While watching a French pastry competition, the candidates were required to make this croustade. Traditionally, the dough is stretched really thin over a large table, then rolled with the filling and then as a spiral (although comments on the recipe from people of that area say that the spiral shape was not typical). Needless to say, there was no way I would ever do that, I'm not crazy!

Then one day, while looking through cooking/baking blogs, I came across this recipe. The author of the blog proclaims proudly to be a modern woman and using modern ingredients to make her life easier.

And so, I decided to try it. I liked the idea of working with phyllo and the look of it, in my mind, allowed for the unavoidable tears in phyllo dough. So here I go.

The results were mixed and there is lots of room for improvement but here are some notes.
APPEARANCE:

• It looked beautiful! I just loved the top of the pastry, golden, delicate. It just was very pretty.
• I wonder if I put too much phyllo dough on the top and that's why it is not more uniform in the color.

TASTE:

• My daughter and I thought the taste of the orange blossom water was too strong, overpowering. I followed the recipe except I didn't use armagnac. Does this alter the taste of the orange blossom water? I don't know, but it was strong.
• On the other hand, my husband thought the taste was pretty bland. Go figure!

Last weekend's project was "eclairs". I needed to revisit the dough I used for the cream puffs AND the recipe for the vanilla cream used to stuff them.
I remembered some lessons, forgot others and will need to do this again to keep improving. Not that I seem to run out of people willing to try the desserts...
All in all, this week's experiments tasted really good, I just need to work more on the appearance side of things. I would say that my major fault here is my impatience. I just want to go too fast. What is frustrating is that I KNOW I am going too fast as I do it but I can't seem to slow myself down. This was particularly the case with the chocolate ganache in this case.

For the eclairs, I used this recipe, it is a basic recipe, pretty easy to accomplish. That was not the issue. However, I'm always amazed at how hard it is to deal with oven temperatures and length of baking. See, this recipe is used to make little cream puffs, eclairs and many more other items. Everything is different, different sizes, different thickness, so the temperature and length of baking will be different for each one.
Now, as you are baking, it is not so hard to say "ok, a couple minutes more". What is hard though is to keep track of how you modify the time for the next time you want to do this. And I haven't even figured out how to play with the temperature. How do you know which temperature would be the best for your project?

One of the lessons I had learnt from making the cream puffs was that the size of the batter you put on the sheet does not change much when baking, it doesn't rise and double volume or anything close to that. So I made sure my eclairs were close to the size I wanted in my final product.

However, in my first batch, I poured the batter in a kind of rope and did a "folded" rope to ensure enough width. Well, the result was disappointing. The rope was not thick enough or high enough, which means those eclairs were flat. And the two parts of the rope did not mesh completely during baking, which gave me eclairs with a weird valley in the middle. This batch tasted good but looked horrible.

So for the second batch, I kept the pastry bag closer to the baking sheet and made sure to pour more batter. Frankly, I could have gone even further. I should have ended up with a sausage-like batter about one inch thick. The other thing is how hard it is to keep that pastry bag steady and pour the batter in a uniform way. I ended up with some funky shaped eclairs.

All in all, taste-wise, this was a success. Look-wise, well, there is still work to be done...

Technically, this was the easiest part, just melt chocolate and mix with some heavy cream. Once again, my impatience got the best of me and my chocolate was grainy and my ganache a bit too thick.

Now, I know why I was so impatient that day, it was the traditional day for crepes and I had guests over for crepes. Why did I start another project on the same day? Who knows but definitely not something to repeat. *embarrassed*

In the end, I'm glad to say I made eclairs. The taste was really good, so I know the recipes work, I just need to work on technique and appearance. and  PATIENCE!!!

There is hope!

What is your weakness when baking?

It's tradition, on January 6th, we celebrate "Epiphany", the arrival of the three Wise Men to the Manger. We eat a special cake made with puff pastry and filled with almond cream or franchpane, a mix of almond cream and pastry cream. Inside the cake, a "fève", in my case a whole almond. Whoever gets it is king or queen for the day. It is a cute and fun celebration to do with friends or family.

This year, I had to make two "galettes", one for the family, of course, and one for a group of friends (French, Belgian and American). So, I decided to tackle the puff pastry from scratch instead of using the frozen stuff I've been using up until now. I was really afraid of that puff pastry, having heard it was so difficult and long to make.
The idea was to make both galettes from scratch, although I did have a pack of frozen puff pastry as a back up. Turns out, I made one of each.

First of all, for the puff pastry. I found this recipe for an easy puff pastry recipe and believe me, it was easy. Yes, a bit time consuming, but not as much as it normally is. And the result was a flaky puffy pastry, although not as puffy as the frozen ones. Most of the pictures (except one) on this post are of the frozen puff pastry one, I'll explain below.

For the almond cream recipe that I've been using for a few years, I use this recipe. Now, note that although the title of the recipe mentions franchpane, it is not actually franchpane. It is a very good almond cream and I think I will keep it for pie fillings (to use with fruits). It is a bit drier than the franchpane and not as sweet (although still sweet). It looked really good with the puff pastry, didn't it? It tasted good too.

For the franchpane, I used this recipe.  I discovered this blog at random and thought these individual galettes were just adorable. Please note that I made a HUGE rookie mistake while putting together my galette. Although the author of the recipe mentions that there will be more franchpane than needed, I thought it was because she was serving individual cakes. So, I used ALL the filling on my galette... I don't know what I was thinking but it resulted in lots of filling slipping out of the galette during baking (fortunately not the part with the whole almond), which in the end gave me a very lopsided and not very attractive galette. HENCE the lack of pictures. So, note for the future, there is enough cream here for TWO galettes. However, both the puff pastry AND the filling tasted fantastic!

When tasting both galettes together, the one made completely from scratch and with franchpane is the winner hands down. It is really THE one for me now...

For Christmas dinner, I made some easy appetizers. They turned out delicious, even if some improvement is needed. I made two types of cheese bites, one with brie and one with goat cheese.

I have been following the French TV show “Le meilleur pâtissier” and a couple weeks ago, the theme was “puff pastry”. Inspired by it and in need of a quick dinner idea, I put together these vol-au-vent. I had some puff pastry sheets in my freezer, some chicken breasts, mushrooms and heavy cream and there you go. Friends have mentioned my recipe was not the traditional recipe of “vol-au-vent” such as any Belgian will understand it, but I made it with my favorite ingredients and what I had on hand.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg of puff pastry sheets (2 sheets per package)
  
• chicken breast
  
• mushrooms (fresh or canned)
  
• 1 medium onion
  
• butter
  
• heavy cream

Tools:

• Cookie cutters (3” round and 2” round – you can use a bit bigger too, but you need two different sizes)

Preparation:

1. Spread the two sheets of puff pastry.
   
2. On the first one, using the larger cookie cutter, cut as many circles as you can (I cut 9 with a 3” cutter). Repeat on the second sheet.
   
3. Then, using the smaller cutter, cut the center off the second set of circles.
   
4. Pick up the rings and using water, seal them on the circles from the first sheet.
   
5. Then put the smaller circle back into the ring (no water to seal).
   
6. Bake at 350º until puffed and golden-brown (about 10 minutes). Let them cool.

1. Dice the chicken, onion and mushrooms in ½ inch cubes.
   
2. Brown the chicken in a pan, set aside.
   
3. Sauté the onion and mushrooms.
   
4. Put all three ingredients back in the pan and add heavy cream.
   
5. On low heat, reduce the cream to have a thick sauce.
6. Fill each puff form with the mixture. You can also let the mixture “overflow” on the plate.
   

Have you ever noticed how, when you get interested in something, all of a sudden you see that something everywhere? I got interested in apples and all cooking shows, blogs, etc., seem to be bursting with apple recipes. Granted, ‘tis the season, but still...

So, one of these cooking shows, “Kelsey’s Essentials” (not one I watch religiously but that I enjoy when I catch it), had this easy apple and pear pie. I decided to make it today, using the McIntosh apples I bought last week.

The dough for this pie is a store-bought fillo dough, not one made from scratch. I feel like I’m cheating, but I was also curious to taste an apple pie with fillo dough. I never had that. And I can say the result was EXCELLENT!!!

Ingredients:

• 1 fillo dough sheet (there are two in the package), thawed.
• 2-3 apples, depending on the size
• 1-2 tbsp of butter, melted
• 2 tbsp of light brown sugar (dark brown or regular sugar can be used too)
• ½ tsp of cinnamon
• 2 tbsp of honey, warmed
  

Preparation:

1. Cut your apples in small slices. Don’t worry if they are not perfect or if they break, you’ll need these little pieces. Sprinkle some lemon juice on them to prevent browning.
2. Preheat your oven at 400 degrees.
3. Sprinkle some flour on your work surface. Spread the sheet of fillo dough on it. Sprinkle some flour on top. Using your rolling pin, blend in the creases. 
4. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Transfer the dough onto the baking sheet.
5. With a fork, pierce the dough, forming a square ½ inch from the edge of the dough. Then, prick the dough throughout the inside of the square, like for a regular pie. This prevents the dough within the square from rising. The edges will rise, forming the crust of the pie. Make sure you prick in the corners of the square too.
6. Then, place your apple slices inside that square. Start at one corner and place them in a line towards the opposite corner on a diagonal. Repeat the process on each side until the whole square is filled. Use smaller pieces to fill in the spaces. Try and make it look as attractive as possible. Keep your slices tight and close to each other.
7. Brush the apples with the melted butter. Not too much! The original recipe called for 3 tbsp. I have leftover butter. So I reduced to 2 tbsp, but it’s still too much. You just need to wet the apples.
8. Mix the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on the apples. It is up to you how much you want. Again, the original recipe called for much more than what I listed and I did not use it all. It does bring color to the pie but you don’t want the apple taste to be overwhelmed.
9. Put in the oven for 15 minutes.
10. Put the honey in a microwave safe bowl and warm for a few seconds. Brush the honey on the apples and edges and put in the oven for an additional 5 minutes.
11. Let it cool on a cooling rack.
12. Serve with some mascarpone, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
    

A classic of French pastry, it was time I tried it, especially when friends seem to make it so easily. So today, I did! I used this recipe recommended by my friend Anne-Laure.

First, I started with the cream, as it takes a long time to cool down.

Ingredients:

• 500ml of milk
• 1 pkg of vanilla sugar (= 1 tsp of vanilla extract)
• 2 tsp of vanilla extract
• 100g sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 50g of flour
• Pinch of salt
  

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan, bring to a soft boil the milk, vanilla sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Stir constantly to avoid burned milk on the bottom.
2. In the meantime, in a large bowl, combine the sugar, the egg yolks and the egg and mix them with a wooden spoon until it becomes a light yellow. 
3. Add the flour and mix.
4. Add the boiling milk a little at a time. Keep mixing.
5. Put everything back in the saucepan and put it back on the stove on low, stirring constantly, until it thickens.
6. Pour the cream in a bowl and let it cool. You can cover with saran wrap touching the cream to prevent a skin forming on the surface of the cream. Refrigerate when cooled to room temperature.
   

Notes:

• “until it thickens” is pretty vague, at least for me. How thick does it have to be? As I was waiting for the cream to get closer to a pudding consistency (still stirring), lumps began forming. Before the whole thing turned into a big lump, I transferred it to the bowl and used a whisk on the cream, which got rid of all the lumps. So, keep an eye on this. I guess practice makes perfect... this was the second attempt at pastry cream (see last week’s post) and it was much better than the first!!!!