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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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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.  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
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=) Well I've been watching the basic cooking shows, but they've done the pastry stuff. I watched him keep on folding and folding and folding the dough. Man it was long and tedious. You gotta have patience and endurance to do that dough. YAY for making good pastry dough though.  That's a very good sign that your teacher first of all says it's better than hers, and also raves about it. *claps for e* Hehehe, hey, is there a defined shape of a croissant? Like is it in the oxford dictionary, or cooking dictionary, that the croissant has to look a certain way? hehehehe. If your teacher asks, just say you did it on purpose and it was planned out to look that way. Creativity in its work! It's always the taste that matters doesn't it? and as long as it's not deformed with spikes all over it...  ) then again maybe that'd be an interesting design. HMM... *grin* As long as it's presentable sort of, and good tasting, that's what matters. Heh well maybe they're just tired of gossiping about one person, I mean how much can you gossip about one person. After awhile it does get a bit boring if you think about it. Aww too bad he didn't take up your offer to work with you. maybe you can find another way to do stuff with him, or be persistant. Well you do what you can right? Well nice cooking story again, and hope to hear more. hehehe you get my mind stuck on croissants now, making me hungry.. well it is an hour till lunch...O_O Cya e, Have a good day!
Al
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Anything pastry-like with almond paste in it is soo yummy in my eyes, it's totally dangerous for me, I luv it too much. Fortunately, I hardly ever buy pastries, so I'm safe most of the year, hehe.
I'm not much of a croissant person, we don't eat those over here, unless one is a weird, pompous (and usually overbearingly self-centered) "continental" type of person, or a poet with a perchance for anything French, including black berets.  I don't dislike croissants, I just don't quite know what to do with them.
Sorry about Brandon chickening out on you... Could you tell us a bit more about this research project and what it's about?
Take care!
:-*
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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I love to eat croissants just by themselves, but they also make good sandwich bread.
The research project was to research the history of a particular type of bread and write a paper about it. Brandon and I were both assigned the same bread, bagels. I don't think he chickened out. There wasn't anything to be scared of. I asked him early last week and he liked the idea, but he missed class last Friday when we would have actually made the plan to get together over the weekend.
{{HUGS}}
Think good thoughts,
e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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The croissant was actually a Viennese bread that was more or less stolen by the French. Legend has it that it was developed after a victory over the Turks or some such thing and is so shaped because the Turks have a crescent shape on their flag. Thus the croissant is crescent shaped. The dough is cut into a triangle and is rolled over three times then bent into a crescent. It even has a specific size if you want to really be traditional. The triangle is 9 inches tall and 5 inches wide.
It's ironic that the croissant was stolen by the French from the Viennese. Apparently the Viennese stole "Danish" pastry from the Danes and have renamed it "Vienna Bread." Legend also has it that the split between the Autrian and Danish governments was largely due to the "theft" of this bread.
Think good thoughts,
e
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The Swedes and Danes have fought more than one war in the past (and even still we have some friendly arguments, usually about the Swedish nuclear powerplant Barsebäck, which sits rather close to the Danish capital, and when they bitch and moan about that, we like to point out the Danes' environmentally un-friendly coal-fired powerplants instead.
Anyway, due to these now historical conflicts, I guess it's only natural that danishes aren't called that in Sweden. Now, they're not called Vienna bread either mind you, but actually "wienerbröd", which sort of means "bread from Wien" (which is an Austrian city, as you may well know, not an Italian)... Now, that's most likely a corruption of Vienna (which in Swedish isn't called Vienna at all by the way. We Euros are very fond of re-naming each others' cities, a most peculiar habit I really must say. ), again, due to historical reasons I guess.
Who knew pastries could be so interesting not just to bake, or eat?
Ok, now I'm done. For this time, at least, hehe!
Hugs!
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Last night was more pastry. Pate a Choux was the dough we were learning. Eclairs, cream puffs, swans, and Paris Brest. I also had to finish my puf pastry projects by making palmiers. The chefs liked all of them and were actually arguing (playfully of course) over which one would get to grade my palmiers. Grading them means they get to taste them and they looked so good that both chefs wanted them. I settled the arguement by allowing my chef to grade them and the other chef to take as many as she wanted. ;-D Afterall, I was bringing so much good stuff home that I couldn't possibly eat it all even with my wife and daughter helping.
Everyone was laughing at Brandon last night, but this time he sort of brought it on himself. While we were being told the history of the Paris Brest, he made a comment about "breasts." The chef overheard him and assigned him to look up the French word for "breast" and report it back to the class. Well, he forgot and when asked made up a really lame excuse about not wanting to do a internet search for "breasts" because he would just be directed to a bunch of porn sites. No one bought it of course and he was really embarrassed. He'd have been much better off just saying that he forgot. I think I'll look it up ad make sure he knows before tonights class in case he forgets again.
Think good thoughts,
e
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when you mentioned that Paris whatever-that-is. Some kind of pastry too?
Brandon should have used Altavista; its Babelfish translation service can do that, and of course, there are many dictionaries and such available online too.
Speaking of breasts... Me and a classmate from grades 1-4 (before I moved away) once entertained ourselves with looking up naughty words in a Swedish to English dictionary. That caused quite a few giggles and laughs inbetween the two of us.
Well, at least we learned SOMETHING!
Hugs!
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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Oh geez,do i want to know what you two were looking UP?? I think i'll keep quiet. *grin* Kids.... Yes that's true. you LEARNED something... productive? questionable.)
Al
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Is apparently a city in France. The pastry known as the Paris Brest (pate a choux formed into an 8 inch circle and topped with sliced almonds then filled with hazelnut cream) is so named for a bicycle race between the two cities.
I mentioned to Brandon that he could have used an online dictionary. That's how I found out his excuse was bogus as everyone suspected. He said that he forgot to look it up and that he owns a English-French dictionary becasue he took French in high school.
I happen to like Brnadon's boyish charm and extreme good looks. Combined with his almost excessive good manners, I find him to be a very pleasnt change from the more typical teen (even the good ones). He's not unlike some of the teens who come around here who have left a very favorable impression on us geezers. But he has many of the same problems, perhaps even to a greater degree. He's learned to use his good looks and charming "cuteness" to get by. It probably worked well in high school where many of his classmates would have been immature and likely rude at times. His teachers probably saw him as charming and easy to deal with and therefore rewarded the behavior. But now he's in a class of adults, most of whom are a minimum of 3-4 years older than he is. They see him as an immature little boy and treat him as such. Most of our fellow students can't see past that. I do. I not only see the charming, cute Brandon, but I also see the young adult who desperately wants respect from his fellow students. He's an intelligent, charming, witty young man who works hard in class and does well, but nobody recognizes it. He doesn't have much experience in the adult world. If one believes the rumors, he's lead a rather sheltered life and therefore can't draw on the experiences of most people his own age that might gain him a little more acceptance. That's one of the reasons why I would like to be his friend. If he knows he is accepted and respected by just one person, he'll learn how to gain acceptance and respect from others.
{{HUGS}}
Think good thoughts,
e
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Just another cooking school story 
Hehehe. Must admit "breasts" were the first thing on my mind 
