Lesson 8: Palmiers and Puff Pastry Sandwich with Raspberry

For today, we used the puff pastry that we have prepared the day before to do the palters and puff pastry with raspberry (I forgot the french name for this). It was another tiring lesson as we had so many things to do! And this is the first lesson that we had to alter our practical workflow according to how our pastries are. Each pastry needs about 5 turns so if you have not done up to the third turn on this lesson, you will have to do more turns! So it was quite a frantic rush I would say, working non-stop for the whole three hours of practical class. We had Chef Geraldine today, which was very very good as I really learnt a lot from her. Remember I mentioned that my pastries were a bit non-rectangular? She taught us ways to 'fix' this and i think it looks so much better now! Although I still have to improve on the ways to incorporate the butter but i think it is getting better.

We also had to start a new puff pastry today, and using the 'french' method instead of the normal method to incorporate the butter. I was very very careful as I really want to make a nice pastry this time. And it is definitely a great improvement from the previous pastry.

For the pastry dough that we made in the previous lesson, we used it to do palters, or they call it butterflies. Those you can normally buy it in stores. Didn't know it is so hard to make! (If you start from making the dough). And because for palmiers and the puff pastry with raspberry jam, we need to trim off some parts of the pastry, I managed to trim off quite a bit of the bad parts of my pastry, and I would say, the pastry turned out quite well and even! So am quite happy with this lesson!

So after the lesson today, me and Aileen decided to talk to the student services about the number of people in the class, as we are feeling quite squeezy. Also, we heard that there were only 8 people in another Basic Pastry Group and less than 12 in other groups. Just wanted to raise our concern since this will be for the rest of the semester. The office's reply was that for the 8 people class, the class was small, and maximum that it can fit is 7 people but they squeezed in 8. For the rest, she said that the class size has been fixed as they need to order ingredients for different classes so they can't change us now. She also mentioned that the maximum the class can fit is 14, and we only have 13. Well, I guess if we wanted to keep talking we could raise concerns about how come they didn't put some people in classes with lesser people, but I personally thought it was quite pointless. So we just have to make do then and probably redistribute the position in the class a bit. But one thing I found out was that there are different standards, as in some people get to choose their classes and some didn't. Whoever paid in advance, they got to choose the class. And those that didn't pay before the dateline didn't get to choose. Something that I find can be improved as it has inconvenienced quite a lot of people. I was lucky to get to choose though. And it does look like the school is taking in a lot of students, probably up to the brim already. Well, I do hope that they will improve on this as they are raising the fees again and if students do not feel comfortable in the class the 'standard' of the school might drop.

For the butterflies, panya gave me a very high rating of 8.0! and 8.5 for the one with raspberry! I personally like this very much too!

Palmiers by Chef Geraldine

Palmiers by Li Lian

Puff with Raspberry by Chef Geraldine

Puff with Raspberry By Li Lian

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!)

Lesson 5: Traditional French Apple Tart

So today's lesson was about tarts again. The difference between this tart and the fruit tart in Lesson 4 was that the the traditional apple tart has to be baked twice. Once with just the pastry and the second time with the apple filling. Today we had a new chef instructor, chef Guillame. I only knew later that he is the 'bakery' guru! And such a nice instructor he was! The nicest so far I would say.

We were suppose to roll out the pastry to for the apple tart. And I already sensed that something was not very right when I first rolled it out. My pastry cracked at the sides, and I still kept rolling it, and it still cracked! So I got a bit of help from the chef. He asked me to put my dough in the fridge for a while, and after that it was a bit better but still cracked. So this was the first mistake. The second was worse! We were suppose to put the dough on top of the tart ring, with the parchment paper below. And guess what! I forgot to put a parchment paper below! And was a bit panicky at that stage. Good thing chef came to the rescue again, and he helped me put the dough in the blast chiller, and later used a scraper to scrape the dough out. The dough broke a bit, but it was ok. Second mistake, checked!

Here comes the third one! We were suppose to press the sides of the dough with our fingers so that we can crimp the pastry later. So what I did was ok, but I didn't leave enough dough to crimp!!! So when the crimping was done, it looked quite bad! Felt a bit disappointed that day actually, but I guess I can do a bit of practice at home with this.

Chef's Apple Tart

Li Lian's Apple Tart

Panya gave a 6.5 for this apple tart. Chef said it turned out ok despite all the screw-ups I did! But if you do look closely, all the edges are not properly done! Definitely an item to practice this one!

Lesson 4: Fruit Tart

Last week was a very tiring week! Touched down from KL at about 10.30pm at night on Monday and had to go to school early on Tuesday. So was like a zombie almost the whole of last week and only updating my blog this week!

I can't really remember what we did in demo as I did not bring my file back, so I will just touch on the practical part of the class. Today, we used the dough (pate sucre) that we did before last week to make our fruit tart. We first bake the pastry and then fill it with yummy pastry cream before topping it with fruits which we scooped up with our parisian scoop. Like I mentioned before, Le Cordon Bleu has a very strict system. We had Chef Am today, and for some reason, the diverted slightly from the practical flow that our demo chef Geraldine mentioned. One of the important points mentioned was that we need to put the baking of the pastry as a priority as it takes quite a long time. So when Chef Geraldine walked in (she was supervising the class next door), she saw that we have not started baking yet. We were all doing stuff 'other' than baking! So she stopped all of us, and told us off basically, that if we do not follow the practical flow, no point coming to her class. And even though all the chefs guiding us are very qualified, they wouldn't know the flow because they have not attended her classes. So we all started to follow strictly to the flow. Definitely learnt our lesson here.

I was quite satisfied with my fruit tart, except for the glaze part. The glaze was lumpy and made the tart look pretty ugly! We also prepared the pastry for our apple tart the next day. When I prepared the apple tart pastry, i actually measured the butter wrongly, so I had to redo it again (too much butter!). Beginning of a very bad week for me I would say! More mistakes to come!

Fruit Tart (The perfect one by Chef Geraldine)

Fruit Tart (With some lumpy glaze by me)

Panya gave me a rating of 7. Even though it is lumpy, but the taste is still not too bad!

Lesson 3: International Flavour

Lesson 3 was interesting as we explored pastries that came from different countries and finally I am seeing something that is pretty common and that I am familiar with - Chocolates! During demo class, Chef Geraldine made Chocolate cookies, Chocolate Muffins, Brownies (Yums!), Baklava (Supposedly from Greece) and strudel. Finally, she also made the dough for a Pate Sucre, which will be used for our fruit tart later. I would say the highlight for me was the strudel. Chef said that the strudel was like a 'Giant Roti Canai' as they use pretty much the same kind of dough. But it was hard to make as you need to really make the pastry very very thin (needed four people to just stretch the dough). But the result was just delicious! Not only the pastry was thin and crunchy, but the apple filling as well. Smells so good and not too sweet, just nice!

For practical, we had to make the brownie first, followed by the muffin and the Pate Sucre dough. Today's chef was Chef Marc. I was a bit nervous before going into the class when I knew it was Chef Marc as he is one of the chefs coming from LCB France. True enough, he was very very strict! Tables must be neat and clean at ALL times, and he also helped us 'rearrange' our table if it is not up to standard. I did learn a thing or two though from Chef Marc, especially on how to minimize wastage when in the kitchen. The scraper (I am not sure if that is what it is called) or the dough cutter is our best friend so that we can scrape off whatever is left in the mixing bowl. However, on the second practical, I lost the scraper that came with the toolkit though, sighs. Good thing my classmate Yu Min had one extra so I am using his now. And yes, Chef Marc noticed that I was using a different scraper too!

This is the brownie and muffins that I made today. Chef's comment about my brownie was that the butter was slightly emulsified. This means that I will need the butter a bit lesser with the whisk. Muffins was ok. I tried the muffins after class and I thought it was not bad! Not too sweet and can taste the chocolate chips! As Panya is my most loyal food tester, he agreed that he will give me a rating every time he try my pastry. I will just start with this one then. For the muffin, he gave a rating of 8.5 for the muffin and 8 for the brownie. So far the best tasting out of the stuff that I made since Day 1 in LCB. Well everyone loves chocolate don't they!

My Brownie!

Chef's Demo Brownie

My Muffins

Chef's Muffins

I will be heading back for Chinese New Year today and back on Monday night! Short Chinese New Year holidays this time as I have classes on Tuesdays! Happy Chinese New Year!

Lesson 2: Christmas in January - Fruit Cake and Madeleines

Today's lesson was quite a handful! We were taught how to make things like Fruit Cake, Marble Pound Cake, Apple Strudel filling and dough, rum raisins, chocolate cookies (I think that's all!)

For practical lesson today we had first make the fruit cake, then bake the madeleine from the mixture that we have prepared the day before. You know those fruit cakes soaked with rum which they eat for christmas? I would say it is quite tough looking at Chef Geraldine's demonstration as there were a lot of steps required to make this fruit cake. And for today, I changed my note-taking strategy slightly by taking down every single detail (like which tool to use - spatula or whisks) as from the first practical I realized that I forgot a lot of things even though I thought I would remember. And the fact that they have a translator to translate what the chef said to thai, it gives me just enough time to take down proper notes.

Here is how my cake and madeleines look like! I was quite amazed that I was able to bake this (as I have never baked this before!) and quite happy with the results actually! Today's practical lesson was with our demo chef Chef Geraldine instead of yesterday's Chef Am. And I found that they have quite different styles. I would say that Chef Geraldine is stricter compared to Chef Am and changing from that class to this class, there were slightly different rules and regulations.

Li Lian's Fruit Cake and Madeleines!

Chef's Madeleines aka French 鸡蛋仔

Chef's Fruit Cake

The comment about my madeleines was that it was not of even sizes. Yeah I expected that as I didn't do my piping that well :o) but it was a good experience for me as I have not piped anything before! The fruit cake glaze was also lumpy and Chef's comment was that we had to add some water to the glaze and heat it up! Also we were told to be more organized and clean while making our pastry.

Another tiring but fulfilling day! Only two pieces of fruit cake and two madeleines left at home!