We started with custards. There are three types of custards: baked (like flan), stirred (cooked fully on the stovetop like creme anglaise), and starch-based (like pastry cream - these are more similar to pudding than the other custards because of the starch). We prepared one of each type. The basic custard technique is a three part approach that starts with infusing a dairy product (milk, half & half, or cream) with a flavor agent (vanilla bean, lemon zest, lavender, etc) and bringing this to a boil. The next step is to whisk air into eggs and sugar until the mixture turns a whiter color. The eggs are then tempered with the heated milk. Our baked custard was a creme caramel. We started by making a caramel and pouring a few tablespoons of this into little ramekins. Then we made a vanilla custard and poured it on top. These were baked in a bain marie. Once these come out of the oven, they go directly into the fridge b/c apparently they do not taste good right away (although I don't think they taste awesome anyway). After they have sat in the fridge for while, they are turned out onto a plate and look like this. So, the creme caramels look very pretty, but they're not my type of dessert and texture. They taste like a flan with a caramel sauce on top.
Next up, we made pate a choux, which is cream puff dough that is used to make eclairs and profiteroles. Pate a choux is unique in that its cooked twice - once on the stove top and then once in the oven. You cook butter, sugar, water and salt over a low heat and once it boils you add flour. After that's dried out, eggs are added. I found out the hard way that you have to be careful about doing this in the same pan...I put my eggs in the pot immediately after I removed it from the heat and ended up with some fried eggs and a pasty mess! Well, I learned from my mistake and the second batch came out perfect (perhaps mostly thanks to the chef hoovering over inserting pointers as I made it). We took the pastry and piped it into eclairs, brushed them with an egg wash, and baked them. We filled these with the next custard we made, which was a starch-based pastry cream. The pastry cream was essentially the same preparation as the first custard with the addition of flour and cornstarch as thickeners. I dipped mine in a chocolate glaze. I tried one, but once again found that this style of dessert isn't really for me. The dough tastes eggy and the pastry cream is sort of a glorified pudding (ha I know not a bad thing at all...in fact I thought the filling was the best part).
Our final custard was a creme anglaise, which is used as a sauce for desserts or a base for ice cream. This is the most difficult of the custards we made or I should say the easiest to "f" up. Mine would have been lost, but luckily the chef came by our station and had me pull it off the heat in the knick of time. I flavored mine with a coffee syrup and took it home. I poured a little in my coffee each day for the rest of the week...yum!
So if my summary didn't make it clear, I didn't love the stuff we made in this class. I can imagine needing to make a creme anglaise, but the rest of the desserts don't have me running to my kitchen to recreate them.
Next up - Pastry part 2 - pie crusts.
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