Week 24-25: Intro to Plated Desserts

Our first plated dessert unit was only 6 classes long, but boy did it feel like a lifetime. Perhaps one of the units I was most looking forward to, it was almost a complete disaster. I'm now regularly blogging at Food 2, and you can read all about my class's struggles with plated desserts in the Food 2 School series here.

Chocolate Marquise with cherry compote & creme anglaise

Here's all the pictures I took from the unit. Everything we made was as delicious as it looked, if not more. My chef pants grew even tighter over those two weeks (and they're tight to begin with being as they're manufactured inexplicably so that the "elastic" waist is half the circumference of 1 pant leg). For many reasons, I was really happy to leave behind individual desserts for the time being.

Creme Caramel

My favorite items from the unit were probably the pineapple tarte tatin and the creme brulee (which has long been my favorite dessert). Any of the ice creams and sorbets we made were delicious, and I could usually be found covertly (ok, maybe not so covertly) taking additional scoops of them.

Creme Brulee with Pistachio Shortbread

My least favorite was definitely the creme caramel (flan). How can a cousin of creme brulee taste so bad?? For me, when I don't like an item it's usually because of the texture, and creme caramel is the perfect example of this.

Fennel Hazelnut Tart with Fig Ice Cream

To illustrate just how many components go into these desserts, for two of the pictures I identified each of the items on the plate.

Lemon Tart with Basil Creme Anglaise & Berry Sorbet

Milk Marmalade Tart

Manjari Chocolate Tart with Coconut Ice Cream

Banana Macadamia Financier

Pineapple Tarte Tatin with Pineapple Passion Sauce

& Lemon Frozen Yogurt

Spinach and Cheese Jalousie with Bechemel Sauce

Skillet Giveaway and Tarte Tatin!

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that CSN had contacted me, wanting me to do a product review from their site cookware.com and host a giveaway on my blog. Anxious to remake the tarte tatin I loved in the puff pastry unit, I selected a nonstick skillet. If you're impatient and want to get straight to the details of the giveaway, scroll down to the bottom of this post.


The skillet is a nonstick Farberware skillet. It's very lightweight, but felt sturdy when I was using it. And it is certainly nonstick. This tarte has a lot of gooey caramel that usually sticks to the bottom of the pan when it's flipped over (tarte tatin is an apple tart that is baked in a skillet, upside down, and then flipped over), but when I flipped it over this time, there was no caramel left on the bottom. I think it's pretty great so far, and can't wait to use it more. The only drawback to the pan though is that the handle is metal, and it can get really hot when you use it. This is true of almost all skillets, and all the pots and pans we use at FCI, but I felt that I should point it out.

Tarte fresh out of the oven, look at how clean the skillet looks

Ok, time for the recipe. Whether or not you win the skillet, I highly recommend trying this out. It's my perfect dessert - simple, delicious, and apple. Before we go into the details, I have a confession to make...I used store-bought frozen puff pastry. I fully intended making my own, but it's a time consuming process, and time is not in abundance for me lately. If you can make your own, I recommend doing it, but if you don't have time, frozen puff pastry will work just fine.

Shhhhh...don't tell Chef Cynthia

Ingredients:

Pastry dough, enough to cover the pan (I used puff pastry, but you could use a pate sucree or pate brisee)
5 tbsp unsalted butter, cut in pieces
1 1/4 c sugar
5 Golden Delicious apples
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Tarte covered in puff pastry, before going into the oven

Directions:

1. Roll out puff pastry or thaw if you are using store-bought.
2. Peel, halve, and core the apples.
3. Put the apple halves round side down in the pan (crowd them in there together, I only used 4 apples in the 12" pan, but wished I had 1 more).
4. Put the pan on the stovetop over medium heat. When the apples start to brown, add the sugar.
5. Lower the heat and cook until the sugar caramelizes.6. Add the tbsp of vanilla extract over the top of the apples.
7. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.
8. Cover the apples with the puff pastry, tucking the extra into the pan (do not allow pastry to hang over the edge of the pan).
9. Bake the tart at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry is nicely browned and baked through.
10. Remove the tart from the oven and immediately unmold it onto a plate or serving dish. Be very careful - the caramel will be extremely hot. I put the plate over top the pan and then in one rapid motion (wearing oven mitts), flip it over.

Finished product!

Ok, so now the good part, the giveaway! It's very simple to enter - just leave your name and email address in the comments section, and I'll use a random number generator to pick the winner. Tarte tatin has been my favorite dessert featured on my blog, so feel free to let me know what yours has been in the comments. You have until this Friday at 3:00 pm EST. One entry per person! Good luck!

Upcoming Tarte Tatin Recipe & Product Giveaway!!

Remember this from my puff pastry unit? It was a delicious blend of apples, puff pastry, caramel, and apple brandy, and I was lucky enough to have it in my apartment when I was snowed in during the last snow storm. It was so amazing that I ate the whole thing by myself. In one day. I'm not too embarrassed to admit that. I've been wanting to recreate that tarte tatin (upside down apple tart) since that day, but haven't had a cast iron skillet that the recipe needed. I've had my eye on one like this, but acquiring one keeps slipping my mind.

Last week I was contacted by CSN, one of the internet's largest home and office goods distributors. In addition to an awesome selection of cookware and bakeware, they have a site dedictated to home bars. I'm thinking one of the smaller ones would look great in my apartment. The best part is they want me to do a product review and giveaway on Cupcake Obsessed! I was so excited to be able to share something with my readers, and began perusing one of their sites, Cookware.com. I was delighted and overwhelmed with all the amazing baking products they offer; it's really incredible. They have 222 results for spatulas alone!! After spending last week browsing some kitchenware stores in New York City, CSN's prices were also a major relief to me. They have a wide selection of sale items, and everything feels reasonably priced.

After browsing the incredible selection and falling in love with this, these, and this, I decided that this cast iron skillet should be the featured giveaway. It's an item that everyone needs, if only to make the tarte tatin. Fortunately, you can make a ton more in a skillet like this.


Next week I will be featuring the recipe for the tarte tatin and giving away one Universal Housewares 10.5" skillet to 1 lucky blog reader, complimentary of CSN. Stay tuned next week for your chance to enter!

Week 8: More Puff Pastry

Puff pastry continued into last week. I'm starting to get the sense that when it comes to puff pastry, it's a love it or hate it thing for my classmates. I'm firmly in the "love it" category. There's just something soothing to me in all the rhythms of making the dough. That said, I was not a huge fan of a new puff pastry we tackled this week - chocolate puff pastry. It was a huge pain to make, didn't produce as much rise as even the rapide.

On Tuesday, we made poires en cage (pears in cage), conversations, and fruit galettes. The poires en cage looked really cool and were fairly simple to make. We poached the pears in a caramel ginger spice liquid, which was delicious.

Poires en cage

Conversations are a pastry that is made using puff pastry, almond cream, and royal icing. It's all put together and baked. Out of the three desserts from that night, this one was my coworkers' favorite. I tried a bit of it (I'm not allergic to almonds, just hesitant to eat them) and thought it was really sweet. A little bit more than my liking.

Conversations - traditional on the right

A galette is a free form tart, and we used puff pastry to form the base. The fruit compote was made with a combination of cherries, blueberries, plums, and a touch of brandy. Nothing like some liquor to up the ante of breakfast.

Mini galettes

On Thursday, most of us braved the beginning of the snow storm to get to class and make jalousie, pithivier, and tarte tatin. Jalousie, pronounced "jealousy" is a puff pastry dessert made with a layer of almond cream topped with a layer of raspberry jam. It's made to resemble the Venetian blinds a baker always witnessed his neighbor peeking through, spying on his wife to catch her cheating.

Jalousie

Pithivier, also known as king's cake, is made with puff pastry, and frangipane - a mixture of pastry cream and almond cream. Traditionally, this pastry is made hiding a plastic baby inside the cake. I have no clue what the significance is, but I'd be freaked out to find a tiny baby in my dessert. Whoever finds the baby though gets to be king for the day.

No baby in this cake

Tarte tatin is one of my new favorite things to eat. It's so simple - just caramelized apples and puff pastry. With a splash of Calvados. First you caramelize the apples in a skillet using butter and sugar. Once you have a good color to the apples, you throw some Calvados (apple brandy) in the pan to flambe it. I poured a little bit too much in and ended up with a HUGE flame shooting up from the pan. Really, really scary. Fortunately, I still have my eyebrows. After the apples cool, you cover them with puff pastry and put it in the oven to bake. Once the puff is baked through, you take it out of the oven and immediately flip the skillet over to release the tart. All the snow made it impossible to get into work on Friday, so I was trapped in my house with this tart. At the end of Friday, there was no tarte tatin left.

Friday's breakfast, lunch and dinner

On Saturday, we used the chocolate puff pastry we had made the class before. We made and plated some banana tarts. Chef Joseph made some peanut butter ice cream to accompany them, and it was amazing. I'm not a huge banana fan though. It's just something about the texture I don't like.

Banana tart with peanut butter ice cream and chocolate sauce

We also made a chocolate Napoleon strip. The recipe called for only a creme d'or (a fast chocolate mousse) with the chocolate puff pastry, but our instructor felt it was just too much chocolate, so we also used a lightened pastry cream for a contrast of colors and flavors. The end result was really beautiful.

The crowning glory of the week

Pastry School Week 4: Last Week of Tarts & Cookies

This past week was our last week of tarts & cookies. Our big exam is Tuesday and I have a lot of studying to do (and Grammys to watch), so I'm going to keep this brief. Or at least try to...as I'm sure you have already noticed I have problems with brevity.

Tuesday was chocolate day in class. We made a chocolate Bavarian tart, a ganache tart and sablee cookies, which are not chocolate.

Chocolate Bavarian Tart

We had real issues with the heavy cream (well, at least I did). It seemed much thicker than usual, and it was warm. Now that it's been several days since I ate it and no food borne illness, I can say that I'm sure it was fine, but it was definitely sketchy. The chocolate Bavarian tart was amazing though. We made a chocolate custard and lightened it with whipped cream--soooo good.

Ganache Tart

The ganache tart was very rich. We also got to practice our piping skills, adding the white chocolate as a finishing touch.

Sablee cookies

Ok, so these cookies are one of my favorite things we've made so far in class, if not my absolute favorite. Pate Sablee could be used as a tart dough, but we rolled it out into cookies. We added a bit of candied orange & lemon peel into the dough and finished them with a lemon glaze. And then I ate all of them for breakfast the next morning.

Thursday's theme was caramel- we made it both for the tartelettes tatin and caramel nut tart. I've had issues with caramel in the past, but this one went pretty easily. However, at one point we were watching our instructor demo something and the room filled with a lot of smoke. Someone had left a pot of caramel on the stove and it had turned to char.

Tartelettes Tatin

These apple tartelettes were something else I ate for breakfast this week. Tarte tatin is a classic French dessert with the caramel is poured into the tart pan first, followed by apples and then covered with dough. When they come out of the oven, you quickly flip them over, out of the tart pans.

Bourbon Pecan Cookies

Caramel nut tart

Inside the caramel nut tart

The caramel nut tart got really great reviews from my coworkers. Even though I can't eat it (nut allergy), I think I'll definitely be making it again.

Saturday was the last class before our exam. We did some review and finished up the last tarts.

Raspberry compote

We made a raspberry apple compote for our linzer tortes. Those are two of my favorite fruits, so I thought it was great.

Linzer Torte

I also couldn't eat the linzer torte because it had hazelnuts in the dough. Stupidly, after rolling out the dough, I must have touched my lip and it was sooo itchy after that. The lattice top of the torte was a real challenge, but I'm happy I know how to do that now.

Quiche Lorraine

If I could eat one food for the next three months without gaining 100 pounds, it would be quiche Lorraine. I was iffy on it when I saw it on the syllabus. For some reason I didn't think I liked quiche, but this one was really amazing. It was a flaky crust and a really creamy custard with bacon and gruyere baked into it.

Now it's time to study for my test! That was definitely not brief!!!