Puffy Results!

I can tell you first hand that real puff pastry, puff pastry that is folded and molded and pounded by hand, is better than the boxed stuff. I thought there wouldn't be a difference because really who wants to do all that work when you can open a box but I can tell you that the real stuff is fluffy and light; it is flaky and smooth and free of that fake lard-y taste -- it's wonderful.

We used our "real" puff twice today when we made apple strips with almond frangipane and we made a French pastry called pithiviers. The apple strip was made by cutting a piece of puff and then laying borders down each of the sides; then you spatula in the almond frangipane in between the boarders and place finely sliced apples on top of the frangipane. You then egg wash the borders, sugar the apples and bake until the puff has browned and the frangipane has set. We glazed our finished product with warmed apricot jelly just to give it a little sparkle. It was so good that I might have had a piece of the strip for supper. Sorry mom.


Sorry for the wonky angle, I wanted y'all to see the full strip


Individual slice of the strip

The pithiviers were a little more complicated. Basically what we did was sandwich a mound of frangipane between two layers of puff and then trim the little package into a circle, decorate and egg wash it and bake it until the moisture has baked out. Sounds easy but it was a little bit trickier than that just because the sandwich method was just weird. There were bowls and pots involved...weird. And tasty. But weird.


Pithiviers and all 768 puff layers -- yes, that's right, there are 768 layers of butter and dough throughout the "real" puff!

We made pastry cream for tomorrow when we make fresh fruit strips(!) and though the fruit strips are exciting, what's really exciting about the pastry cream is that making it has become second nature. When we first started it was such a process and I was so nervous about ruining it and now making the pastry cream feels normal. I don't have to think about anything but the proportion of ingredients and that really delights me.