Day 17

Croquembouche


croquembouches are just choux balls glued together with caramel. they are like wedding cakes in france.


my croquembouche wanted to be a big, tall, pointy croquembouche, but i ran out of choux.

these are some more croquembouche that the class made.


the green stuff is pistachio. and the really really tall one? the chef made that.


there is just one problem with croquembouche: hot, hot caramel. i sort of burned my fingers. and if you look closely, there is a blister on my palm, too.

Day 16

Gateau St. Honore

st. honore is the patron saint of pastry chefs, and this is supposed to be his crown.

it is a big choux spiral with choux balls stuck with caramel around it. and the balls are covered in caramel and they are filled with st. honore cream. and then the whole crown is filled with the saint honore cream.
the balls are nice because they have cream on the inside and crunchy caramel on the outside.


Gougeres

so i have a new favorite snack.

these are choux with gruyere and a little black pepper, cayenne, and paprika. yum.

after i took this picture i ate these.

Day 15

so in our new unit, we make lots of choux in all shapes.

Cygnes

that means swans. they are cute and pretty and fun. they are filled with pineapple creme legere.

there is just one problem: the filling tastes terrible. our chef said it tasted like we didn't cook the pastry cream enough to get rid of the starchy taste, but i think it is more bitter than that.

i'll just have to try harder to make them taste as nice as they look next time.


Profiteroles

more choux balls. this time they have ice cream (creme anglaise based, so it is really rich with lots of eggs) in them, plated on chocolate sauce.

of course we had to eat these as soon as we made them. our chef was licking his fork and said, "another hard day at the office."


Paris-Brest

this one is named after a bike race, so it is supposed to look like a bicycle tire. it is a big choux ring full of praline cream. since this is european school, that means it is full of hazelnut cream, and i love anything with hazelnuts, so i like this one.

Day 14

Eclairs and brownies

this is just a big pile of pastry that i brought home. it was the weekend, so i thought someone might want to eat dessert.

there are coffee, vanilla, and chocolate eclairs. there are brownies with cherries in them, iced with chocolate ganache.

this is a chocolate eclair with some coffee glaze on it. so they didn't make it home very attractively, but i enjoyed them while i read harry potter.


Pate Sablee Cookies

these are just little cookies with ginger, orange, and a little lemon with a powdered sugar/milk glaze.

Day 13

today was our first exam. there is a written part then a practical part. for the practical, everyone had to make one tart, two tartlettes, and five cookies. (you could make more than five cookies, but you just had to present five.)

this is what a pastry school test looks like:


it's vanilla crescents, a caramel nut tart, and two quiche lorraines (should that be quiches lorraines, or what? i don't know.) it's not perfect. the caramel in the tart is seriously overcooked. the bacon (yes, i did cook bacon for the first time in my entire life) is a little crisp. and i could have filled the quiches more. BUT everything was baked properly, the quiches were the perfect consistency, and (i hate to brag) my tart shells were thin and beautiful.

i think for the first test it wasn't so bad.

we are moving on past tarts tomorrow. the lesson on choux starts. . . . eclairs tomorrow.

Day 12

Quiche Lorraine

gruyere in quiche in tartlettes. ok, so there is supposed to be lardon (french bacon) in these, but i decided not to put it in. chef sean also enjoyed my vegetarian version.

i usually don't even like quiche, but these are delicious. ok, so it probably has something to do with how much i love gruyere, but i also think maybe most quiches are overcooked.


i gave one to a guy on an elevator (weird, i know. but it was the elevator at school. . . which goes to weird offices like the knot. who knew?) anyway, he said it was good.


Bourbon Pecan Cookies

these are good. very crumbly. they taste a little like pecan sandies. mine are overcooked, but i can't blame anyone except myself because i'm the baker on my side of the kitchen this week. i gave some to people visiting the school and also one to a construction worker on the street. i didn't offer the construction worker a quiche because it might be hard to hold his flag, make sure no one got hit by the big forklift thing, AND eat a quiche.


Linzer Torte


beautiful, delicious. soft, cinnamony, nutty dough, a little almond cream on the bottom, and full of raspberry compote. you can't really see how pretty the raspberry is in this picture. even just smelling this one is like heaven.


so next time i should try to make the little windows nicer diamond shapes. it still tastes amazing.


there's just one really bizarre thing about the dough: it gets six hardboiled egg yolks in it. the idea is that you can and lots of fat to enrich the dough without adding any more liquid. but have you ever pushed six hardboiled egg yolks through a strainer? fun and disgusting all at once.

Day 11

Quick Apple Tatin Tartlettes

i don't know why one of these tartlettes looks so much nicer than the other one.


so we'll look at the nicer one. this one starts out upside down. i made caramel and poured it in the bottom of a tartlette pan, topped that with apple slices, then put a disk 0f pate sucree on the top. the whole thing gets baked, and when it's done, it is flipped out so the caramel sauce is now on the top. the whole thing tastes kind of like the best thing you would ever ever eat at a fair.



Caramel Nut Tart

the outside looks innocent enough, right?


but inside, there is a caramel walnut mixture. the topping is almond cream. it all gets baked.

the whole thing strangely reminds me of tollhouse pie (the best tollhouse pie ever in history). it makes me want to drizzle chocolate over it. lucky for me, i still have almost a whole chocolate ganache tart. maybe i can just eat a slice of one alternated with a slice of the other. seriously though, the filling on this one is really nice.

Day 10

Ganache Tart

this is another great sideways picture.
this is chocolate ganache with a little decoration of white chocolate. we have boxes and boxes of beautiful chocolate at school, so it tastes really nice.

Chocolate Bavarian Tart



this one has whipped cream and gelatin in it, so it has a light fluffy texture. it's nice, but a little sweet, even for me. my favorite part is the hazelnut chocolate curl decorations.

Day 1 and Day 2

Apple Tart


there is apple compote under those apple slices.

yum.

Day 3

Banana Cream Tart

It's creme legere (pastry cream + whipped cream) with little chunks of banana in it. Don't you like my rosettes?


It was good until i think i'd had enough tart for one day.

(sorry the picture is sideways. i want to be a chef, not a photographer.)

Day 4

Fruit Tart
this shell has frangipanne (pastry cream + almond cream) baked in the bottom. it has creme legere (pastry cream + whipped cream) with some grand marnier on top, and it's topped with fruit and coated with an apricot glaze.


there's really nothing not to like.



Tarte Bourdaloue


this one is frangipanne baked with poached pears and almonds on top.


i love it. i'm adding frangipanne to my list of favorite foods. it's the stuff in pastries (like an almond croissant) that you never know what it is.

Day 5

Tarte Alsacienne

this tart is not my favorite to eat. it is too custardy. BUT i did get to flambe those apples, and the flame was about 6 feet high. amazing.


Baked Fruit Tart


it's custard with apricots. i'm not crazy about custard and i don't like apricots. poor tart.


Ginger Snap


these are good. they are very spicy, and they are rolled in sugar with black pepper.

Day 6

Fresh Fruit tartlettes

these are just creme legere with fruit on top. very tasty.
you can see the one i just put all my extra fruit on. trust me, it still tasted fine.




Chocolate Heaven Cookies

when the ingredients are chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, and coffee extract, it tastes like. . . chocolate heaven.


give these to kids at your own risk. i had to give them to james so i would stop eating them.

Day 7

Onion Tart

this is one of my favorite things so far. it was a nice change of pace from all the sugar, and i ate almost all of it.


it has caramelized onions with blue cheese and walnuts topped with tomato slices and baked.

Day 8

we brought home a lot of things on this day, but we'd been working on some of it for a few days.


Clafloutis

this is a custard with blueberries floating in it. the huge bubble in the crust isn't really my fault. the beans got taken out too early when the shell was baked, and it popped up. this one was ok. i liked the custard better than the custard in the alcasian tart.

Spritzers

these are little lemony cookies that are piped. they have raspberry jam, chocolate, or hazelnut centers. they taste kind of like pepperidge farm.

Fig Newtons

these are like from the grocery store. except not at all. i like them. these are made with a compote of dried figs, but i think they could be really amazing with fresh figs.

Vanilla Crescents

these are crumbly little cookies made with hazelnut flour. i love them.


while these were warm, we rolled them in vanilla sugar. we save all the used vanilla pods, then when there are enough, someone grinds them up with sugar. it's a nice touch.