There was only one lecture on Wednesday morning. An 8am lecture on flour, sugar and honey. Not much to say about it really, it was interesting and I need to go back over my notes as there was a lot to take in. At least I now know how flour is produced though.
Thursday and again only one lesson. This time it was a demo on how to make puff pastry (to use in a later lesson), and use some already prepared pastry to make a jalousie. A jalousie is a puff pastry tart, in this case filled with poached pears and an almond cream. We got to taste it after chef finished and it was really nice, and looked really impressive too. I was looking forward to making this one.
Friday morning saw another demo, using the puff pastry that was made the lesson before (which we hadn't made yet, as the practical for that was in the evening), to make a fruit bande tart. A strip of puff pastry filled with pastry cream and topped with lots of fruit. The offcuts of the puff pastry were also used to make palmiers, which went down very well after the mid-lesson break! They are little rolls of puff pastry that have sugar thrown over them at every opportunity, making them crunchy, caramelised and really nice once baked. Chef made two bandes, one with the fruit all in a line, the other with the fruit scattered, both of which looked really nice. I was pretty much sold at that point that I was going to do the lines of fruit rather than the scattered approach.
The teaching chefs have a way of making everything look effortless and easy in the demos, and it lulls you into a false sense of security on how the practical will go. I'm always a bit nervous before going into the kitchen because we're assessed on everything we make. Roll on the Friday evening and I wasn't overly nervous, if I was making puff pastry and a jalousie at home it wouldn't be an overly difficult task....but I don't have a shouty chef at home, making me speed up and get flustered! During the lesson I was looking at my notes, but my mind had gone blank, I didn't know where I was or what I was supposed to be doing next, all I knew was that I was behind (as a few others were too after a quick scan down the room, so that put me slightly more at ease) at various stages - and that was just in the first hour! Fortunately though the making of the dough for the puff pastry, and the rolling of the butter didn't go too badly. I managed to get the first few turns done ok and it was rolling out nicely after the butter had been incorporated. Meanwhile we also had to roll out more pastry and cut it to the right size for our jalousies, we also had to poach some pears and make an almond cream for the filling. We worked in pairs for the pears and almond cream, and I have to own up to cocking up with the almond cream. There had been a mis-communication between me and my partner as I misheard what she'd said. She was weighing everything out and I was mixing it all together, I'd gathered a few things while the pears were going on but hadn't weighed the flour out, we ended up with too much and luckily I realised as I was pouring it in to the creamed butter, sugar and eggs. unfortunately it was mixed with ground almonds already, I then had to proceed to grab handfuls of flour out of the mixture (after a quick look to check chef wasn't watching!!), in the hope that we'd got roughly the right amount. My fault entirely, however at then end when ours came out of the oven it hadn't had bled through the lattice work so we must have salvaged it ok - phew! We laughed about it at the time and afterwards! A few more turns of our puff pastry and a fight with a lattice cutter, and it was all of a sudden time to clean down and tidy up.
The first hour and a half of the lesson was a blur of rushing things along, the class getting audibly encouraged to hurry up by chef, but at the end of it all I finally managed to get a French chef to say what I had produced was "very good" I was absolutely over the moon! The lesson seemed to have done a complete 180, after feeling stressed, behind and everyone being encouraged to speed up at the beginning, seeing my jalousie on the board at the end and getting praised for it made it all worth it. The block of puff pastry ready for Saturday's practical didn't look too bad either, so I was happy.
Saturday we had a 3pm lesson and had to use the puff pastry we made the night before to make a Bande Feuilletee aux Fruits de Saison, my french isn't great but I think that roughly translates to puff pastry band of seasonal fruits! This was a fairly relaxed lesson and felt a lot calmer than the night before. The pastry turned out ok and in this lesson we only had to worry about rolling out our pastry, trimming and assembling it properly, making some pastry cream and chopping some fruit. Everything seemed to run to plan, I managed to get it cut fairly well and luckily it rose well in the oven. Just need to improve on the overall shaping and keeping it neat and tidy. The scoring pattern was also cut a little deep. The pastry cream came out well though and held really well in the tart, despite a vigorous knocking back and good lacing with Grand Marnier (why not, it is the weekend after all!). The fruit also sat well on the top. Got some good and really useful feedback from the chef too, so left the lesson and finished week 4 extremely content at what I'd learned and where I still need to improve on.
Scarily next week is the half way point in Basic Patisserie, its come round really quickly, but we get some one on one feedback on how we're doing overall next Thursday, so I'm looking forward to hearing how its going from their point of view. I think I'm doing ok and pretty happy with progress so far - we'll see next week!
My Jalousie, really really pleased with how this one turned out. And it tasted really nice too.
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