Another day in boulangerie

We've had three boulangerie days in a row. Aside from it being way too hot in the bread baking lab, I really do enjoy these days since I'm generally bringing home carbs instead of carbs and fat. Plus its a lot easier to justify eating a baguette for dinner than a pastry, at least for me. Today we made brioche, baguettes, and croissants.

Cepes for Mary

Its nearing the end of cepe mushroom season here. Cepes are the French name for a variety of mushrooms akin to porcini. Cepes are also known as the "king of mushrooms" or the "poor man's steak" as they are hearty and flavorful. The mushroom season for cepes has been quite long this year and some people have attributed it to the "canicule" aka heat wave that we had in August.

Olé for pain au lait

What a whirly dervish of a weekend. It's been busy, but fun and I'm feeling slightly guilty for not posting lately. Friday we had another boulangerie class and baked off our pain au lait we made last week. We also made some butter croissants and brioche, but they're going to be baked off another day.

Here is the pain au lait prior to baking. We made a lot of fun shapes and animals. However, the proofer made them expand too much and some of my animals lost their eyes!

Saint Honore, bread, and more!

I feel like I'm in a perpetual state of playing catch-up with my blog posts. I think it's because we bake so many things each day and I feel like every pastry needs to have its own blog post to reflect the amount of work that goes into them. But alas, waking up at 5 AM doesn't really lend a lot of energy to that, so instead... I have photos!

Conversations and Paris brest

So today we made conversations and Paris brests, which are two traditional French pastries. The former is made with puff pastry and the latter with choux pastry. I don't know where/how the conversation got its name, perhaps the pastry struck up some lively banter when it was first made? The Paris brest (not breast) is supposed to resemble a wheel, more specifically bike wheel, as there is a yearly cycling race in the town of Brest.

Chocolate and coffee eclairs

As I'm typing up this blog post with a cup of tea at hand and a dozen eclairs in the fridge, I know there's no possible way I could even stomach eating one. Though eclairs are held in just as high esteem as croissants when it comes to French pastry, like many things I bake in bulk, there's just no way I can handle more than a taste.

Yes, the soft choux dough full of pastry cream and topped with gooey fondant is beckoning, but thank goodness the calls of temptation fall on deaf ears. Perhaps I'm not so excited about them because I've made choux pastry countless times. From cream puffs, to ice cream filled profiteroles, to a croquembouche, throwing together some choux dough is more than familiar. It's times like these that I wish I could teleport pastries.

When I think of eclairs, they slightly make me nostalgic of the custard filled chocolate bars of my childhood. In a sense, they're a sophisticated donut replacement, but yet... not quite. I also think about the eight dollar atrocity I saw at a bakery in Mountain View, which was about four times the size of my eclair, but filled with whipped cream and strawberries. Oh the horror.



Anyhow, today we made chocolate and coffee eclairs, starting with a simple dough made out of water, butter, sugar, salt, eggs and flour.



The flour is added to the boiling water/butter mixture to create a thick paste, and removed from the heat once it pulls away from the pan. Then eggs are slowly added until the dough is smooth and all eggs are incorporated.

We then piped the dough out using a pastry bag and tip, and popped them in the oven until they came out looking like tiny hot dog buns. Mine weren't completely straight. Sadly, my morning coffee habit is resulting in jittery hands.

Pain au chocolat

I have warm memories of pain au chocolat, known as a chocolate croissant to most. My mom used to always buy them for me as a child from the local French bakery. Flaky crust, tender dough, and hidden deep in the folds of pastry was what I savored the most; chocolate. I used to gingerly eat around the edges saving the chocolate for last.

Loads of loaves

I'm loving the loaves.. but loathing the lethargy with lumbering to lab before its light out. Okay, I know a baguette isn't quite a loaf, but I couldn't help throw in a mild alliteration. Today class started at 6:30 AM. That meant getting up at 5:00 AM. Which means that if this blog entry is riddled with spelling/grammar errors and nonsense... you know why.