The Puff You've Missed

So the last official day that y'all had a real school update was last Thursday and due to the time that we are in, in our module and the fact that doughs need to rest, you didn't miss tons and tons and I will try to catch everyone up.

Friday was a frustrating day. We worked on danish dough and croissant dough and even though we were assured that these doughs were a piece of cake compared to the puff dough that we had been working with, we were lied to. I have never seen so many frustrated pastry students! The big difference between danish and croissant dough and puff pastry is that danishes and croissants contain yeast and puff dough does not. Puff dough rises because when it is baked, the layers of butter (remember I told you there were 768 layers of butter and flour!), melt and leave space and create lift. Well in danish and croissants, the dough is lifted by the butter but also by the yeast which also lifts.

To help the picture come together, I will describe how the doughs are made as simply and quickly as possible...puff pastry is made by making a shaggy dough called a detrempe and then by pounding a one-pound block of butter dusted heavily with flour until it is very thin, this is called making a beuragge. The beuragge is then shaped into a square and the folded into the detrempe to form a paton. Basically it look like a tiny little present of dough; the present is rolled out and folded, rolled and folded, rolled and folded and then finally, you guessed it, rolled and folded. It takes a long time because the dough needs to remain slightly chilled so that the butter doesn't melt while you are rolling. It's hard to fight with the dough, believe me. So, the croissant and danish doughs were made in a similar way to the puff dough but the beuragge was pounded paper thin and the doughs resisted rolling like nobody's business. They leaked butter, they stuck to the table, the shrunk up, they were not kind to us young pastry students -- hence the frustration. I think we were all glad that the doughs had to ferment over the weekend in the freezer (being frozen doesn't kill yeast, it just slows its development which is perfect for when you have class during the week and need something held over the weekend)and that we didn't have to deal with them till Monday.


Perfect little puff dough present so you can better envison how the puff comes together, after this stage you begin the rolling process.

On Monday we started rolling the croissants and the pain au chocolats. Once I figured out the mathematics of dividing the dough into the triangles for the croissants, the were easy to make. All you do is make two little slits in the top, stretch the dough a little so it looks like the batman logo and thin rolled the croissant up with a little bit of forceful gusto. You egg wash the little tail to the body of the croissant, let them rise again and then egg wash the whole croissant and bake until golden. The pain au chocolat is made by cutting the rolled dough into small rectangles and then placing two sticks of chocolate about a quarter of the way in on both sides of the dough and then just folding the ends of the dough in to meet one another in the middle. The are proofed too, egg washed and baked till golden.


Croissant -- it's not over-baked, it's just golden. Our chef liked our puff to be very golden and what she says goes...


Pain au chocolats (there are a couple filled with little cheese batons in there too...we have both the savory and sweet cravings covered, just ask Collin Murray)

The danish dough was a little bit more complex to work with. We were shown a number of different ways to make danishes and chose what we wanted to do. I did a braid which is insanely difficult to try to explain how to do with charts and pictures and diagrams and a couple of other little forms too. One you simply cut a square of dough, place a little filling in the middle and bring up two opposite corners and secure them with a toothpick. I also made a pinwheel danish but like the braid, it is a little tricky to explain and still have y'all understand. I can say that the spread of baked goods on Monday were intense and tasty. Diets are completely pointless when you are going to pastry school.


Pinwheel danish filled with almond and chocolate frangipane


Braided danish dough filled with pineapple puree.

Today we wrote our second big test and prepared puff pastry for grading. It was not a great day for working with butter are the air conditioning in the school was no working and the state of New York was in the school doing a routine evaluation but we made all made it through. Tomorrow we begin our cake module with a new chef...I looked ahead, carrot cake, chocolate cake and muffins -- OH MY!

We started with the croissant dough on Monday.