A Little More Conversation

Ok, we made so much great stuff yesterday! It was really fun and interesting, not to mention tasty. After rolling out our dough for the day’s projects, we got to work making our “classique” dough which will be used next class. With all that out of the way, we got to work on the individual desserts. We made tartes aux poires en cage, conversations, and galettes aux fruits de saison.

Much of the preparations yesterday involved group volunteer assignments. Some people volunteered to make almond cream, some fruit compote, but I volunteered to poach pears. Everyone had to peel and core their own pears, and then we put them into these enormous pots with the poaching liquid. My teammates and I decided to poach them in white wine, cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom, and black peppercorns. Yeah, it was perfect for the season. Once all the components were completed we got to work assembling our various pastries.

First up was the tarte au poire en cage, a puff pastry pear tart, filled with almond cream and covered with a lattice (cage) crust. We cut our dough in the shape of a pear and placed a whole pear half on top. We then took a tool that looks similar to a pizza cutter that cut the lattice design into the dough. This dessert was really good, and I think the pears were cooked really well, if I do say so myself.

Next is probably my favorite, the Conversation. This is simply puff pastry filled with almond cream, covered with a little royal icing. I think I was overly zealous with the almond cream, because it kind of rose too high, but man, did it taste good!

Finally, we made the fruit galettes. These are just free-form tarts that were filled with cherry compote and apple/cranberry compote. They were very good.

So, that’s everything we made in yesterday’s class. It worked out really well, too, because Adam and I had a couple of friends over for dinner, and we were able to provide them with a nice dessert tasting menu!