Cream, Sugar, Butter, Yum.

Monday was an pretty easy day, we made only a few products and finished up anything else that needed to be don e.

Diplomat cream

Again we made diplomat cream (see previous entry for how to) only this time the one to one ratio was stablized with several sheets of gelatin and then cooled until very thick. This was to be used to napoleons annnnnnd to be piped onto my finger and into my mouth after.

Napoleons-Day 1

Napoleons are a very good way to use up any large scraps of puff dough. Or you can use a new piece of fresh puff.

Start being using pieces of the puff, sort of piecing together like a puzzle forming a rectangle shape about the size of a half sheet pan

Piecing the Puzzle

Once you have created your rectangle, roll it out a little thinner focusing on the overlapping parts. This will also help bind the pieces together. Poke many many holes in the dough. After this place on a parchment lined pan then cover with more parchment and place the same size pan on top and bake until very golden brown.

Once it has cooled, trim the edges of the width. Then measure the width of the baked sheet and cut into the equal thirds.

Place the largest pieces of puff down and fill a pastry bag with the diplomat cream using a medium sized round tip to pipe with. Pipe the cream from left to right in a snake like pattern continuously all the way down the length of the puff piece.

Piping the diplomat cream out

Place the second piece on top lightly (placing any broken pieces in the middle layer). Pipe as before, and freeze until the next day (you will find out how to finish it next entry)

Final layers of the napoleon

Cream Horns

Roll out the puff pastry to the same thickness as always before (about 1/8 inch). Clean up the edges of the dough so you get a very near perfect rectangle shape. Then cut strips of the dough (either way length or width) the width of the ruler (about 1 inch).

Lightly egg wash these strips of dough, this will keep the dough from unraveling.

Egg washing the strips of dough

To Shape the horn, you must have a metal tube (tapered is best) as shown.

Wrapping the dough around the tube

Once the dough is wrapped all the way around, slightly overlapping each edge, place seam side down on the pan and sprinkle with sanding or coarse sugar.

Ready to Bake

Bake until golden brown, and while still warm, gently rock the tube back and forth to remove from the pastry. Or you can try pressing up on the flat surface that is baked on the actual sheet pan. Be careful, they are fragile and may break.

To finish these, we used Chantilly cream stabilized with gelatin again. A flavor can be added to the reserved cream used to heat up and dissolve the gelatin. Basically, you make Chantilly cream as you would usually except you reserve some cream. Bloom your gelatin in cold water and add to the reserved cream. Then heat slightly to dissolve the gelatin. Add flavor now if desired, heat with melt down solids if using a jam. Then before you have achieved soft peaks on your cream, slowly poor this mixture down the side of the bowl and then continue to whip as usual.

Pipe the cream using a medium star tip ending with a little rosette at the end if desired

Finished Cream Horns

Finishing the fruit strip

To finish up the fruit strip from thursday, you spread a fair amount of pastry cream onto the puff, however not on the little walls on the sides. Then you slice/peel/segment any fruit you wish (I used kiwi and strawberries) and arrange tightly and in an appealing way on the along the length of the strip. When done with this, finish with an apricot or mirror glaze this will extend shelf life and create a sheen. Slice to serve.

Finished Fruit Strip

These are a personal favorite of mine. I consider myself an advocate for pastry cream and this is putting it to good use. Pastry cream + Puff Pastry + Strawberries= amazingness (not even chocolate is necessary)