Questions from a too-new head patissier...

[LoneSavant]

I start as the head pastry chef of an upscale wine-bar/restaurant soon, and am working on the menu....and could use a little advice from my elder patisssiers..

I'd like to do an individual to-order Tarte Tatin, but the time- and effort-factors are in question (by me). I thought about disassembling the dessert into three components: a poached, sliced apple, a dark caramel syrup, and a disk of pastry dough, and then to-order, glaze the tartlet pan with caramel, line the apples, top with pastry, and give it 8-10 in the oven. Thoughts? I'd IDEALLY like to use raw pastry dough, however I'm worried about bake-time...I'd thought about using pre-baked pastry disks, but at heart, I'm a devout traditionalist, and can only adulterate the original recipe so far...

Thoughts? Ideas? Advice?

[JeanneCake]

Well, you could always prep a limited number of them in the morning, using puff pastry, bake them off midafternoon so they'll hold for dinner service with just a few mins for rewarming. Create a bit of an aura around them - when they're gone, they're gone! Maybe zest up the caramel a little with some spice to make them a little different - enough to warrant the "order one before we sell out" ?

Another alternative is to use a cream cheese pastry dough (I know, not traditional, but it would hold well), bake off circles of it to use with your deconstructed idea. Maybe with a creme fraiche sorbet or garnish...

[schneich]

we do it same way, we roast the apples with lots of sugar and some butter in the oven with the grill on, to make them nicely brown. we blind bake the pate sucre shell with rice in a roasting bag, after removal of the rice bags we brown shells a liitle longer. now we get our reserverd roasted apple halves and fit em niecly but very tight into the shell. for the glaze we dry caramelize 200g sugar VERY DARK (until foaming stage) deglaze with water and cook until you have a very thick syrup almost a liquidish caramel, about 150-200ml. now you weigh about 500g miroir neutre and mix in the caramel, add some vanilla extract (the real stuff with the buds not the flavoring!) now you gently cover the tatin with a your glaze using a brush, thanks to the miroir the tatin will stay shiny all day ;-)

cheers

t.

[JeanneCake]

Looks great (there's a pic on t's website)!

I might have to make some of these for tomorrow!

[sugarseattle]

where's the pic?

[Tri2Cook]

where's the pic?

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It took me a little playing to figure out the site but if you click the arrows on the right side at the bottom of the page it will turn "pages" on the little book on the screen. I don't remember which page it was on but it's there. It's easy to navigate once you see how it works, it's just not readily apparent how to go about navigating it.

[TheSwede]

Page 10-11 I belive. Now, if anyone could tell me what miroir neutre is...? Neutral nappage?

[schneich]

http://www.puratos.us/products_solutions/p...572020sk21.aspx

something like this...

t.

[pastrygirl]

I start as the head pastry chef of an upscale wine-bar/restaurant soon, and am working on the menu....and could use a little advice from my elder patisssiers..

I'd like to do an individual to-order Tarte Tatin, but the time- and effort-factors are in question (by me). I thought about disassembling the dessert into three components: a poached, sliced apple, a dark caramel syrup, and a disk of pastry dough, and then to-order, glaze the tartlet pan with caramel, line the apples, top with pastry, and give it 8-10 in the oven. Thoughts? I'd IDEALLY like to use raw pastry dough, however I'm worried about bake-time...I'd thought about using pre-baked pastry disks, but at heart, I'm a devout traditionalist, and can only adulterate the original recipe so far...

Thoughts? Ideas? Advice?

←

Welcome to the magical, maddening world of the pastry chef.

Baked to order is RARELY going to fly, unless it is souffle or something else really worth putting a 'baked to order, please allow 20 minutes' on the menu. Are you doing the plating or is the pantry line cook doing it? Either way, try not to have more than half the menu served warm. The problem with baking the puff to order is that if the oven is hot enough to bake it in 8 minutes, it is probably hot enough to bake really unevenly and burn the outside while leaving the inside raw. Doughy puff ain't delicious.

I do generally try to keep my crispy separate from my creamy components, as they last longer that way. Assembled things can get soggy after a day, while they may last three or four if kept separate. I don't think prebaking the pastry is adulterating tarte tatin too far, but then again I'm definitely not a devout traditionalist.

If you are not doing the plating, write specific instructions, draw pictures, and come back at dinner time every now and then to make sure things are getting done the way you want. Line cooks hate pastry, they will eat your cookies, drop your tuiles, and leave your ice creams uncovered to get icy. There is little you can do about any of those things.

Enjoy!

[bripastryguy]

When I headed the pastry department at Oceana in NYC we made them par baked and finished them to order.

Peeled, Halved and cored Granny smith Apples.

Brush with melted butter and dust with Vanilla Sugar. Bake in the oven until fork tender.

We made a dry caramel then poured it out onto Silpat and allowed it to harden, Store in an airtight container. We pre cut our puff pastry rounds.

Set up individual aluminum pie tins with a pat of butter, some shards of caramel, the half roasted apple with round side towards bottom of pan then top withh pastry round. Bake in a 350 oven until 3/4 finished. Reserve for order

On order it was an easy pickup. Place in 400 oven for 6-8 minutes, invert onto plate

Voila! Tarte tain to order.

Pears, Peaches, and Asian pear all work well with this preparation

[TheSwede]

http://www.puratos.us/products_solutions/p...572020sk21.aspx

something like this...

t.

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Thanks! It was indeed something close to what I would call a neutral nappage.