The Big Apple

After a long flight from L.A. into JFK I raced home to grab my chef whites and knife pack to get to Monday night’s class. Our last class before our Midterm and you can cut the tension with a paring knife.

My last recipe to practice on for Level III is the Tarte aux Pommes (Apple Tart). It is very likely that this recipe will appear on my Midterm but I won’t find that out until tomorrow’s exam.

So let’s talk about the Midterm for a minute…tomorrow, I will go into our kitchen classroom and learn my fate. Each student picks a piece of paper from a bowl and the letter/number combination is associated with two dishes that are to be prepared. You either get a appetizer and meat or fish and dessert. These dishes correlate with a specific time that they are to be presented to the judges.

For our written exam, Chef chooses one of the 16 dishes we have been making over the past 7 weeks and we have to write down all the ingredients and the procedure to complete it.

I’ll be upfront, yes I’m nervous, one slip up can set me back on the practical exam. Everything needs to be perfect no matter what – no mistakes. Deep breath…I just need to focus and be on my best game.

Back to the tart, I carefully mix my dough which is not the easiest thing to do in a 95 degree kitchen – my pâte sucrée needs to remain cold so the butter in the mixture doesn’t melt. It is a simple dough recipe: 200 g all purpose flour, 100 g cold butter, an egg with 2 tsp of cold water, 30 g sugar and a pinch of salt.

It is vital not to over knead the dough, or it will be tough and glutinous. Also, the dough needs to rest for a good 30 minutes so timing matters – get the dough made first then work on the apple compote filling and then the topping.

With my tart in the oven, I assisted with making the Amuse Bouche – a curried carrot soup puree conceived by one of the team members. Each night we present Chef with an Amuse Bouche made by the team – since we have four team members in our group we each have had the opportunity to drive the Aumse Bouche decision. One night I made a roasted garlic and mushroom soup that I pureed and served in Chinese porcelain soup spoons with bacon dust and chives. Another evening, I was really on the soup kick, and I made a Vichyssoise (cold potato and leek soup) that I served in tall aperitif glasses that were tied with a thin strand of leek that I had blanched.

Once my tart comes out of the oven it needs to cool before I glaze it with apricot jam. The color on the tart is beautiful with the overlapping apples nicely browned on the edges. On the side I made a Crème Chantilly which is basically like a whipped cream but not as sweet. I presented on time which is always a plus and Chef came over to my station to judge the results. He flipped over a slice of the tart and started to tap the crust with his fork. The crust should easily crumble with no or little resistance. Chef had to chisel through the dough with his fork, I rolled out my dough a little too thick which made it a little tough to get through and he thought it might have been slightly over baked.

Overall the tart looked amazing and filling was very nice – nonetheless, all aspects have to be perfect and my dough did not cooperate fully. I guess that’s the way the cookie – or dough crumbles.

Beat the Clock

So on to Level III, new kitchen, new Chef Instructor, new game plan. Here’s the scoop – we work with the same partner as we go through the following stations: Garde Manger, Poissonnier, Saucier, and Pâtissier. My partner for the level is Michele, a successful attorney who has turned her passion for food into a second career option. Michele and I have a very similar style in the kitchen, we like to be organized, prepared and execute our dishes in a timely manner. We start on the pastry station and our task list for the night is Tarte aux Pommes, Crème Chantilly, Crème Choux, and Sauce au Chocolat.

The new space we are in is an old, beat-up kitchen that has seen better days! It has a very authentic feel, it is cramped and none of us have any idea of where anything is located – so we are running around like lost school children.

It’s all about timing and consistency in Level III – dishes must be presented at a specific time and the pace is rigorous. Everyone was working in their own little bubble – the kitchen was humming along. I don’t think anyone plated on time – we were all pretty late and Chef expected this to happen since the recipes are quite involved and it was our first night.

We were quite stressed out – it was almost as if we never cooked before in our lives and the recipes were written in some foreign language. Michele and I worked hard to get everything plated – we ran into some road blocks, when we put our choux in the convection oven it was set to a cool-down mode so they never fully baked. Luckily we had extra dough left over and started again. The Crème Chantilly was prepared and the Sauce au Chocolat was ready. We piped our choux and plated them for Chef to review.

It was a tough night and I felt beaten down by the clock. I was really worn out by the end of the evening and commiserated with Marcela who felt the same way. In Level III we rotate to a different station every two classes. I can only hope I will get faster and more confident in the dishes we are required to make since they will be on my mid-term exam. At almost 11:00 pm I was applying the apricot glaze to my apple tart and at the same time my eyes were glazing over.

Sweet & Savory

French pastry…just the words alone conjure up buttery croissants, crisp palmiers, savory tarts and rich desserts. As part of my culinary education, we are learning the basics in pastry – techniques all chefs should know and master.

Tart dough (pâte) is defined as a flour-based preparation used as a container to hold fillings. Fillings can be both sweet and savory and pâte brisée, pâte sucrée and pâte sablée and most frequently used as the dough for these types of tarts. Almost all pastry dough is composed of flour, fat (butter, oil, lard), salt and a liquid (eggs, sour cream, milk).

We began by making a pâte brisée for our two recipes for the evening – a savory Tarte à l’ Oignon (onion tart) and a classic Quiche Lorraine. I’ll be honest I was completely dough-phobic going into the class. I’ve tried my hand at baking and making dough and it is just not my thing. I enjoy cooking – baking is a completely different mindset.

So with hesitation, I started making my dough and learned what I was doing wrong. There are a few things to remember when making tart dough. The ration of flour to butter is 2 to 1 (for example 200 grams flour to 100 grams butter). Mix the salt (5 grams) with flour and sift the mixture right on your bench. Use very cold butter, cut into small pieces and form a well in the flour and cut the butter into it with a pastry cutter. Work the flour and butter until it resembles a course mixture with pea sized pieces. Create another well and add your liquid (in this case we added 1 egg with a teaspoon of ice cold water). Work the liquid into the mixture just until the dough comes together. Never over work the dough or you will develop too much gluten in the flour and the dough will be tough and hard to work with and always allow the dough to rest shaped into a disk and wrapped in plastic then into the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Resting the dough is very important, it allows the gluten to relax, moisture to become distributed throughout and allows the fat to chill.

We then prepared a pâte sucrée for two recipes: Tarte aux Pommes (apple tart) and Tarte aux Poires à la Frangipane (pear tart with almond pastry cream). The same dough making procedure applies – here we sift the flour, salt and sugar together.

Our savory tarts for the evening were off to a good start, our dough was resting and we began by making the fillings. The onion tart (one of my favorite savory treats) consisted of bacon, carefully caramelized onions and custard made with egg, milk, cream and seasonings. Our quiche filling consisted of bacon and custard as well as the addition of gruyère cheese.

Our tarts came out of the oven (which needed to be calibrated since it was not baking at the proper temperature) and the fillings were golden and beautiful. The tart dough was undercooked and inedible – Marcella and I were disappointed but proceeded to spoon out the amazing quiche filling leaving the crust in the dust.

On the flip side, our sweet tarts would have won blue ribbons at the state fair had we entered them. Chef came around to inspect our final two tarts and smiled and was happily pleased with our baked result. He took our pastry brush and (almost bordering on) lovingly applied the apricot glaze to our Tarte aux Pommes. He called around to the class and asked them to check out our tarts for their beautiful color and presentation.


Marcella and I were thrilled to take the spoils of victory home with us. I packed up with one half of each dessert tart and headed to my bunker to rest my weary head and have sweet dreams.