Puff Pastry Dough

I jumped a few sections in my book of The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts since I had been focusing most of my energy on tarts (fresh fruit tarts and the classic French apple tart), and I decided to learned how to make puff pastry dough!

Deliciously addicting paillettes (cheese straws)
made from puff pastry dough

All I've heard about puff pastry dough is how daunting it is to make...involving hours upon hours of work for something you can just buy in your grocer's freezer section. Well let me tell you that making your own dough is completely worth it! At least try it once and see for yourself. After making this dough I don't think I can ever go back to pre-made puff pastry dough! And although this isn't something you can whip together at a moment's notice, the amount of time you work with the dough is minimal. Most of the time is spent letting it rest in the fridge so that the butter doesn't melt pre-oven (read my Classic French Apple Tart post to read about how the butter affects the dough).

You start out making a typical dough mixture (flour, butter, salt, and water) and then get a big hunk of butter which you pound out to be approximately the same dimensions as the dough. I started using a rolling pin to flatten out the butter, but it was so cold that the rolling pin wasn't doing too much damage...so I switched to a meat tenderizer! Of course I used the flat, hammer-like side of the mallet in order to not puncture the plastic wrap that was holding the butter, but this method proved much more effective than a rolling pin, especially when you want to keep the butter cold (which you do).

Now it's time to "package" the giant slab of butter inside the dough as if you were going to mail it away ("Oh, what's this? A giant slab of butter from my dear friend Amanda? How kind of her!" -- check your mailboxes for this). The dough is rolled out such that there's a nice thick square the size of the slab o' butter, but there are also four flaps on each side of the square. The butter is placed in the center of the dough and the four flaps fold over the butter to prevent any butter from escaping when this "package" is rolled flat.

This square is then rolled into a long flat rectangle 22 inches long, tri-folded to make a square, re-rolled to 22 inches long, tri-folded again, wrapped in plastic wrap, and refrigerated for an hour. This process is done a total of 3 times. Each time the dough is rolled out and re-folded is called a turn. You want a total of 6 turns to make the end product extra flaky.

You can't really see it in the picture, but there are lots of butter layers within the dough. Actually I calculated it to be a whopping 729 layers (!!!) of buttery goodness just waiting to melt and make the most delicious pastries :)

A slice of the final (dough) product

Overall, not too difficult. I had a few moments rolling out my dough where the outside layer seemed to be a little too thin so the butter tried to escape, but otherwise it wasn't bad. I definitely recommend taking on the puff pastry dough...or convincing a friend or family member to do it at least so you can enjoy the tasty results!

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Pate Feuilletee (Puff Pastry Dough) Recipe:
From The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts by The French Culinary Institute

For the Dough:
125 g cake flour
125 g bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 tsp. salt
35 g unsalted butter, softened


For the barrage (slab o' butter):
250 g unsalted butter, cold

Classic French Apple Tart

I have never had an apple tart before this; however, I'm big on apple pies (especially around the holidays). If good enough, this tart may appear at this year's Thanksgiving instead of it's pie relative.

Sacrificial apples (and a hiding lemon)

You may ask yourself, "What is the difference between a tart and a pie?"

Well, I'm here to tell you that there really isn't much of a difference. Tarts only have a bottom crust, whereas pies can have a bottom crust, top crust, or both, otherwise they're pretty much the same.

This time I finally read through the sections of The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts that I skipped over prior to my last Fresh Fruit Tart. And it made me realize how I really need to learn more about the ingredients and the process before just diving into the recipes. My new findings helped me understand the process in making a delicious dough, and I believe that I figured out what I did wrong with my shortbread dough.

Here's my understanding of it....
Pastry dough is all about the butter. The entire process of making tart dough is to create a delicious flaky crust, which can only be done by keeping the butter cold.

The butter is first mixed with the sugar until it creates a granular paste:

Maybe it doesn't look super granular here, but I swear it is! This step allows the sugar crystals to cut the butter into tiny pieces, aerating the mixture. The last ingredient to be mixed in is the flour. A tough tart shell can easily be prevented by not overworking the dough. The more you mix the dough while it has flour, the more the gluten in the flour reacts, making the final product less tasty (you want more gluten to react in breads to help out the yeast, but not in tart dough). With the aerated butter mixed in with the flour, your dough should now have tiny pockets of butter, which when baked will create your flaky crust when each of the butter pockets evaporate. Ok, that's the lesson for the day.....on to the apple tart! The dough.... This time I decided to try a new dough so I made the Pâte Sucrée (sweet tart dough). I mixed together my ingredients as discussed above, rolled out my beautiful tart dough, gently placed it in my tart pan and cut it to fit by rolling over the edges with a rolling pin. Then I gently pushed the tart shell down to make sure it was even. Gorgeous dough lining the tart shell The apple filling... This tart really tested out my knife skills with a covering of apples sliced  3 mm thin and an interior layer of apples diced into tiny 6 mm cubes. I cooked the apple cubes on the stove, adding the seeds of a vanilla bean, and cooking it until the apples became translucent but still had a little crunch to them. Adding vanilla bean seeds to my apple cubes (TIP: If planning on baking a significant amount, order some vanilla beans in a larger quantity online -- I ordered some from Amazon -- it's a much better deal than any local grocery store) Once the apple cubes were done cooking and then cooled, I gently spread them inside the unbaked shell. Unfortunately I completely underestimated the amount of cubes produced with 3 apples, so this layer ended up a little skimpy. Spreading out my first layer of apple

The next layer of apples were first peeled, cored, rubbed with a lemon, and sliced lengthwise just like you would eat an apple if you were going to cut it up. The only real difference is that instead of slicing it into quarters or eighths you cut it into 3 mm thick slices (although maybe you cut it into 3 mm slices to eat it...).

Once there's a big stockpile of thinly sliced apples, begin laying them down touching the outer edge of the tart shell and overlapping. I found that the overlapping is wonderful because it can hide a lot of mistakes on your apple slices (e.g. small pieces, pieces that may not be the exact same thickness throughout, etc.).

Overlapping my apple slices

Continue adding circles of overlapping apple slices until the first layer of apple cubes are completely covered. The book only showed two circles of apple slices; however, I have discovered that my tart pan is a touch too big (also explains my insufficient amount of apples) -- it's 13 inches instead of the recommended 9 inch pan (to be honest, I thought there was just a standard tart pan size) -- so I had three circles of apple slices.

I threw the tart in the oven for an hour (the entire recommended amount of time) while surrounding the edges of the tart shell with aluminum foil for all but maybe 10 minutes of the baking time to prevent them from burning. I topped it off with an apricot glaze, took a bunch of pictures, and ate about half of it in one sitting with David's help! Needless to say, it was delicious...and not just any kind of delicious, French delicious. You know, where you think it's going to be super sweet because in America most desserts are (not that I'm always against that), but in reality it's just sweet enough to leave you wanting more.

My first apple tart, but not my last!

Sad filling :(

Analysis of Product:

• Delicious although I wish there were more substance to it. I blame that on not having enough apples for the size of the tart (see image to the right). I even had to roll the tart dough down the edges before baking because it looked silly having an extra half-an-inch or so of crust above the filling!

• The tart dough was definitely a success! The sweet tart dough was much less heavy compared to the shortbread dough I made for the Fresh Fruit Tart. The shortbread dough was much more like a big cookie, whereas the sweet tart dough was more like a typical crust. The dough also rolled out well so I was able to get a nice thin, even layer throughout the entire tart. It was also cooked all the way through without burning the crust thanks to the aluminum foil protecting the edges!

• My slicing and dicing skills have definitely improved since my first attempt at dissecting an apple (it took me an hour to cut up one apple into approximately 5mm sticks and cubes)! Most of my apple cubes and slices looked pretty accurate, but I think that the baking of the tart is the true test. Logically, it seems like when the apples were cut a little too thin, they darkened faster than the other, slightly thicker pieces...what a horrible give away to my mistakes!

Chocolate Truffles

Ok, so I know I said that my next post would be about the sections in The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts that I skipped over; however, this weekend I'm stranded in Pennsylvania without my book and pretty much all of my baking "gear" (ingredients, pans, good oven, etc.).

In case you haven't read the About section, I work near Pittsburgh and live in Chicago (work 12 hour shifts for 5 days, go home for 5 days). It's definitely got it's perks (read: having 5 days off for every 5 days I work is awesome!!), but I'm always anxious to get home to be with my Hubby, David. And luckily, I get to be back in Chicago full-time in November! In the mean time there's more work and less play to wrap up our project out here in Pennsylvania.

Which leads me to this week's project....chocolate truffles!

Every now and then I experiment making various truffles, and since I don't want David and I eating all of them, I bring them in to work. At this point, everyone's been bugging me to make more truffles. So since I don't have time go to go home this weekend, I thought I'd oblige them.

Chocolate truffles are possibly the easiest dessert to make. It still baffles me that they cost so much, but then again, they are delicious!

Here's my recipe for a plain chocolate truffle (adapted from JoyofBaking.com):

• 3.5 oz. heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 chocolate bar
• coating of your choosing (cocoa powder, hot chocolate mix, sprinkles, etc.)

From this recipe you can obviously add to or alter as you see fit. I'm still experimenting, but to bring in to work, I've decided to make 4 different types of truffles:

1.) Super Dark Chocolate
2.) Super Dark Chocolate with Honey Peanut Butter
3.) Dark Chocolate with a Dulce de Leche center
4.) Dark Chocolate with Nutella

For each of these combos, I start with the original chocolate truffle recipe and then add to it. First, I chop up a bar of chocolate into tiny bits.

Super Dark Chocolate with 85% cocoa liquor

(If you're going to add peanut butter, Nutella, a liquor, or something extra, this would be where to add it...into the chocolate bits. I didn't measure how much peanut butter I added, but it's probably about 2 heaping spoonfuls)

  

I heat up my butter and heavy whipping cream just until it begins to boil.

Mmm....cream and butter!

Then I pour the cream and butter into the chopped chocolate and don't touch it for 4 minutes. I always find this to be the hardest part because it's so close to being delicious chocolatey goodness, and you just have to sit there...waiting to stir it! But it's worth the wait because once it's sat there, slowly melting the chocolate, you whisk it all together and get this gorgeous chocolate ganache.

Pre-truffle ganache

Simply pop this in the fridge for an hour or so (just long enough for it to set), and then use a metal spoon to begin making small balls of chocolate.


WARNING: You WILL get messy! Make sure to take of all rings and/or bracelets and try to resist the temptation to lick your fingers...too often ;)

Once they're in a somewhat malleable ball form, roll them in your desired coating (I used chocolate sprinkles for this one) and put back in the refrigerator to cool.

Dulche de leche chocolate truffles

Analyses:

1.) Super Dark Chocolate -- Made with 85% cacao, this truffle was coated in Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder, making it Super Duper Dark Chocolate!

Although I'm not the biggest fan of this extremely bitter chocolate, most of my co-workers really liked it...some even calling it their favorite of the four!


2.) Super Dark Chocolate with Honey Peanut Butter -- Made with 85% cacao, added Skippy Peanut Butter with Honey, and coated with a combination of hot cocoa mix and Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder.

This one's always a winner with just enough peanut butter to be able to taste it, but not enough to overpower the chocolate.


3.) Dark Chocolate with a Dulce de Leche center -- Made with 60% cacao, Stonewall Kitchen's Dulche de Leche Sauce was piped into the center, and it was coated with chocolate sprinkles

These were the first ones gone and my own personal favorite (although I'm a sucker for anything with caramel or a caramel look-alike). For piping the dulce de leche sauce into the center, I recommend forming the truffles sans coating, letting them cool, and then gently jabbing a piping tip into the center of the truffle. Coating this one with chocolate sprinkles worked well, hiding any overflow of dulce de leche that managed to sneak out.


4.) Dark Chocolate with Nutella -- Made with 60% cacao, added Nutella, and coated with Hot Chocolate mix

This one was suggested to me by a co-worker, and although delicious, sadly you can't taste the hazelnut flavor because it is over powered by the strong cocoa flavoring within the Nutella and the chocolate bar.

Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream

I love tarts! I love how colorful and immaculate they look! I love being able to eat fresh fruit for dessert without it just being a boring bowl of fruit. So in order to get to the tart section of the book, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts (by the French Culinary Institute), I may have skipped over a section or two that I'll write about later (flour, sugar, leavening agents, etc. and how they affect the end product).

There are 3 different types of tart doughs:
1.) Pâte Brisée (read: short pastry crust)
2.) Pâte Sucrée (read: sweet short pastry crust)
3.) Pâte Sablée (richest short pastry crust)

For my first tart, I chose the Pâte Sablée, or shortbread dough, which was delicious and tasted just like eating a shortbread cookie! Below is a time-lapse video of making the dough (bear with me as this is my first time making a time-lapse video as well as my first time editing one). Also, check out my brand new kitchen scale! So far I'm a big fan.

 

  Shortbread Dough Time-Lapse

After the dough was the Crème Pâtissière, which is basically a gelatinous custard that tastes deliciously of vanilla and not at all like eggs! This recipe called for whole vanilla beans, and since this is a learning experience, I bought some (ridiculously expensive) whole vanilla beans for the first time in my life. They were so fragrant and easy to use. I even love the way the pod seeds decorate the custard. You never get that with vanilla extract!

Crème Pâtissière spread out, covered,
and cooling between plastic wrap and aluminum foil

Once both the tart dough and the Crème Pâtissière cooled, it was time to assemble the tart. I had the hardest time rolling out the dough without it sticking to the counter or just crumbling. When making the dough, the consistency looked good, but once it got to the point of rolling it out, it didn't work quite right. In retrospect I think it may have been because I coated the counter with flour to prevent the dough from sticking. In the future I plan on using shortening, which will prevent it from sticking to the counter without drying out the dough.

After several attempts, I gave up on the flour and decided to roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. I tried to avoid this method since the book subtly mentioned that this is pretty much the cop out way of making a smooth pastry dough. However, without this technique I don't think I ever would have been able to get the dough into the pan.

Once in the pan, the dough should be punctured with a fork several times to prevent the formation of air pockets...I forgot to do this. My excuse is that I was too upset with the dough to even think about anything but getting the tart in the oven as soon as possible in order to devour it!

I spread the cooled Crème Pâtissière over the uncooked tart shell, sprinkled it with graham cracker crumbs (this part seems odd, but it really adds a wonderful flavor and little crunch), and super carefully placed it in the oven. The recipe had the tart in the oven for an hour, but after 45 minutes the outside crust was beginning to brown so I whisked it away to add the best part....fresh fruit!

The now baked tart shell + Creme Patissiere was gorgeously dressed with a variety of my favorite fruits: raspberries (my absolute favorite), strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries (these were really good at filling the gaps between the other fruits).

Delicious, warm fresh fruit tart (although still in the pan)...mmmm!

Paint the fruit with an apricot glaze to make them nice and shiny, and voila!

Delicious tart!

Gorgeous light brown outer crust

Analysis of Product:

• Delicious when warm, but not as good after a day or two because the fruit gets a little old and mushy.

• The middle of the tart shell was still a little doughy. Next time I'll leave the shell in the oven for the entire recommended time (1 hour), but will protect the edges by wrapping the edges of the pan in aluminum foil.

•  Rolling out the dough was tricky because it kept sticking to the counter as well as crumbling, something that is quite the predicament. It seemed too dry, but I would add water and it would do the same thing. Next time I will use shortening instead of flour to coat the counter. This should at least not help dry the dough out more.

• The top could have used a few more berries to fill in tiny holes, but overall I think it looked delicious!

And the most important part in the analysis....

My guests loved it! 2 pieces each! Yumm!!

Next Up: Reverting back to sections I skipped + more tarts! (half the book is tarts...although all very different)

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Last week I went to the bookstore to browse through the cook books, and I stumbled upon The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts by the French Culinary Institute. Although the 512-page book was wrapped in plastic, preventing me from actually seeing what techniques were discussed, the quotes on the back described exactly what I was looking for..."it is a whole lot less expensive than pastry school and every bit as comprehensive." (Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, authors of Baked: New Frontiers in Baking)

Using this book, I have decided to take on a "Julie & Julia" type goal. Although I do not plan to complete X recipes in Y days, I do plan on going through the whole book, as well as learning and (hopefully) perfecting the techniques. I think this will be a terrific way for me to learn more about baking. It also means that my husband and I will be going to the gym more to keep up with my baking :)

So here goes....

Chapter 1

- Names of pots, pans, and miscellaneous items

I had no idea that I didn't know the names of so many baking accessories! Here are a few that I've learned the difference between:

Angel-food cake pan

Charlotte mold

Kugelhopf mold

- Types and materials of kitchen knives

Although my kitchen knives are brand new, I now know what material my knives will be made of next time...high-carbon stainless steel -- easy to sharpen and resistant to corrosion, which seems to be the two main problems with knives.


I found an excellent review of chef knives at Cooking for Engineers.

Assignment #1 - Cutting Fruit
I cut an apple into Jardinière strips and Macédoine cubes. After cutting up the apple into strips, I was surprised at how much waste there was because of size limitations (anything shorter than 4cm couldn't be used).

Jardinière - 5mm x 5mm x 4-5cm

Macédoine - 5mm cubes

Pile of macédoine cubes

I practiced sectioning an orange by cutting the top and bottom off for support, slicing off the rind, and removing all tastiness from the white membrane. (This may save me a lot of time in the future because I tend to spend a lot of time peeling off the stringy, white membrane before eating it).

I added the orange sections to a salad, creating a simple summery salad! Delicious!

First attempt at orange -- sliced off rind

Sectioned orange pieces

Empty orange that looks kind of like a starfruit

Next time...tarts!

Falling in Love with French Macarons

My love affair with French macarons has officially begun. Last week I decided to dive in and make my first batch of macarons. Keep in mind that I had never had a French macaron before this.

Needless to say, they are not quite the ideal French macaron that you see in pastry shops. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I thought the cookies would flatten out some in the oven...they didn't.

Being the scientist I am, I had to do some more research. Reading several articles online, I now know that French macarons are apparently one of the hardest pastries to master. This made me feel a little better after my disastrous looking (yet still delicious) first batch.

Attempt #2 led me to the following recipe, which I now consistently follow. It is derived from Not So Humble Pie's recipe, but converted to volumetric measurements rather than mass because I don't have a kitchen scale:

• 2 large egg whites
• 2 tbsp + 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp + 3/4 tsp almond flour
• 1 cup + 2 tbsp + 1/4 tsp powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

These were my results from attempt #2 where I replaced lemon extract for the vanilla extract.

I filled these with a store bought Pillsbury vanilla frosting. The cookies definitely look more like French macarons, but still leave something to be desired.

At this point, I was determined to perfect the French macaron. I got serious with my baking and began taking notes on each of my macaron batches like a laboratory notebook...monotonous at times, but worth the trouble in the end.

I won't bore you with each of my attempts (I'm to 8 different attempts so far), but I'll give you my general findings from all of them:

1.  Don't substitute JUMBO egg white in place of the recipe's LARGE egg whites, even if you try to compensate with new calculations for ingredients. For some reason, this just wouldn't work for me. If you're following my recipe, make sure to only use LARGE egg whites.

2.  The ideal bake time/position for the macarons in my gas oven is on the middle rack at 300F for 3 min., 275F for 8 min., flip the tray around, and then let it go for another 4 minutes at 275F. Of course, this will vary for each oven (meaning I can never move, or my oven must come with me).

I put it at 300F first because this helps create the foot. And I drop the temperature down so that it can cook the insides of the cookie without burning the outside. To avoid creating an air pocket in the cookie, the insides must be baked enough that they don't collapse and pull away from the wall when the tray is taken out of the oven to cool.

My husband thought to explain this process as being similar to cooking a steak. That you want to initially sear the meat and then slowly cook the insides to perfection. I don't know anything about cooking meat, so I'm going to take his word on this :)

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Those are my only stable conclusions for now. There are a lot of other techniques that I read about (letting the cookies rest before going into the oven, aging egg whites, etc.), but I need to do a bit more research on those. I'll keep you updated as I continue on my journey with French macarons and I'll post more pictures of them.

Love Birds

This cake was made in March 2010.

This cake is from Kate Sullivan's "Fun & Fancy Cake Decorating: Tips and Techniques for Decorating Unique Cakes for any Occasion". I love this book! It shows a wide variety of techniques. My favorite part is the fact that she taught herself to decorate cakes through similar books and is now a highly respected cake decorator.

Anyways, enough for my love of Kate Sullivan...

This cake was decorated with buttercream frosting and the two love birds are made of marzipan. This was my first time sculpting anything in marzipan, and fortunately it's probably the easiest object to make.

Woven Wedding Cake

This cake was made in March 2010.

There's a large gap in my cake decorating due to traveling with work. This cake wasn't actually for a wedding, but just a way to practice my decorating technique...especially after taking about a 2 year break.

The cake is covered in white marshmallow fondant. The bottom border, the lattice work, and the flowers are done in buttercream frosting.

Cupcake Wedding Dresses

These cupcakes were made .... I have no idea :)

I made these wedding dress cupcakes for a bachelorette party. The dress for each of them is made from an upside-down cupcake. The skirt of the dress is made from marshmallow fondant and decorated with buttercream frosting. The bodice of the dress is made from sugar paste. I made at least a dozen of these little dresses, decorating each of them differently. Unfortunately, these were the only 2 pictures I could find.

Wedding Cake

This cake was made in July 2008 for my sister's wedding.

The cake is a champagne cake with a strawberry jelly + cream cheese frosting filling. It is covered in store bought white fondant and decorated with buttercream frosting and non-edible pearls.

Since the wedding was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, I had to buy most of the ingredients on the island. This is when I learned that using a sifter for the powdered sugar in the buttercream was extremely important. As a result of not using a sifter, the buttercream ended up being extremely lumpy. Oh well, live and learn, right?

The piping decorations were initially drawn on paper and a pin was used to poke small holes in the fondant to provide a design to pipe over.

Owl Perched on Light Pole

This cake was made around March 2008.

This was the first and only cake I have ever entered into a cake competition (so far). The competition was with the Chicago Area Retail Bakers Association (CARBA).

The cake is covered completely in marshmallow fondant. The only inedible items in the cake are the lights on the light pole and the horizontal pole holding the lights up. The horizontal pole is a wooden rod and the lights are large styrofoam eggs.

Saxophone Cake

This cake was made around February 2008.

This is a practice cake for my sister's wedding. I made this same cake for the groom's cake (both him and my sister are saxophonists).

The cake is completely covered with yellow marshmallow fondant. The mouthpiece and keys are all black marshmallow fondant, with the ligature made with white fondant dusted with edible silver dusting powder.

Henna Birthday

This cake is from February 2008.

This was the first cake that I covered completely with fondant (more than just Hello Kitty's face). I also used this cake to work on my piping skills.

This cake is covered with marshmallow fondant and decorated with buttercream frosting.

Hello Kitty!

I think this cake was made around January 2008.

This was the first 3D cake I ever made.

The face is made from marshmallow fondant with toothpick whiskers and the body is decorated completely with buttercream.