Thursday, April 23, 2009

Just Peachy

Brioche Peach

Spring is in the air. The weather has shown some promise here in New England, and not only is the air feeling lighter, but moods appear to be also. This week was probably one of the best at school. There was a lot of light-hearted goofing, yet we were still very productive, turning out several recipes more of croissant and puff dough. Even the work load felt lighter with the introduction of Chef Delphin's dough sheeter.

Our schedule mirrored last weeks. Monday was prep day. We made two recipes of croissant dough and one recipe of puff. After spending a few hours earlier in the day painting a hallway in my apartment, I wasn't looking forward to rolling all that dough, but figured it beat making time to go to the gym. Then Chef asked the question of the day, "Does anyone know what a sheeter is?" Well I've heard of them, but never used one. I understand they can make minutes work of what would normally be arm-numbing hours of rolling laminated doughs. He explained to the rest of the class the whats and hows of a sheeter with a gleam in his eye. (I had heard a rumor the week before that he had a sheeter that had recently been repaired....) After his explanation, he asked if we wanted to learn to use the sheeter. The class was quiet. I don't think it had sunk in. "Yes, yes, say yes!" I egged my classmates.

We carried our patons of dough to the kitchen next door for our sheeter demonstration. Chef was like a 5 year old child on Christmas morning, so eager to show off his new toy. He took the first batch of dough, pressed out the air bubbles and placed it on the belt. He stepped up to the controls, like a captain approaches the wheel of his ship, and within a few quick moves the lumpy dough was smooth and evenly stretched. With a big grin on his face he asked, "who's next?" One of us nervously approached the machine with dough in hand ready to take the helm. What ensued was lots of howling laughter, Chef yelling at us for going the wrong direction and eventually me being the first to run the belt too long and loose my dough into the catcher at the end. (otherwise it would have gone on the floor!) We laughed till our eyes watered.

Chef Delphin Showing off the Sheeter

The Croissant Dough looked like Pillows the Next Day

Tuesday the jovial mood continued. We gave our doughs their last turns and prepared for baking. Croissants, Chocolate Croissants, Bear Claws, Danish, Dartois and Brioche Peaches were slated for production. Chef had explained the previous night that the Dartois could be made sweet or savory. We voted to make a savory Dartois on Tuesday for our dinner. The Dartois is two layers of puff dough, with either a sweet filling, ie almond cream, or a savory filling enclosed. Our savory of choice was Potatoes, ham, leeks, gruyere, shallot bechemal sauce and fresh parsley. It turned out wonderful. We cut thick wedges of it and ate it at the end of the evening as we packed up our goods.
Filling the Savory Dartois

We only have one more week of pastry before we start review for our midterm. Then it's on to savory cooking for a few weeks before summer break. Did I also mention I have 5 weeks of wine tasting seminars? Tonight's seminar class wrapped up Food Management. My classmates and I gave our presentations on our restaurant concepts. My group's concept, "Puff Daddy's", a restaurant with a menu based around sweet and savory cream puffs, was well received. (the sample coffee cream puffs I brought in helped, I'm sure)

To end the seminar with a bang, our instructor gave a presentation on sparkling wine and Champagne. Finishing with a demonstration on how to "saber" open a bottle of sparkling wine. This means you take a knife (or a sword) and hold the bottle with the neck facing away from you. Then, with out having removed the cork, you strike just under the collar of the bottle with the back edge of the knife. The pressure of the contents and the strike combined cause the bottle to cleanly break at that point, and the cork and collar to rocket off. I only wish I had brought my camera with me...... What a fun week.

And just to prove we did do some serious work this week. Here are a few more photos:

Croissants Fresh From the Oven

Assorted Danish

Potato, Leek & Ham Dartois

2 comments:

Kristen said...

Jenni - You never cease to amaze me!!! Amazing! :)

Devin said...

seriously, every time i read a post i find myself closing the browser with a rumble in my stomach and my mouth is watering to the point that i'm more or less drooling... :-)