Week 2: Tarte Aux Pommes & Tarte Au Ganache Chocolat

I believe that's French by the way. :)

Week 2 was very very fun. We made tarts! I've never made a tart before! We made the doughs, which were individually different, from scratch, and then made the fillings.

The filling for the Apple Compote Tart (Tarte Aux Pommes) had a sweet taste with spices. It was a mixture of hard apples, sugar, a vanilla bean, lemon and spices. It made a nice, paste like consistency. Similar to apple pie actually! The pie dough was sweet- it's called Pate Sucree.

Here it is:

Then there was the Chocolate Ganache Tart (Tarte Au Ganache Chocolat). I have found my love. That's right, I fell in love with this dessert! I am ruined for anything less!! lol. :)

It was incredible----

We made a very simple and non-sweet dough called Pate Brisee which is has a very similar taste to a premade crust you would buy in the store. Obviously, store bought has no comparison to something homemade, but I just wanted to use that as an example of taste. The filling was made from Timoline (we used corn syrup), butter (lots), bittersweet chocolate, and heavy cream! We toasted some coffee beans and let them steep for 30 minutes in the heavy cream atop the stove to infuse some coffee flavor. The cream was then strained, removing the beans and put directly over the butter, sweetener, and chocolate. The heat of the cream melted it all-- The coffee flavor added SO much to the chocolate! It wasn't just chocolate anymore! It was fabulous.

Cover it with some homemade whip cream and you've got a cracker jack of a dessert.

Week 1: Lemon Blueberry & Sables

Last night was my first class at Chez Boucher French Cooking School!! I was totally "in my element" as dad would say. I felt so at home with my hands all flour-y and messy. :)

There are only 4 students in this particular class- that's nice because we are able to get some serious one-on-one attention and help if need be.

The instructors are Jon and Leander. They're pretty great so far- They gave us their phone numbers and emails just incase throughout the week, we need help with anything of have any questions. Thought that was pretty cool.

The facility is very, very nice. There are eight ovens! 4 convectional and 4 regular. All full size. They have a walk-in fridge too! They gave us a tour before we started and said that pretty much everything there is for our using. So it's our responsibility to get the ingrediants needed and stuff.

I thought going into this that I would do alot of watching and that they would be doing the cooking... NU-UH. Us students are doing everything they are. We each have our own kitchen set up complete with: trays, towels, spatula, bowls, bowl scrapers, measuring cups/dishes, apron and a our own Kitchen Aid mixer! I love that thing...

The gave me this incredible book called 'Professional Baking' by Wayne Gisslen. This book is huge! And all of it's 27 chapters sound amazingly informative. It's crammed with information. It shouldnt be called a recipe book beacause it really isn't. There are ssome recipes that compliment what you learned in that particular chapter. It's nearly 800 pages! I've never seen a book that think before let alone owned one!

The class is roughly 4 hours long-- from 6pm-10pm. It's super concentrated too. Jon and Leander's mouths are moving all the time with information and instruction. I LOVE IT. I'm soaking it up-- like a dry sponge to water. :)

Here are the two cookies we made last night:

Lemon with blueberry jam in the middle. The consistency of this cookie is like nothing I've tasted before. So smooth and light and airy.

This one is a chocolate-vanilla swirl cookie. You know, the ones you roll and cut. This one was more work overall than the lemon. More steps until the final product.

Both of these pictures are actually pictures of what I made. What I love about both of the cookies is that they aren't that sweet! There isn't a lot of sugar that goes into either of them. I guess that's a good thing and a bad thing--- you can eat more without feeling sick from the sugar. ;) lol.

So, I very much LOVE this class. Thanks for reading!

Meanwhile...

Aren't these some of the most amazing cakes you've ever seen?

I picked this picture up at:

fayeandgreer.blogspot.com

I dream to be half this good. :)

Yet another blog

A friend of mine asked me to log all my kitchen endeavors and classes that I take here so she can see all I learn. :)

I am enlisted in a Culinary school and classes start for me this Wednesday! I'm very excited. So stay tuned!


Hannah