Day Fifty-Two

Well, after three days of tart-making, I think it’s safe to say that this has been my favorite week so far.  I feel pretty comfortable with making pastry dough and fillings, so maybe that’s why.  I feel more relaxed in class than usual (could have been the wine I had, I guess… heheheh just kidding), so I’m enjoying myself even more. 

Today we peeled, cored, and chopped apples, and cooked them in a mixture of sugar, butter, lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon.  My partner and I got a little creative and added some extra butter, brown sugar, ginger, nutmeg, Chinese five spice, and white pepper.  Okay, my partner did that, actually.  I like to play by the rules in pastry school.  He’s rebellious.  I think it will taste good.  He didn’t get too crazy with the spices.  Though I don’t really like white pepper.  At all.  At the restaurant I used to work at they’d add a bunch of white pepper to their  mashed potatoes, and oh lawdy I’d gag every time I smelled it.



Remember that inverted pasty dough we were working on?  We ran it through the sheeter today.  The sheeter rolls the dough out evenly and quickly.  After completing four “turns” by hand yesterday, we used the sheeter for the last two turns.





We also made Italian meringue again.  I’m glad, too.  I like that we’re making some of this stuff over and over again.  It allows me to correct my mistakes from last time.  I’m getting good at making Italian meringue now. 

We baked off our pâte sucrée tart shells, filled them with lemon curd, and piped the top with meringue.  The pâte sucrée was a little sweeter than the pâte sablée.  As for the lemon curd, it was less sweet and less buttery as the lemon cream.  Both were really good, but I think I prefer the lemon cream – because I prefer more butter and sugar if I had to choose. 



I made little Dairy Queen swirls of meringue on my tart, and then broiled with a torch.  I love using that torch; I get a little overzealous sometimes.  There are rumors of me being a pyromaniac floating around the classroom.