Flour, Sugar, Butter, and Eggs, Oh My!

    This past week we made baguettes, the beloved French staple.  A well made baguette is golden brown, crisp on the outside but soft and tender on the inside.  It will not be flat, because it was over or under proofed (fermented).  It will be straight, uniform in width from top to bottom, 80 cm in length, and with even, concise, and deep enough slits so the steam can be evenly released in the cooking process.  It's definitely harder to make a baguette than to eat it.  After 3 days of eating bread, some not very good, I thought this must be what prison is like.  

    Since we are in our pastry block, things did not progress much beyond another white food: sugar.  
We made so many sweet treats, I have since gained back the weight I lost from Foundations.  After consuming all this sugar, we were all craving the veal stock they were making next door.  There was creme brûlée, three kinds of ice cream (the richest I have ever tasted), lemon curd tort with swiss meringue (which I personally torched and it was fun), rustic French cherry gallettes, chocolate chip cookies, hazelnut biscotti, cream puffs with pastry cream, and we made an Italian buttercream sponge cake and decorated with piping today.  This is the most fun I have had since starting culinary school.  I am tempted to enroll in the pastry program after I'm done with the culinary program, but that will be another 8 months.   The hubby does not seem to be opposed.  We shall see.  I would love to be a perpetual student.

Lemon curd tort with brule swiss meringue

Cherry Gallettes

Creme Brûlée

Chocolate Eclair Swan

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

Cream puffs with pastry cream

Chocolate dipped cream puffs

Alice and Brandon of Team Bones and Bows