Day 7: The Days Become Busier

First let me apologize for not blogging about Day 6 where I learned to make Madeleines and France's version of Fruit Cake.  My family flew in to Paris on Saturday morning and between visiting, sightseeing, and still going to school (yes even on Saturdays!) I did not have time to put something together.  Suffice it to say I made beautiful and tasty Madeleines and the Fruit Cake was more of a lemon pound cake with some fruit in it which allowed it to be rather tasty.  The real excitement of the day though was being graded for the first time.  I recieved three 3.5s and two 4s out of 5 in five categories.  I was definitely in the top half of my class and very pleased with my scores.  Chef said I had done a wonderful job and that my Madeleines were "tres jolie" or very nice.

Now on to today, Day 7.  This is where we apparently kick everything up into high gear!  We went from one class a day last week to two or three classes everyday now.  We are at school 6 days a week for 6 to 9 hours a day.  Today we began at noon with a class picture.  The next event was a 12:30pm demonstration class on how to make Saint Honore and Paris-Brest.  These two desserts are similar in that they combine different creams and pastry.  We then had to make the Saint Honore which looked a bit like a cross between a banana cream pie from Pie Gourment and Munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts in our 3:30pm practical class.

I really think the most stressful part of all of this is just having to get things done so quickly.  The order of events for the class was make your pastry dough for the bottom crust, make your choux pastry for the puffs, make your chantilly cream, and make your caramel sauce.  Each of these tasks was pretty straightforward, but I did run into a few glitches along with way.

Making the pastry dough for the bottom crust was easy as pie, literally.  Making the pastry choux was a little more complicated.  I had to combine milk, salt, sugar, water, and butter on the stove and wait for it to boil, I then added flour and mixed it over the heat until all of the ingredients came together to form a dough.  After removing the mixture from the heat and putting it into another bowl I added 3 eggs.  After adding the 3 eggs we were instructed to present our concoction to the chef to find out if we should add any more eggs as this is a very temperamental dough.  I was instructed to add 1/2 of one egg and after mixing it in I was very happy with the consistency of my dough.  For those non cooks out there that are perplexed as to how to add 1/2 of one egg to anything, you simply whisk a whole egg in a small bowl with a fork and pour half of it into your mixture.

I then piped mini blobs of the choux pastry onto the cookie sheet that already had my bottom crust on it and the whole tray was put in the oven.  While it was baking we made caramel sauce to dip our finished product in and whipped cream to line the bottom of the pastry crust.  I need to take a moment here to say that I will definitely have super defined arms when I get home.  I made whipped cream with a whisk today.  No mixer.  Not fun.  I feel like I work on a farm and as a matter of fact if I'd continued to whip the cream about 5 minutes longer I actually would have made butter as, unfortunately, was the case for some of my classmates.

So, with my doughs cooked and cooled, I began dipping my pastry puffs in the VERY hot caramel mixture.  I burned my right index finger right of the bat and am still feeling the pain now as I type.  That, thankfully, was my only caramel accident though which I think is pretty great considering how many puffs I had to dip.

Saint Honore dough fresh from the oven!

Saint Honore

After dipping the puffs and assembling my Saint Honore I piped my freshly whipped Chantilly Cream into my pastry and decorated it accordingly.  At the end of the class I was left with a beautiful Saint Honore and a very good idea of how to begin replicating Pie Gourmet's banana cream pie when I come home.  Drew can't wait for you to be my taste tester!  And when it was all said and done I once again received very high marks in relation to the rest of my class.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!