One week to go.

Today was slightly more relaxed, because we were coming off the Christmas Buffet adrenaline and we also needed time to do a good clean-up and it was Friday and Jean-Luc tends to keep it slightly lighter on Friday, which is nice.

The first thing we did was do another fold in the puff pastry we've been working on since the beginning of our section. All we had left do was a double fold, but it wouldn't turn out as good if we rolled it out and baked it off on the same day, so we're going to finish it off on Tuesday.

After this, we got out the lemon bar sweet dough we made the other day and rolled it out to slightly larger than the size of a small baking tray. We greased the tray and put parchment paper on it, and then placed the dough on top, cutting it to about halfway up the sides of the tray. Then we docked it and baked it in the convection oven at about 350 for about 10 minutes. Then, we made the cream for the lemon bars, which was similar to a pastry cream, except instead of milk there was a lot of lemon juice. The method was basically put everything in a pot and stir constantly, taking it off the heat once it starts to boil. We then spread this mixture onto our pre-baked dough and baked until the filling was set. They were very, very lemony. I don't actually know whether or not I liked them. Or if lemon bars are something that I like in general.

Next, we made the batter for a hazelnut chocolate coffee cake, except we were actually out of hazelnuts, so it was a pecan chocolate coffee cake. First, we creamed the butter and sugar, then added the eggs and vanilla, the sifted dry ingredients, and then finally we folded in the chocolate chunks and pecan pieces. After everything was mixed in, we piped the batter into individual cups, which made a bunch of adorable little cake loaves. We baked them in the deck oven at 350 for about 25 minutes.

The last thing we did today was make an apple compote that we will be using for our puff pastry on Tuesday. I think we're making apple turnovers. This recipe required peeling and dicing 1 kg each of red and green apples, so my hand was sort of frozen in the peeling position afterwards. Once the apples were peeled, the instructions were pretty simple... put everything on a pot and put it on the stove over medium-ish heat, stirring every once in a while. The apples sort of cook in their own juices and it took about 20 minutes for them to cook to the right consistency.

And that concludes the second round of the viennoiserie -- aside from what we have to finish off on Tuesday. Next week, pastry AND our last week of school...!

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Today's Recipes

Lemon Bars
Pecan Chocolate Coffee Cake
Puff Pastry
Apple Compote