Wedding Day!

      Between picking up more shifts and helping to train a new assistant cook (my replacement - more on this later) at work, a substitute photographer and struggling with their flikr's sharing policies, this post is coming much much later than it should have.

     First and foremost - the latest selection of pastries: With my beautiful sister's wedding looming, I took my days off preparing about five kilograms of puff pastry - this time prepared by hand using a traditional European method - rather than the quick puff pastry I used for my hors d'oeuvres. Looking back on it, I enjoyed this method. It makes for a dough with better defined layers which is rather important when making a pastry that is defined by its layers. At the time, it was a nightmare to prepare, since my kitchen has no air conditioning and the week leading up to the wedding was excruciatingly hot - hardly ideal conditions for working with massive quantities of butter.

     With the puff pastry ready, I put off the rest of the pastry work until the morning before the wedding, beginning at about 1:00 am, and ending at about 10:30 am - with a break for sleep somewhere in the middle. The pastries were nice and fresh and, for the most part, looked pretty darn good.

     First off, the conversations. These used the puff pastry to form a cup that holds the apricot/orange/almond filling. Though they're supposed to be made in a very particular type of pan - the name escapes me and my book is literally miles away - I was able to make do with the right size of muffin tin as well as my ramekins. The only real difference is how difficult it is to make the pastry cups - the final product is relatively unchanged.

     The top of the pastry is finished very slightly differently from the way suggested in the book: Forming an X on the top of the pastry, rather than a square formed from 4 thinner strips of pastry. In the end, it's nothing but an aesthetic change, brought on by lack of patience and time.

     Next are the profiteroles, made with the leftover choux paste and pastry cream from various other pastries I made for the wedding. There isn't a whole lot to say about them, except that in the picture I have they remain ungarnished and unfinished.

     When they made it onto the platters at the wedding they were covered in raspberry sauce, chocolate sauce and piping cream, and looked much better than they do sitting on the baking sheet. Up until this point I have only ever had profiteroles filled with whipped cream, which is how we make them at work. I liked these far better.

     Now for the other puff pastry piece, the mille-feuille. This is a pastry defined by its layers, ideally having a thousand layers in the puff pastry - mine theoretically had just over a thousand, because of the method used to prepare the dough.

     These ended up working out pretty well, despite a couple setbacks. My icing for the top did not end up working out, so I ended up finishing them with more pastry cream and chocolate sauce, and the pastry cream itself could have been thickened more, which would have made the finished product a little more stable, and easier to just bite into.

     Finally, the piece I put together for the happy couple - Courting Swans. This pastry is actually deceptively simple to put together, though it looks incredible once plated. This is where the various sauces really had a chance to shine through.

     These could have been even easier if I had a larger star tip for my piping bag (which I have now picked up) but they still worked out, better than I had hoped in some cases. A good thing to keep in mind when making these is to make plenty of extra pieces. The necks are incredibly fragile, having extras - even if you don't use them - brings a whole lot of peace of mind.

     I should also give a big tip of the old hat to my Cousin Veronica for her excellent photography work with the wedding. If you're looking for more pictures of the pastries in various stages of being built, or pictures of the beautiful wedding, you should check out her Flikr page.

Chocolate Éclairs, etc.

     It has been quite a while now; between various holidays, having a cook resign at work and coordinating with my photographer; since I have been able to put together some pastries to post here. I had been all excited for desert pastries, and simply never got to start on them. So, without further ado: Chocolate eclairs.

     To begin, I'm not entirely happy with how these turned out. I was planning to use a large star tip to pipe them out, only to realize that my piping kit was missing some key pieces - namely the large star. I made do with what I had, but the end result was slightly misshapen pastries that were thinner than I anticipated.

     The pictured pastry was among the last to be glazed, resulting in spotty coverage due to a chocolate glaze that was running out, and nearly too thick. I was however, happy with the sheen of the glazes, both the chocolate giving off the noticeable reflections and the apricot glaze; nearly invisible, as it is mostly covered by the chocolate, but lending a reflection or two to the top of the eclair.

     Another thing worth noting is the Creme Parisienne, or chocolate whipped cream, which I built slightly differently from the recipe in the book. I had been playing around with sauces and had a ton of chocolate sauce left over. Rather than chopping new chocolate - in a food processor that I don't have - I flavored the cream with my left over chocolate sauce. In the end, the eclairs were very tasty, if not the prettiest product I've ever made. The combination of the various flavors and textures was delicious and satisfying. You can't see it, but theres strawberry jam piped into the bottom of each eclair, offsetting the cream and chocolate beautifully, and the pate a choux was indelibly crisp, despite its shape.

     Oh, also, when the recipe calls for a batch of choux paste, it actually means a small batch. I ended up making a lot of eclairs.

     There was another pastry that I put together that day, however, it's going to be surprising my wonderful sister and her soon-to-be husband at their wedding this Saturday, along with some more pastries that I am still assembling. So, I won't be posting the pictures here just yet.

     The sauces that I had been playing with were actually for that pastry, and since I had been plating it anyhow for the pictures, I ended up playing with them on the eclair plate, after it had been consumed.

     The random hearts pattern has always been one of my favorites, and in the interest of not having only one thing pictured here until next week, I decided to include it.

     Hope you enjoyed this. Congratulations again to Jana and Ollie, my beautiful sister, soon-to-be brother, and friends.

Hors D'oeuvres on Friday

     I ran into a minor problem this Friday.  I was hoping to make a selection of five hors d'oeuvres, but needed to pick up some anchovies, ground pork and (of course) more butter before I went to work.  Of course, the stores are all closed, it's easter weekend.  So, my selection was cut down to three, making Good Friday another cheese filled night.  I've started a miniature countdown in my head until Easter, which is when I can begin making desserts again.  Luckily, I had plenty of cheese left from the soufflés last week, necessary ingredients for both my gougères and cheese straws.  The third hors d'oeuvre is a cumin bow tie, a very elegant bit of pastry that offset the cheese nicely.

     The cheese straws were the last thing out of the oven, and ended up a little more spread out than I had initially hoped for.  They were still very delicious, and still looked fabulous.  In the future, I think I will make them a touch thinner, as well as working the Parmesan into the pastry a little more, allowing it to hold together better.  I ended up using the recipe for quick puff pastry, rather than taking the time to do a more traditional pastry.  This was mainly to do with time constraints, with the quick pastry being finished within an hour, as opposed to multiple hours for the traditional recipes.  Despite this, it was an absolutely incredible pastry.

     The cumin bowties were the other option, also made with the quick puff pastry.  I was surprised to see how easily they came together, taking no more time to create than rolling out the dough and popping it in the oven. These were the favorites of at least one of the people eating from this small selection.  In the future, I would love to use fresh cumin seeds, rather than the pre-ground variety.  I was planning on it, but alas!  Good Friday.

     The gougères were a definite favorite among my roommates and photographer.  They also happen to be my favorite of the bunch, playing off my deep love for Gruyère and pâte à choux.  I made both the traditional circle, as can be seen in the pictures, as well as a couple individual pieces, which were indelibly better, in my opinion than the wreath - being more even and crispier.  There is, however, something to be said for serving the circular collection of gougères to a group of friends:  Tearing the wreath apart has a certain amount of satisfaction and brings the group together somewhat, as any communal plate will do.  The only thing that I would change next time would be to make more individual pieces, and perhaps use a star tip while piping, eking out even more crispness from the pastry.

Thanks for reading!

-Robb

My Old Nemesis: The Soufflée

     I have never before successfully made a soufflée, of any kind - whether savory or sweet. To be fair, I think I've only tried once, back when I was somewhere around the age of twelve. Obviously I had no idea where to begin with it. Luckily, my second ever attempt at the soufflée appears not to have suffered from lack of experience.

     Without any sort of modification, the recipe for the cheese soufflées was delicious, carrying just a hint of a bite from the cayenne pepper. The key, as with any cheese-based flavors, is the quality of the cheese. I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on a legitimate Parmesan and a Gruyère from Switzerland, both extremely flavorful and generally top-notch cheeses. The finished product was absolutely gorgeous.

     Obviously, there's a problem with attempting to take a series of good photos of soufflées. It is inevitable that they fall before you are finished with them. This is the same problem that causes most kitchens to avoid serving these lovely appetizers: They cannot sit out of the oven for any time at all. Even in the first picture, the soufflée has begun to collapse, though it was still passable. Thirty seconds later they were nearing the point of no return.

     Now, I went out of my way to find ramekins before attempting to create these, finding them at a beautiful store not far from my house called 'Kitchenalia.' Not only did they have a wide selection of ramekins, they also had just about everything you could desire as far as kitchen wares go. They were also nice enough to give me a small discount for bringing my girlfriend along, who works across the street at Juniper's Kitchen & Wine Bar. The Ramekins are not strictly necessary for soufflées though. I made a small batch in a muffin tin and, though they lack the crisp top of the traditional soufflée, the sloped sides proved steep enough for them to rise. They are rather difficult to remove without causing a complete collapse; I would recommend brushing the insides with flour, as well as the usual butter and parmesan, to make the removal process slightly easier.

Thanks for reading!

-Robb

What Am I Doing Here?

        I suppose I could say something about myself before launching into what this page is here for.  I'm a student at Ottawa University, studying English.  I live in a fantastic house by the Ottawa river with a fantastic group of friends; a house where I happen to have a pretty sizable oven.  On top of school, I also work as a cook/pastry chef at an upscale retirement home, where I am privileged enough to work with some incredible chefs who were - and are - very patient and helpful as I learn more and more about the culinary arts.  I've never gone to culinary school, but have been working in the industry for about four years now.  I definitely have a ton left to learn, but am loving every second of the learning process.

        My favorite book at work is an incredibly beat up copy of 'The Professional Pastry Chef', third edition.  It belongs to my Chef De Cuisine and is always the first place I turn to when looking for a recipe.  It's packed full of everything I need to know in the pastry shop:  From tips to get better tasting and textured pie crusts, to advice on working with sugar to make exotic looking food.  Some of those recipes I've committed to memory, I love them so much, though for the most part I have to search through the dozens of pages of index - it's a big book.  Last week I bought a copy for myself, of the fourth edition, and decided to cook everything in it.  Everything.

        That's why I'm here, writing this.  If I were to eat everything I make over the next godknowshowlong, I would likely explode, or actually gain a couple pounds for once.  So, I will feed my friends and house-mates, bribe a photographer to take beautiful pictures, and talk about the process here.  Obviously, I can't share the recipes from the book but from time to time, perhaps, I can share some of my own.

        The crux of this process is that I do not have a professional pastry shop at home.  I don't have stand mixers, steam injectors, proofing boxes, etc.  The list goes on and on.  I don't even have a convection oven, which is the one piece of equipment I wish for most.  Frankly, though I manage quite well, as a student I don't really have the option of equipping my kitchen the way I'd like.  That's where "Honestly Pastries" comes in.  I don't plan on hiding my mistakes, shortcomings, or blatant #@?& ups.  Despite this, for the most part, I think you will find beautiful, delicious food, made in the sort of kitchen you can find in any home.  I know I'll learn a ton doing this.  I'm super excited.

        I also know exactly what I'm taking on first.

Enjoy!  -Robb