Day 5: Classic Pastry

Welcome back! Today in class, we made Pate A Choux, Craqulin, worked on a Napoleons and made Diplomat Cream.

For the Pate A Chouz: Pate A Chouz can be a savory or sweet pastry. Usually, you will see them more with desserts, that are filled with a Pastry Cream or Diplomat Cream.

Step 1: Measure ingredients. Combine the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt into a pot. Put the bread flour into a separate container. Whisk the eggs so there isn’t any whole eggs.

Step 2: Make a template: 6- 1.5 inched circles on the top of the half sheet of parchment paper. The next row, 5- 2.25 inched circles. The last row will be lines, draw 5 diagonal like that is 4 inches long. The top row is for the cream puffs. The second row is for the Paris-Brest. The last row is for the eclairs. Remember to flip over before using, the ink will get on the pastries.

Step 3: Bring the milk mixture to a boil. Make sure all of the butter is melted.  

Step 4: Once boiling, take off heat and mix in the flour. Make sure you mix in the flour really well. You want to make sure there isn’t any flour chunks. 

Step 5: Put back on heat and keep stirring until it looks a little darker and shinier. Then put on mixer. 

Step 6: Turn the mixer on, on low speed for about a minute to start the cooling process. After that, start adding your whisked eggs slowly.

Step 7: Keep an eye for the dough being coming stretchy. You will use most or little of the eggs depending on how much moisture is in the flour. You want the dough peak to flop over onto itself, not to stick up right.  You should look for this:

Step 8: Put into piping bags and pipe onto template.

 

Step 9: Once all are piped, on the Cream Puffs put a Craquelin (will explain later), put almonds onto of the Paris-Brest, and egg wash on the eclairs.

Step 10: Put into oven at 400 degrees, to create steam so they will rise, for 25-30 min, or until dark brown. (We will finish them tomorrow).

A Craquelin is when all ingredients combine and mixed by a paddle on the mixer. The dough when combined is very dry and crumbly. You can combine the dough by kneading the dough together. The Craquelin is rolled to a thin dough that is about the thickens of the width of the ruler. The Craquelin goes onto of the Cream Puffs to add flavor. The Craquelin makes the Cream Puffs bigger because it blocks some of the heat to getting to the top of the crust. The Cream Puff has a chance to steam up more with the Craquelin on top.

The Diplomat Cream is made up of Pastry Cream, gelatin, and Chantilly. Pastry Cream is made up of milk, vanilla, sugar, cornstarch, egg yolks, and butter.  Pastry cream uses a second boil because of the cornstarch. A second boil is when you cook the cornstarch twice. You temper the milk, vanilla, some of the sugar with the cornstarch, egg yolks, and the rest of the sugar. Tempering heats up the egg yolks slowly. But after you temper the mixture gets put back in the pot and back on the stove, to bring to a boil. The second boil gets rid of the starch flavor and starts the thickening process. The gelatin helps with stabilizing the cream. Chantilly is a whipped cream with flavoring. It help makes the cream fluffy, smoother, and light.

To continue with the Napoleons, we cut the puff pastry we baked yesterday, cut it so the width would be 3 inches and 12 inches long. We ended with 3 pieces. The first piece goes on the bottom. Then piped Diplomat Cream, then the second piece, then the Diplomat Cream. Then the last layer then put into the freezer because it is easier to cut if the Diplomat Cream is frozen instead of falling out the sides while you cut. We will finish these tomorrow.

I felt like today went pretty well. My pastry came out look similar, in size and color. They puff up nicely. The Diplomat Cream was nice and fluffy. The Napoleons didn’t break on me. I felt I could have been a little neater while I was working. I also felt like I my station was cluttered. I know for tomorrow I will try and work a little bit faster and cleaner.