Sure is a lot of pressure to get breakfast out for 40 people! Make three pots of coffee, get out the yogurt, dish it up, put our little boxes of cereal, put out three carafes, one with orange juice, one with milk, one with apple juice, put out disposable cups for hot and cold, ceramic coffee mugs, cereal bowls, napkins, silverware, cut up a BIG platter of fruit, slice three loaves of banana bread and make sure I keep checking the levels on the coffee and juice AND get my pate brisee rolled out and in the tart pan and in the freezer before lecture starts!! Oh, my! Good experience though. Everyone like the banana bread I made yesterday. Out of four and a half loaves, only one was left!
Our first lecture was on Laminated or layered doughs: puff pastry, danish dough and croissants. For all three doughs, you start with a "Detrempe"-mix your flour, salt, butter and water (or in the case of croissants-flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and milk.) and let it sit in the fridge. Then you take a Beurrage or butter block, and layer and roll the dough into a Paton or "package". Croissants and puff pastry are rolled differently but are very similar. I am happy to share the exact recipe if anyone is interested. Applications of puff pastry are: Napoleons, Mille Feuille (thousand leaves), Jalousie (think gourmet pop tart!), Pithivier (round version of a Jalousie), Fleuron (a crescent shaped puff that is used for garnish), Bouchee ("mouthful", a one bit round basket that you can fill with savory or sweet ingredients) and Vol-au-Vent ("fly in the wind"-same as the Bouchee but bigger).
Then we started both puff pastry and croissant doughs. We'll finish them tomorrow. They should turn out well!
Once we were done with that, we had another lecture, this time on Alsace-Lorraine, two regions (or departments as the French call them) in northwestern France. They border Germany and through the years have been under French rule and German rule but have always considered themselves to be French. Alsace-Lorraine is as far north as you can be and still grow grapes, although most of their grapes have a more German association than French association. There are mountains (which give them game for stews) and lots of rivers (fish stews). The people there raise pigs and geese as well as hops, grains, barley (think lots of beer!), plums, grapes and they also make lots of cheese. Quiche Lorraine originated here as well as Madeline's (the national French cookie).
After the Alsace-Lorraine, we had an Alsatian lunch! There was lots of beer! Lunch became very jolly, lol! We started with Flammekuchen, which is a type of pizza topped with cream, sauteed onions and bacon. Wow! This is definitely something that would make a great appetizer for a party! The main course was Choucroute Garni, which is several types of sausages served with boiled potatoes and cabbage. It made me think of Jordan, he loves sausages (and so does Kasha!). There was smoked beef tongue and duck confit. Dessert was a cheese platter and dessert wine.
I pre-baked my quiche dough for tomorrow's breakfast and also made a blueberry cream tart. As the new class needs a substantial breakfast tomorrow, they asked Chef Brian (who teaches some of the rec classes and often makes lunch during the wine portion of a new class) to make a more substantial breakfast, so some of the "heat" will be off of me tomorrow morning.
I came home from school and made some Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies. They were a hit already with Carl and his friends Rebeca and Richard! Nice!
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