smile and say cheese....

Another item for savory puff pastry day was brie.  Brie en Croute (in crust) is a chunk of brie that is topped with apricot jam, gift wrapped in puff pastry dough and baked.  This bad boy would be great right out of the oven as an appetizer.  Maybe with a glass of wine.  Or two.

waiter - there's some salmon in my puff pastry...

Thursday was dedicated to savory recipes for puff pastries.  Salmon en Croute (in crust) was one recipe. A slab of salmon is seasoned and placed between two appropriately shaped pieces of puff pastry dough.  The dough is rich in butter so that, combined with the seasonings on the salmon, made for a tasty catch.  giggle.

lobster newberg...

Ben Wenberg introduced this lobster dish at Delmonico's in NYC in the late 1800's. The W and N were switched in his name to produce the popular menu name.  These are bite size pastry cups filled with pieces of lobster and sauce.  If someone supplies the lobster tails, I'll bring the pastry dough.  

from layers of bureaucracy to layers of pastry...

Laminated doughs are used to make puff pastries. The process of making the lamination is kind of fascinating. You start with a layer of dough and lay a sheet of rolled out butter on top of the dough. There is then a series of foldings and rollings.  This is done over and over until you have over a 1000 layers of dough / butter. The butter expands during baking and produces the flakiness in croissants and danishes.  The first few days of this week were dedicated to fruit puff pastries. The pinwheel is a Pithivier (pa-tiv-ee ay) and it has almond cream in the middle. The rectangle is a Band Au Fruit (band oh fwee). The fruit slices are pears that were poached in white wine, lemon juice and cinnamon sticks. The pear slices are lying on a spread of almond cream. The tart is a Tart Tatin. The fruit is caramelized apples.  Not pictured is a Chausson which is basically a little apple turnover.  I'm stuffed.

and then there were two...

I tried my hand at eclairs today for the gang at Green Mesquite. I thought they might want a change from chocolate chip cookies.  They were apparently good because I only have 2 left.  I took some recipes (pastry cream, puff pastry and chocolate glaze) from school and cut everything in half.  It yielded about 14 puff pastries and mini eclairs.  It took a few hours but they came out pretty good for the first try at home.  Kevin volunteered to be the tester so I took a few over to him.  I think I'll increase the next batch to get it up to 20.  I want a few left over for myself next time.

there's no crying in baseball....

But there was almost crying in petit fours. At the risk of sounding melodramatic (it's probably too late), I'm glad that block is over.  My final project came out OK. My favorites were the Pecan Diamonds in the center. The macaroons were a little big and the lemon tarts a little skimpy on the filling, but all in all, everything was tasty.

We start laminated doughs next week. That includes puff pastries, danish, croissants, phyllo and strudel dough.  I'll host a breakfast in the near future.

bulldozers and spatulas......

The city has decided to run a new water line down our street. They estimate 3 weeks to run 200 ft of line.  I've never had any water issues but I imagine the current line has been there since the 50's when the neighborhood was built.  I do feel bad for the guys because we're supposed to have our first 100 degree day this week. They should have a moratorium on selective street surgery during the summer.

I switched from strawberry macaroons to apricot macaroons and they were much better. Those little chocolate filagrees in the picture are fun to do but they need to be more uniform and with thinner lines.  urgghhh.