09 | February | 2010 | SUGAR バンザイ

Day 9

9 02 2010

Day 9:

Chaussons aux Pommes (apple turnovers)
Bande aux Pommes (apple compote, sliced apples)
Galette des Rois (“King’s Cake,” almond cream filling)
Préparation du Feuilletage

Feuilletage. Or Pâte Feuilletée. I can’t pronounce either properly in French, but I can say “puff pastry” just fine. And I love puff pastry.

In fact, my application essay for the Culinary Trust scholarship included a mini ode to the buttery, flaky goodness. I won’t copy/paste the section here because the way I gushed about it makes me blush, but the general idea: puff pastry = bliss. So you can imagine how excited I was for class this past week. I mean, I’m still excited. I feel like one of the secrets of deliciousness has just been divulged to me and I have the power (or at least the knowledge) to create said deliciousness whenever I want.

That power/knowledge can be summed up in one word: butter.

The LCB recipe calls for 240 grams (about 1/2 lb) of the saturated fat goodness to be wrapped, dumpling-style, in the detrempe, or the pastry base made from flour, water, and melted butter (yes, in addition to the aforementioned 240 grams). In total, our recipe calls for 280 grams of butter to 400 grams of flour. With a ratio like that, you’ve just got to forget about the calories and your soon-to-be-clogged arteries and enjoy.

The irresistible flakiness of puff pastry is the product of many many alternating layers of butter and detrempe. To achieve this, you take your butter dumpling and roll it out into a nice long rectangle and fold it into thirds. Then you roll it out into a nice long rectangle and fold it into thirds again. Then you roll it out into a nice long…you get the picture.

Chef D said that most puff pastry is used after its 5th or 6th roll out/fold, meaning there are between 243 (3^5) and 729 (3^6) layers of butter in a ready-to-use feuilletage. However, because the butter needs to remain cool throughout the rolling/folding process, it is generally recommended to chill the pastry every two folds. This also gives the developed gluten an opportunity to relax making for easier rolling. I told you deliciousness was time-consuming.

Ok. I’ve gushed enough about puff pastry for one day. I’ll save the rest for Day 10—believe me, there’ll be plenty—and leave y’all with photos from class and of my pratique loot. Got some hot tipz from my brother Eric (he gifted me the D40 :-)) on how to take more dynamic, food-porn worthy shots, so I’m giving it a try. I really enjoy photography but never took the time to learn about it. Now I have good reason to do so. I mean, if I’m going to be taking food pics, I should be aiming for saliva-inducing. Ganbarimasu (the every-situation Japanese word meaning “I’ll do my best.”)