Clafoutis aux Blueberries Limousin

This tart can be made with either pate sucree or pate brisee. Blind bake the shell first and make sure there are no little holes! Fill with custard (creme brulee mixture) and blueberries or cherries or even raspberries and bake.

Baked Fruit Tart

This tart was made with pate sucree dough, pastry cream, and sliced plums. This time we baked the pastry cream in the tart rather then how we used it in the fresh fruit tart. Oh pastry cream how versatile you are! The fruit was brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with sugar before baking.

Tarte Bourdaloue- Pear and Almond Tart Bourdaloue Style

This was my hands down favorite tart that we made in school. We used pate brisee tart shell, filled it with almond cream, and topped it with poached pears and sliced almonds. The almond cream was made by creaming butter with almond paste then a shot of rum. Add eggs one at a time and then add pastry cream powder. The pears were poached in white wine with a little sugar, lemon, and vanilla bean.

Tarte aux Fruits Fraiches - Fresh Fruit Tarts

The tartlettes above were made with the same pate sucree dough that we used for our apple tart. Today we learned how to make Pate Brisee which is used for the tart in the bottom picture. Pate Brisee is a flaky tart dough that is made by cutting cold butter into cake flour, salt, and sugar until the butter pieces are the size of lentils. This procedure is called sablage after the French verb "sabler meaning, "to make sandy". Then a well is formed and cold water is added and combined being careful not to over work the dough. Remove walnut size pieces from the dough and crush them against the work surface with the heel of your palm. This procedure is called fraisage. Gather all the pieces of dough together, cover with pastic, and refrigerate to chill the butter and relax the gluten. The butter chunks in this dough is what causes the flakiness in the crust.

The tart shells are blind baked since this tart doesn't get baked after the filling and fruit is added. We made pastry cream as the filling. Pastry cream kicks *ass! It is made by heating milk, scraped vanilla bean, and half of the sugar. Once this comes to a slight bowl whisk one third of the hot liquid into eggs, egg yolks, pastry cream powder and the rest of the sugar. This is called tempering. Add the tempered mixture to the remaining milk in saucepan. Bring the liquid to a boil while constantly stirring. If you stop stirring you will get lumps! Boil for 2 minutes to get the raw taste of pastry cream powder out and to ensure proper thickness. Cool over icebath.

The tarts are filled with pastry cream and then fresh fruit is arranged on top with a little apricot nappage. Refrigerate to chill. Oh man this tart is the perfect summertime tart with any fresh fruit that is in season!

Holy Cow! I'm in Culinary School!

Armed with my chef's bag full of knives and spatulas and my chef whites, I was really nervous and excited for my first day of pastry class in culinary school. Stepping into the classroom with the stainless steel tables, huge ovens, and refrigerators I felt like I was stepping into a whole new world. Just being in the classroom gave me the chills. I am entering a world that not many people get to see or do. This was awesome!

The first day we learned how to make pate sucree. A simple and very useful tart dough. We creamed butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Eggs are added in one at a time then sifted cake flour and baking powder all at once. The mixture is mixed slowly until just combined. The dough is wrapped and refrigerated until firm.

Holy cow I made dough!

While our dough was chilling in the refrigerator we made an apple compote by cooking apple chunks in a little water, lemon juice, sugar, and a scraped vanilla bean until soft. We chilled this over an ice bath. Next we rolled out the dough and put it into the tart ring. Back into the refrigerator it went to chill the butter and relax the gluten. We sliced apples very thinly for the top of the tart. The tart shell was filled with the apple compote and then sliced apples were fanned out on top. Into the oven it goes. When the tart is done we brushed the top with some apricot nappage to give it that shine!

The best part of culinary school is getting to bring home what you've learned that day. I shared my apple tart with my mom and some friends. Oh my goodness it was so good! Especially good because I made it myself! Holy Cow!