of Clermont to get a hotel for the night.  We were guessing at that point we would have 3-4 more hours of drive time in the morning...if we went the right way the entire time.  The hotel we chose was small, incredibly hot and all around miserable.  Since the little one had spent most of the day sleeping in the car...which we didn't complain about...she spent most of the night awake...which was rough!  The upside...we had a room, wifi for the night so we could tell our family we weren't dead and I could contact the school who was expecting us at the train station, and a hot breakfast in the morning.  Things had to get better, right?

And thankfully, as the sun came up the next morning, things did get better.  We were able to plot our course with the help of Google maps to find that it was a strait shot on the highway to get to our new home.  We found the school with only a few wrong turns in our way and the staff was really friendly.  The hubs got our baggage settled into our new apartment while I got registered and fitted for uniforms.  Our new home is small, but plenty of room for the three of us.  I found out that my only task the next day was a French placement test in the morning and then I had the rest of the day free until meeting the staff at a cocktail party that night.  This gave us a nice chance to take the car to what the staff at the school called, the big grocery store, and load up on some supplies.  The big grocery store was in fact a cross between a Target, Costco, Best Buy and Department store.  It was MASSIVE.  Thankfully, by the end of Monday, we were fairly settled in and I was ready to get started.

So now the journey officially begins...

How The Other Half Lives

This past Friday, my family and I boarded a plane to leave for our adventure in France.  Thinking that it may be easier traveling with the little one if we had more room, we splurged and bought business class seats for our long flight from Miami to Paris, almost 9 hours.  I was expecting a larger seat and some extra leg room.  What I got, in fact, was a whole lot more.

This plane was pretty big and our seats were ridiculous.  You know how you've read about those seats on the airplanes that fold all the way down into a bed.  Yep, ours did that.  The flight attendant greeted us with champagne and passed out individual tablets and noise cancelling headphones to each passenger.  The tablets were loaded with tons of movies, games and reading material...definitely something for everyone.  When dinner time came (I know...airplane food, right?), we were given an option between four different entrees each served with appetizer, salad and dessert.  Little miss enjoyed her ravioli and ice cream.  The hubs and I ended up with the same choices: smoked salmon, mixed green salad, steak with mashed potatoes, roasted tomatoes and a pretzel roll and a cheese plate to finish things off.  After dinner, the little one drifted off to sleep courtesy of her "airplane bed", I watched Hangover 3 and the hubs watched the new Star Trek.  Had it not been for the extremely drunk lady next to the hubs and the deafly loud snorer to my left, it would have been a perfect evening on an airplane...something I thought could not exist.

A few hours before our plane landed in Paris (what was 2 am our time and 7am Paris time), we were served breakfast.  I opted for the simpler fruit and cereal with croissant and coffee since I was still pretty full from the dinner before.  I almost chose to forgo breakfast, but thought it might be good to have a little something since I wasn't sure what our dining options on the train we were going to have to take would be.  The little one enjoyed a nice muffin and her morning milk as we gently landed down in Paris.

Now, I know that sounds like a story that couldn't happen, but it did.  The next story I have to tell also sound like one that couldn't have happened, but it did...

This time without all the roses and butterflies.  There was none of that...