Oh, hi! It’s been a while, friends. I’m really sorry I’ve been so absent, but it’s not personal, I promise! It’s just evidence that pastry school isn’t a walk in the park, and doubly so when coupled with working full time and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. Obviously I was a little over-ambitious when I thought I could keep this up regularly and maintain some sanity in my everyday life.
To play some quick catch up, here’s a brief list of the things you’ve missed between my last post and now:
- I made and ate my weight in butter in our puff pastry unit, making some really delicious treats like poires en cage, tarte tatin, and palmiers. It was our introduction into lamination, which is essentially the layering of dough and butter to create flaky, airy layers of baked pastry.
- In our first cake unit, we learned the basics of various mixing methods, and it took me three tries to figure out how to make a génoise correctly. We made some basic layer cakes, as well as succès au café, marjolaine, and an intricately piped basket weave, which was way more fun than it sounds!
- Next was one of my favorites, if not my favorite unit in our whole program: breads and viennoiserie. Bagels, croissants, danish, pannettone, brioche, sticky buns, English muffins, the list goes on… I just love working with doughs and yeast, so I’m hoping we get to do some more of that.