#126 - Croissants at Home (Part II)

The morning after the night before (aka final proof, baking, tasting and judgement)

Last night we left it where I went home, dubious about the results of my croissant rolling and shaping.  The theory is that things went awry because the counter and the kitchen were so hot last night.  I'd like to say that is to blame for my croissants but I think it was user error after all.  LM's croissants came out well, she said, and they were very pretty.  I have forgotten how to roll the croissants and they came out big, fat and kind of misshapen.  It has become clear that a second attempt will be required to redeem myself.

What went wrong besides hot hands and hot kitchen?

Luckily for me, I had an appreciative group of family and friends who were gratifyingly happy to taste and say how delicious they thought the croissants were.  Which only makes me more unhappy with the problematic croissants - where to start after the shaping disaster of 2014?

1.  Hmmm...for the first batch, I failed to drop the temperature from 430F to 400F (ok, I can't be bothered to do an accurate conversion - if you want the formula, it's [X (degrees F) - 32]/5/8 = Y (degrees C).  Or you can use the internet.

2.  Too much egg wash which also sealed some of the layers (and part of the reason why they didn't puff up), as well as some of the dough sticking when I transferred it to a smaller baking sheet (essentially I cooked these in a large toaster oven instead of the single large oven - and I'm glad I did!).  I'm not sure how much of the butter on the parchment paper were from ripped croissant layers and how much just oozed out and leaked everywhere from the other cuts in the pastry.

3.  I forgot to check if it was proved enough to bake (I suspect not).

4.  Overworked the dough - possibly - which would explain why the top layer seemed to be particularly breadcrust-like.

Interlude (aka Saturday morning breakfast)

Since the croissant batches took about 20-ish minutes to bake, I made breakfast.  We've been trying to use up leftovers and I thought of a fun Saturday morning breakfast idea.  We don't do egg soldiers or whatever they're called (where you dip your toast in a soft boiled egg) but Lil Sis did have a cookie cutter so I did what anyone with bread, eggs and a cookie cutter would do - see photos above.  Apparently the cut out hearts (also fried in butter, along with the bread and egg thing) were a hit.

Back to Baking

Batch 1 (?)

Batch 1 - baked at 430F

Then it was time to take the first batch out of the oven.  A little doughy...

Batch 2

Batch 2 - baked at 400F

A little better - more flaky but undercooked because I didn't allow for the size of the croissants.  Must remember to stretch the base much more during rolling so that they end up longer, stretched out and able to be bent to a crescent shape which will cook evenly on the next try.  I tried a little bit with lilikoi (passionfruit) butter.  I found it a bit sweet and the extra richness unnecessary.  Did I mention there was probably close to half a pound of butter in this recipe?

Batches 1, 2 & 3

Batch 3 - baked at 400F, then up to 430F, then back down to 400F (I couldn't decide because the croissants were so fat...)

Anyway - we couldn't taste any more so I had to leave it up to my other taste testers.

Fridge Takeover

I was also able to put my sister's fridge back the way it was supposed to be - this is what it looked like after I moved things around and made people eat leftovers yesterday and the day before.  She has a thing where she always has lots of food in the fridge so this made her nervous until I put everything back.  Of course roasting two chickens for dinner tonight resulted in enough leftover chicken that the fridge is full once again and you have to hunt (a little) to find space to put things. Must remember not to buy any more groceries until we have executed the next planned snacks / meals.

No Hobbits (but Demons and Gargoyles and dogs, oh my!)

Then it was time to have a girlie date.  I had arranged to see the Hobbit with a friend ages ago and we finally got ourselves organized.  Kind of...we met at 3.15pm for a 3.30 movie - except the movie was actually at 4.20.  So we went to see I, Frankenstein instead.  We didn't know anything about the movie except that Aaron Eckhart and Bill Nighy (not the Science Guy) were in it.  Any ideas about it resembling Mary Shelley's book in its actual plot were dispelled within the first 5 minutes or so.  Even better, we didn't have to buy the enormous movie snacks.  We wanted snacks because what's a movie without them?  We just didn't want the ones that were bigger than our laps - so we got the kiddie packs.  Quite a fun time, actually and we found out afterwards that the people behind us had a little dog with them the whole time - apparently he loves movies and he had been so quiet we never knew he was there.

Roast dinner

Then home for a roast chicken dinner by Lil Sis - even better than last time.  Better gravy as well - this time she cooked the onions in the same pan as the chicken and it really added something to the flavor of the gravy - good enough that even she was happy with it.  The skin was nice and crispy, the meat tender, the squash soft and sweet and the carving getting better with each attempt.  All I can say is, I am a very spoiled girl and I like it!

So until next time, may your loved ones spoil you as much as mine have been spoiling me.

#84 - Sebastian the Lobster, Interactive dining and the Little Mermaid

But first - a lobster, half a beetroot and some ratatouille
Friday was our lobster and ratatouille practical.  For some reason, people seem to dislike beetroot, sometimes before they've even tried it.  I was guilty of this particular dislike until a few years ago.  I had always been put off by the color and the fact that beetroot seems to stain everything it touches so I'm not sure what possessed me to try it that nameless day sometime in the distant past, but try it I did.  It was love at first bite.  It has a firm, but soft texture if that's possible, similar to eating a skillfully cooked turnip but much sweeter.


So the dish was a pan fried lobster, but only at the last minute.  We had to (mostly) cook it in the shell so that we could remove the shell first, to use to make something almost like a bisque - cooking off the shells and making a bouillon, then clarifying it with beets and egg whites.  Somehow getting the lobster out of its shell was a lot harder than I remember and this one had a ton of eggs.  It was actually kind of disgusting because they got everywhere and I kept having to clean my board, knives and work surface.  Plus I accidentally cut through the meat on one of the claws and completely mashed the other one.  Sebastian (yes, I know it's a boy's name) got some of her own back when one of her knuckles twisted in my hand while I was deshelling her - so there is a puncture on my left thumb and a slice on my right thumb (no idea how I got it).


I have yet to have a practical class in Cuisine where I haven't boiled something over - on Friday, it was the court bouillon to cook the lobster.  The clarification was quite nice although I had to discard some egg white part way through because it looked like there was too much egg.  Not enough sauce left to make an emulsion foam at the end, but the dish finished on time and the beetroot consomme was surprisingly good.  The ratatouille was pretty yummy, but we ran out of olive oil so I thought it was missing something.  I tried it at home after adding a little olive oil and it made a huge difference - part of the reason why I don't cook with extra virgin olive oil unless I am looking for the flavor.  It also took a little while longer than I would have liked to cut all the vegetables because I had to spend so much time trimming.  It's easier to get even cuts if you cut off the top and the bottom of the bell peppers and since none of the veggies had flat sides, you had to trim off and discard quite a bit.  Chef EB didn't say anything about them but I bet if I hadn't gotten them pretty similar sized, he would have noticed and said something.  As it was, he could tell I hadn't added the basil chiffonade at the right time.


Lobster was followed by a trek down to the pub, a fine after-class tradition which is not quite as regular as back when we were in Marylebone Lane.  A definite must though, after a Friday class.


Minor rejoicing
And finally, the biometric scan for my finger works!  I've forgotten, but one of the gates works to let me in and a different one (and those ones only) work to let me out when I scan my finger.  Suffice it to say that the working finger is not the middle one.  And it finally worked at the cafe so my prediction that the scanner will never work during my time at LCB will not stay true.  The new ID card is a different story and I'm still not sure that I will learn everyone's name in my group before the exams.  We're still working on remembering who's actually in the group.


Practicing...and bloody pigeons

Saturday was a practice session with JE.  We met at Borough Market because we needed some ingredients (pigeons, baby onions, a few other bits and pieces).  And of course, we both got a delicious toasted cheese sandwich.  JE was actually going to get something else, but a look at the steam rising in the air from a bitten corner of the sandwich and a tiny little bite convinced her that she wanted one of her own.  I remember ages ago when LM and I went to get one, we shared it and I thought it was so delicious that I could eat a whole one by myself.  Well, no, as it turns out.  I got most of the way through but the cheese was so rich (and I'm pretty sure there were lashings of butter on it) that I was defeated before I got to the end.

Spent part of the time practicing turning turnips.  I remembered that I wasted a little time during the mock exam doing extra ones (obviously losing some time there) but reminded myself that there would only be a couple of backups during the actual exam so some time should get picked up there, as well as the vegetable cooking.

I hate pigeon - the meat actually smells kind of vile.  After we thought it was cooked, I poked the meat when we roasted the crown and one felt pretty close to medium while the other one still felt really rare.  When I carved my pigeons, the parts that felt medium were medium, but the part close to the bone was still not cooked and even though it didn't bleed (much) when I carved it, blood got in the sauce when I put the sauce on the plate.  I'm not sure how I'll get the whole pigeon crown to medium at this stage because it looks like if the part by the bone is cooked, the rest of the breast might be overdone.  It's not quite as serious to be slightly under with the pigeon as it is with chicken (they want the pigeon medium, chicken has to be cooked through) but it can't be good if I can't roast the stupid thing.

We did manage to get the braising liquid from the lettuce sufficiently reduced to get a glaze and plate most of 2 plates.  No second lettuce and we skipped the chicken mousse because it's a component which is hard to mess up once you learn the tricks of the trade.  However, not particularly happy with the result of our practice and have to remind myself that conditions at home are very different from te ones at school.  For one thing, I'm not sure anyone has 7 pots at home and we spent part of our 4 hours washing up.  We did mark time for when we expected to be doing other elements during the exam (i.e. the chicken mousse for the lettuce, the poached eggs, spinach and Hollandaise sauce) but all in all it didn't turn out too badly, other than the pigeon which is still causing me problems.  Perhaps a longer sear - I'll have to ask the chef because the whole bleeding on the plate thing doesn't work for me.  The picture on the right above looks like one of those find the difference games they have for you when you're a child, the purpose being that the plates presented during the exam ought to be identical.   JE was unhappy with the sauce but I thought it was pretty good, taking into account we used the wrong stock (we didn't have veal and I haven't been able to find it) and the wrong wine (we didn't want to open a nice bottle of red wine and we had only gotten white wine from when we did the Hollandaise earlier in the week.

Made the tartlet but not the eggs, spinach or the Hollandaise.  For one thing, we ran out of pots and pans - they were all in use for the various components of the pigeon dish.  For another, JE had a little trouble with her dough and we don't know why.  And the moulds we used yesterday were a bit bigger than the ones we use for the exam so this was actually meant for practice lining and baking the tartlets anyway.  Not necessarily perfect (we don't know why the potatoes tasted better the last time we did them) but we learned quite a bit so it was definitely not a wasted day.

Dinner

There's this restaurant on Regent Street that I've passed by quite a few times and each time it seemed like one I would like to try.  Luckily one of my friends here had heard from someone that it was good so he booked 4 of us in.  It had interactive tables so we all had fun playing with it - it's pretty much like having a video screen of a computer screen on your table via projector and you can order food, drinks, ask for service, there's a Chef Cam which I thought was really cool (a bit blurry but watching the kitchen was kind of fun), each pair sitting across from each other played Battleship, you can flag down a waiter and change the decor on your table, to name just a few highlights.  I was going to take photos but the boys pooh-poohed the idea.  Well, they said boys don't take photos and I didn't want to embarrass them.  Food on the whole was good but my miso fish wasn't - couldn't taste the miso if there was any (really - but there was plenty of Thai sweet red chili sauce) and it was dry and super overcooked, so a little disappointing.  The fun factor pretty much made up for it though and we had a lot of laughs discussing whether it was a good idea or a bad one for a first date - consensus being it could be either one, depending on the date.

The restaurant had been described as a "funky Asian fusion" place so I put on pretty shoes to go out.  They were fine when I first put them on, but have come to the conclusion that they are more of the "sit there and look pretty" variety than "run down the street in high heels" kind.  We stopped by a bar on the way home, saw some wild gyrating in the direction of a hen's night (bachelorette party, for those of us not from the UK or Australia), then walked home.  By the time we got home, my feet were hurting.  Maybe it's just being out of practice walking in heels, but I suspect not.  I did think that perhaps this was the Little Mermaid's problem (the Hans Christian Andersen version, not the Disney one - where the price for being human was the loss of her voice and feeling like she was walking on knives while she followed her heart to her Prince and her death) - I bet she was wearing pretty but uncomfortable shoes.

Next on the agenda - writing out my recipes for the Patisserie exam runs this week and working on the portfolio.  I wanted to go to ballet this morning but am not sure whether my feet have forgiven me for subjecting them to high heels for an entire evening after weeks of sneakers, soft boots and kitchen shoes.

So until next time may your endeavors be more successful than our adventures have been thus far.

#55 - Tired, confused...and a little cooked

Cause for celebration
My memory stick adaptor may have gotten laundered, but 24 hours in a plastic bag with some rice grains seems to have dried it out and I can get photos off my camera card!  So on with the post.

A little cooked - Monday - Day 1 of sugar, Session 1...
Everyone said to be ready to get burns and blisters when we started our sugar module.  I was lucky enough to get away today with a couple of minor burns (but stay tuned - we don't finish until next week) when we did our poured sugar.  I forgot to grease my measuring cup for the sugar fountain, so it stuck to the sides.  One of the porters saw what I had done wrong, so he whispered that I should also pour the sugar down the centre of the ice cubes, not the side of the measuring cup for my coral.  I thanked him profusely and got a wink in reply, especially when Chef CB told me the same thing a few minutes later, although his language was a tad more colorful.  Yes, I am forgetful.

Anyway - sugar duly poured, I have quite a few things to work on for next time.  A few unintended things happened, but over the next few days a design should take shape because we have to do one of these for our final exam - a minimum of 2 - 3 platforms because our petit fours (the truffles and sable biscuits) are supposed to be able to rest on these.

Session 2 - The Rose
This is the one where we had to pull out our gloves.  I had bought mine last term while getting other supplies.  Even better, I remembered to take them to class!  So while some of the guys were whimpering from the heat, the girls who had gloves were happily pulling our sugar to make it satiny and shiny.  The final part of pulling the sugar got to be a bit of hard work - I had to basically lay over my hands over my sugar in order to press it after I'd pulled it.  We had to make sure it was shiny and silvery, keep it under a heat lamp, then pull bits off of it to make a rose and some leaves.

Eggs and potatoes
Also, as promised in the last post, here are a couple of pictures from the poached eggs and Hollandaise yesterday - oh, and the fondant potato.  A small piece of potato (well, we'll have to cook two pieces) slowly confited in an obscene amount of butter and only enough chicken stock to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Not that the poaching of eggs needs a lot of practice, but I forgot a couple of things so now I think I'm set.  The only thing is the potato - AM and I cooked them for about an hour and twenty minutes - and they still could have used a bit more cooking.  Thank goodness the final exam is 4 hours long.  I have to say, the egg could have been worse.  Still not my favorite with the runny yolk, but surprisingly edible.

We are all tired and confused.  I'm a bit sad because I hate being confused - I hope it passes soon because we've still got a fair amount of work left to do and I think this is when we will really need to dig in and work hard.  I'm trying to think the last time I shed a few tears over exams - hm, not since Intermediate when I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the practical exams, actually.

At least I have the comfort that my shortcrust pastry for the exam has the right consistency this time, even though it's still too thick (and it's see through when I line the moulds).  One of these days...
So until next time - may you be less tired and confused than I am.