Today goes down as a thorough cock-up, retribution no doubt for yesterday's comments. We were due to make a Pithiviers and a vol-au-vent. The latter is considerably more elaborate than a dip into Iceland would lead you to believe... a full-size one is as big as a plate and decorated elaborately like a galette. Anyway, each of these recipes requires a quarter 'paton' (=portion) of puff pastry. I duly cut the pastry I made yesterday into quarters and started to roll out only to be rather surprised how thin it all was once at the requisite dimensions.
The vol-au-vent was really pants and scarcely rose at all. The Pithiviers remains uncooked. Right at the end of our 7 hours in the kitchen I worked it out... yesterday we had not made a whole paton, but just a half meaning that I had been trying the recipes with an eighth of a paton i.e. half the amount pastry required.
Bother. Waste of a day.
The only things that turned out all right were my cornets. These are puff pastry cornucopia type things which you can cram with crème pâtissière or similar. I think my Mum would call them cream horns which is maybe not quite right. Here's a before and after to show how they're moulded (moulds left in for cooking) and then the glazed and roasted horn. They're very smooth on the inside. Once they're garnished I might afford another snap. If you're lucky.
Here is my second batch of allumettes before garnishing. Various decor experiments including a taste of home on the top left.
No comments:
Post a Comment