Baking (Week 15-17) Choux, Stru & Review

Another late post on previous classes:

 Choux swans. Pretty. They would have been more pretty if I hadn't run out of time to add berries on the top. We also made religiuese (look it up) These didnt look particularly pretty when we made them.

I think strudel dough is the most fun dough for me to make. It's amazing, you start off with a lump as you typically do with dough and then you start swinging it round and using your fists to stretch it out to a massive thin elastic sheet. It's like in alien movies where you can see the baby whatever pushing through the elasticy membrane! It's not really as gross as that but was very very cool. Contrary to many recipes, strudels traditionally are not made with filo pastry.

For review lesson prior to our practical exam we made fruit flans and lemon meringue pies to help jog our memories which I'm so glad we did. In the actual test we made the lemon meringue pies again and pithivers. Oh the pithiviers. I think my was actually ok, it's just that I didn't cook it long enough. I was a bit pushed for time. Oh well, the teacher was otherwise generally happy with the process I had followed though. Marks will be available in 2 weeks, I'll see how I go!

Baking (Week 13, 14) Fruit Bandes, Eclairs

This is not mine. Least I'm pretty sure it is not.
We made eclairs this week and as usual there was a bit of a rush at the end and I hadn't grab one of mine to try so got a random one. Mine would have looked a little more messy on top where the fondant was quickly applied on with pastry gaps where a crack had formed. Not to worry. It was good to move on from puff pastry for a change and we even had time to make profiteroles too. Though there wasn't enough custard to fill the innards. Mmm custardy goodness.

Last week we made fruit bandes. Basically this is a long wide strip of pastry with a raised edge lengthwise, filled with custard and fruit "prettily" layered on. Again not my best work due to time limitations. The pastry produced due to the German method didn't help, with my edges falling all over place. Moving on...

Baking (Week 11, 12) Millefeuille & Pithiviers

In these past 2 weeks of learning we have made the oh so delicious Millefeuille

And Pithiviers

I'm quite a fan of custard which is probably why I liked the millefeuille. We were in a hurry whilst working with fondant and so I forgot to add some sugar syrup to soften the icing. Hence why it looks a little thick and messy on the top.
The almond cream inside my pithiviers went lopsided unfortunately causing a huge air pocket, I'm going to have to work on this, but it does otherwise taste good without being too sweet for a pastry. Serve it with a scoop of ice-cream mmm.

Baking (Week 10) Sausage Rolls

More puff pastry this week but using the rough puff method.

This was straight forward enough to make, producing a product similar to what you would expect in a local bakery. We also made vege & meat pasties (the half eaten thing on the left ie bottom - sorry, I don't understand how the image got automatically rotated). The filling recipe could have been improved as it was a bit bland but it was the pastry we were focusing on.
It's amazing how much people love their sausage rolls. I distributed my trayload amongst various family members and goodness me, they certainly got excited.

Baking (Week 8,9) More puff pastry

The past two weeks have still been on puff pastry with vol-au-vents, bouchees, quiche and meat pies being made.
Funny, as I was over the stove top, cooking the filling for the meat pie it felt slightly odd. And I then remembered that baking was definitely more natural to me than cooking :)

I'm happy to say that the meat pie had premium mince and actually contained meat!

Baking (Week 7) Puff Pastry

We're now heading into Puff Pastry in class and will be practising for a few weeks.

I don't quite seem to have mastered the skill of forming corners in my pastry and I was a little doubtful of how the puff would turn out, it's such a time consuming process! But to my surprise, although I was not quite friends with the pastry, the pastry decided to be friends with me :) The teacher was quite happy with how mine turned out, with good puff and goldenness. Hoorah.
So just for starters we made Victorias using the English method and pastry shortening.

Pretty. These can be filled with sweet or savoury fillings.
The shortening was quite gross. It was solid at room temperature which made it easy to handle and we had to roll it out like a dough. Mmm solid sheet of pure FAT. The grease really stuck to your fingers too. Another reminder of what people are eating kilos of.... Imagine their fat coated hearts. I tried some of the pastry, I suppose the mouth is happy aye...

Baking (Week 4,5,6) More shortcrust pastry

In the past weeks we've learnt to make:
- Apple Pies: we got to be a bit creative with the decoration of this and I was quite happy with how my leaves turned out :)

- Apricot Crumble
- Coconut Tarts
- Bakewell Tarts
- Lemon Meringue Pie: There is more sugar than egg white in the meringue. And there was a mighty lot of sugar. It was pretty looking though
- Fruit Flans

It all been jolly good and tasty good now that we have been working with butter. Next lesson: puff pastry.
I saw on Better Homes and Gardens, Ed showed how to make a quick and easy pastry. Gosh if it's that easy what are we doing spending so much time learning how to make it! I guess we learn the technique and theory behind it all though. It just amused me.

Baking (Week 3) - Custard Tarts

TAFE has commenced and the learning begins.
As I progress through I realise how technical it all is, and quite a science.

Let me explain, last week was our first week of baking in the kitchen and we made fruit scones and savoury scones. Scones... I think that most people would have made scones at some stage in their life, a common place being high school. There's not that many ingredients and not that many steps to follow.
However as our teacher runs through the demonstration and we follow, we then see how much sadder looking our flatter scones with over-worked gluten are compared the hers! And so that's the difference between a cheap scone and pricier ones you get at high teas. Don't worry our second batch got better :)

This week we made custard tarts, and I bought some of my handiwork to show the family.

We made 2 types, one with a real custard filling and one with pre-mix (real custard pictured). Most of what you buy in the shops will be pre-mix, the kind that looks so firmly set like (firm) jelly. Again there's quite a technique in mixing, rolling and lining the pastry to make sure that it doesn't shrink, is not lope sided and is thin/thick enough. Lots to learn!
We made the pastry with commercial fats. Functionally they work well and makes the dough easy to work with, but I'm a bit of a naturalist and there's just something funky (in a negative way) about eating margarine that is stored at room temperature. Go the fresh butter I say, but as our teacher says they do have place in cooking. I tell you this so you know what you're eating people! I could have also been put off it by seeing the sink full of dirty water in the kitchen with the fat chunks bobbing about on the surface. None of my family minded the taste but I thought that the taste did come through the pastry and ended up just eating the custard. mm sweet custard.