Tarts ‘n’ things

Thank Fudge it’s Friday. After a full week of non-stop and entirely unnecessary stress it’s finally time to relax for a couple of days, drink my entire weight in coffee, and ponder on the mysteries of the ever-changing, yet always the same, puzzlebox that is the human mind (my boss’s human mind to be precise). I think now is the time to start taking bets on when he’ll snap. I had completely and foolishly forgotten that at this point every year people change. They start to go a bit tropo-loco and generally just get dumber, which would seem impossible for some people . Anyway, geez, what a downer, right? Here are some pictures of things from today, ‘scuse the shoddy photography, I only get a chance to take pictures when the boss goes outside briefly for a cigarette (he can suck down a smoke in about 40 seconds).

Pecan tarts and Lemon tarts.

Pecan tarts and strawberry tarts.

Pecan tarts and mixed fruit tarts.

A Fraisier. A cointreau mousse cake with strawberries.

One of my favourite cake designs, I think it looks just as good with a chocolate mousse.

Gourmet or Gourmand?

Some people reading my blog might find that i come off as a bit pretentious or arrogant. I would say I’m just a bit fussy, when it comes to pastry and coffee, and also a bit fed up with the accepted state of food in this country and more specifically in Perth.

I know a lot of people that prefer premix custard over real custard or margarine over butter and it just makes me a bit sad. We had someone try out for an apprenticeship at my work and she asked me “Why is the custard white?”, I said “Because it’s real! Because it’s not a bag of chemicals mixed with water, because we don’t add egg colour or sunset yellow.” Milk, sugar, eggs, flour. That’s custard. There’s no need for emulsifiers or stabilizers or colours.

It’s the same with sponge: flour, sugar, eggs. That’s all. We were taught at school to make products the most efficiently, to get them mixed and baked and finished as quickly as possible and to make the most money. We weren’t taught how to make them properly. Not once at school did we make a real sponge. We always used premix or added emulsifiers.

Anyway, the reason for this rant is to tell you a short story about the last time I used a premix. It was my girlfriend’s birthday and I was a first year apprentice. I hadn’t really gotten to know my boss yet and was still a little fearful because I had heard from many people about how he can be a bit of a bastard. I hadn’t really made a real cake before and I hadn’t even started TAFE yet. So it was my girlfriend’s birthday and i made a chocolate cake from a box. When I went to work the following week and the boss asked what I did on the weekend I was foolish enough to tell a French Pastry Chef of over 30 years that I made a packet cake. After I assured him that it wasn’t a joke he yelled about how disgusting they are, spat on the floor and then left the kitchen muttering in French. That was the last time I made a packet cake and the point at which my mind and palate started to change. So you may think that I’m a bit arrogant but it’s only because I enjoy good food, both making it and eating it. And i think a good chef needs to be a little arrogant, to know the difference between good food and cheap knock-offs, to be a true gourmet (or gourmand).

More Petits Fours

Nothing much happened today, I was supposed to make Champagne sponge for Tiramisu but ran out of time, i was hoping to get some pictures to show y’all. But I did get a chance to take a few pictures of the choux pastry I did today so I can sleep easier:)

These are the Eclairs that I do everyday, the white ones with the chocolate designs are Cointreau creme patissiere, the ones with toffee and almonds are Kirsch and the others are chocolate with couverture chocolate creme patissiere.

Just a closeup of the Cointreau, the chocolate designs are piped directly onto the fondant (that’s poured fondant not rolled fondant to any Americans) using a small chocolate bag (cornet).

All the petits fours. Petit four is french for small oven and basically refers to any small baked good be it sweet or savoury. From top to bottom we have chocolate, rum, kirsch, cointreau and vanilla.

Closeup of the kirsch, cointreau and vanilla petits fours.

Closeup of the chocolate, rum and kirsch petits fours.

The smaller petit four size cointreau eclair.

Biscuit day!

Today was the day for making biscuits because we had absolutely nothing in the shop. I did Gingerbread Men and Viennese Biscuits and the boss made Palmiers (sorry, no pictures). Biscuits!

Viennese Biscuits waiting to be baked. Viennese biscuits are the shortest, butteriest biscuits, and not too sweet. You’ll find no margarine here.

These ones are mostly for the kids so they’re not too gingery. I like to give them personalities, you’ll almost always find one with a beatnick moustache and goatee. I don’t think anyone’s noticed yet 🙂

All baked, There were 4 or 5 trays. Vienesse biscuits are supposed to be baked with no colour but you get so much flavour from the darker bits.

 

Croquembouche

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So today wasn’t very busy, much quieter than the usual Saturday. But i did have to make a croquembouche which was an interesting experience. I did make a very small one at TAFE once (roughly 10 choux) and I’ve watched the boss doing it half a dozen times over the last few years so i […]