Day 11

Did you guess “fruit something, something custardy and something with almonds?” You did?! You’re right! You win!!!

Day 11:

• Flan Pâtissier (flan tart, creme pâtissier au flan)
  
• Bande aux Fruits (creme d’amande, creme pâtissier, fresh fruits)
• Millefeuille Alsacien (framboise pépin, caramelized honey almonds)
  

Day 11 was eventful.  It was our last class with puff pastry, so Chef D brought in some champagne and we bid “adieu” to those flaky buttery layers at the end of demo. Veuve Cliquot, in fact. It’s no wonder Le Cordon Bleu has its reputation, huh? Haha yaaah right. Instead, the eventful part of Day 11 was learning just how sharp that brand new Wüsthoff knife of mine is. (Don’t worry, Mom.  I’ve already told you all of this. Please don’t worry again when reading about it here :-)).

Since the recipes for Day 11 didn’t really call for any new techniques, I was fairly relaxed going into pratique.  I knew that my main concern, as always, would be time—“my pace” tends to be a bit slow.  So everything was going well and I was doing great on time when “it” happened.  I had just finished prepping my bande and lining my tarte au flan mold so I started clearing my work space.  As I was putting my knife away (perhaps a bit too quickly), the tip nicked my forefinger…and out rushed the blood. Fortunately, my station is only a step away from the sink and I managed to contain any mess, but I was shocked at how much my finger was gushing.  The cut, which is mostly healed now, was fortunately a clean slice.  It was just very deep. Like a trench.  At first I felt fine, no doubt from the adrenalin of being in pratique, and insisted that I didn’t need to take a break. But as Chef D was helping me stop the bleeding, I suddenly felt light-headed and things started getting blurry and I thought, “Oh, shit, I’m about to faint.”  The “shit” being…I’ve never fainted before.  Or at least I don’t recall having fainted before. And last Friday in pratique was the first time I ever had the feeling that I might…and it was triiiippy. Chef D helped me out of the kitchen and I was in a chair drinking some sugar water before I got any worse…so long story short: I still haven’t fainted in my life. But now I’ve had a pre-faint experience and can say that I’m glad I haven’t had those before.

Anyways, after about 5-10 minutes, I felt much better and was anxious to get back into the kitchen—I mean, I had just barely begun!  So I got bandaged up, put on a glove and pumped that shit out with a little (lot of) help from my friends (Thanks, Seiko-chan :-))

Flan Pâtissier, short for Tarte au Flan Pâtissier, is most commonly known simply as tarte au flan, or flan tart. Flan is a custard and just about every country seems to have their own tart version. When I took a bite of my still-warm tarte au flan after I got home, I was reminded of dan tat, or Cantonese egg tarts.  Considering how close it was to Chinese New Year’s,  I thought it very fitting that I had made a French version of the dim-sum staple. The steps for making the tart were fairly straightforward.  The pre-baked tart, which was made from puff pastry, was filled with creme pâtissier au flan, or pastry cream made with flan powder instead of flour or cornstarch. Once filled, the tart is baked a second time to give the top some color. I over-colored mine a bit. Let’s blame it on the cut finger.

The Bande aux Fruits followed the same preparation techniques as Day 9’s Bande aux Pommes, except there was a lot more energy invested in the fruit decor. Also, this was the first time we had made something that called for baking a layer of almond cream before adding a layer of pastry cream, and the combo was great.  I’ve said it before (many times) and I’ll say it again: Almond cream is great. The Millefeuille Alsacien, which we didn’t make in pratique, calls for a raspberry filling made by mixing framboise pépin with a neutral nappage, or glaze, and some lemon juice.  The filling is sandwiched between two millefeuille, or thousand leaf, squares, much like the pailles from Day 10.  This raspberry sandwich, however, has an extra dimension of flavor with a sliced almond topping that has been caramelized in honey and sugar. Mmm mMM good.

Flan Pâtissier

Bande aux Fruits

To preserve the way I arranged my fruit, I cut my bande on a diagonal...

And consquently felt like I was playing Tangrams when figuring out how to take the loot home. I think edible tangrams would really sell. It'd make "modifications" much easier (and tastier.)