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Pithiviers


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There's a topic about Trader Joe's Artisan Puff Pastry** here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=106587

Since I'm learning to make Pithiviers (and I used all of my homemade puff pastry), I decided to try it.

Verdict: It works in pinch for appetizers (such as those suggested on the box), but if you're making speciality pastries (like Pithiviers), avoid it:

1. The size of the sheets is just too small, limiting your range.

2. There are fork holes in the pastry, which I assume are made to stop shrinkage; but, if you have to flour the surface for rolling, the flour gets into the holes and stays there.

3. The flavour is, for lack of a better term, "off". It's supposed to be all-butter puff pastry and, indeed, that's what it says on the box. It smells like butter too, but the taste is just off. It's a flavour I associate with shortening or oil, but there's no mention of shortening in the ingredients.

INGREDIENTS (as listed on box): Wheat flour, Butter (milk), Salt, Sugar, Water.

4. The puff pastry's "puff performance" is just OK, nothing impressive. As you can see from the images on the box (which are accurate) and the ones I post below, it puffs well enough, but no where near as much as one might expect. It could be the number of pastry "turns" or some other reason, but if you're expecting it to behave like homemade puff pastry with substantial puff, this won't do it for you. Caveat: I rolled the sheets to 12 x 12; had I not rolled the sheets of pastry, it's puff could/may have have been more substantial. When I have more time, I will try making a mini-Pithiviers and NOT roll the dough, just to see if it puffs more.

BUT! IT COSTS $5. I can nit pick it until it melts, but it still costs $5 and takes zero time to make.

Here are some pictures.

You can see the anti-shrinkage holes (and how they picked up the flour) in this photo.

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Rolled out to about 12 x 12.

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** [This is a cross post, but I thought it relevant to this topic. I'm not sure what the policy is on cross posting, so I may have to delete this one.]

Fooey's Flickr Food Fotography

Brünnhilde, so help me, if you don't get out of the oven and empty the dishwasher, you won't be allowed anywhere near the table when we're flambeéing the Cherries Jubilee.

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  • 5 years later...

Yesterday was Epiphany which is celebrated in France with a Galette des Rois, aka Pithiviers. Since we can't easily find it in the US, I learned how to make it a few years ago. I like the recipe from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. I use frozen pastry dough and make my own frangipane with freshly ground almonds and a touch of rum (+butter, sugar, eggs, flour). This year I used dark Jamaican rum - now my Pithiviers has two ingredients in common with one of my favorite cocktails, the Mai Tai!

Filling the dough with a thick layer of frangipane

8355046803_192b838101_z.jpg

Closing the pastry and glazing with egg wash, scoring in a spiral pattern

8355144407_e3f9df31ce_z.jpg

Of course at that point I realized that I forgotten (again! I think I do this every year) to add the bean inside, but I added it discretely when it was time to slice it.

Out of the oven (there was also a sugar syrup glaze to make it super shiny)

8356338538_2f3fe43e6b_z.jpg

My daughter got the bean and chose the cat as her king.

Did anybody else have galette for Epiphany? I would love to see photos (homemade or not). There are some pretty amazing creations in French bakeries; I know that they are getting really creative.

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I made a King's Cake/Pithiviers with Trader Joe's pastry (first time ever not homemade. I felt guilty) to bring to a work breakfast; filled with almond pastry cream from Lenotre. It was pretty damned good, all things considered. Not the same rise as homemade but I did not feel the flavor was "off" as fooey did and the rise was much higher than in photos here. Forgot to take pix.

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  • 11 months later...

Yesterday was Epiphany which is celebrated in France with a Galette des Rois, aka Pithiviers. Since we can't easily find it in the US, I learned how to make it a few years ago. I like the recipe from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. I use frozen pastry dough and make my own frangipane with freshly ground almonds and a touch of rum (+butter, sugar, eggs, flour). This year I used dark Jamaican rum - now my Pithiviers has two ingredients in common with one of my favorite cocktails, the Mai Tai!

Filling the dough with a thick layer of frangipane

8355046803_192b838101_z.jpg

Closing the pastry and glazing with egg wash, scoring in a spiral pattern

8355144407_e3f9df31ce_z.jpg

Of course at that point I realized that I forgotten (again! I think I do this every year) to add the bean inside, but I added it discretely when it was time to slice it.

Out of the oven (there was also a sugar syrup glaze to make it super shiny)

8356338538_2f3fe43e6b_z.jpg

My daughter got the bean and chose the cat as her king.

Did anybody else have galette for Epiphany? I would love to see photos (homemade or not). There are some pretty amazing creations in French bakeries; I know that they are getting really creative.

Hi FP!

I'm here for advice. I need to make some galettes for a class of 27 children this Friday, now I'm kind of regretting it since I have a fever...

I was reading on line and Bouchon bakery book for reference.

David Lebovitz cooks the galete for 30 minutes at 375 F, TK goes for 30 minutes plus 30 minutes after rotating at 350F then lower at 325 and cooks for 50 minutes! Basically 2 hours cooking for only one galette. And I have an ancient gas oven so I cannot put more than 1 galette at the time and basically I have no time to bake in the morning. What a huge difference in time and temperature, I'm undecided.

What to do? Bake at night? It is not ideal right? It would be better to bake in the morning

Other question. David goes only with the almond cream, Keller with a frangipane? Which one?

I'm going to buy frozen puff pastry because I don't have time or energy to make it right now. I see on line Fresh direct puff pastry is 340 grams, Keller calls for 400 g puff pastry for a 9 inch galette. Are two boxes of puff pastry enough for 2 galettes or it's a little tight?

Can I assemble the galettes at night and keep in the fridge and just bake in the morning with no problem? Or just cut the disk and fill, seal and decorate in the morning?

In the south of France, where we were living before, the tradition is the couronne and I'm going to make a couple ready the night before because there are children with nuts allergies and I can omit the nuts. Now I'm trying the no knead brioche from Ideas in food (which I failed once, just to discover that my house temperature was too high...not a problem this days in NYC) adapted to include orange water and some other small changes...let's see if it works because I don't have a stand mixer yet.

I made a King's Cake/Pithiviers with Trader Joe's pastry (first time ever not homemade. I felt guilty) to bring to a work breakfast; filled with almond pastry cream from Lenotre. It was pretty damned good, all things considered. Not the same rise as homemade but I did not feel the flavor was "off" as fooey did and the rise was much higher than in photos here. Forgot to take pix.

Good to know because my option for frozen puff pastry are Trader Joe's (not the closest), Whole foods and Fresh direct. Which one?

The average size of a puff pastry box in the US is 12 oz, 340 g?

Thanks for any advice on this.

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Yesterday was Epiphany which is celebrated in France with a Galette des Rois, aka Pithiviers. Since we can't easily find it in the US, I learned how to make it a few years ago. I like the recipe from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. I use frozen pastry dough and make my own frangipane with freshly ground almonds and a touch of rum (+butter, sugar, eggs, flour). This year I used dark Jamaican rum - now my Pithiviers has two ingredients in common with one of my favorite cocktails, the Mai Tai!

Filling the dough with a thick layer of frangipane

8355046803_192b838101_z.jpg

Closing the pastry and glazing with egg wash, scoring in a spiral pattern

8355144407_e3f9df31ce_z.jpg

Of course at that point I realized that I forgotten (again! I think I do this every year) to add the bean inside, but I added it discretely when it was time to slice it.

Out of the oven (there was also a sugar syrup glaze to make it super shiny)

8356338538_2f3fe43e6b_z.jpg

My daughter got the bean and chose the cat as her king.

Did anybody else have galette for Epiphany? I would love to see photos (homemade or not). There are some pretty amazing creations in French bakeries; I know that they are getting really creative.

Hi FP!

I'm here for advice. I need to make some galettes for a class of 27 children this Friday, now I'm kind of regretting it since I have a fever...

I was reading on line and Bouchon bakery book for reference.

David Lebovitz cooks the galete for 30 minutes at 375 F, TK goes for 30 minutes plus 30 minutes after rotating at 350F then lower at 325 and cooks for 50 minutes! Basically 2 hours cooking for only one galette. And I have an ancient gas oven so I cannot put more than 1 galette at the time and basically I have no time to bake in the morning. What a huge difference in time and temperature, I'm undecided.

What to do? Bake at night? It is not ideal right? It would be better to bake in the morning

Other question. David goes only with the almond cream, Keller with a frangipane? Which one?

I'm going to buy frozen puff pastry because I don't have time or energy to make it right now. I see on line Fresh direct puff pastry is 340 grams, Keller calls for 400 g puff pastry for a 9 inch galette. Are two boxes of puff pastry enough for 2 galettes or it's a little tight?

Can I assemble the galettes at night and keep in the fridge and just bake in the morning with no problem? Or just cut the disk and fill, seal and decorate in the morning?

In the south of France, where we were living before, the tradition is the couronne and I'm going to make a couple ready the night before because there are children with nuts allergies and I can omit the nuts. Now I'm trying the no knead brioche from Ideas in food (which I failed once, just to discover that my house temperature was too high...not a problem this days in NYC) adapted to include orange water and some other small changes...let's see if it works because I don't have a stand mixer yet.

I made a King's Cake/Pithiviers with Trader Joe's pastry (first time ever not homemade. I felt guilty) to bring to a work breakfast; filled with almond pastry cream from Lenotre. It was pretty damned good, all things considered. Not the same rise as homemade but I did not feel the flavor was "off" as fooey did and the rise was much higher than in photos here. Forgot to take pix.

Good to know because my option for frozen puff pastry are Trader Joe's (not the closest), Whole foods and Fresh direct. Which one?

The average size of a puff pastry box in the US is 12 oz, 340 g?

Thanks for any advice on this.

This is beautiful! I love pithiviers and first made them back in late 1990s. OMG, it was so rich and so delish I just can't get myself to make it again for fear of eating way too much. Thanks for sharing this gorgeous photo!

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Hi FP!

I'm here for advice. I need to make some galettes for a class of 27 children this Friday, now I'm kind of regretting it since I have a fever...

I was reading on line and Bouchon bakery book for reference.

David Lebovitz cooks the galete for 30 minutes at 375 F, TK goes for 30 minutes plus 30 minutes after rotating at 350F then lower at 325 and cooks for 50 minutes! Basically 2 hours cooking for only one galette. And I have an ancient gas oven so I cannot put more than 1 galette at the time and basically I have no time to bake in the morning. What a huge difference in time and temperature, I'm undecided.

What to do? Bake at night? It is not ideal right? It would be better to bake in the morning

Other question. David goes only with the almond cream, Keller with a frangipane? Which one?

I'm going to buy frozen puff pastry because I don't have time or energy to make it right now. I see on line Fresh direct puff pastry is 340 grams, Keller calls for 400 g puff pastry for a 9 inch galette. Are two boxes of puff pastry enough for 2 galettes or it's a little tight?

Can I assemble the galettes at night and keep in the fridge and just bake in the morning with no problem? Or just cut the disk and fill, seal and decorate in the morning?

Hi Franci!

If I were you, for simplicity I would bake the galettes the night before, and reheat them in the morning if you get a chance. Galette des rois is better still warm from the oven, but when I lived in France we just bought it from the neighborhood bakery and reheated it before eating it.

Frangipane vs. almond cream - aren't they essentially the same thing?

For me, 1 box of puff pastry is only enough for one galette (I use one sheet for the top, and the other for the bottom). Last year I used a box of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheets (~ 500 grams) and the galette yielded about 8 slices, or maybe 10 small slices for kids. For 27 kids I think you will need at least 3 galettes, maybe 4 if you want some for the teacher and for yourself!

Regarding the cooking temperature, I went with Anne Willan's recommendation of 20-25 min at 425F/220C until brown, then 375F/190C for another 15-20 min. Her recipe is available here on google books. That's the one I use every year.

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Thanks, FrogPrincesse. The teacher told me she is going to serve the galette in the afternoon, so I have all the time to bake in the morning.

Did you use the egg wash or water to seal?

I bought 4 puff pastry, so I'm going to bake one tomorrow just to make sure of getting the right cooking time and temperature with my oven. I'll form all the disks tomorrow, make the almond cream and just assemble and bake on Friday morning.

I'm also working on my couronne. After the 2nd failed and last attempt with the Ideas on Food people brioche...I'm making Paula Wolfert brioche in the food processor (it's on Egullet) and so far looks really good. It is basically like a no knead but she got it better, I think.

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Thanks, FrogPrincesse. The teacher told me she is going to serve the galette in the afternoon, so I have all the time to bake in the morning.

Did you use the egg wash or water to seal?

Egg wash (the same used to glaze the galette).
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It worked pretty well, this morning has been really easy putting together the galettes, I already cut all the full pastry rounds and I had the idea of spreading the filling in a pasta dish which left the required 1 inch space a the border and the rounder shape at the edges of the filling make it easy to seal the pastry.

Thanks, FrogPrincess! It's going to become my staple recipe, only thing is I don't find the conversions accurate. For me 1 cup of almond flour is about 90 g, I used 120.

302uwqe.jpg

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