So you may wonder, "Why are they teaching pastry in Cuisine when you are doing it in Patisserie?" To which I say, there are only about 18 of us doing both. There are things in cuisine which use the pastries (think Quiche Lorraine from the last post, puff pastry which I will get to shortly...) so we cover it there too. I'm pretty sure the Cuisine chefs will get tired of hearing from us that "but in Patisserie they told us..."
In which I discuss the weather...
Last week was also quite warm. It may be novel for London to be warm (so I've been told - my personal experience has included warm days) and most people enjoy it. However - it wreaked havoc in our classes. The chefs can work quickly enough that it may cause a few hiccups but nothing they can't handle. We students, on the other hand...
So what happens is this: when you learn something new and there is a chef looking over your shoulder, your hands get clammy (usually a bit warm too). None of that is good when working with pastry. It's even worse when it is warm, or in the case of the Cuisine kitchens, hot. It melts the butter and does bad things to the doughs (I don't know the chemistry - maybe you'll find it in that $600/8 volume? thing that the guy who used to work at Microsoft released earlier this year). The class before us had been doing something with lobster (2 ways) - the stoves were hot, the refrigerators were not very cold (because everyone had been opening them) and they ran about 25 minutes over time.
Puff Pastry - which may not puff
The hardest parts in the time allowed, was to get the initial pastry dough (aka detrempe) finished in time to allow enough resting before rolling it out. For some reason, some people in class had very wet dough (including me) and some people had very dry dough (JK two spaces down) even though we had all measured the same - at least I hope so. That went fine, as did the resting. And since we had somewhere around 20 - 30 minutes, we rolled out the butter to be included in the dough (the tourage), then made our crepe batters. More on that later - this is puff pastry time.
The puff pastry rolled out too thin and I could see the butter leaking out between the folds so the cheese sticks, which are actually more like sausage rolls but with cheese instead of sausage, will be uneven. At least it was still fairly elastic - some of the drier doughs were tearing and really rolling out at all. Our teaching chef, Chef D, had to help almost everyone with something because we just couldn't work fast enough. You know how it is - the first time you do anything, it can take ages but once you've done it a couple of times, you might get it down to a 1/10 of the time it took you the first time.
Every 20 minutes or so, there was a frantic burst of activity as we all took our doughballs out of the fridge, rolled it out, made our folds (aka turns), wrapped it again and put it back in the fridge to rest. On a cool day you can do two turns before resting the dough. Wednesday was so hot that we had to refrigerate the dough after each turn, which added quite a lot of time to the process. We actually ended up having to do the last two turns together without resting the dough - hence my being able to see the butter leaking through the layers. It's not actually mille feuilles - someone did the math and came up with 1024 layers after the 6 turns. I haven't checked tha math...
So they are all resting in a fridge for the weekend and on Tuesday we will need to roll them out, make more sauce and make our cheese sticks. Hopefully there will be pictures from Tuesday.
Crepes au citron
But on to the crepes...my batter was a bit lumpy to start with, but eventually got sorted out - lots of whisking...and I had to cure my crepe pan a second time because it killed my first crepe (as well as the second). So we did a lemon syrup to go with it (thank you for teaching us how in Patisserie) and I made little extra lemon peel julienne to candy because it seemed like we would have enough time. Also to practice my julienning - still needs a lot of work...
I wasn't the last one to finish! It was my goal not to be the last one for at least one class by the end of this term and somehow I made it last week! Of course I was still the last one to leave (for other reasons) so maybe it's time to rethink the goal.
Sorry - I digress from the crepes. I know I am biased, but WOW! I actually managed to finish candying the lemon peel and since it had a bit of extra syrup, I mixed that with a spoonful of the one from the recipe and sprinkled it over my crepes. I'm sorry that I don't have a photo of the crepes. I was running short on time because the puff pastry needed another turn and I was hungry, so I ate all my crepes after Chef tasted them. I almost fainted when he inspected the layers before he ate it, but the crepe was thin enough and he liked the julienned peels ("nice presentation"). We didn't use icing (i.e. powdered) sugar on our crepes - you don't really need it if the crepe has a good sauce/topping. If you want crepes, you will need to get a crepe pan (or we can fake it in a non-stick small frying pan).
For each class, we get graded: presentation, taste, hygeine, safety, correct techniques, etc. I tripped over a big basket near the end of class - I am hoping coordination doesn't go under the hygiene heading...
All about cheese
We also had a technical class on cheese from Tom the Cheese Guy, as he introduced himself. He was so excited to talk to us about cheese that it was hard not to get at least a little caught up with him. We have a similar lecture for wine in about 3 weeks. We actually have wine and cheese lectures for each level of our course. I have started thinking about putting together a stinky cheese board (but have to figure out the wine to go with it - questions already for ___ the Wine Guy/Lady!). I have a feeling that I pissed off a couple of my classmates because I kept shushing them, but they may already know this stuff and I didn't know anything so I wasn't interested in not being able to hear the person brought in by the school to teach us about cheese.
Still not a huge fan of bleu cheese (I'm sorry - it's not sweet to me) but got to try some good ones (to quote Homer Simpson: Mmmmm, cheese...) Also - finally got an answer about the stinky cheese.
Why stinky cheese
A couple of posts ago I asked why the French like stinky cheese when they don't like their food overseasoned. Tom the Cheese Guy said that it goes back to the monks making cheese and having it as a substitute for meat. Since many monks were from the aristocracy (second sons, wasn't it?) and the aristocracy tended to eat (game) meat which you have to hang, they were used to stinky meat. Hence they wanted their cheese to be stinky too. So there you have it - the answer without using Google or Wikipedia. I'm not quite so caught up in cheese to actually go look it up myself, but if you want to do so, feel free!
Tarte au Pommes
Thursday was the sweet pastry dough - a lot harder than short crust because it will break and fall apart in your hands. Also, it appears that the ovens in the Patisserie are a bit out...apparently our chef (humorous Chef M - the first time we had him) had discussed it with some of the other chefs. We will need to be very careful for our practical exams but they are not getting new ovens until the school moves premises next January - aagggghhh! It's kind of like the Cuisine kitchens were we kind of have to guess at the temperature for the ovens based on the position of the dials because the numbers have rubbed off. So - the apple tart:
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| Apple Tart with Apple Compote - it's not supposed to be singed... |
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| And this is what the tarte looks like after you massacre the crust... |
Friday morning I made it to ballet - what a relief after not being able to go for a while, to actually move. Of course the consequence is that muscles tend to protest a bit (I am still paying for it today). This was followed by a picnic in Hyde Park with CL from LCB and some of her friends. She had to go (while I was in the longest line ever for the ladies bathroom!!!) for wedding dress fittings for one of her friends. She felt bad, in case it was awkward since I had only just met this group of people (about 7? I've forgotten most of their names) but it was fine. They were all really nice, mostly from elsewhere - some Canadians, a fellow American, a couple from the Czech Republic, I think...
Location, location, location
MS - I realize that Hyde Park isn't exactly my environs, but it's quite near and it's the one where I had my camera out. Other photos to follow - eventually...
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| One of my favorite sights in the spring - hard to take photos without random strangers in them... |
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| Not quite the road less travelled - but much less travelled than Picadilly which is just on the other side of those trees! |
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| You might just see a building peeking out from behind the magnolia tree |
It seems that spring not only brings out all the lovers, young and old, but aspiring photographers as well. I'm not an aspiring photographer so my shots are generally hit or miss.
R&R
Yesterday I slept all day...there was a little bit of thunder last night and yesterday was a little overcast so it was a perfect day to stay home and rest. Also needed to recover from all the sugar and butter from school. I have to say that my attitudes toward both are slowly changing (I can hear my dentist cheering. Also - does anyone know a good cardiologist? May need one after this year...) but it was nice to eat broccoli and plain steamed rice. It might become necessary to have weekends off from butter.
It is Easter Sunday and I am contemplating whether or not to go to ballet class. Well - I was contemplating whether to go to class, but the time has come and gone since I started writing this post. I may just mosey on out, get some coffee and wander the neighborhood. London has mostly cleared out for the long weekend so I am enjoying the quiet before the storm of nuttiness that I suspect will ensue with the Royal wedding in less than a week. No classes on Friday, but we have an 8am practical on Saturday morning to make up for it.
May is quite civilized - only one 6-day week in the whole month, although we have quite a few 9-hour days.
Island Girls in London!
There are also a couple of girls from Hawaii at the LCB. V was in Hawaii for 10 years before coming here (so she's as much from Hawaii as I am from Sydney) and LM, who is in Intermediate Patisserie, grew up on Oahu. We are all still new enough that we talk to everyone, although of course people tend to form bonds with their groups.
Anyway, the ladies' locker room is very small - I can't remember if I've already mentioned it. You can't have a quiet chat in there because people are always rushing in to change into/out of their kitchen gear (aprons, hairnets, hats, etc). In the course of chatting to whomever - because it takes a little while to figure out who's in Basic whichever - I exchanged pleasantries with a lovely girl. Somehow the Hawaii thing came up and she said, "Oh, you have to meet L, she's from Hawaii too!" I didn't actually meet LM until last Wednesday (was it then that I had that headache?) but we've seen each other in passing a couple of times.
With various other people coming to town, I think we might have our own little Hawaii club, for which I am actually quite excited. LM has a rice cooker (yay - because I didn't buy one when I did my crazy shopping spree for a Kitchen Aid and pots so that I can practice for our exams) and other unspecified local food. I'm just glad there's someone who understands me when I say that Uncle Ben's IS NOT REAL RICE to a local girl/boy.
Now - just have to figure out where to put the Kitchen Aid and mixing bowls. I will need a stepladder to reach the higher shelves, which are currently empty. So until next time - happy Easter everyone! I hope you know where you hid all those eggs...
Certainly looks like good Spring weather!
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