Be Creative

Good morning to you all!

The pastry foundations paper is finally coming to an end, having finished my assignment and the written test all that is left is the nerve racking practical assessment. To say that I am absolutely freaking out would be an understatement. But I will get over it.

So this week we made a heap of pastry items such as mille feuille, palmiers, apple tarts, pear tarts, apple galettes, pastry straws, cream horns and a whole lot more. All of these things were made from puff pastry and were fairly simple. We also made choux buns (filled with cream), Paris-Brest and choux swans.  
The main thing we learnt this week is that in this industry you need to be different and stand out from all of the other patissier's, so we were encouraged to be creative with the pastry and add our own flare to our creation.  I love the quote from Julia Child: “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”  This week I have challenged myself to have a 'what-the-hell' attitude and be creative with my ideas instead of just simply following a recipe. I encourage you all to do the same, whether you love to bake or you are creative in other areas, you never know what your full potential is until you put fear behind you and give it a go.

So because all we did was be creative with pastry and make things up I don't have a recipe for you this week, but next week we start our Sponges, Gateaux and Torten paper which I am very excited about. If your unsure what these things are were pretty much learning how to make and decorate cakes. This is where I am very thankful for the time I spent with my Aunty Mel who owns a wedding and birthday cake business called Sweet Obsession. Just on a side note if your wanting a deliciously crafted wedding cake, birthday cake, cupcakes or basically anything sweet check out my Aunty Mel's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Obsession/397042703673704

She is a genius and will blow you away with her creations.

That's all from me this week, I will hopefully have a recipe for you next week but until then be creative and make something up!

B.

Lovin' from the Oven with Fruit Flan

Good day to you all! It's a beautiful sunny day in Auckland and all that is on my mind is food. Which is not very different from any other day, but considering that my future profession is in the food industry I can get away with it. Lately I've been thinking about all the different ways I can keep myself fit after making so many pastry items. Perhaps Zumba? Running? or maybe power walking? But the only fitness I can motivate myself to do is walking downstairs to the fridge and back, I know it sounds like way too much effort is needed but if you saw the size of our fridge you would understand how worth it it is.

Anyway enough with the lame jokes, this week has been fairly stress free and easy as we are preparing to sit our first written test and have our first practical assessment next week. So in the kitchen we have been making an assortment of basic pastry items, which is why I have decided to give you the recipe for the fruit flan we made a couple of weeks back. This was by far my favourite lesson because we were able to be a bit more creative and actually decorate something that looks vibrant and not bland. There are many variations to this recipe so feel free to be a bit creative and make something up!

Tips:
1. The pastry is very temperamental so be careful when rolling it out. The sweet pastry recipe makes two portions of pastry as a 'back up' just in case the first lot is too hard to handle.

2. If your a pro and roll out the pastry perfectly first go then either save the rest of the pastry, wrapped up in the fridge, to use another day, make something else with it or double the pastry cream recipe and make two flan's.

Ingredients

Sweet Pastry

120g sugar

120g butter

1 egg

280g standard flour

½ tsp vanilla essence

½ lemon zest

pinch salt

Pastry Cream

300g milk

50g sugar

1 egg yolk

25g custard powder

100g cream (whipped)

Method

Sweet Pastry

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees

2. Cream the softened butter and sugar lightly

3. Dissolve salt in the egg and mix in vanilla essence and zest

4. Gradually add the egg mixture to the creamed mixture

5. Fold in sifted flour and gently mix into a smooth paste

6. Cut into two separate pieces, wrap up and put in the fridge

7. Rest in the fridge for at least ½ an hour before use

8. While in the fridge make the pastry cream

Pastry Cream

1. Place half the sugar and most of the milk (retain 2 tablespoons for later use) into a saucepan and bring to the boil

2. Mix custard powder and sugar together, add the left over milk (two tablespoons) to the mixture.

3. Stir in the yolk

4. Pour the boiled milk over the prepared mixture of milk, custard powder, sugar and yolks while stirring

5. Pour back into the saucepan and cook thoroughly, constantly whisking

6. Pour into a clean bowl

7. Cover the pastry cream (not the bowl) with glad wrap

8. Put in the fridge to cool down

Rolling out of the pastry

1. Roll out the pastry to just larger than a 20cm fluted flan/tart tin, or if you would rather make 10 tartlets, roll out to just larger than the size of the tartlet tin

2. Place the pastry in the tins and press so all the air bubbles are removed

3. With a fork create holes in the bottom of the pastry

4. Roll a rolling pin over the top of the tin to cut off the extra trimmings

5. Cut a 20cm circle of baking paper and place this on top of the pastry

6. Put an even layer of either beans or rice on top of the baking paper

7. Bake blind for 12-20 minutes

8. It’s cooked when the pastry is slightly brown and is no longer shiny but dull

9. Remove from the oven once cooked and put onto a cooling rack

Assembly

1. Remove the pastry cream from the fridge and whisk until smooth/lump free

2. Add 1/3 of the whipped cream and mix until combined

3. Fold the rest of the whipped cream into the mixture until combined

4. Put into the cooled pastry case and level it to the top

5. Decorate with any fruit, I used sliced peaches and formed a pattern as shown in the photo, but you could use apples, berries or pour on chocolate ganache.

6. Enjoy!

Well that's all from me this week, I hope you enjoy this tasty treat and if you do decide to make it let me know how you got on...

Happy Baking,

B. 

Scrumptious Apple Pie

Mmmm hot, melt in your mouth, scrumptious apple pie. It may have a lot of butter but it also has a lot of apple, which is a fruit, so technically if you eat this apple pie you have completed one of your five plus a day! That is success, if you ask me.

I hope you have all had a fantastic week and are ready for another recipe straight from the hot kitchens of AUT. It's been a hectic week full of chocolate chip cookies, rosettes, short bread, and yesterday we made one of our assessment items which was a fruit flan. It took 4 hours to complete and 2 seconds to demolish. That's what happens when your living with 45 other teenagers that act like they have never eaten pastry before.

We were also given our first assessment yesterday, so starting tomorrow I need to purchase and consume a traditional pastry item. Which won't be too hard, I then have to research the history of that item and boom, first assessment finished. So to help you satisfy your cravings here is the apple pie recipe from this weeks lessons:

Apple Pie Recipe:

Ingredients

Sweet Short Paste:

200g Soft Flour

100g Butter (cold)

55g Water (cold)

40g Sugar

½ tsp Salt

Apple Filling:

3-4 Apples (diced)

30g Butter

½ Lemon Zest

50g Sugar

Pinch Cinnamon

Pinch Nutmeg

30g Custard Powder

Handful of berries (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius

Sweet pastry:

1.     Make sure the butter is cold and cut into cubes before using the rub in method (exactly the same process when making the pastry for the quiche last week), to combine the butter and flour. If you don’t know what this method is: rub the butter into the flour with your hands until a sandy texture is reached.

2.     Dissolve the sugar and salt in the water and add half to the butter and flour.

3.     Mix well then add the other half of the liquid and mix until everything is only just combined.

4.     Tip the mixture onto the bench and gently knead until the pastry is one uniform colour.

5.     Roll into a ball, then flatten out with your hands, Split into 2 parts, one part being 3/4 of the mixture and one being 1/4 of the mixture.

6.     Wrap seperately with glad wrap and put in the fridge

Apple Filling:

1.     Place diced apple and butter into a saucepan, gently heat until the apples are heated through/cooked.

2.     Add the rest of the ingredients for the apple filling into the apple mixture, then stir until combined.

3.     Add a handful of berries (optional) to the mixture

4.     Put in the fridge to cool down

Assembly:

1.     Roll out ¾ of the pastry until it is approx. 3mm and line base and side of a 20cm pie dish

2.     Spoon cold apple filling into pastry case; brush the edge with lightly beaten egg wash or water.

3.     Roll remaining pastry large enough to cover top of the pie and place over filling

4.     Trim the edge of the pie, brush with egg wash and decorate how you please. (I used a fork and gently pressed around the edge, I then lightly ran the back of a knife to make a criss cross pattern)

5.     Rest in the fridge for 10 minutes  

6.     Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 30-40 minutes (approx.)

 Let me know how it turns out if you do decide to create this marvellous piece of mouth watering deliciousness. 

Have a fabulous week!

B. 

Short Pastry.

Well hello all (admire irrelevant yet peaceful picture to the left),
As of Monday the 3rd of March I have officially started my Diploma in Patisserie and from the very first lesson I quickly realised that I am atrocious at pronouncing french words. However, my tutor Gilles Petit is indeed french and intends on improving my pronunciation skills. I also quickly realised that I have the stamina of a two year old and found myself wanting to sit down after only half an hour of being on my feet. My Aunty Mel who has experience in the restaurant and cake business would have had a jolly good laugh watching me hop from one foot to the other while trying to look 'professional' and listening to Gilles take the lesson. Despite these things I absolutely love university so far, it's so much fun being around like minded people who have a passion for baking like I do. Not only that but when everyone in the hostel is going to their boring lectures I get to go and spend the day either making pastry or talking about making pastry, it's fantastic.

So this week is all about short pastry, on the Monday we made a batch of short pastry and then we left it to rest in the fridge overnight so that on the Tuesday we could use it to make Quiche Lorraine. Before I give you the recipe here are a few top tips when it comes to short pastry and recipes in general:

1. R.T.F.R, this means to Read The Freakin Recipe. When weighing up ingredients make sure you read the method first so that you can put the ingredients that need to be mixed together in the same bowl, thus saving you time and minimising the amount of dishes used.

2. Always make pastry in advance, at least an hour before it is needed. This allows the pastry to rest and will make it easier to handle.

3. The 3 main ingredients in short pastry are: Liquid, fat and flour. Gilles believes that only happy people use butter in their pastry and grumpy people use margarine. So always use butter when making pastry, it may be a bit more expensive than margarine but you can't beat the taste and quality of pastry made with butter.

4. Never overwork the pastry, by doing this you are making it more elastic and tough. Which is definitely not what you want when it comes to pastry.

5. When rubbing the flour and butter together your aiming to coat each grain of flour with a film of butter, this protects the flour protein from absorbing the water (when added) and making the pastry soggy. So rub your fingers gently together, don't try force the two into holy matrimony, just let it happen naturally.

6. Don't be afraid to use your hands as much as possible! They are the best and least expensive tool that will hopefully last a life time so don't be afraid to use them.

 Now on with the show, this is just a basic short pastry recipe that can be altered if need be:

Ingredients:
300g Soft Flour
150g Cold Butter
80g Cold Water
1/2 tsp Salt

Method:
1. Dissolve the salt in water
2. Sieve Flour
3. Cut cold butter into cubes
4. Rub butter into flour until a sandy texture is reached
5. Make a bay and mix in water to form the ingredients into a light smooth paste (Fraisage)
6. Wrap in glad wrap
7. Rest the paste for a minimum time of 30 minutes in the fridge before further use


After it has been rested in the fridge you can then make whatever your heart desires, we made a Quiche Lorraine and this is the recipe for it:

Ingredients

Filling:
75g Bacon
75g Onion
35g Grated Cheese
Chopped Parsley

Royal:
150g Milk
100g Cream
2 Eggs
Pinch Nutmeg
Pinch Salt
Pinch Pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C
2. Spray a 20cm round tin with non-stick
cooking spray

Filling:
1. Saute the chopped onions and bacon in oil (no colour)
2. Distribute over the bottom of the tin, together with the parsley and grated cheese

Royal:
1. Combine remaining ingredients and blend together thoroughly
2. Pour the royal into the tin over top of the filling
3. Bake out in a moderately hot oven for approx. 30minutes

So there you are, something basic to start off the first week with but also very tasty at the same time. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or message me on Facebook. Otherwise, I'll be posting next week with a new set of recipes and tips.

That's all from me,

B.