Busche de Noel

Busche de Noel, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

This is an edible Christmas log and with the tiny candle, one can even light it for a celebration. It makes a wonderful centerpiece and is is filled with delectable roulade, soaked in rum syrup and iced with butter cream. The designs and decorations are marzipan and meringue. Just looking at it makes my mouth water.

I want to take this time to wish all of my readers the Happiest Holiday and Winter Season. Take time to fill your heart with love and laughter. I would wish that all of our Earth’s peoples would be kind to one another.

“I leave you peace, my peace I give you.” JC

Napoleon Cake Plated Dessert

Napoleon Cake Plated Dessert, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

Napoleon

These are a few ways to plate this dessert. The cake has stupendous fillings between each layer. Any layered pave cake is considered to be a napoleon. Pave means brick and indicated the shape of the cakes assembly.

Cakes
Napoleon Pave

This is a pave cake which is shaped like a brick, cobblestone or shoe box shapes 2 1/2″ high x 3″ wide. This cake has a winter finish of soft fondant, chocolate fondant pulled with a knife for feathering. The summer finish is powdered sugar on the top with criss-cross, skewer marks.

3 pieces puff pastry {baked in sheet pan, cooled and divided equally}
2 - 3 c vanilla pastry cream (see recipe)
2 c sliced toasted almonds

1) Roll out puff pastry roll with roller docker to perforate the dough. Drop in sheet pan, cover with plastic, rest and bake 375º 20 minutes and dry out 20 minutes. Cool on rack. Divide the puff sheet into three equal pieces. The best piece for the top, the second best for the bottom and the third best for the middle. Place together and trim edges for uniformity.
2) Bottom piece is anchored to the assembly plate or cardboard with some pastry cream. Spread 1/2″ pastry cream over surface. Add middle piece and repeat. Add top layer then ice all of the sides with pastry cream.
3) Apply sliced toasted almonds around all of the sides.
4) Let rest in refrigerator overnight.

Serving will be easier if you precut the top portion by marking where the cuts should be.

Creams and Curds
Pastry Cream / Creme Patessiere

Pastry cream is a custard using corn starch. You cannot freeze it. It is used is filling choux, tarts, souffles and is a remarkable base for butter cream. It flavors beautifully with vanilla, milk chocolate, liquors etc.

16 oz whole milk
4 egg yolks
5 T corn starch (1 1/2 oz)
4 oz sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt

1) Bring milk just to a boil in a medium, heavy saucepan. Remove from heat.
2) In a mixing bowl whisk the egg yolks and add in the sugar until creamy. Little by little, add the cornstarch mixing constantly.
3) Temper the egg mixture by slowly whisking in 1/3 of hot milk. Then stir in the remaining hot liquid. Stir and return to heat.
4) Play piano by removing then returning the saucepan to the heat. You must be careful not to curdle the mixture by heating the ingredients over 185º.
5) Stirring constantly, bring pastry cream to a boil. When it looks thickened and shiny. Taste should be sweet.
6) Immediately strain through a Sieve into a clean cool bowl and place over a larger bowl filled with ice.
7) Add flavoring.

Keep cool, covered with plastic, melted butter, sugar, crumbs, etc, in order to seal it.

You may store in the fridge for 3 to 4 days. Never freeze. You can bake as in a raw pastry tart.

Baba Savarin with Fresh Fruit Salad

Baba Savarin with Fresh Fruit Salad, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

Yeast Dough

Savarin and Baba Raisins

Prepared just like brioche but with slight variations. After baking there is drying time, dipping and glazing.

1 lb A P flour
1 tsp salt
2 oz sugar
1 1/2 t yeast
1/2 c warm water (100º to 105º)
5 eggs
7 oz butter cubed, softened but still cool
up to 1/2 c water (drizzled into dough…be careful)

1) Dissolve yeast into water, adding a pinch of sugar to feed the yeast.
2) Add flour, salt and sugar to mixing bowl and attach the dough hook. Stir.
3) Add yeast to the center of the mixing bowl and stir on speed 2 for two minutes.
4) Add eggs one at a time, very slowly and knead for 5 minutes.
5) Add cubed butter all at once. Scrape the sides and dough hook many times throughout this process.
6) Add water by drizzling onto the dough, but only a small amount at a time. Continue kneading. The dough will be wetter in the end and will appear like tiny webs of dough clinging to the sides of the bowl and dough hook.

Turn the dough onto the lightly floured surface. Shape, place into clean dry bowl and cover to rise room temperature about 85º until doubles in size. Shape and pipe into pans, Large and small shapes.

Bake in preheated 375º oven full ring 25 minutes, turn over and bake 40 minutes more. Small molds bake 20 minutes, turn over and bake 30 minutes. This extra time allows the savarin time to dry out. Cool on wire rack.

Dip into 1 to 2 quarts of citrus syrup and put onto wire rack with sheet underneath to catch the drippings. Spritz with rum and glaze with hot apricot glaze.
Always serve savarin with fresh fruit salad and creme chantilly (see recipes).

Variation: Baba Raisin. Bake in a cylinder baking pan. Roll out dough into a rectangle and sprinkle about a cup of raisins. Roll up dough and cut into 1/2″ slices. Stand up onto greased sheet pan and let proof until doubled in size.

Yield is 3 large 9″ rings or 35 small rings.

Dough can be frozen after the second rise, or after the first rise in air tight container.

Creme Chantilly

Always served with savarin . Great with puff pastry and many other fresh deserts.

1 qt heavy cream
3 oz 10X sugar
2 t vanilla extract

1) Whip cream by hand or mixer until cream is slightly thickened.
2) Add the sugar and vanilla and continue to whisk until cream is smooth and light, not grainy. Do not over whip.

Serve right away or chill in refrigerator.

Yield is 2 cups.

Citrus Syrup

(4 quarts each ) Equal parts water and sugar, bring to a boil. Turn down heat to low setting. Cut fruit into quarters.  Add fruit and continue simmering.

oranges, apples, lemons, limes.

6 cinnamon sticks and 6 star anise

1 cup dark rum or whiskey

Continue simmering for up to an hour.  Remove from heat and set aside until ready to soak savarin.  Return to a boil and simmer again just before you add the savarin.

Gateaux St. Honore

Gateaux St. Honore, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

Cakes

Gateaux St. Honore

This is a marvelous way to end the day.  Simply take your leftovers and prepare this delicious and creative cake.  This way you never have to waste any delectable pastry goodies.  This cake is in honor of Saint Honore who is the patron saint of bakers.  The base of the cake is made from puff pastry scraps or quick puff; 1/16″ to 1/8″ scraps, heavily docked.  The walls of the cake are built with choux paste; profiteroles dipped into caramel and glued on with caramel sugar.  This is also referred to as an Alsacienne Tart.

leftover profiteroles
leftover puff pastry or quick puff (rolled round, docked and the edge egg washed)
leftover choux paste (pipe around the outer edge of puff circle, where egg washed)

Filling:
1/2 pastry cream ————————–This is Creme Chibouste
1/2 Italian meringue

1) Bake 375º 20 to 25 minutes and dry out.
2) Combine pastry cream and meringue, equally, by folding into a Creme Chibouste.
3) Pipe Creme Chibouste level with the piped choux edge.
4) Dip profiteoles into caramel and glue to the choux with additional caramel sugar.  Adhere to the baked choux wall.
5) Pipe more Creme Chibouste making level with the glued profiteroles.
6) Top with a caramel glazed profiterole.

Coconut Macaroons

Coconut Macaroons, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

These cookies are so adorable and deliver a sweet crunch with very moist coconut to surround your tongue. My husband loves these but I on the other hand don’t eat coconut. They smell so good.

Cookies

Coconut Macaroons

Here is another light, fragile melt in your mouth cookie. Great for all occasions.

4 large egg whites
10 oz sugar
15.2 oz coconut
dash of vanilla
1/4 or 1/2 glace cherry

1) Blend with whisk egg whites and sugar over a hot water bath to liquify. You can hear when the sugar has been dissolved. Remove from heat being careful not to cook the egg whites. This is the binder for the cookie.
2) Add 1/2 coconut and sprinkle with vanilla.
3) Add remainder coconut and blend with a rubber scraper.

Dip 100 (size) scoop into water before scooping dough. Wet your opposite hand and press the filled scoop against the fleshy past of your palm, closest to your thumb. Shape the cookie and keep any stray coconut from hanging out, or it will get burned.
Place cherry atop each cookie on sheet pan.

Bake 350º 10 to 15 minutes or until a light brown. Cool on rack.

Yield is 5 dozen cookies.

Classic French Apple Tart

Classic French Apple Tart, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

UM…Mmm…Oh! An Apple can be made into so many wonderful things to eat. Perhaps the most versatile of fruits. A pate brisse, flaky crust, frangipane and very thinly sliced apples, paraded over the filling into an almost pinwheel design. Dotted with butter and sugar, then baked to perfection. Brush tenderly with hot apricot glaze and voila. Fabulous hot and especially chilled. Leftovers are even more delicious.

Pies and Tarts

Classic French Apple Tart

This is a mouth-watering and deliciously simple desert. Top with a dollop of fresh whipped cream or frozen Creme Anglaise. (vanilla ice cream)

1       9″ raw pate sucree shell (recipe previously printed)
6 or 7 apples (precooked 20 minutes and chilled; chopped and thinly sliced)
butter and sugar for apples

1) Combine chopped apples into the raw pate sucree shell. Dot with butter and sugar.
2) Design the top by fanning the sliced apples, keeping even so the edges don’t burn.
3) Dot the top with butter and sugar.

Bake in preheated 350º to 375º oven about 45 minutes.

Cool on wire rack and after ten minutes glaze with hot apricot glaze. Continue to cool overnight.

Store uncovered in the refrigerator. Will keep for 3 to 4 days.

Variation: Coat a thin layer of frangipane onto the bottom of the shell, just before adding the cubed apples.

Creme Brulee…while it’s being torched…Do you see the flame?

Creme Brulee…while it’s being torched…Do you see the flame?, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

Creme Brulee

This is one of the most satisfying desserts ever. The creaminess of the custard and the crunch of the caramelized sugar is fantastic. Top with some fresh fruit and wow!

2 c heavy cream (hot, but don’t boil)
4 egg yolks
2 1/2 oz sugar
flavorings: (extracts, coffee beans, zest, etc., after infusion, strain & remeasure the liquid)

1) Heat heavy cream, but not too hot.
2) Mix yolks and sugar together and temper with warmed liquid.
3) Fill au gratin dishes 3/4 full.
4) Prepare water bath.

Bake 325º 20 to 30 minutes. Cool and remove dishes. Refrigerate.

Serve by filling the top of the dishes with sugar white or brown and torching it.

Yield is eight servings.

So You Want To Be A Pastry Chef

For years…I so longed to become a pastry chef. To quit my day job and apply to the prestigous L’Academie de Cuisine. To attend Chef Francois Dinot’s culinary school. To study pastry arts and then to prepare edible art.…mouth-watering French desserts. I dreamed of doing this very thing for eight years.

It’s the last week of May 2005……………
I am exhausted! Attending school three days a week. Working at my externship at Grand Hyatt Washington three days a week. Studying, riding the metro home (two hours), taking care of the household. Washing my uniforms and getting things laid out for the next day.

There’s more………………
Typing my recipes onto my computer, getting to visit my Mother only once a week…(two hours driving time). Getting up at 4:45 AM to rush around and be driven on the Capitol Beltway with crazy drivers and gratefully arrive at school by 6:15 AM. With a dash to the ladies lockerroom, I change into my chef’s uniform, tie up my hair, shove my belongings into the small locker, shove the lock closed and grab my books on my way to the kitchen. It’s 6:35 AM…”So you want to be a chef. Right?” This is the question I would ask myself every 24 hours or so.

The Chocolate Roulade is painted with dark rum flavored simple syrup, spread with ganache and then rolled up, is only one of my five desserts. Each student had five desserts to prepare and assemble for our final buffet. Our practical exam. The lighter chocolate is in fact chocolate butter cream that is iced over the entire rolled cake. About thirty minutes before the roulade is to be sliced, it is taken from the freezer and glazed with dark glazing ganache. Ooh la la!

The entire five months and the stress and worry over my elderly mother was grueling and at times I wondered if I would make it. But with a lot of faith and prayers I did just that.

Posted in Chefs, Cooking, Culinary School, Desserts, Food, French Pastry, Personal, Photography, Recipes, Writing. 5 Comments »