Day 4: Apples, Apples Everywhere!

Okay, I have a confession to make, I cheated in class today.  That's right, Day 4 and already I'm cracking.  Today was the highly anticipated day that I had to make a Tarte Aux Pommes, or Apple Tart.  First of all, I've never made any kind of tart and secondly refer to the Day 2 post where I mentioned the no mixers, everything by hand, weight measurements and you begin to see my trepidation with this task.  To make matters worse our head chef was none other than Nicolas Bernarde.  Among his many awards and accomplishments is the Meilleur Ouvrier de France de Patisserie-Confiserie award for 2004.  Basically that means he was named the Best Pastry-Confectionery Chef in ALL of France for 2004.  Sheesh!  Talk about intimidating!

When I arrived in the kitchen a few minutes prior to 8:30am with the rest of my group we were told to gather our materials, begin making our dough, then prepare our apples, assemble our tarts and put them on a rack where they would sit until we could put a bunch in the oven at once to be cooked.  Sounds simple enough, but nothing is that simple in an unfamiliar kitchen with a famous pastry chef watching your every move.

The first step was easy, I opened my knife kit and took out my paring knife, chef's knife, spatula, scraper, peeler, and scale.  I measured my ingredients and started making my dough.  Everything seemed to be going well and then Chef Bernarde asked us all to watch while he showed us the "correct" way to chop apples.  Apparently someone was a step ahead of me and was not chopping their apples so successfully.  After getting an apple cutting tutorial I began to peel the apples using my peeler as the Chef had just shown us.  This is when I ran into problems.

Number one while I'm sure this is how many people peel apples, as it is clearly the "right" way to do it, this is not my method.  My method, which I learned from my Dad, and scares the dickens out of Suzanne Jackson, is to peel the apple toward me with a paring knife.  As these knives are brand new and very sharp I can see plenty of reasons not to peel apples in this way, but the peeler situation was taking FOREVER!  It was one strip here and one strip there and the chef was saying "Hurry, hurry, you're going to run out of time!"  So, that's when I broke.  I flashed back to Miss Perkins' second grade class when we were learning to write in cursive.  She would walk around during the handwriting portion of the day and mark us down if we weren't holding our pencils the "correct" way.  Well, I was the slowest writer ever when holding my pencil the correct way, so I would hold my pencil the correct way only when she walked around and then once she passed my desk I would throw caution to the wind and go back to my easier and quicker way of doing things.  

Channeling this experience I decided the quick and easy approach was once again the way to go while peeling apples.  Whenever the chef would leave the room or even walk to the far end of the room I would toss my peeler down and pick up that paring knife!  This, of course, was the cheating portion of my day.  Although I must add here that there are quite a few people in my class of an, shall we say, eastern persuasion, who I'm sure would have cheated if they'd had an opportunity to.  So, apples chopped and thrown into my melted butter on the stove I was once again in business!

After the apples were cooked I put them in a metal pan and put the pan in the refrigerator so they could cool.  Meanwhile I took my dough out of the refrigerator and started rolling it out on the island.  At this point we were once again called over for a lesson.  This lesson was on how to flour your work surface like a professional pastry chef and not "the way your Grandmother used to do it at home."  By the way, there are many references to not doing things like your Grandmother, but I'd like to say my Grandmas made some mean desserts in their day!  Where would I be today without Grandma Saville's apple pie, and cherry squares or Grandma Welshans' marble cake with chocolate icing and handmade candies shaped like peanuts and wreaths?

Again I digress so back to the assembly of the tart.  I managed to fit my dough into the tart ring, fill it with apples and carefully lay out apple slices in a fancy pattern as shown in the demonstration and was quite far ahead of most people in the class at this point when Chef said something that sounded like "blah, blah, blah," because he was speaking French.  I looked at him and he repeated, in English this time, "Your apples are backwards."  Ok, WTF?!  Really?  So, I took them out and started over.  Nonetheless after relayering my apples in a clockwise direction I was still one of the first people to put my tart on the rack and have it ready for the oven!

When we were all finished baking and cleaning up and the tarts were in the oven Chef told us we'd done well for our second day, but that we needed to be much more concentrated and work much faster going forward.  When the tarts came out of the over not everyone had a completely cooked tart because they had worked too slowly.  I am happy to report that while my tart wasn't the prettiest of all, it was certainly cooked all the way through!  

Since it was only our second practical class we once again escaped being graded today.  Instead the chef walked around and talked to each of us for a moment about what we'd baked.  I am also pleased to report that one of the greatest pastry chefs in all of France told me my tart looked ok for a first try, but that he was pleased by my ability to work quickly and keep a clean and organized work station.

My Tarte Aux Pommes

The moral of today's story is sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, but in the spirit of really grasping all that I'm being taught in this prestigious school I bought a 10kg bag of apples on my way home and plan to practice peeling the "correct" way until I can do that quickly and easily as well.  Afterall, I don't want my professional baking capabilities to turn out the same way as my cursive handwriting!

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!