Cream Puffs and Eclairs

Cream puffs, eclairs, profitore rolls - even a croquembouche - all start from the same basic dough. And while it's fairly simple, it's really nothing like most cake or cookie doughs at all. It starts in a pot, then moves to a mixer, then a piping bag, then the oven. There's a fair amount of work involved, but the end result: Delicious.  

 

Six months later...

So about six months ago I told you I was dropping everything, moving country, and going to pastry school. Well, I did, and I spent six months creating breads, cookies, cakes, tarts, mousses, petit fours, chocolate truffles, candies, decorated cakes and even some pulled sugar. And last week, I had a week-long exam to test everything I'd learned over the semester. Here's a look back:

Chocolate Orange Mousse Tart

There are some pairings that are totally natural: peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy. For me, I'm pretty partial to chocolate and orange. There's something about the bright citrus taste that pares well with the rich, dark, flavor of chocolate - which is why I was more than happy when we whipped up these chocolate orange tartlets in pastry school.

Challah and Whole Wheat Lean Bread

I promised a few weeks ago that I would share some recipes for the breads that I learned in the first unit of pastry school. I've been a bit delinquent, but here are two:

1. Challah, on Cookkosher.com

 

2. Whole Wheat Lean Bread on The Nosh Pit at the Jewish Week

Follow the links for recipes and more, by yours truly. Happy baking!

Pecan Tartlets

Y'all are lucky I'm in pastry school. See, until now, you've gotten recipes chock full of things I love, like chocolate, coconut, raspberry and... chocolate. Since I rarely bake things I don't like, you haven't seen really any nuts (except ground), mangoes, coffee or marshmallows. But when you go to pastry school, you don't get a whole lot of say in what you make, so despite my distaste for them, we made pecan pies last week.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Well here it is - the first full post - recipe and all - from pastry school. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about sharing some bread recipes, but we've moved on to cookies and well...how could I resist. These are chocolate almond biscotti, and while I never thought I was a big biscotti fan, these are exceptionally tasty.

This Week in Pastry School

I'm back...and I have more photos of delicious breads! This week we moved in to complex breads, with starters and sponges and poolishes. What this means, is that a portion of the dough is prepared a day, a few days or even a week in advance, and left to rest and develop flavors, before being used in a recipe. The most common of these is a sourdough starter, but there are in fact many types.

First up - Multigrain bread! This bread is filled with wonderfully healthy things like oats, flax and sunflower seeds. This recipe was made with what's called "pate fermente" or old dough, which is just how it sounds - a piece of dough left for 24 hours.

Next up is a fougasse - a traditional French flatbread, similar to focaccia, cut to resemble a leaf shape. It is brushed with a light coat of olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, and is crispy and chewy and delicious. 

This here is a white sourdough loaf, The sourdough is a starter made of flour and water that is left to develop for at least a week before use, for extra complex flavors.

This beauty is a crown made of rye sourdough rolls, filled with sunflower seeds and topped with some decorative oats, flax and sunflower seeds. We made two sourdoughs, one with white bread flour, used in recipes like the loaf above, and one with rye flour, used here.

These are more rye sourdough rolls, that are a little denser and richer, and filled with the oat-flax-sunflower seed mix instead of just straight sunflower seeds. It should be noted that no rye breads or rolls are actually 100% rye flour, but really a mix of rye and bread flours. All rye would be inedible. 

This is a loaf of whole wheat sourdough, shaped in to a cylinder shape. In case you were wondering, a slice of this, fresh out of the oven, with a touch of butter on it, is basically heaven. Also, lunch.

Not pictured: rosemary bread - which I actually have a loaf of in my freezer but have yet to try,  olive bread - which I did not eat because I hate olives and pita bread - which I devoured too quickly to photograph. Yep, I've been busy!

I promise, I will share some bread recipes soon - just wanted to share these delicious photos first.

This (Last) Week in Pastry School

So I've been super busy in the kitchen the past couple weeks, but I've yet to share any of that with you. 
So without further ado, here are the things I've been churning out of the oven recently. 

 

Pan de Mie - a French sandwich bread

Lean whole wheat loaf

Rye rolls with caraway seeds

 Challah

Whole wheat Pullman rolls

French baguettes

 "Epi"s

So, I've been busy - and that's just one week! I'm not intentionally leaving out recipes, but everything I have is in grams - and since the majority of my audience is American, I don't know how much help that would be. If there is a specific recipe you want, let me know!

Be back soon with more delicious food (and recipes!)