"You want to switch partners? I know, I tell my wife the same thing all the time. And what does she say to me?"

Well y'all. I am now 23. And I didn't even step into the kitchen ONCE over the weekend. It was an inspiration.
Moozh surprised me by taking me away to a hotel for the weekend, in our city and a fifteen minute train ride away from our house. It could not have been better. We may as well have been in the middle of nowhere.

So here's a recap of what I made while I was trying to figure out my birthday surprise.

We did pate a choux on Thursday, which meant profiteroles (mini cream puffs), eclairs and Paris Brest, none of which are pictorially documented. As I was filling the cream puffs, the 'one for my mouth, one for the tray' situation occurred. Thus, no pictures and serious love handles. We did have to reserve some of the cream puffs, which we dipped in a soft crack caramel, for what would become the St. Honore cake.

St. Honore consists of a puff pastry base with a ring of the caramel cream puffs around the outside. It has pastry cream on the bottom and topped with chantilly cream (aka whipping cream and icing sugar -amiright?!).

We later did pavlova, which kicks the ass off of any meringue you've ever had. Pavlova has the addition of vinegar and cornstarch to distinguish it from a meringue. Meringues are solid and crispy (with an occasionally horrifying texture) whereas pavlova has the crispy outside and a plushy, marshmallowy inside. It. Is. Awesome. As really, if you dignify the instructions (bake at a low temperature for a longer period of time and allow the pavlova to cool slowly while still inside the oven) it's relatively fool proof. And you slather it in fresh fruit and chantilly cream, how can you go wrong? You can't. And it's Weight Watcher friendly! Only 3 points for a huuuuuuge piece. Don't ask me how I know that.

Shortly after this, a large fraction of the pavlova just DISAPPEARED. There were trails leading to the culprits. But I had it all over my hands too so stealth didn't matter.

I'm not going to lie, today was not a success. Today was an exercise in trial and error. And learning to not take your recipe at face value. To begin, we made another favourite of mine, but a distant, bastardized version of it. Clafoutis is a French dessert, often associated with Provencal cooking. It has fresh fruit, usually cherries, arranged on the bottom of the baking dish with a batter similar to a crepe poured over top. It's a gorgeous, simple dessert that comes together quickly and with some powdered sugar and lemon curd, you HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK. It's a feel good dessert, I kid you not. I have talked myself off the ledge of baking-related self-loathing more than once with this thing.
However.
What we made today and it's intention, was a sad excuse for a clafoutis. To begin with, it had a crust. Imagine sandwiching a crepe in between two cookies. Okay that's a bad example. Imagine a creme brûlée in a pie crust. K, also a bad example. What I'm trying to say is that the clafoutis has a really beautiful texture when left to it's own devices. It's really unnecessary to add a crust. Trust me. As you can see, I….omitted the crust. I didn't even ask my partner. Mea Culpa, mea culpa. IT'S BETTER THAT WAY.
Secondly, it had all this shiiii-yut in the batter, like ground almonds and canned cherries. You need a simple batter. You whiz it (whiz is a technical term) in the blender which incorporates a lot of air into the batter, just like you would with a crepe batter or even pancakes. It's light, smooth. If you add a little amaretto som'un som'un, it has this gorgeous almond flavour.
Take this into consideration when examining my clafoutis. (Also excuse the iPhone pictures. Mea culpa, mea culpa)

The cherries came kind of dislodged. If you arrange the fruit in a manner that is in any intentional, POUR SLOWLY. Or else, you will be reading your clafoutis like tea leaves.

Next was the Blueberry Ginger pie, which was supposed to provide an opportunity for practicing lattice-work. When using a delicate fruit like berries, you often use a method in pie making known as the cooked juice method. Instead of the fruit being cooked with the starch that will thicken the filling of the pie, the starches are cooked with just the fruit juice which once thickened is poured over the raw fruit and then baked. I don't think we passed 'go' on any of those steps. So the filling of our pie was somewhat reminiscent of swallowing a gel insole (not that I've ever done that).

Our lattice also looks a little 'alarmed'. The crust is puff pastry, so from less of a bird's eye vantage point, the lattice looks quite pretty. Really puffy. The ginger could have leant a nice kick if there wasn't too much of both sugar and cornstarch. Ah, well. Next time.

Lastly, was our Brown Butter Fruit tart. Now, whenever I see a recipe with brown butter in it, or beurre noisette, I always sigh and turn the page. To me, it always comes across as so much work. "An extra step?! Who do they think I am?…..Don't answer that." But today, I have been reformed. Not only is brown butter easy and quick -it took me probably five minutes including cooling and that was while I verbally berated Chef for cheering for the Giants yesterday, aka I was distracted. Brown butter also lends such a warm flavour to whatever you're making. So, do I understand where you're coming from if you would rather just have regular butter. Totally. Do I want you to try it because you will thank yourself while you buy pants a size larger? Yes I do.
Smitten Kitchen, one of my favourite blogs, has a THING for brown butter. This is why I respect her. She has a toddler y'all. If she can do it we can do it. Nectarine Brown Butter Buckle? I think so.

Sad crust. Again!

Tomorrow I will report on the last thing we made today which was...cheesecake. It was too warm for us to bring home today but tomorrow's the day. I was simply flavoured with lemon zest and vanilla bean (which was hella delicious, don't' get me wrong) but Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake? That's a yes. Cranberry Goat's Cheese Cheesecake? That's also a yes. I've been wanting to try kaeskuchen, which is German cheesecake. It uses quark or a thick ricotta type cheese instead of cream cheese. It comes out like three feet tall. Okay…..not quite. But cheese in a dessert, meaning I can have cheese in all three courses? Win.

We also made rum babas today, which was an excuse to dunk stale buns in a rum syrup. Some Polish king came up with that because he was looking at stale kugelhopf and figured he wasn't done with it yet. Or just wanted to kind of switch up how he was drinking his rum. Either way, I salute him for his brain power.

That's Monday. Tomorrow is Linzer Torte and more croissants! And crepes, or as Chef calls them, 'craps'.
Find a bun. Find some rum. Brainstorm. Repeat.

"And I tell you to just shut up."

This was our first week with Chef back. And it didn't take him long to establish he was BACK. And it was his way or the highway. It snapped us back into focus which was good. Substitute teachers always make you lazy.

Monday was our first day coming home empty handed. Even our first day of school we had something to show for ourselves. Btt then Tuesday came, and we remembered what we had spent all of Monday doing: preparing for Tuesday. This entire week has been puff pastry application. Puff Pastry is the same technique, and a similar product, to a croissant dough, except it is unyeasted. Our day with puff pastry application was largely unsuccessful, which can be hard to stomach when you spend as much time is required for puff pastry and then you burn the shit out of everything.

Any French-speaking person would writhe uncontrollably if they had heard our French pronunciations. I think pithivier (pronounced 'pith-iv-ee-ay) was bastardized beyond recognition, everything from 'piddy-ay' to 'the pimmy guy' used in its stead. Palmiers (pronounced 'palm-years') became 'pommys' or 'the twisty sugar things'.

The Pithivier is filled with frangipane, which is an almond paste pastry cream filling. I will not lie, I ate it off my fingers at least once.

Palmiers are named after palm leaves, which they are supposed to resemble. They are also called Elephant Ears, which if you close your eyes they also resemble. We burned the shit out of ours. So.

Vol au Vent is a hollow, case-like pastry (according to Wikipedia). Our first batch came out looking like a portrait. Gorgeous, full rise and more importantly EVEN rising. One method that is utilized when baking puff pastry, and specifically vol au vent, is to lay a silpat or another baking pan on top of the vol au vent. (despite your best instincts that tell you that will CRUSH your vol au vent, try it. You may get results you like.) You only bake it with the weight on top for the first few minutes when the initial rise is going on to control the rate of the rise the entire way around the circle of the vol au vent. Our first we made and baked without a weight or pan on top. The layering, or mille feuille, was perfect. Chef came by and told us that they looked really good. When they turn out looking good it demystifies puff pastry a little bit. But then, in my opinion (because I was present for the internal monologue that told me I was a superstar) we made some larger ones.

This is really what they are supposed to look like. Just so you have a frame of reference.

So we nailed it basically. When you cut out the discs, half of the discs you cut out the middle and layer the two, which is what lends the 'bowl-like' rise. Our genius idea for the second batch involved baking the tiny round cut out, that would have previously been waste. And those are the ones in the front row that look roughly like dog poop. As for the vol au vent, some described them as "Seuss-y", like something from The Lorax or MCelligot's Pool. Something about them being herded around the dog poop made them look like a cross section of an intestine.  My partner, Lex, in between gasps for breath as she died from laughter just shook her head at the Dr. Seuss rationale. We made everyone look at it, really just as a sobering exercise as to what can happen if you take puff pastry lightly. You will make an abomination.
Filled vol au vent look so awesome when they are filled with something yummy. But the vol au vent have to look good in the first place.

Luckily we got a minor reprieve from the puff pastry with some quality time spent with pate sucree. Under the 'pastry' banner, you have numerous different doughs that are used as tart liners, pie crusts, petit four bases and quiches. Pate sucree is one such crust, along with pate a foncer, pate brisee, pate sablee and pate sablee Breton.

Today was gratifying. We made tarts with a pate sucree crust, which is more of a brittle, cookie-like crust as opposed to the flaky pie crust. We were supposed to make a lemon tart today but we had a bit of an issue with our crust and shrinkage. Shrinkage man. (I could make a joke right now but I won't. It's better if I don't.) Shrinkage in pastry dough occurs when you over mix your dough. You lose quite a bit of definition in the pie crust again after that happens and then, as in our case, your liquid filling is kind of a no go.

We also made a chocolate ganache tart, that is FABULOUS. But reading the recipe reminded me a lot of the chocolate sauce that my dad used to make to go on ice cream. Said sauce consisted mostly of melted chocolate, sugar and butter. Soooo good, am I right? But definitely wouldn't have been my reflex as a go-to pie filling. Not gonna lie, this pie is disappearing in incrementally small slices, at approximately one per hour (or minute).

Lastly we did an Almond and Pear Tart, which is an oddly recurrent flavour combination. Pears really do not factor into my framework when it comes to desserts. Apples are classic. Cherries are classic. Berries of really any denomination. But it has only been since I got into pastry school that I realized that pears are kind of the Kate Winslet of pastries. When you want different but you want a little class too. Apples are just too Reese Witherspoon sometimes. I guess. Anyway, the frangipane is wonderful, as it always is. A beautiful, subtle sweetness to it. Kind of a grainy, whipped texture.

This shortbread performed as it should which was nice. A great crunch without being injury inducing. (It's a fine line I kid you not.)

Lastly we worked on our Napoleons, or Mille Feuille which translates to 'thousand layers'. The name derives from the layers in the puff pastry. The pastry is folded three times at each of four intervals.
4 x 4 = 16
16 x 4 = 64
64 x 4 = 256
256 x 4 = 1,024
So there actually is a thousand layers. Jokes abounded about the height of the pastry in comparison to the Emperor Napoleon. (We have a lot of people in our class who are educated far beyond what is required of pastry school.) One girls button popped off her jacket and thus the Napoleon thing thrived.

It doesn't look awesome but once you've eaten an entire slice in almost one bite, in the kitchen by yourself with the lights off, you kind of lose all perspective on the counter appeal of something. Pastry school has done degrading things to me.

Tomorrow is pate a choux and pavlova!

Find something with pastry cream. Eat. Write a poem. Repeat.

"You f***ed your macronage…good hustle though."

Where is my thicker skin?? Four weeks should have done it. Can't you buy those somewhere. I swear to God I saw them at Adrenaline one time. But then Tyson McAdoo made more stuff and they can't the thick skin. I need a lotion or a potion or something that prevents me from standing amidst the chaos, doing breathing exercises on a Friday afternoon.

Oh life in a kitchen. Pastry is calm. I have SEEN it with my own eyes. But days like today….and yesterday…and Wednesday...were not calm. No. I blame it on my inability to work effectively with others. I could probably blame my mom for it in some way. I should go to therapy. But she made me sign something in elementary school promising I wouldn't.

Yesterday, I came home, looked at my cookies. And then I went to Chinatown. There was a feeling of escape in it. I was nearly braindead and thus I just wanted to go somewhere that when I wasn't understood I could blame it on something else. And buying stuff with Hello Kitty or a ceramic owl making the 'peace sign' just makes one feel better.

Yesterday, like I mentioned, was meringues and macarons. You know how i promised that my macarons wouldn't look like the picture.

I didn't lie. 

They don't' look awful. They look kind of odd and cute in their own way.

The almonds weren't ground nearly fine enough so the 'shells' are quite bumpy. There is a narrow rim around the bottom of a macaroon called the 'feet' that is a desirable characteristic. Ours have ok feet. But the bumpy shells are simply so distracting you almost don't notice. The macronage is the stage where you incorporate the ground almond/flour mixture in to the Italian meringue. You need the Italian meringue to be light enough and whipped but you don't want it to be to dry because that means the eggs have been pushed too far and they are very unstable. You'll probably come out with bizarre looking macarons if you pushed them that far. I think the key thing with ours was the ground almonds. They had a nice shell. It was just too bumpy. Hmmmm.
For our vanilla macaroons we had pistachio, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry Italian buttercream filling. Italian just tastes like butter, with sugar. It's majestic. But just sampling it from the mixing bowl, it feels like you're just eating butter. So weird.

We also made meringues, which always look good and taste awful. To me, they have the texture of packing peanuts. I find, with Classic French meringue, you don't get that spongy, chewy, almost marshmallowy texture. We made a rustic cocoa meringue (that is undocumented because none of them made it home) that were like and so very tasty. It is the brittleness of meringues that I don't like. And whenever I make pavlova or other egg white desserts, I undercook (within the parameters of food safety) as much as I can get away with.

There are macaroons as well, which I think we did in the same class because the names are similar. Other than the name, they are NOTHING alike. Meringues and macarons are 'stress-required' cookies. There are steps. With macarons, there is PLENTY that can go wrong (as illustrated above) that will leave you with less than the product you desired. Coconut macaroons, you dump all the ingredients in a bowl, kind of warm it up a bit to melt the butter, scoop it with an ice cream scoop to make it nice and round and the forget about it. I mean, you bake it, and then you forget about it. So little effort. Even glazing or dipping them is marginal. So they provided a necessary if brief reprieve from the intensity of yesterday.

And then TODAY…..hoo boy. For one, we had a different chef than we've ever worked with before, learning an entirely new concept, a concept with gives many a person pause. Let me preface this by saying that I have NEVER made a pie crust from scratch that was any good. I have made pie crust with my grandmother many times and with my mother-in-law at least once. I dedicate these pies to them. Really, the times that I made with them was one of those instances when you are 'making it together' and they do everything. And then when it comes out of the oven looking majestic, they are gracious enough to let you puff up your chest and tell everyone you made it when you're really going to huddle in bed and feel ashamed that you took credit for someone else's work. Pie crust is one of those things for me.

And then you learn that there are two different kinds of pie dough and that's just for pies. Then you have pate brisee, pate a foncer, pate sucree, and other such French froofy pastry crusts that are used for other things for which pie dough is not appropriate. Oh sweet Lord, I knew it was going to be a day.

Four pies in an eight hour day, chantilly cream, Italian meringue, and so many freakin' ovens on! I texted Moozh and asked him if before he went into class if he would stop by my kitchen and give me a hug. Because I may have needed to cry uncontrollably -I mean, talk out my feelings. Today wasn't really that bad but given my previous major, I can't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

We made two baked pies and two blind-baked pies with cream fillings. First, chocolate cream and lemon meringue were the blind baked. I totally pilfered the gorgeous piping technique from a fellow classmate. I probs would have just done the slather technique and then burn the shit out of it with the blow torch. Thinking back on my grandmother's lemon meringue, it always had the singed meringue on top. Did she have a blow torch. Or did she just use her oven? I'm going to assume she had a blow torch, because that's totally bad ass. And farm wives have a bad-assness that is beyond your expectations. This is flexible family history, my own mythology if you will.

We made a pecan pie, which of course accompanied an argument not only as to the factors that make up a legitimate pecan pie but also as to the proper pronunciation of 'pecan'. Everything from 'puh-cahn' to 'pee-can' to 'pee-cahn' to 'p'cohn'. We have a lot of Southerners in our class with rather inflated and ingrained opinions when it comes to pecan pie. My dad's favourite pie is Chocolate Pecan Pie, which is exponentially better (and with a fuller expectation of calories) than ol' rag'lur pecan pie. The chef we worked with today told us about running the kitchen at one of Vancouver's largest hotels and that every Father's Day, they would produce thousands of pies. Something about pies that dudes just love. Not that any man I've ever met would discriminate against cake or ice cream or chocolate (even though Moozh would go to inordinate lengths for ice cream and ice cream alone), but pie does seem to hold a peculiar and permanent place in their hearts.

You will notice the unsightly 'slosh' mark. That is when I was sloshing and rushing to be a part of the pecan party in one of the ovens. We make a fool of ourselves on the altar of being included don't we? But even despite the slosh mark, there is enough butter and sugar (and protein!) in that pie to make anyone happy. Grab a cup of coffee, grab a couch and chillllllllll out. That's how we do it.

Lastly, which was the pie that came first and was an exercise in crust inflation.

We scored in and it was just never the same after that. Not even coarse sugar and egg wash could fix it. The apple filling was SUPER GOOD. It had enough sugar to provide that dessert sweetness but not to much that it lost the great Granny Smith puckery tartness. Although it did have raisins in it. Raisins? I'm not a connoisseur but I've never had an apple pie with raisins in it. The seam between the lower crust and the top crust was a little shoddy (my bad) and our pie leaked. All in all a bad execution on my part for a fruit pie. So it looks like melted cheese but it tastes great!

And now it is the weekend. Here's aiming for some wine, some sitting, some quality husband time. And very little conversation about food. Monday will come soon enough. Chef Maurizio is back on Monday from his gelato competition. It's back to Top 40 hits with an Italian accent and Lawrence of Arabia tea towel parades.