Thursday, March 22, 2007

A Study in Croissant..

After last weeks post, are you surprised that I would follow up with a post about my favorite pastry of all time? I didnt have a chance to dip these in chocolate as I had planned, let alone let them cool completely before completely devouring.To think that I almost forgot about these while they were baking..phew, they were almost goners..




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Monday, March 12, 2007

1000 layers…






One of my favorite things pastry is the Croissant.

The Chocolate Croissant...dipped in chocolate, to be exact.

I have fond memories of heading to the bakery with my mom after morning swim practice, long ago, and picking out my breakfast. The first bite was always heaven…breaking through the shell of chocolate on the dipped end, through the crackling and buttery layers of pastry to the chocolate core in the center.

Heaven.

The magic of the Croissant, the Danish and Puff Pastry lies in the method. Butter is layered within the dough, creating a flakiness achieved by a series of folds and turns and rolling the dough thin. I have had this sense of awe surrounding ‘laminated doughs’, as they are called, since I was in school, almost 6 years ago. Our instructors instilled in us a strict preciseness about it all. The butter had to be the exact same temperature and texture as the dough surrounding it, and it was all time consuming. Each fold and turn was followed by a 30 minute rest in the fridge. We only briefly touched on these doughs while in school, so I feel as if I have yet to really perfect them.

What better time to start than today?

My first attempt was with Puff Pastry. Puff is the only laminated dough that isn’t a yeasted dough, so it is the least consuming to make, but it has the most lamination, creating nearly 1500 layers of butter and dough throughout, hence the name “mille feuilles,” which means “a thousand leaves.”




After what I deemed a pretty successful run, I decided to spruce things up a bit and make a caramelized banana upsidedown tart, and...


Breakfast is served...
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Monday, March 05, 2007

Waxing Poetic.


This weeks forecast...

MONDAY- mostly cloudy, a shower
TUESDAY- cloudy, then rain
WEDNESDAY- a couple of showers
THURSDAY- breezy and rainy
FRIDAY- a chance of rain



It must be fun to be a weathercaster here. Imagine you are told by your boss,

“hey ah, why don’t you mix it up a bit for the people. Instead of just printing, RAIN RAIN RAIN…jazz it up, give ‘em a little variety..”

I think my favorite description above is for today.

Mostly cloudy, a shower.

Sounds poetic, doesn’t it?

A haiku.

No chance of sun, none.
Mostly Cloudy, a shower.
Tomorrow, the same.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

goodcake.
A New Blog....


Every once in a while, I get a little cake business on the side, so instead of launching full force into developing a website, which I will do when I am good and ready, I have decided to develop a little portal into my side business world, via a NEW blog. Have yourself a look HERE, and, tell your friends...