Lesson 7: Croissants (Plain and Chocolate)

This week is the start of a very tough week! The tough rolling week! We are doing croissants and puff pastry and because we need to incorporate butter into the dough to 'moisten' the dough, or 'Detrempe' as the French call it, we need to do a lot of rolling and turning. So we already did the croissant dough the last week, so today was just to cut the right triangle sizes and then roll the croissants accordingly. And in between that, we have to start preparing two puff pastries for the next lessons. This means that we all do double portions of puff pastry dough and leave it for the next lessons.

Doing puff pastry was quite tough for me, as I have no idea why I can't roll it to perfect rectangles. So at the end my puff parties have an odd round shape on the top. Chef Am said it was ok so I just continued to do it. Let's see if those pastries turn out well. Was totally drained out after this class as we did so many rollings and turnings. Went back and slept right away!

And last week, our class size was increased from 12 to 13. And our new classmate's name was Khun Chef. Initially i thought that he was the teaching chef, but turns out his name is Chef! Which was funny. During practical class, we all stand along the marble tables and normally two people occupy one 'block' of marble. However, after an additional classmate, me, Aileen and chef had to share the same block, which was a bit squeeze for us. Even Sohny next to me was slightly affected as I crossed my border to use some of her space as well. A bit uncomfortable but nevertheless, we still managed to roll!

Panya only had the croissants the next day and he didn't like it as it was a bit hard he said. So rating was only 6.5. Chef Am mentioned that if we had more time for the croissants to proof it would be softer, so maybe I could try that at home!

Basket of Croissants by Chef Geraldine

Croissants by Li Lian

Lesson 6: Brioche and Croissants

We made the dough for the brioche during lesson 5 so that we can bake it for this lesson. We got to use a machine this time as the chef mentioned that it will be hard to knead this dough by hand. Brioche is really one of my favourite breads! And when Chef Geraldine made it the smell that came out from the kitchen was amazing! We also had to make croissant dough or we called it the 'detremp' - the dough and the 'tourage' which is to put butter into the dough.

My brioche was ok as we just have to roll the dough and put it in the mould. For the croissants dough, we had to knead the dough using machines, and then do the tourage (double-single-double folding - I am not sure if that's what it is called). Its like folding origami haha. But before the tourage, we have to incorporate the butter in. My problem came when I was trying to incorporate the butter in. When I rolled it out, the butter kind of oozed out a bit, which is no good! Chef Am mentioned that I didn't put enough flour during rolling which is why it became like that. After the folding, we cut the dough in the correct size and put it in the chiller and leave it for the next lesson. I hope my croissants will come out ok despite the glitch! Definitely a disappointing week, but still fun to be doing croissants and brioche.

For the brioche, we put in the mouselline cream, which is a mix of butter cream and pastry cream in between the brioche. Panya gave me 10 for the cream and 7.5 for the bread. He said the bread was a bit hard and dry though but he loved the cream so much! Must be the orange water in the cream!

Posting the photos for this another time as I forgot to put in my memory card and Aileen has my brioche photo. And this was a 'funny' class as at the end of the class, Sohny mentioned that we were all suppose to be in the class next door with Chef Marc instead of being in this class with Chef Am! No wonder! Because Chef Marc was suppose to attend to us this class and we get Chef Marc on Tuesdays! Well we will still get him next week I guess!

Brioche by Chef Geraldine

Brioche by Li Lian (Courtesy of Aileen!)