Lesson 5: Feuilletage

Feuilletage or puff pastry is quite possibly one of the least tackled techniques of the home baker.  It is tedious, laborious, time sensitive, and a bit messy.  I have only made it once at home and am pretty sure that tally will remain steady for a long time.  Not because the recipe is difficult to make, but because I just don’t have the space and equipment.  I have a small toaster oven, which could fit probably two palmiers max, in an apartment without air conditioning.  The dough needs to be worked fast and kept as cool as possible so as not to melt the butter- impossible during the summer.  There’s also a question of who will eat a dozen apple turnovers containing a total of you-don’t-even-want-to-know amount of butter.  Two non-culinary friends plus me divided by x amount of butter equals way too much butter per person.

It’s almost blasphemy for a pastry student to be worried about too much butter: the heart and soul of patisseries.  However, I’m still a girl looking for a boy to fall in love with her!  A brioche of a stomach is not attractive to anyone. I also believe in the concept of excess- too much of a good thing is bad.  It’s not really about how much butter I’m using in the dough, but rather how much feuilletage ends up in my mouth.  I hope this doesn’t make me a bad patissier…

To be honest, the butter worries don’t start until after I’ve consumed one too many sweet delights.  During the practical I’m so focused on getting the technique and steps right that I don’t really pay attention to the ratio between ingredients.  Probably should work on that, as ratios are très useful, but it’s hard when under time pressure.  However, overall working in the kitchen has been getting better and smoother.  Even the super strict/mean chef complimented on our improvement.  The students, including myself, actually really like this chef because he’s one of the few who are completely hands on.  Despite his hot temper (not uncommon amongst chefs), he is quite patient when it comes to showing us each technique in detail.  He welcomes questions and willingly does a re-demo of what we learned during class. He commands the kitchen but his main focus is to teach.

My feuilletage turned out great but not stellar.  The chaussons aux pommes, or apple turnovers had a nice flake but didn’t yawn as much as they could have.  The apple stuffing, however, was cooked just right.  The palmiers were nice and crisp.   The shapes were a bit irregular, but the chef didn’t seem to mind.  He actually particularly liked one student’s palimiers that had random bubbles of flaky dough.  It showed that the butter-dough layers were done well.   Out of everything we’ve made so far, I think the palmiers are my favorite.  Eating them took me back to when I was little.  I remember being very careful while breaking off pieces so as not to shatter flake everywhere.  I loved the thin strips that broke off and always wondered how the crystals of sugar were snuck into every nook and cranny. The secret: rolling and folding the dough in sugar.  Palm leaves, butterflies, or elephant ears, they’ve always looked like hearts to me, which makes them feel a bit romantic.