We just finished our second week of breads in my baking and pastry class. We’re moving on to cookies this week, but before we do that I wanted to give you a little recap and some pictures of the items we made in class last week.
Our first day of class (we meet twice a week) consisted of making focaccia, challah and two different kinds of puff pastry, classic and quick. We work in groups of three and my group rocked it this week. Our breads were delicious. We made a herb oil to go on top of our focaccia, braided our challah -it’s just like braiding hair! – and rolled out puff pastry dough until our arms hurt (just kidding, it was that much work; there was a lot of rolling involved though). I can see why people buy it at the store, a lot less work!
Look at how beautiful these breads are! Makes you want to reach through your screens and eat them, doesn’t it?
YUM!
The second day of class we made danishes and other fun things using our puff pastry dough from the day before. We also made brioche which was a very long process. It took almost the entire 5 hours this class lasts. I forgot to get a picture of it but it was beautiful, I promise 🙂
Our puff pastry turned out so well. Lots of beautiful, flaky layers. Quick puff pastry is similar to pie crust so while it isn’t quite as pretty as classic puff pastry, it does the job and turns out pretty well. And it’s definitely a lot easier and less time-consuming to make than the classic.
We also made a pastry cream and lemon curd to fill our danishes. Those are both so, so easy to make. As long as you make sure not to scramble the eggs when pouring in the hot liquid, you’re good to go!
This weekend I worked on my May recipe(s) for The Oregonian. I’m so excited to share them with you all; brunch will never be the same again!
Hope you all have a wonderful week and I’ll be back soon with some more recipes and tales from my cookie/muffin making in class this week!
