When my father took leave of me in Moulins, where I was to start my apprenticeship as a chef, I was away from my family for the first time in all my fourteen years. For months—even years—I had been pleading to be permitted to train to be a chef; now I had my certificate from our local school, the decision had been made, and I was actually a man on the threshold of a carter. And I was also a very homesick, very shy youngster who found it a distinct effort to appear unconcerned as I unpacked my bag in the dormitory that I would share for nearly two years with five other apprentis.
The only thing that kept me from bolting, aside from my determination to succeed in my chosen profession, was my self-confidence. I thought—I knew—that I was a good cook. Mais oui! Hadn't I watched and helped my gifted mother for years, and my grandmother, too, in her big farm kitchen? At home I was considered quite an expert, especially with soup, the good leek and potato soup which my family liked so well. “Ah,” they would say appreciatively, “notre petit Louis, comme il est un bon chef” Remembering that my family considered their little Louis a good chef had a steadying effect on me, and emboldened me to look forward to pitting my prowess at soup making against that of all comers.
Next morning I donned my new chefs coat and the blue apron which signified that I was an apprenti, and stalked proudly into the laboratoire, as our kitchen workshop was culled, prepared to demonstrate my facility at the soup kettle. It was, to say the least, somewhat unnerving to be informed that I would begin my course by making éclairs!
Now, I had eaten éclairs, of course, but they had been purchased—the usual procedure in France, where elegant petits fours, gâteaux, and pastries are the province of the pâtisserie. I had no idea how the crusty little shells were achieved, or by what magic trick the sweet, creamy filling was bidden inside them.
But éclairs it was, for every day of that first week, and again many more times as the months rolled by, until finally my clumsy hands could line up row after row of perfectly shaped éclairs which varied hardly an iota in size, glossy with vanilla, coffee, or chocolate frosting, and with net a drop of cream showing to reveal how the filling found its way inside.
We had the good fortune at the Maison Ca'ondre, our school, to have as a teacher Monsieur Pardel, an expert craftsman in the arts of pâtisserie and confiserie. Many of the most delectable petits fours and friandises sold by pâtisseries today originated in his agile brain and were first made by his skillful hands. So, I can think of no better way to conduct our class in pastry making than to let Jean Marie Pardel be your teacher, as he was mine. Imagine a tall, dark-haired man with a shining black mustache curling at the ends, and understand that he is a stern man and a strict disciplinarian, yet a teacher who has infinite patience with anyone who wants to learn. I wish you could watch him work—his techniques were perfection itself. And I wish he could watch you work. He noticed any slight deviation from the prescribed methods, and corrected a clumsy, unprofessional motion before it had time to become a habit. And I doubt whether he had ever read one word about psychology!
For example, the first time I tried to make a croquembouche, I had half finished my task when Monsieur came by. I was congratulating myself that my pan of caramel was properly warm and my cone-shaped mold nicely oiled. At once, he ordered me to stop. He had seen at a glance that my beautiful little puffs were not dry enough to stand up, and that I had filled them too full with the pastry cream. Monsieur told me to let the cake cool and then to unmold it. I watched with chagrin while the croquembouche, which should have stood up like a little tower, fell apart in a soggy mass. So I began again, and this time my little puffs were dry and only partly filled with the cream. It was an embarrassing incident—and a lesson I have never forgotten.
Of course, not every cook wants to make pastries. And some cooks are simply not suited to this kind of cookery The hand that wields a cleaver cannot always manage the tiny paper cornet that decorates an inch-square cake. And few chefs can switch successfully from huge soup kettles or mammoth roasting ovens to the delicate pastry tube. In pastry making, one must work deftly, quickly, and with what is called a light hand. The standards for pastry baking are far more exacting than those for other kinds of cooking; variation in the browning of a bird or in the color of a consomme may go unnoticed, hut in delectable little cakes even a slight variation may be unacceptable. The aspiring pastry cook must have infinite patience, must be willing to go through every process over and over again until he learns the feel of the mixture at each step.
Chou paste is one of the easiest and most omnipresent of all pâtisserie mixtures. From it one makes éclairs and cream puffs and all the desserts involving them, such as the profueroles an chocolat and the beignets soufflés—sometimes called French crullers in this country. An hors-d'oeuvre called gougère is made of puff paste combined with finely chopped Swiss cheese, and tiny nuts of puff paste are baked to use as a consommè garnish. The famous croqunemboucbe, gâteau Sainy-Honoré and religieuses are all made with choun paste.
The pastry tube can be mastered without too much difficulty, and chou paste is a particularly good choice to practice with, since it is less delicate than whipped cream, for instance, yet not so heavy as some other mixtures.
Pastry bags are usually made of heavy cotton cloth, and they come in various sizes. The bag is cone-shaped, and in the small end there is an opening just large enough for a cone-shaped metal tube. The tubes may be plain or shaped so that they can be used to make rosettes. bands, and fancy patterns. To fill the bag. fold the top edge about halfway down on the outside. This prevents the mixture from sticking to the top sides of the bag and being wasted. Put the filling in the bottom of the bag, and as you go, continue to unroll the edge. Leave enough space in the top to flatten the sides of the bag together and fold this sealed part over the filled part of the bag. Then grasp the top with the right hand and press down on the mixture while you guide the tube with the left hand, holding it close to the baking sheer. When the eclair or puff has been formed, stop pushing on the bag from above and raise the tube. Remember that chou paste puffs in baking to four or five times its original size. The paste may also be shaped with a spoon, which is simple enough in making cream puffs, but may be more complicated with éclairs.
Bake chou paste in a hot oven, so that it puffs immediately. To discourage overbrowning, the heat may be reduced after twelve or fifteen minutes. The puffs must be baked until they are thoroughly dry and feel light in the hand. A puff that is brown outside but still moist inside will collapse as it cools. If necessary, cover the puffs with paper to keep them from browning too much.
Pâte à Chou (Cream Puff and Eclair Paste)
In a small saucepan, bring to a boil 1 cup water, ½ cup butter, ½ teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar. Add all at once 1 cup flour and cook the pasteon a low fire, beating it briskly and constantly until the ingredients are thoroughly combined and the mixture cleanly leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball. Remove the pan from the heat and beat in 4 eggs, one at a time If the eggs are unusually small, add an extra one.
To form cream puffs, drop the paste from a teaspoon or tablespoon, or force it through a pastry bag, onto a greased baking sheet, allowing space for expansion between the shapes. To make éclairs, use a pastry bag with a plain round tube. Force the mixture through the bag to make strips 3 ½ to 4 inches long and 1 inch wide or 2 inches long and ½ inch wide, depending upon the size desired. To make a ring. shape the paste on the baking sheet with a spoon. To glaze the top, brush it with dorure made by adding 1 tablespoon milk to 1 beaten egg. Bake the shells in a hot oven (425° F.) for 15 to 18 minutes, reduce the heat to moderate (375° F.) and bake until they are brown and feel light in the hand. If the shells start to get brown too quickly, cover them with a piece of paper.
Cream pulls and éclairs are filled with sweetened whipped cream or pastry cream (which in French are called crème Chantilly and crème pâlissière) or with crime Saint-Honoré. The shells must be thoroughly cooled before they are filled. To fill them the professional way, put the cream filling in a pastry bag, use the point of a knife to cut a tiny hole in the side of the éclair or cream puff and force the filling through the little hole. It may seem easier, in dealing with large éclairs and puffs, to slit the shell and fill it with a small spoon. Tiny puffs can also be pushed in at the top with a finger to make little tartlets, which are filled with a mound of crème pâtissière and glazed with caramelized sugar.
As a rule, cream puffs are finished with confectioners' sugar Or with caramelized sugar (for this, a red-hot iron rod is passed over the sugar), and éclairs are iced with a fondant icing. The flavor of the icing is the same as that of the filling—traditionally vanilla, chocolate or coffee.
Cream fillings and fondant icings are of such basic importance in pastry making that they should be learned at the beginning. Once you master them you can use them in innumerable ways, with the génoise and biscuit mixtures which we will eventually discuss here and in making all the traditional French pastries and gâteaux from puff paste combined with other pastes.
Crème pâtissière is a rich filling that holds its shape when it is cold, yet is soft and never stiff. In France, a vanilla bean is used to obtain the vanilla flavor, For a pint of milk, a piece of vanilla an inch long is cut from the bean and split down the center. The bean is scalded with the milk, then removed to be washed in cold water and used another time. When the bean has been used twice, it may still be washed, dried, and pounded in a mortar with a few spoonfuls of sugar in make vanilla sugar, used to flavor puddings and fruits. If you do not have vanilla bean, you may substitute the genuine extract of vanilla, adding to the finished cream about ½ teaspoon for each pint of milk.
Créme Pâtissière (Pastry Cream)
Bear together 6 egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar until the mixture is very pale and light. Add 1/3 cup Hour and beat just until the mixture is smooth. Scald 2 cups milk with a piece of vanilla bean. Pour the flavored milk slowly onto the egg mixture, stirring constantly. Add a pinch of salt and cook, stirring vigorously with a wire whisk, until the sauce almost reaches the boiling point. Continue to cook the cream for 2 or 3 minutes, but do not let it boil. Remove the vanilla bean and strain the cream. Let it cool, stirring it occasionally to prevent a crust from forming.
Crème an Chocolat (Chocolate Cream)
Follow the directions for making crème pâtissière, but add to the scalded milk 2 squares or ounces melted and cooled unsweetened chocolate. Or add to 1 cup prepared crème pâtissière 1 square or ounce melted and cooled unsweetened chocolate.
Crème Mocha (Mocha Cream)
Flavor 1 cup chocolate crème pâtissière with 1 tablespoon hot, triple-strength coffee.
Crème au Café (Coffee Cream)
Flavor 1 cup vanilla crème pâtissière with 1 tablespoon hot, triple-strength coffee.
Crème Chantilly (Sweetened Whipped Cream)
Whip heavy cream in a chilled bowl until it is thick but still light. The acam should not be too stiff and heavy. Into each cup whipped cream fold 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla sugar. To make the vanilla sugar, split a piece of vanillfl bean and scrape out the little seeds with a small knife. Combine the seeds with powdered sugar or with confectioners' sugar and crush together well.
The Saint Honoré cream is a delicate mixture made with crème pâtissière lightened with egg whites and held together with gelatin.
Crème Saint-Honoré
Add to 2 ½ or 3 cups hot creme pâtissière 1 envelope gelatin softened in 2 tablespoons cold water. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved in the crème. Cool the crème and fold into it 4 egg whites beaten stiff with 3 tablespoons powdered sugar. The sugar should be added during the last minutes of beating.
The fondant icing can be made in two ways, the conventional way—the recipe just below—and the quick way.
Fondant
Combine in a small saucepan 2 cups sugar, 2/3 cup water and a pinch of cream of tartar (or 1 tablespoon white corn syrup). Bring the mixture to a boil and cook it rapidly until it reaches the soft-ball stage, or registers 238° F. on a candy thermometer. Pour (he syrup at once onto an oiled platter or a marble slab to cool until it is barely warm to the touch and will not stick to the fingers when it is lightly capped. Work the mixture with a spatula, scraping it up from the bottom, folding it over and pulling in the edges, until the mass is creamy white. Put the fondant in a jar or bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. The fondant should ripen for 2 days.
To use the fondant for icing, heat as much as is needed to lukewarm in a small saucepan with a very little water or light sugar syrup. Spread the lukewarm fondant on éclairs or cakes. If it cools so that it does not spread easily, warm it again. Do not allow the fondant to get too hot, however, or it will lose its shininess. Fondant icing may be colored with a drop or two of vegetable coloring, to produce a pastel shade.
Coffee Fondant
Add to ½ cup warmed fondant 1 tablespoon warm, strong coffee.
Chocolate Fondant
Add to ½ cup warmed fondant 2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate.
Liqueur Fondant
To ½ cup warmed fondant, add 1 tablespoon Kirsch or other liqueur.
Quick Fondant
Sift 1 ½ cups confectioners' sugar and add ½ teaspoon lemon juice and, very gradually, enough water to make a thick mixture that will spread. To use the fondant, heat it to lukewarm by placing the pan or bowl over hot water. Add any desired flavoring.
Here are some of the many ways in which chou paste is used for dessert.
Profueroles
Form balls of chou paste about as big as nuts on the baking sheet and when the tiny puffs are baked and cooled, fill them with whipped cream or vanilla icecream. Serve from 2 to 4 puffs to a portion and spoon hot chocolate sauce over them.
Pain de la Mecque
With a pastry bag form a large round of chou paste on a greased baking sheet, starting at the center and going around in a spiral. Sprinkle the round with granulated sugar and bake it until it is brown and light in the hand. Cool the cake, split it and fill it with whipped cream, Saint Honoré cream, or preserved fruit.
Pâte àFlan (Tart Pastry)
Cream ½ cup butter and add ½ teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 small egg. With a pastry blender lightly work in 2 cups flour. Add 4 to 5 tablespoons cold water gradually, using just enough to make a dough that is quite firm. Handle the dough as little as possible. This dough is used for fruit tarts and in combination with other piles, for great gâteaux.
Polka Tartlets
Roll pâte à flan, or tart pastry, about 1/8 inch thick, cut it in rounds about 3 inches in diameter and place the rounds on a greased baking sheet. With a pastry bag and small round cube, make a little rim of pate àcbon around the edge of each. Brush them with dorure (1 tablespoon milk added to 1 beaten egg) and bake them in a hot oven (425° F.) for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they arcbrown. Cool the tarts and fill them with spoonfuls of crème pâtissière. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, then caramelize the sugar by passing a red-hot iron rod above it.
Gateau Saint-Honoré
Roll tart pastry 1/8 to ¼ inch thick and from it cut a circle 9 or 10 inches in diameter. Lay the circle on a greased baking sheet. Using a pastry bag with a plain round tube, make a border of chon paste about as thick as a thumb around the edge of the pastry circle. Brush the paste with dorure. Bake the cake in a hot oven (425° F.) for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges puff and (he (art is brown. Meanwhile, make 18 small cream puffs from balls of chon paste about the size of walnuts. Cool the puffs and make a small hole in the shell of each with a small kitchen knife. Using a pastry bag with a small tube, fill the puffs through this hole with crème pâtissière or whipped cream. Dip the bottoms of the puffs in warm caramel syrup and arrange them around the edge of the cake. Fill the center of the cake with crème Saint-Honoré.
Croquvenboucbe
Make about 3 dozen small cream puffs from balls of chou paste about the size of walnuts. The puffs must be baked very dry; put a piece of paper over them after they have browned and let them bake about 5 minutes longer than usual. Cool the puffs, make a hole in the side of each with a small kitchen knife and using a pastry bag with a small round tube fill the puffs half full with crime pâtissière.
Prepare 1 cup of caramel syrup. Put a filled puff in the pointed end of a large, well-greased cone-shaped mold. Then dip each puff in caramel syrup and build the pyramid up, filling the mold with the puffs in an even, well-balanced fashion. When the caramel has cooled, unmold the pyramid carefully onto a plate.
Caramel Syrup
Cook 1 cup sugar dissolved in ½ cup water in a small, heavy saucepan until the water evaporates and the syrup begins to turn golden. Put the pan at once into a pan of cold water to stop the cooking. To use the syrup, set the pan in pan of hot water and heat the caramel until it is again syrupy.