Green with Jalousie- Week 8

Pastries, Pastries, Pastries! This week started with cooking the aforementioned Linzer Tortes, Sable Biscuits, and then creating Fruit Flans from the pre-prepared sweet pastry. The biscuits were simply cut from the roll, and baked, and then when cooled, had chocolate stripes artfully placed on them.

 Absolute precision.

Boxed up for sale.

Next up were the Fruit Flans. The pastry bases were first baked, and then once cool, filled with creme legere and topped with fruit. 

Voila.

Tuesday, and Apple Frangipane Tarts were on the menu, followed by Lemon Tarts. The Frangipane tarts were filled with the frangipane filling from Friday, and topped with caramelised apple quarters and then put into the oven. While they were still warm, the tarts were brushed with boiled apricot jam to add shine. 

Glossy!

The tart bases for the Lemon Tarts were first blind baked, and then brushed with egg yolk so that they would stay crisp. Unfortunately my tarts were subjected to some dodgem car action from someone else's tray in the oven, so half of the filling fell out, but they were still nice and lemony. Surprise, surprise!

Less than perfect. 

Hump day this week was a pastry preparation day, when we made two different types of Puff Pastry- a half puff made in the English method, and a Scottish rough puff. Both of these methods were a mammoth workout, because each block had to rest between folds, and so was quite solid. Recommend making your own pastry to tone up your arms! We also made our Gingerbread Dough for our houses that we're making later on. 

The following day, we put all of our hard word to use, making an apricot Jalousie, and a Cherry Millefeuille from the pastry. The Jalousie was made from the half puff pastry and was filled with frangipane and apricot halves, with layer covering the fruit and providing some viewing windows and extra puff. The baked jalousie was brushed with apricot jam and sprinkled with flaked almonds.

Fresh off the press.

Portioned up.

To assemble the Millefeuille, we first docked and baked 3 rounds of pastry, and then piped custard and placed cherries into each layer. When the final pastry layer was placed on top, white fondant was spread, and red spirals piped, so that we could create a web. 

 Finished product.

At least I tried...

The last lesson of the week has us making pastry products from the leftover scraps of pastry, resulting in Palmiers and some Fruit Vol au Vents. The Palmiers were simply rolled from a rectangle sheet of pastry after being sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, and baked. 

Palmiers

The Vol au Vents were made by cutting circles from the 1/2 puff pastry and then placing a matching circle on top (with the centre cut out) and cooking them before filling with creme patissiere and topping with fruit. 

Fruity.

Next week is a stressful one, and I should warn, a painful experience too, but enjoy the upcoming pictures of delicious pastries! xx