In this thread I will share with you all of the many things I learn each day in culinary school. I'll try to provide you with pictures too. I also am doing this because I'm very bored.
Anyway, today was one of the final days of my Introduction to Baking & Pastry class. I'm a culinary arts major, so this is one of only 2 required baking classes. I really hate baking, and as a result, hate every minute in this class. So today we made Pate Sucre. It's one of 4 classic pastry doughs, the other three being pate brisee, pate sablee, and pate a choux. Sucre means sugar, so this is a very sugary dough. It is used mainly for tarts, as it is a very sturdy dough which can hold the tart shape.
Today we had to make two tarts in groups. I was partners with my usual PIC. We made our Pate Sucre dough first and let it chill. The two tarts we had to make was a frangipane and pear tart, and then one chocolate cream tart. Frangipane is basically just an almond filling. So my partner and I made the frangipane and then we poached the pears. For this tart, we used a raw tart shell--meaning just the dough shaped into the pan. The reason we didn't prebake the tart shell was because the frangipane and pear all had to cook together, and in the 40 minutes that it would cook, the tart would have been burnt badly had we prebaked it.
As that was baking, we also baked our other tart shell. For the chocolate cream tart, the chocolate doesn't need cooked, so we prebake the tart shell and then fill it w/ the pastry cream. While the shell cooked, we made the pastry cream, which is basically a chocolate custard. We also made whipped cream and it all ended up coming together pretty well.
Neither my partner or I like sweet stuff that much, and I'm trying to eat better, so we decided to trade away our tarts (which we got As on). Our pear/frangipane tart we took over to the school's President's office and let him and his secretary eat it. They really loved it, which was a nice compliment from the President. Then, we took the chocolate cream tart over to the International Cuisine class. They were making sushi and sashimi today. So for our tart we got a roll of sushi and some wasabi, and some sashimi. It was all excellent.
Anyway, today was one of the final days of my Introduction to Baking & Pastry class. I'm a culinary arts major, so this is one of only 2 required baking classes. I really hate baking, and as a result, hate every minute in this class. So today we made Pate Sucre. It's one of 4 classic pastry doughs, the other three being pate brisee, pate sablee, and pate a choux. Sucre means sugar, so this is a very sugary dough. It is used mainly for tarts, as it is a very sturdy dough which can hold the tart shape.
Today we had to make two tarts in groups. I was partners with my usual PIC. We made our Pate Sucre dough first and let it chill. The two tarts we had to make was a frangipane and pear tart, and then one chocolate cream tart. Frangipane is basically just an almond filling. So my partner and I made the frangipane and then we poached the pears. For this tart, we used a raw tart shell--meaning just the dough shaped into the pan. The reason we didn't prebake the tart shell was because the frangipane and pear all had to cook together, and in the 40 minutes that it would cook, the tart would have been burnt badly had we prebaked it.
As that was baking, we also baked our other tart shell. For the chocolate cream tart, the chocolate doesn't need cooked, so we prebake the tart shell and then fill it w/ the pastry cream. While the shell cooked, we made the pastry cream, which is basically a chocolate custard. We also made whipped cream and it all ended up coming together pretty well.
Neither my partner or I like sweet stuff that much, and I'm trying to eat better, so we decided to trade away our tarts (which we got As on). Our pear/frangipane tart we took over to the school's President's office and let him and his secretary eat it. They really loved it, which was a nice compliment from the President. Then, we took the chocolate cream tart over to the International Cuisine class. They were making sushi and sashimi today. So for our tart we got a roll of sushi and some wasabi, and some sashimi. It was all excellent.
. You could always check out some cooking classes around the city. Sur La Table normally has some, some of the nicer grocery stores or butchers also offer them, and I believe Kendall has some Saturday morning stuff every now and then. Might be able to give you some new ideas to change things up.
