Pain Au Lait

Pain Au Lait

18 oz Bread Flour
1.75 oz Sugar
10 g Salt
.5 oz Yeast
1.75 oz Eggs
9 oz Milk
2.5 oz Butter
1 tsp Malt Syrup

Straight Dough Method

Portion into 2 oz balls. Shape however you like. Brush unbaked dough with egg wash and sprinkle with seeds if you choose. Bake until a dark golden brown color is achieved.

Pate A Choux: Cream Puffs, Eclairs and Swans

Pate A Choux is easy to make, if you know what you’re doing. Your dough slowly comes together, after agitating and exercising your deltoids, biceps and triceps for at least 20 minutes. I love mixing things by hand. I really feel like I’m paying for pastry school *and* a gym membership. I’m paying enough, I’d might as well get a workout from it.

After your choux bakes, you get a wonderful surprise when you discover that the interior of every puff is perfectly and wonderfully hollow. Fill with your choice of pastry cream and whipped cream and enjoy. You can freeze baked choux dough for an indefinite period of time, take out you puffs and serve once you fill them to the brim with pastry cream. I chose delicious chocolate pastry cream and topped them with whipped cream before placing the tops back on and dusting with powdered sugar. Pate a choux: friggin’ awesome.

Pate A Choux pastry

We formed our choux into swans. They’re great for baby showers, weddings, anything where you gather giant numbers of women who can “ooh” and “ahh” at your pastry swans. When you get out of pastry school, it’s the unfortunate opinion of everyone that you know that you *obviously* went to school just to learn how to do this. This skill will easily pay for your schooling.

Choux Swans

Finally, you can also use your choux dough to make eclairs. All of your friends will love you. You’ll begin to be invited to parties just because they want you to bring these.

Chocolate Eclairs

BP: Quiche, Biscuits and Scones

Quiche. Is. Delicious.

The thought of it grosses me out. Cream, eggs and leftover junk from your fridge and that makes quiche. Jeez. I could just as soon go hungry. But, man was I wrong. It’s wonderful. TERRIBLE for you, but wonderful nonetheless.

Quiche Lorraine

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On the other hand, scones aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. I’ve had ’em before and they’re always dry and not super flavorful. With a good cup of coffee, they’re great. But without a cup o’ joe, they’re just dry sweet biscuits. The ones I made were better than most that I’ve had at coffee shops and bakeries, but they still didn’t turn me on.

Chocolate Orange Scones

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Down here in the south, everyone loves their biscuits and gravy. Being a NewEnglander, myself, I’m not really down for that. My biscuits came out nice and flaky. Not bad for a Yank.

Buttermilk Biscuits

BP: Fruit Tart

Today we made… Fruit Tarts. Chef says: If you put fruit on it, they will come!

January is the worst time for Pastry chefs. People are all on diets after the first of the year, so they’ll pass over the pastry quicker than imaginable. BUT, if you put fruit on it, they’ll eat it. Seriously. Put some fruit on a Creme Brulee, and they’ll eat it, even though the Creme Brulee with the fruit has *more* calories than the Brulee without.

(Pate Sucree with a vanilla pastry cream filling and topped with fresh fruits.) Try this combination with different flavors… I’m thinking about making a chocolate Sucree and a caramel Pastry cream and topping it with banana or something.. Mmm.. I’m going to get soo fat.

Pate Sucree is the perfect dough for Christmas cookies since it holds its structure so well. Try this next Christmas Season instead of your sugar cookie recipe:

Pate Sucree-

7.5 oz Unsalted butter
3 oz Granulated Sugar
.06 oz Salt
.06 oz Lemon Zest
4 Drops Vanilla Extract
3 oz Eggs
12 oz Pastry flour

Creaming Method. Line your tart shell. Blind bake. Continue baking until golden brown after removing pie weights. Fill with desired pastry cream.

BP: Bryssellkex & Strassburger Cookies

Alright! Yesterday we made some awesome looking cookies. I’m pretty darn impressed with myself. Check ’em Out!

Seen Above: Bryssellkex & Strassburger cookies.

Bryssellkex Cookie:

Vanila Dough:
8 3/4 oz Bread Flour
6 3/4 oz Unsalted Butter
1/4 tsp Vanilla
2 1/2 oz Powdered Sugar

-Creaming Method

Cocoa Dough:
2 oz Cocoa Powder
6 3/4 oz Bread Flour
1/4 tsp Vanilla
6 3/4 oz Unsalted Butter
2 1/2 oz Powdered Sugar

-Creaming Method

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Strassburger Cookies:

6 oz Unsalted Butter
3 oz Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 oz Powdered Sugar
2 1/4 oz Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla
9 oz Cake Flour

-Creaming Method
– Pipe into Rosettes onto Parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake at 375.