Saturday was the start of my first official baking class! Those who know me know I’m not quite a “morning person”, but I kicked myself out of bed and went to class on Saturday. Needless to say, I had a blast!!
The first class was a lot of registration, learning the kitchen and making sure everyone was set up with everything they needed. As part of the class, each student is given a binder with all of the recipes, definitions and tips we will use during the semester, The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts text-book and a full set of baking utensils (probably my favorite part!)
Once we all got settled our Chefs performed a demo of what we’d be baking for the day. Since it was our first class we started the beginnings of an apple tart. We made Sucree Dough and Apple Compote.
Things I Learned:
-
Emulsify – Combining 2 liquids that don’t combine easily – When you add an egg 1 at a time into the recipe like we did in the New York Crumb Cake
-
You can freeze dough for up to a month
-
Best way to have room temperature eggs is to submerge them in warm water for 5 minutes
-
The greater the fat content in butter, the better the butter is (Go figure!). In the class we use butter with 82% fat
-
One of the biggest differences in the types of flour is the amount of protein. Bread Flour has the most protein, then All-Purpose and Cake Flour has the least amount.
-
Gluten: Flour in contact with water – The more you work the dough the more gluten is released. When you overwork pastry it becomes bread because you’re releasing too much gluten into the dough.
-
Lemon juice prohibits apples from turning brown when you chop them
I’m really looking forward to the coming weeks of the class. Keep checking back for more pictures, updates, tips and recipes!
Filed under: Baking School, New York Crumb Cake Tagged: Baking School, emulsify, French Culinary Institute, gluten, new york crumb cake, pastry, Techniques of Baking
