Today was fun-with-pastry-puff day!!! We took all this pastry puff dough we've been rolling since Thursday and started making yummies out of it! But first...
We took our sourbread starter dough and made Batards (small baguettes). This was great because its taking this live starter dough we've been tending to all week and turning it into something. Most of what this is going to take is practice, practice, practice. Rolling the batards was slightly difficult. Chef rolled my first one (of three) to demonstrate for me, then when I rolled my own they weren't quite even and weren't as long as his. Just practice, that's all...and we'll be getting lots & lots of that so no worries.
Sprinkle them with flour, call them Country Bread, and charge an extra 10 cents
Now that's a useful bakery secret ;)
Next we made Apple Turnovers. I guess I hadn't realized how popular these are. Everyone who knew what we were making remarked something similar to, "I love apple turnovers"...me too but I don't even think I've had one in years (until a few hours ago, that is). These were fun to make because we got to learn how to fold the edges into a cool design & we got to use our apple compote from Friday!!!
I took these into work, after donating some others, and grabbed one on the way to my desk to snack on. Almost immediately after the last bite I got up and went into the office where I left them and grabbed a second one. I was so enamoured with the pastry dough more than anything. Where it was folded on the edges it was super thick and throughout the rest of the turnover it was so light and fresh. Yes, two had to be eaten!!!
We worked on a third project called an Arlette though we didn't bake it off, however we did bake a pastry called a Palmier. I had never heard of these, I'm not certain I've ever even eaten one before but, of course, I find them delicious and superb. I think mostly I'm just madly, deeply in love with pastry puff, so anything we do with it is A-okay with me!!!
These are the palmiers:
A nickname for them is Elephant Ears though to me they look a bit more like hearts...eh, to each his own!!! Now for the best part...what makes these pastries so amazingly delicious??? I'm super glad you asked. Where normally when you roll out your dough, pastry puff or otherwise, you cover your board with flour as well as the top of the dough, with palmiers you cover your board and the top of the dough with....SUGAR! What?!?!? Yep, sugar, and more sugar and every time you turn the dough you add more sugar to the top and bottom and then go ahead and add some more....YES! The idea is to roll lots & lots of sugar into the dough (Chef said, "Now don't be shy with your sugar" and I done him proud!). When they bake the sugar caramelizes, which is what you can see in the pic as the browning of the dough. The sides of the palmier (which is where all the rolling pin action occurred) are sticky and chewy sugary goodness. These are awesome, there's just no denying it. Also they are made with the inverted pastry puff so the outside of the dough is buttery goodness...seriously just try to convince me heaven isn't living inside a palmier.
Today involved lots of time management skill, which is great practice because when I bake at home its one to two projects at a time and I can move and shake when I want to (mostly 'cause I'm not making bread which yells "jump!" and you have to ask "how high?!"). A full week of croissants & batards ahead including additional pastry puff goodness...yipee!!!
Here's today's yearbook photo:
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