Butter... a little, a lot, passionately!!!

I was waiting for Monday with impatience and excitement. Weren’t you? That is because you did not learn how to make puff pastry…. this magical succession of flaky layers!

The story simply starts with flour, salt, water to which we add a lot of butter! Then it is about tours (rounds): rolling, folding and… waiting, then rolling, folding and… waiting and finally : rolling and baking. Patience is not my force but here... it is worth it. The puff pastry puffs, puffs until it is crushed by a cookie sheet to get back to its initial thickness. Not easy either to be a puff pastry... After being cut in several rectangles, we spread some pastry cream flavored with good vanilla pods and piled up to become a great classic: the mille-feuille. Once more, I fought with the fondant (icing). Despite an irregularly esthetical top, the gustative result was very good according to the tasters. Alright, I am quite proud...

Our week ended with our practice class and the surprise tasting of one of our future pâtissières’ creations : today’s special mini chocolate eclairs and salted butter caramel macarons... Yummmmm... Thank you Anne!!!
It gave me some energy to make a moka. I was a little (in fact totally) negative as I do not like coffee flavor or butter cream… Fortunately I was heard by our teacher who allowed us to make a chocolate moka but he could not do anything about the buttercream.
We had a pastry and musculation class by making the genoise cake by hand (or so) and we added a lot, a lot of butter. If you know how to skim-coat a wall, you will be very good at coating the genoise cake with buttercream. Except for the wavy lines done by a professionnal – I named the teacher – the little decorations made with the pastry bag are mine. 
Could this be the beginning of a real partnership...?