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Cream Puff Goes To School: Weeks 1 & 2
Date: Sep. 22nd 2007
Category: Baking Class
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After taking a break during the spring and summer, I’m happy to announce that I have resumed the baking courses that I’m taking at George Brown College as I work towards a Bakery Arts certificate.
As much as I love the classes, my family and my work (including this blog) come first so facing a very busy spring and summer, I decided it was best not to enrol in any classes. When I last I left you, I had completed the Art of Pies course, which is one of six compulsory credits required for the certificate.
Two weeks ago, I began my fourth compulsory credit. The course is called Art of Pastry and covers various forms of pastry and how to use them. During our first class, we focussed on the often intimidating puff pastry.
Having had some experience with puff pastry before, I was familiar with the process of making it. Puff pastry gets its flakiness during the rolling process. As the butter is worked into the dough through rolling and folding, precious layers are being created. When baked, these layers puff up to create the “puffiness” that is so prized in this type of dough.
For me, butter is crucial for a successful puff pastry. Unfortunately, as is often the case with the baking classes I’m taking, we tend to use ingredients that are either less expensive or that will perform better in a very warm class environment.
Our puff pastry session in class began by forming a dough of flour, water, salt and vegetable shortening. After forming a dough with those ingredients, we let it rest for about 20 minutes before rolling it out and adding the fat. We should have used butter but instead we used a product called “roll-in fat”. I’ve used this product before in baking class and it’s essentially an edible oil The product is imported from Germany and looks like butter but has a much different texture. It almost feels like oily playdough.
We use roll-in fat, I’m assuming, because butter is too expensive and also because of the heat in the classroom. It gets very hot in the class and it would be difficult to work with butter. Reminding myself that I’m in class for the experience and to learn, I gamely went ahead.
There are many different ways to add the butter when making puff pastry. In class we used a method where we rolled our dough out into a large rectangle and then spread the fat over two-thirds of the dough. We then folded the dough into thirds and turned it 90 degrees. We immediately rolled the dough out again into a large rectangle and once again folded it into thirds and turned it 90 degrees. This was our first fold.
At home, when I’ve made puff pastry, I would normally put the pastry into the refrigerator between each of the steps to chill it. However, because of the nature of the fat we used we were able to proceed with several of these steps before having to refrigerate the dough.
As a result, we rolled the dough out again but this time we completed a book fold, which means that we folded the dough into the centre and then folded the two halves together. Once again we turned the dough 90 degrees. At this point we refrigerated the dough for about 30 minutes, after which we removed the dough from the refrigerator and proceeded to roll it again and execute another fold.
We cut our dough in half and portioned it out so that we’d have puff pastry for Week 2 and Week 3. At this point, I realized that I made a mistake in the rolling process. After incorporating the fat and folding the dough, I was supposed to do another fold and then a book turn. But I actually did two folds and a book turn.
When I got to class for Week 2, I was a bit nervous as to how my puff pastry would work out after my error.
Our assignment for class was to roll our out portion of puff pastry and divide it. Half the pastry would be used for an apple strudel and the other half would be used for turnovers. I was a bit disappointed in that I’d expected to use fresh apples for the turnover. Instead, we used apple pie filling (mixed with cinnamon and raisin) and cherry pie filling.
Once again reminding myself that I’m in class to learn as much as I can, I went ahead and prepared the strudel by trimming half the dough into a rectangle and cutting long strips down each side. I placed the filling along the centre of the dough and began crisscrossing the dough strips over the filling. I ended up with a very pretty strudel so I’m looking forward to trying the technique at home.
For the turnovers, I divided the other half of the dough into squares and piled filling into the centre of each. I then folded the dough over to form triangles.
While I’m not thrilled with the fact that we didn’t use butter, the strudel and the turnovers did turn out nicely. My mistake was obvious, however, as my puff pastry did not “puff” as much as that of my classmates. For next week’s class my instructor advised me to roll out the dough and do another book turn before beginning our project.
As for the flavour, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. While the texture was very flaky, there was a very oily aftertaste from the fat in the pastry.
Taste aside, though, I relished the opportunity to make puff pastry again. The rolling and folding and turning was great experience and I can’t wait to try it at home … with butter!
Ciao!
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09/22/07 at 9:36 pm
So glad you are taking classes again, so the rest of us can come along for the ride!
09/22/07 at 10:09 pm
the class certainly sounds fun! I can’t wait to try my hand at puff pastry when the weather is cooler. Well, maybe that’s only an excuse for procastination. Can’t wait to read more about your classes.
09/22/07 at 10:40 pm
Fun! I always love your class reviews!
09/22/07 at 10:42 pm
How exciting - I’ll be following your reports closely! I’ve began a cooking certificate at one of the vocational schools here, plan to do the baking & confectionery certificate next term. It’s fun to be going to school again - I never thought I would do that
09/23/07 at 12:06 am
I would have problems setting aside the fact that I wouldn’t be using butter or fresh fruit too….but as you say, it’s the practice (and credits
that count.
09/23/07 at 12:18 am
It is too bad that they skimp on the quality of ingredients for these classes, still the experience is definitely worth it! can’t wait to hear about your next class.
09/23/07 at 5:18 am
Ooh goody! I get to live vicariously through your cooking classes again! Woot!
Looking forward to the updates!
09/23/07 at 7:56 am
the strudel photographs quite beautifully!! glad to hear that you have found time to take cooking classes!! be sure to update us on your latest creations :0)
09/23/07 at 7:56 am
Ohhh! Delicious looking. It’s great that you’re able to take classes again. Looking forward to seeing and reading about what you make next.
Paz
09/23/07 at 11:34 am
How exciting! I hope you have a great time and I’m also looking forward to reading about your classes.
09/23/07 at 11:59 am
’sokay about the less than desirable ingredients.. when you need to make these things “for real” yours will not only be gorgeous because you learned the correct technique, but they’ll taste like a million bucks! =)
xoxo
09/23/07 at 5:34 pm
Great to hear you’re back in school (and being an overachiever:) ) I agree, once you make the puff with butter I know it will turn out fantastic!
09/23/07 at 5:57 pm
I love taking cooking classes. I’m working towards a culinary arts certificate and plan to finish my required electives this fall. I wish there was one for baking too. Keep us posted on your class progression!
09/23/07 at 6:41 pm
you are a lucky lady! i hope to take baking/cooking classes for a certificate one day
for now i’m looking forward to joining your daring bakers group for october…i cannot wait to see my challenge. and i must admit, my hubby is truly chomping at the bit to try a new sweet treat!
have a great week and please post updates when you can!
09/23/07 at 7:53 pm
It might not be four stars to you but it looks pretty darn tasty to me and beautiful to boot! I too am excited about you taking more classes. I think your pictures are the best. I just wish I lived close enough to sample.
09/24/07 at 1:53 am
How interesting! I would think that they would teach the most traditional methods, but, I suppose they have to work with the ingredients and environment they have… and, maybe, there’s a lesson in that as well.
09/24/07 at 6:01 am
Great to read your baking class reports again! An interesting post…
09/24/07 at 8:31 am
I would love to take classes like this one day! What a great experience!
09/24/07 at 2:28 pm
I would love to take baking classes. Puff pastry is unchartered territory for me. I’m too chicken to attempt it. i take my hat off to you for learning how to make it, even if it didn’t puff the first time.
09/24/07 at 4:57 pm
Baking classes sound like fun and the results look really good!
09/24/07 at 6:11 pm
I took ballet classes at George Brown my whole childhood. Do you go to the one down on King St? Anyway, what an awesome class recap. I envy you taking cooking classes! Especially in making puff pastry. Fun!
09/25/07 at 6:37 am
Puff pastry - I love it, but admit I’m intimidated. I tried to make it years ago and was discouraged by my results. I’m gearing up to try again once our hot, humid weather goes away.
Have a great time in school. What a perfect way to indulge your passion!
09/25/07 at 9:24 am
Baking school?!? How cool! And I’ve been intimidated by the rolling, turning, and folding. One of these days I’ll give it a go…
09/25/07 at 5:57 pm
I love hearing about your class. And the not puffing pastry makes me remember the DB challenge with the St. Honore Gateau. Sigh. Your photos are lovely, as usual!
09/25/07 at 11:31 pm
Oo these posts are fun! I think your turnovers look great! Keep us posted!
09/28/07 at 4:00 am
Back to school it is then!
Yes I have to say the photos are fantastic. And it goes without saying it will be so much better from home with butter and fresh apples!
09/28/07 at 6:59 am
Your work is really gorgeous. Although you didn’t have the great benefit of premium ingredients, you clearly learned the technique beautifully. I hope you keep going. Pastry school was one of the best times in my life!
09/28/07 at 7:05 am
Congratulations for going back to your classes and for sharing them with us. I agree with you in using real butter and fresh apples, but judging from your photos, the results look delicious!!
09/28/07 at 8:50 am
Your strudel is gorgeous and the turnovers hold their own as well. It’s sad that commercial baking is all about cutting corners to make consistent products that appeals to a broad market and fits in with the profit model. It’s even sadder when you have people ask you to use cool whip and margarine because they are use to those flavors and find butter and cream too heavy. I’ve had that experience.
09/29/07 at 6:49 am
[…] at Cream Puffs in Venice, Ivonne is back to school and gives us a roll-by-roll description of her pastry-making efforts. Accompanied by her typical drool-inducing photos as […]
10/6/07 at 3:23 pm
[…] course! In Week 3, we completed our look at puff pastry by using the second half of our dough (first batch was used in Week 2) to make what is called a “Napoleon slice”. It’s basically a dessert that […]
10/18/07 at 10:45 pm
Dear Cream Puff, I adore you site and always look at it , I usually do it once a day to see what your up to.I am also a baker and i love to bake i am also canadaian and I would love to have the recipes for the thanksgiving feast if you could post those recipes i would be so greatful. I also want to take a pastry class when i can knock over a large bank haha i am glad you were able to take the classes you wanted to .Thank you so much for all you do . Love and Blessing to you Cheyenne in Henderson Nevada my email is bookilou4you@cox.net any time
12/27/07 at 6:13 pm
[…] somehow neglected to complete my reports on the baking course I took in the fall. While I summed up Weeks 1 and 2 and Weeks 3 and 4, I never summed up Weeks 5 and […]