This week, my class had the pleasure of spending a few days with Chef Jonathan Dendauw. Originally from Belgium, Chef Jonathan has also lived in France for many years and the US. His true craftsmanship lies in artisan bread baking, but we channeled his expertise this week for tarts.
We started the week learning how to properly line tart shells. Simple enough, right? Well, for the most part… yes. Although talk to the first tart I lined, and apparently…no. Once we had this basic skill down, it was pretty much smooth sailing from then on.
I’m personally not usually a huge fan of tarts because the crust is normally pretty buttery (ya, no thx), but some of the crusts we made this week were quite delicious! We made a few different types of dough and even learned how to make our own puff pastry. As I’ve been told, there are 3 different types of puff pastry: normal, quick puff, and inverted. We used the inverted method, which according to Chef Jonathan is the most difficult method because instead of wrapping dough around a slab of butter, we wrapped rolled-out butter around a square of dough. It’s difficult to work with because the temperature needs to be just right so the butter you’re handling isn’t so cold it breaks, or too warm it melts and sticks all over. Adding to the handmade effect of our pastries, it took us 3 days to allow for the dough to rest and chill between the 6 times rolling, turning, and folding the dough by hand. Normally for production (or any shop that’s producing large quantities of puff pastry) chefs use a sheeting machine to make the process go much quicker. We did it by hand, which I’m grateful to have learned.
On Wednesday, I had some time to kill between class and when I had to be at work. I stopped at a Starbucks/cafe and soon found myself in conversation with an army vet. I offered him my lemon cream tart, and he happily accepted. I told him I had some plastic wrap in case he wanted to take it home, but he quickly denied the offer and said he was going to eat it right then. Ok, fair enough. But the funniest part was that he just picked up the entire tart like a piece of pizza and at the whole tart right there! I could hardly contain my laughter. There was another gentleman sitting on the other side of the army vet – unclear if the two men knew each other or were just being friendly and chatting. I offered him the lemon curd tart, and he VERY enthusiastically accepted. Like the vet, he also ate the entire thing right there. Pretty funny, pretty cute.
Something that was really nice about this week and about French Pastry School in general is that they recognize and reward good class behavior; because my class works well together and was working efficiently and completing all the recipes ahead of time, we were given extra recipes. The flan, cherry pie, and apple tart were all extra recipes we got to make this week that were not originally on the syllabus, yay!
This weekend, I volunteered for Chicago Gourmet, an annual 2-day food festival highlighting Chicago’s best restaurants and chefs. Several thousand people attend every year, and it was truly and incredible event to be a part of! First, I helped plate a fall-inspired dish with a chef from the Hyatt Regency, and then I helped serve different types of toffee from a company that has served customers near and far, including at the Oscars. It was awesome networking and really cool to see so many talented chefs.
I also had the opportunity to meet Food Network star, Jeff Mauro! He won season 7 of The Next Food Network star, opened a restaurant, and hosts several food shows on TV.
This coming week we have another set of exams that will cover ice creams (feels like forever ago…what is ice cream again?), sugar candies, and tarts. I’m feeling a little nervous, and it’s going to be a stressful week, for sure…wish me luck!
With a Side of Butter 