ferrandi | Sugared & Spiced

2012/11/052015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Week 4: Puff Pastries

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In week 4, we moved on to pâte feuilletée, or puff pastries. Pâte feuilletée is formed with multiple layers of dough and butter, and when baked, the steam in-between the layers push up to form the airy flakiness. To make this dough, start by making a well out of flour and butter, then slowly mix in the water.

Knead the dough with a scrapper.

Form the dough into a ball, cut an “X” at the top, and let rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Then, enclose a block of softened butter in the dough. The key is to have the dough and the butter in a similar consistency (i.e. the butter cannot be too soft or too hard), so that the dough can be rolled out evenly.

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2012/10/262015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Week 3: More Tarts…

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We continued with more tarts using variations of the pâte sucrée (sweet pastry dough). Take this Austrian Lintzer Torte for example, its pastry dough is added with just a dash of cinnamon powder for extra flavor. The tart shell is filled with a layer of almond cream, a layer of raspberry jam, then topped with a lattice design.

The dough strips of the lattice is made by this nifty little tool.

The completed lattice design.

Bake, glaze, and line with pistachio powder around the border for a striking visual effect.

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2012/09/182015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Week 2: Chocolate Tart

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Chocolate tart, the all-time crowd pleaser. We started off by making an almond sweet dough, which is similar to the pâte sucrée we used for our figs tart and pear tart, but with added almond powder. A small but important step is to trim the tart shell after it’s baked to achieve a smooth surface. Ah yes, it’s all in the details.

Then, add in crème prise au chocolat, a mixture of liquid heavy cream, milk, eggs, sugar, and 64% dark chocolate.

Bake, then leave to cool.

On the baked chocolate, pour a layer of chocolate sauce made from water, glucose, liquid heavy cream, and 70% dark chocolate. Leave to settle.

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2012/09/182015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Week 2: Lemon Tarts

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After a pear tart and and a figs tart, we continued with the sweet pastry dough and proceeded to make two variations of tarte au citron, or lemon tarts. The chef first demonstrated a few ways of slicing the lemon…

Then we worked on two types of the lemon tart fillings. The first is lemon curd, which is a mixture of lemon juice, zest, sugar, custard powder, gelatin, and eggs.

After incorporating all the ingredients, churn in the butter.

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2012/09/172015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Week 2: Pear Tart & Figs Tart

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Week 2 at Ferrandi: more tarts! This time we worked on pâte sucrée, which is a sweet pastry dough frequently used for fruit tarts. Compared to pâte à foncer that we made last week, pâte sucrée is significantly more fragile and breaks easily during the rolling and molding process. The key? Refrigerate the dough, and work very quickly. We first used pâte sucrée to make two types of tarts: tarte aux poires (pear tart) and tarte aux figues (figs tart). As usual, the chef started with a demo:

Fill pastry crust with crème d’amande, or almond cream.

Top with sliced poached pears.

After baking, the almond cream will puff up a little and fill the pie crust, enveloping the poached pear slices.

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2012/09/082015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Week 1: Apple Tart & Flan

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After two days of orientation, we finally got our hands on some flour and butter. Our first lesson was on pâte à foncer, which literally translates to “lining dough”. The making of this shortcrust pastry involves flour, butter, sugar, salt, and egg, and the finished product can be used for sweet or savory tarts. Mise en place, ready to go!

Here’s our chef Didier Averty, doing a demo on how to form pâte à foncer. Funny man, and a very good teacher (no, he doesn’t know about my blog and this sentence is not for show, so yes, you can trust it).

Using pâte à foncer, we were to make two types of tarts, starting with tarte aux pommes, a classic apple tart. Making the tart shell requires several steps, including mixing the ingredients into a dough, rolling the dough into a thin sheet, poking little holes on the bottom so the tart shell does not puff up during baking, lining the dough onto the tart mold, ending with making patterns using a pincer.

After the tart shell is done, layer on some apple puree.

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2012/09/082015/08/05

[Ferrandi] Orientation

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Officially started the Intensive Professional Pastry Program at ESCF-Ferrandi this week. Hip hip hurray!

The first thing we did was to meet our admins, chefs, and fellow chef wannabes. Among the 49 students – 24 in cuisine, 25 in pastry (not sure why this session has one extra) – the two most represented countries are USA and Taiwan, then there are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and the UK. Diverse? Very. Age ranges from 18 to around 44, with most of the students clustering around 20~30.

Passed by a few chefs/cooks preparing desserts for restaurant service.

Received our uniforms. Each person has his or her full name stitched on jacket! Very cool.

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