I am utterly disappointed with myself; for blogging in haste and rushing with the past three posts. I shall never, ever marathon blogged like that again. It causes me to be at a loss of words, and unable to pen down the right emotions and train of thoughts.
Bakingwithbeurre is a space where I have come to share what I have learned in school or how my day went. It has also became a baking identify/persona for me.
With that thought, I was thinking, that maybe, I should share some of the recipes for certain patisserie which I have made in school, as, eventually after graduation and all, I will still probably be using the same recipes and methods, so it should be okay for me to share my experience and all. What do you think? Do comment if you would like that. =)
Moving on, I would like to share with you, how my first day at Week #5 of school went!
This week is all about using Pâte sucrée to make tarte, which is sweet pastry dough for making tarts. Chef Marc did a demonstration on how to make Tarte Mika, Tarte Bourdaloue and tarte meringuée aux poires caramélisées.
To be pretty honest, I know nothing about tarts. In fact, I have only tried baking once, a strawberry tart, which had me and my pal, Joanne throwing out the pastry cream twice because once; we burnt the cream, and secondly, no matter how much we whisked, it was just liquid. The third time, Joanne didn't give up and just kept whisking, that's when we finally got something that look like pastry cream.
We also made the pastry base with mediocre knowledge on how to work the dough (keep cold) and then that's it.
If I stepped into a cafe, tarts is not on my list for desserts. It was either Tiramisu, chocolate cake or something with melting chocolate. Of course, the passion for baking led me to this road where I chose to study patisserie and now...I've opened my eyes and broaden my knowledge to the vast world of patisserie.
That aside, Tarte Mika is one difficult tart to construct.
It has got 4 components in it; the sweet pastry dough, the sea salted caramel, bavarian pears & honey cream and finished with poached pears, neutral glaze and pear brandy.
Just think - you will have to fonçage (line the tart mold) the Pâte sucrée, prepare the sea salted caramel and set aside. Then followed by making the bavarian pears and honey cream; which is a cream similar to pastry cream, but thicken using gelatin. After which, you'll decorate the tart with poached pears around the sides.
Next, we have the Tarte Bourdaloue (pronounced as 'Bor-da-loo) a.k.a Pear and almond cream tart.
It is a sweet pastry tart with dark rum almond cream and assembled with syrup pears, and sprinkled with sliced almonds. If you're expecting that the almond cream is creamy or soft, you're wrong. It's baked together with the tart, so it is pretty much cooked, and sort of...in my own words (Chef would be horrified) merged together with the tart.
I remembered digging in on this tart, and thinking to myself, is my pastry base that thick? And then it hit me that while my crust was actually thin (only 3mm), the 'pastry' I'm eating, is actually the almond cream itself.
I didn't really like this tart that much, but besides that, the syrup pears was really light and sweet and paired well with the tart. It's like eating sweet soft warmed pears with a slight crispy tart bottom.
Last but not least, we have the tarte meringuée aux poires caramélisées, which is a Caramelised pears and crisp almond crust tart.
This tart is basically constructed with 3 components; the sweet pastry dough, with a filing compromising of pears and rum raisins and decorated with crisp almond crust; which is made with meringue.
The diced pears is cooked in butter and sugar till soft and then flambé which is a cooking method, where alcohol is heated to the food in a hot pan to create a burst of flames; this allows for the evaporation of the alcohol, but yet retains the flavour of the alcohol. (Not sure if you understand what I'm trying to say.) It's like removing the alcohol in the liquor, and only retaining the flavour, like riped grapes or fruity flavour of that liquor, for instance.
I remembered working at a restaurant where we served flambé steaks, heating up the liquid in a pouring apparatus and then pouring it onto the steak, and when the alcohol touches the hot plate, it creates a burst of flames - that was entertainment to the customers, and is worth like, $10 more than normal priced steaks. That was fun though, for me. I felt damn cool. HAHA!
This tart is a good flavor mixture of crunchy tart, sourish with a hint of rum and chewy when you get to the almond crust.
Ready for my masterpiece?
It looks good doesn't it?
Previously, we had made the dough in misc en place during previous practical class using the sablage method; dicing the cold butter and combining with the flour to create sand like texture (You can also use the rub in method). We use the same dough and abaissé (to roll out with rolling pin) the dough 3mm thin, maintaining the round shape. Once done, we put the ring mold over the dough and cut extra space of 2 fingers around the ring mold.
After which, we chill the dough for a while to make it easy for fonçage, lining of the tart ring mold. Using a rolling pin to fonçage the mold is a difficult task to do, especially for a first timer.
I struggled a bit to cover my dough over the ring mold in a nice and even sizing, as we are required to push the dough down 90 degrees around the ring to have the nice thin crust, otherwise the top of the tart will shrink down during baking, and you'll have an uneven tart.
Next, we got started on the almond cream, which, was relatively easier to make as compared to the other creams I've made recently. Using the crémage method, we combine the soft butter and icing sugar together, followed by the almond powder and then eggs, adding in 3 batches. Lastly, we add a dash of rum.
It sounds pretty easy, but the technique here, is to really stir well and with energy, allowing Ingredient A and B to incorporated properly together before adding the next ingredient, and so forth.
For assembly, we have the poached pears in syrup to slice, thinly at the thickness of 3mm, and put them around the tart, making sure that the direction in which the pears are facing each other, are parallel. I didn't managed to accomplish this because one of my pears was slightly bigger, so it had to squeeze between two perfectly positioned pears.
Chef Aum commented on that, but besides that, everything else was alright.
I love the fact that I'm slowly, but surely improving. At times, I feel like I'm already used to school, and yet, at the same time, I know that I cannot lose my focus and I cannot take things for granted.
I have to keep improving. It's like how my cheesecake turned out, if I had looked and observed more on how Chef had piped the whipped cream; the distance where he started between the lid and the cheesecake, I could have made a better presentation and not have my whipped cream smeared by the lid.
With that, wish me luck for the upcoming White Exam a.k.a Mock exam. We'll be making fruit tart, and boy, with my fonçage skills today, I pray hard that I can do a proper, better fonçage during the white exam.
Till then!
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