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Just another cooking school story [message #19537]

Thu, 22 January 2004 18:36

On fire!

Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179

For the last week and a half we've been making pastries. Danish, croissants, puff pastries, etc. They're pretty easy to make, but it's really difficult to get them to look right. My danish pastries looked good on the baking sheet before I put them in the oven, but came out a bit disfigured. I've got to seal them a little better so they don't loose their shape in the oven. My croissants didn't exactly look like croissants, either, but boy did they ever taste good. Very Happy

But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it because my puff pastry was excellent last night. I did two kinds, pithivier (traditional French pastry filled with Almond paste) and apple tarte tatin (apple tart in caramel sauce). The chef said my tarte tatin was better than hers. ;-D She raved about my pastry dough. The biggest thing I've learned about "laminated doughs" are that they are not difficult, they just require a lot of work and care. Laminated doughs are doughs that are layered. In the case of pastries, they contain layers of butter between the dough. They are folded and rolled out several times and in such a manner that the layers build up really quickly. For instance my puff pastry contained almost 1600 layers. The water in the butter turns to steam in the oven which pushes the layers of dough apart and makes the pastry flakey. So the more layers, the flakier the pastry.

I haven't heard nearly as much gossip this week. I'm not sure if it's because I've done a better job of staying away from it or if there just hasn't been as much. Brandon is cute as ever, though he didn't take me up on my offer to work on our research project together. I was really hoping he would so that I could get a chance to talk to him. Oh well.

Think good thoughts,
e

		Just another cooking school story By: e on Thu, 22 January 2004 18:36
		Re: Just another cooking school story By: xcboi02 on Thu, 22 January 2004 18:53
		Shape of a croissant By: e on Thu, 22 January 2004 19:25
		Vienna bread! By: lenny on Thu, 22 January 2004 22:14
		Almond paste pastries! By: lenny on Thu, 22 January 2004 19:02
		Re: Almond paste pastries! By: e on Thu, 22 January 2004 19:13
		Just another cooking school story update By: e on Fri, 23 January 2004 16:56
		Hehehe. Must admit "breasts" were the first thing on my mind By: lenny on Fri, 23 January 2004 19:00
		Re: Hehehe. Must admit "breasts" were the first thing on my mind By: xcboi02 on Fri, 23 January 2004 19:15
		Brest By: e on Fri, 23 January 2004 19:55

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