Cream Scones

Cream Scones, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

There is something so satisfying when you spread jam or butter, or drizzle honey over a hot scone. It is a mouthwatering and delicious way to start you day or enjoy with afternoon tea.

Quick Breads

Cream Scones

This recipe falls into the category of quick breads. It is easy and quick to prepare. It may be served for breakfast, a treat or for a high tea. Origination is from Great Britain. You can make plain or add currents, raisins or dried fruits.

9 oz A. P. flour unsifted
3 oz sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 c currants
1 1/3 c heavy cream
milk and sugar for topping

1) Blend dry ingredients including fruit into a large bowl. Make sure baking powder is well distributed.
2) Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the liquid in the well. Blend by hand until just mixed. Lumps are fine.
3) Scoop out onto a lightly floured surface. It will feel sticky. Knead a few times until well incorporated. Do not over mix.
4) Shape into two pieces and shape into circles about 1/2″ thickness.
5) Using a round cutter press straight down, without twisting and lift upwards. the scone can now be placed onto a sheet pan. Or, cut into pie shaped pieces. Place 2″ to 3″ apart on the pan as they will expand while baking.
6) Brush tops of scones with a little milk and sprinkle sugar on top.

Bake 400º 10 to 12 minutes. Larger 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on rack. Best when eaten fresh.

Jaconde Cake With Chocolate Design

Jaconde Cake With Chocolate Design, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

Cake Jaconde / Mona Lisa

8 large eggs
2 yolks
6 oz 10 X sugar sifted
8 oz almond flour
2 oz A. P. flour
2 oz butter melted (100º jiggled)
————–
6 oz egg whites
2 oz sugar ——————–> French meringue, medium to firm but not stiff

1) Beat eggs and yolks in mixer.
2) Sift dry ingredients together and set aside.
3) Add dry to mixer, cover, high speed for ten minutes.
4) Make French meringue medium to firm peaks.
5) Fold into batter, light into heavy, heavy into light.  Add butter and jiggle it in to batter. Blend very gently.

6) Prepare pans 1 and 1/2 sheet pans.
(Either sil pat with pate a cornet or greased with parchment paper and floured)
7) Add batter to pans or on top of the pate a cornet. Thumb edges.

Bake 400º to 450º 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and from sil pats.

* Pate a Cornet is a product of chocolate design on on a transfer sheet.  Be sure to place the pattern so it will show when the dessert is presented.

After the cake is cooled you may use it for the dessert you are making. the cake is very thin and is perfect for cutting strips and lining molds which may be filled with different fillings, layers of jaconde and fillings. For example chocolate mousse. Chill and when set, remove the mold ring or design, like a teardrop mold. The dessert is shaped and ready to be plated.

You may also make it into a roulade, which is French for the American jellyroll. Place a thin filling and roll. Sprinkle with 10X sugar or glaze with chocolate and let it set up before slicing. there are lots of variations and they are all so tasty.

Almond Tea Cookies

Almond Tea Cookies, originally uploaded by Theresa111.

It’s lunchtime and then it’s tea time. These little gems are a treat for your mouth.

 Almond Tea Cookies

Time consuming. Doubled, stuck together and decorated. This is a piped cookie, the consistency of choux paste.

6 oz almond paste
7 1/2 oz sugar
2 to 3 egg whites (2 to 3 ounces depends on paste)
———————
15 oz butter softened (pipeable)
12 oz cake flour
6 oz bread flour —————-> gluten level
1 pinch salt
vanilla extract to taste
almond extract to taste
Finishing:
ganache filling
tempered chocolate to dip edge of cookie
chopped pistachios dip last on wet chocolate edge
1/2 glace cherry

1) Using a mixer slowly combine almond paste, sugar and egg white to soft paste. Stop mixer and scrape bowl.

2) Add softened butter, mix. Add vanilla and almond.
3) Add flour and salt…just til combined.
4) Pipe shape #3 French Star Tube. Don’t overfill pastry bag.

Bake 350º to 375º 10 minutes.

When baked it appears like piped sable, light golden brown.

Freezes nicely.

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.

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.

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