For this block, we had a two day practical — on Day One we made Mignardise plus prep items for Day Two, which was focused on Individual Pastries. I liked this format. It made me feel more like I was at work — getting stuff out and preparing things for the next day. Of course, the peril was that if you didn’t get something done on the first day, you had to scramble to fit it in early the second day, if at all. Luckily, I fit everything in, and aside from the requisite bizarre mishap (see the pastry cream part below), everything went pretty smoothly. I even finished about 15 minutes early the first day, but with only 1 minute on the second day. I can’t figure out why I didn’t finished earlier on the second day; I didn’t get stuck on anything and even used the microwave to heat a couple things that I’d usually heat on a burner (we have a microwave that allows for metal bowls)… I guess I just need to generally work more efficiently and faster. I got a 91% in all, so that was nice.

You’ll notice that a few treats required rolling out large amounts of dough in their preparation. We have a machine called a sheeter at the school, so I used that for all of them.

So, the mission for Day One was to finish 24 Harlequin Cookies and 24 Rochers, and to make Pastry Cream, Creme Anglaise, and Quick Puff for the next day. We were given three hours for production, and half an hour for clean up and plating. Nothing was made in advance for day one.

Harlequin Cookies. These aren’t hard to make, especially since we really only make the dough (for better or for worse) — they just require time and attention. I made the vanilla bean flavored short dough first thing that day so that it could rest before rolling it out and cutting it, letting it rest, and then baking them. When cool, they get a dome of jam piped onto half of them, and the other half is brushed entirely with apricoture (an apricot glaze from a tub) before the remaining apricoture is doused with red food coloring and brushed onto half the cookie. They are then sandwiched together, and dipping upside down into fondant to glaze. We usually make them with apricot jam, but we were out, so we used raspberry instead. I liked the taste better, but it was a pretty stiff jam, so I broke three cookies on top (they’re extremely fragile); for the last broken one, I just pressed together on top of the jam and glazed it… and it looked fine.

So, the real challenges for detail here are: to make the red half even, to not get red apricoture or fondant on the sides of the top cookies, and to get the fondant to the right consistency. The fondant comes out of a tub, and it needs to be heated to 100-105 degrees and thinned with simple syrup for use. We always have to eyeball this, though I imagine it could be easily codified. Anyway, mine was a little too thin and didn’t quite go far enough to the edges of the cookie.

Rochers. These are quite tasty, and simple as far as chocolate confections go. First, slivered blanched almonds were mixed with egg whites and confectioners sugar, then and toasted and divided into three bowls. Then, we used the seeding method to temper the chocolate (plus added cocoa butter to make it a looser coating). Tempering this was tricky b/c it was only 6 oz of chocolate, so its temperature was much more volatile than a larger amount of chocolate; it has to stay within the working temp of 86-90. We then poured 1/3 of the chocolate into a bowl at a time, and scrambled to combine and shape them on sheet pans before they start to set. When we’d made them before in class, I barely had enough chocolate, and they’d turned out extremely tacky b/c the chocolate had begun to set. These turned out nicely, though my last third had too much chocolate… or so some say. They’re supposed to be just coated in chocolate, and shaped into domed mounds that are neither too tight nor too loose. Some of mine were a little small. I was just thrilled that my laser thermometer made this a lot easier, and more fun.

I also made Creme Anglaise with an amount that required a cup of milk; I’d make a Bavarian Cream with it on Day Two. Creme anglaise usually takes a long time to thicken once the milk/sugar and egg yolks/sugar are combined, but this small amount only took a minute and a half. After repeatedly practicing in vain to measure the temperature of my creme anglaise so that it cooks to 175 or 180 (it always curdled by 165 on my strategically placed thermometer), I’ve learned to just eyeball it. I like to have markers to look out for — the bubbles on the surface will dissipate as it gets closer, it will steam a little, and when it’s a little thicker than cream, it’s done, and goes into an ice bath. I try to resist thinking that it can still get thicker, b/c it’s just going to curdle; if pressed for time, I’d rather have thin creme anglaise than scrambled eggs, especially if it’s going to be used an element in a recipe, rather than a sauce on its own, as here.

I made Pastry Cream, too, for the Napoleon I would make the next day. Everything was fine until I was straining it directly into the bowl in an ice bath. The bowl tipped, and water seeped into the bowl. I stopped pouring and moved the strainer to the side to fix the bowl, but then the pastry cream in the strainer fell into the ice water and onto the table a bit. Anyway, I eventually got the rest of it into the bowl and soaked off some water with a paper towel. I cleaned off the table and pondered whether or not to make it again so that I would definitely have enough pastry cream. I decided to deal with that the next day, but later, when I was transferring the pastry cream into a plastic storage container, I noticed that the pastry cream that had fallen into the ice water had formed a kind of snake on the bottom. I drained the water out and poked the pastry cream. It felt normal — by that, I mean like milky jell-o — and I didn’t think it was unsanitary for it to be in the ice water… So, I saved it, or rather, its apparent impermeability saved itself; it just needed to be patted with a paper towel to dry off completely. It turned out to be a fine amount for the Napoleon.

And I also made Quick Puff for the Napoleons on Day Two. This was no problem. The only trick was that we were warned to clean up the flour on the table where we rolled it between chilling/folding it. I handled that just fine.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Culinary School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.