Work Cited Page

In this part of the "Pies and Tarts" section of my blog, I give full credit to the following:

• The recipes given to us students by Chef Olga Bravo
• The pictures taken in labs at Johnson and Wales University
• "Baking and Pastry Formulas" published by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Scale River, New Jersey 07458

Variety of Different Tartlettes

In labs we created a whole variety of different tarts. We made chocolate ganache tartlets with swirls of white chocolate, fruit tartlets that contained pastry cream, and apple frangipane tartlets, and almondine tartlets (both that contained almond cream and raspberry jam). I thought my fruit tartlets came out beautiful. I was very creative when it came to placing the fruit in different spots on the tarts. The chocolate, almondine, apple frangipane tartlets came out not what I was expecting. I messed up on the design for the chocolate ganache  tartlets. I worked with the chocolate not to lose enough so I could have made designs with the pairing knife.  The apple petals were hard to peel so my roses were a little off on the apple frangipane. the design with the powdered sugar for my almondine tartlets were a little off too. I could have been more creative.  The shells, according to chef, should have been a little more golden brown .

Turtle Tarts

So my teacher the other day in labs decided that instead of making a turtle pie that we would try to make turtle tarts. I thought these turtle tarts were adorable. Each one was made out of a chocolate shell, a pecan/caramel filling, layered with chocolate mouse, whip cream and a caramel candy turtle.  While making the mouse, I added to much of the swiss meringue that was originally called for so it offset the color. Unfortunately I threw it away and used a different group's extra mouse that was the right consistency, color, and flavor. I thought the candied turtles were so adorable and added a great tough to the tart itself. I did taste one of these pastries and I thought it had great flavor, but very sweet.

Lemon Meringue Tarts

Today I have made these delicious lemon meringue tarts. Lemon meringue is one of my favorite pies/ tarts. I love how zesty the lemon curd was that made a perfect combination with the swiss meringue. When making the meringue I had some trouble whipping the egg whites and sugar and it took a longer time than usual. IN the end though it came out perfect. I also think that I should have baked my shells a little longer for the small tarts and for the bigger tart I think I should have made the walls a little bit thicker. It resulted to cracking, but I fixed it when I set my lemon curd in the tart shell, The walls then were sturdy enough to hold the filling.  I think if I had to change anything I would have probably have changed the design on the big tart and keep the little tarts like they are in the picture. Also I would have torched the big tart a little bit longer.

Pecan Tarts

Hi everyone, the other day I have made these really amazing pecan tarts that came out very beautiful and astonishing. Personally I'm not a huge fan of pecan tarts, but since everyone else in my lab said that they were delicious I figured I could show everyone how to make them. So here it is a step by step process on how to make pecan tarts.

1. Make sure you gather all your ingredients. To make the dough for the tarts you would need one whole egg, pastry flour, butter, and granulated sugar. You can add your sugar to your egg and mix it with a fork. Make sure your butter is cubed and cold before you proceed with the dough making.

2.  Next you would lay your flour on the surface and lay your butter on top of the flour. Now instead of using the cutting method with your bench scrapper, use your palm of your hand to rub the butter into the flour, this would be called the rubbing method. The rubbing method is to create mealy long flaky dough. Once the butter is rubbed in, create a well into your flour mixture and add little by little of the egg/sugar mixture into the flour/butter mixture and rub in using a bench scrapper until combined into a ball. Once combined wrap the dough ball with plastic wrap and set in the fridge to keep cold until ready to use.

3. When your ready to work with your dough take it out of the fridge and cut it in half. With one half you would be able to make a medium size tart. With the other half you'll be able to make 3 small tarts. Roll out the dough to the thickness of 1/8 of an inch. Once rolled out lay the dough on top of the tart shell ramekin and cut the extra dough around the edges.

4. With the little dough thats off the edge of the circle ramekin carefully fold it in to the round ramekin and press it against the sides using your thumbs. Now using your paring knife make a slanted line along the edge for a creative and nice design. To bake these tarts, we're going to blend bake the crust. Blind bake is when you take plastic wrap and place beans inside the plastic wrap while placing the plastic wrap beans into the tarts. Place the tarts into the oven for about ten minutes until the edge is turning a little golden brown.

5. Once the tart shells are baked, egg wash the bottom of the tart surface. This is so when you bake the pecan pie filling in these tart shells the filling will not make the bottom so moist and will not leak out of the crust. The egg wash act as a barrier (you can make the bottom surface white or dark chocolate and it acts the same way as the egg wash). As you can see in the next picture after the egg washing,  a layer of chopped pecans were layered on the bottom. I mixed together a liquid filling that you can see me pour into the half baked tart shells. This liquid filling is made out of butter, granulated sugar, egg, corn syrup, bourbon, and vanilla extract whisked together.

6.  Next layer your full size pecans on the surface of your tarts and place them in the oven. To make sure they are fully baked you are looking for bubbles along the surface. Once baked and the tarts are fully cooled be careful taking them out of the rings because they could fall apart. 

I would say the final product was all right. I believe I could have done a lot better with the whole tart itself. The larger tart wasn't as nice looking, that is why I only took a picture of the small tarts instead of the larger tart. I wasn't a huge fan of the whole pecans on top. Next time I would of have done the small pecans instead of the whole. Also I'm not a huge fan of pecan tarts or pecan pie. It's one of my least favorite pastries.

Linzertorte

Hi everyone, today's creation I have made a delicious Linzertorte made with a raspberry jam, almond cream, and an almond dough. I would say out of the pastries that I've made this year, this one was probably the best. The crust was so flaky that it had a lot of texture. Both fillings, the raspberry jam and the almond cream were a great combination together and complimented each other very well in the torte. The lattice on my torte looked amazing. I evenly spaced out my strips and the strips itself were evenly cut out. There was a nice golden brown color on the surface of the torte.  The sliced almonds and the powdered sugar around the edge looked very nice and well presented. When I tried my linzertorte I had it with a cup of tea from Starbucks and it tasted very well together. Another successful pastry that I have made, plus got an A+ on.

Butternut Squash Pie

Hey Everyone, today I have made a very festive butternut squash pie for the fall season, but also this pie could be made for any time of the year. I have used what is called a mealy basic pie dough for the base. I have also blind baked the pie crust which was very flaky and added nice texture. Butternut squash isn't my favorite type of pie. Personally I enjoy pumpkin pie because butternut squash gives me heart burn. I did try it though and it was very creamy. Maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream the pie would taste a lot better. I very much liked the boarder that surrounded the butternut squash filling with cute little leaves and acorns.

Coconut Cream Pie

Today in labs I have made a coconut cream pie. This type of pie is definitely one of my favorites. It was so creamy and delicious.  I loved the coconut flavor that I had folded into the vanilla cream base of the pie. The flakiness of the pie dough was amazing and had such great flavor for this type of pie. I even added a nice bottom coat of white chocolate to the pie so that way the coconut cream wouldn't make the bottom to moist. Normally I'm not that huge a fan of white chocolate, but it added a great combination to the coconut folded inside the pie. For a garnish I used a heavy coat of chantilly cream with little rosettes for each of the eight pieces the pie would have made. I also had toasted coconut for the edges and shaved white chocolate for the middle of the pie. It is very important to distinguish in any way what kind of pie you have made by either for example using dried fruit or chocolate shavings as a nice garnish. I would definitely make this pie again, super fun and easy process.

Apple Pie (with a cooked filling)

Hi everyone, today I have made an apple pie, but this time I made the filling by cooking the pie filling  in a pot. Personally, when I make an apple pie I prefer not precooking the filling before baking the pie. I would usually add the apples sliced and the sugar spices mixture and then bake the pie. I jut find this way cooking the filling very messy. This pie also had a lattice top, but it wasn't my best lattice top I have made. Back in high school whenever I had to make a pie my lattice tops use to be very nice looking. I guess I was a little rusty. The spaces were little uneven, some big and some small. I guess I should brush up on my lattice skills. This type of pie is not one of my best pies I ever made.

Handmade Pies

Today I have made these small adorable handmade pies in labs. These pies were in the shape of a square and contained a layer of blueberries, orange marmalade, and a zesty layer of cream cheese. The whole wheat pie crust that I used added flakiness to the pastry and a nice golden shade of brown to the top. The granulated sugar was a nice touch to the top that added a little sparkle to the pastry. These pastries had a lot of flavor and was very creamy from the cream cheese filling. It was a great idea to also cut out a nice shape on top of the pastry. I would definetly  make these again for a party or a get together. Plus these pastries are super easy and fun to make.

Apple Pie

The other day in labs I have made an apple pie. This apple pie was very sweet and tasty and before I baked it, the crimping of the crust and the outer layer of the pie was beautiful. Unfortunately their was a mistake and the top of my pie was crushed on the top leaving it flat and uneven. With the filling of the pie, in my opinion next time I would add a little less cinnamon. If I had the chance next time i would of fixed my pie and prevent it from not having an uneven top and dissembled outer crimped crust. Maybe I would have cooked the pie a little less so it would of have a nice golden brown.

Lemon Chiffon Pie

Hi everyone, today I would like to talk about the lemon chiffon pie that I have made in labs the other day. The lemon chiffon pie that I have made was made with a 3,2,1 pie dough that was blind baked. Blind baking is when you take a pie dough that you fit into the pie tin and you would either place another pie tin on top  and tip it over or a piece of parchment paper with a heavy layer of dried beans  to bake with. Once you see the pie dough get a golden brown color, then you would either remove the beans and parchment paper, or tip the pie tin right side up again and remove the pie tin off the crust and continue baking. For the inside base of the pie, I coated it with a brushed layer of melted dark chocolate. This was so the lemon chiffon filling would not make the pie crust moist. The lemon chiffon filling was very tangy, but very creamy and enjoyable especially with the sweetness of the Chantilly cream on top. I would very much make this pie again. Even my family members enjoyed this pie for Easter.

Apple Galettes

Hello everyone, I started a new lab in my second segment called "Pies and Tarts". My first assignment was to create a pastry called "Apple Galettes". Apple galettes is a pastry made out of a basic pie dough, or a 3,2,1 pie dough, with a layer of frangipane and another layer of sliced granny smith apples. Frangipane is just a simple mixture of almond cream and pastry cream that adds a creamy, nutty flavor to the apple galette. Personally I didn't care for the frangipane added to the apple galette. I would have added a layer of orange marmalade or raspberry jelly as a replacement of the frangipane.  I think the idea of the pastry is very cute and simple. They remind me of wheels to a bicycle.  The toasted almonds and powdered sugar was a very nice touch to the pastry for the finish product.

Napoleons

The napoleons are one of my favorite puff pastry treats to make. A napoleon is traditionally consists of a thousand layers, but this one is only about 432 layers. Also traditionally this is a super great way to use puff pastry scraps. The original way of forming napleons are three layers of puff pastry dough and two layers of diplomat cream. Some people like to use fruit for layers like raspberries or strawberries, but I like to be plain and make it the original way. Every napoleon consists of the fondant icing and chocolate drizzle. I'm actually gonna teach everyone how to make Napoleons, there so easy and simple to make in just a few steps. 

1.  The first step is to take a piece of blitz dough and shape it to the size of  a half sheet pan, and must be rolled out to the thickness of 1/8 of an inch.  This puff pastry sheet must be docked all over the puff pastry so that way air can circulate though. And don't be afraid to run the docker a couple of times through the dough the more wholes the better. Before putting it in the oven put it in the freezer with a half sheet pan on top and half of a parchment paper for at least 10-15 minutes. 

2. The next step is to take the napoleon sheet out of the freezer and bake it (with the pan on top) for about a half an hour in the convection oven or until dark, and it must be dark. The darker the sheet the better the quality of napoleon. Once you can see some colorization in the product you can take the top pan off. If you take it off to soon, then the sheet could bake very unevenly, and you want an even sheet. 

3. After you take the puff pastry out of the oven you wanna cut it into a long rectangle of 15"x10", and the cut the rectangle into three equal strips of 10"x5". next you would want to figure out which layer would be good to make as your bottom to support the napoleon in place, your middle, and your top layer. once you have figure this out and your diplomat cream (for your cream layers)  is made and ready, then you can start layering  the diplomat cream to your napoleon. 

 

4. What I used to spread the Diplomat cream was a 823 star tip and loaded a pastry bag full of the diplomat cream. Now you would want to make nice round edges at the edges of the puff pastry layers, but nothing too sloppy looking either. It's just enough to show designs. And you would do this for two of the layers. Once this part is done and before you put the fondant on top set this in the freezer so it can come together and become enough to chill it. At this stage this would be the point if you wanted to add different types of fruits for the layers like raspberries or strawberries.

 

5. At this time you should have your simple syrup/fondant mixture prepare. Take your napoleon out of the freezer and put on a cutting board. Take a piping bag and pour your fondant mixture onto the napoleon and spread with your small off set spatula. make sure it is evenly spread. Quickly before it dries and hardens, drizzle the chocolate back and forth across the napoleon. Now before that hardens  take the back of your pairing knife and draw lines across up and down to create zig zag lines up and down. Stick it back in the freezer to harden.

 

6. To cut your napoleons, make sure it is frozen to begin with. Use a pairing knife to trim off the edges to make it look neater. Dip your chef's knife into warm water to make clean cuts into your napoleons. Make six even cuts and don't forget to use a paper underneath when serving. Enjoy! 

Barvarian cream

Bavarian cream is made with cream anglaise that my partnered I infused with a coffee espresso and made a trifle cake with chattily cream added on top. There were other ways you can make barbarian cream like infusing orange and lemon into the cream to add a tropical zesty flavor. The only problem that I have occurred was that we over whipped the barvarian cream to much that it was at a soft peak instead of liquid that you can pour.

Pate a Choux

Pate a choir is another type of puff pastry dough that requires flour, eggs, water, butter, and at least a pinch of salt. With pate a choux, this type of dough is very risky and a delicate procedure to bake and make. You wouldn't want the dough to thick like a solid, but at the liquid stage is also bad because that would be to much egg. Today I have made Eclairs (both pastry cream and lemon flavored), cream puffs, and cream puff shaped as swans. Working with pate a choux is not one of my favorite projects because of how messy the dough is, especially cleaning up the mess. Here are a couple of picture of the thing I have made with pate a choux that I have mentioned.