Sunday, June 27, 2010

A Student of Pastry…

I just got home from the library with an armful of books…all on baking. If you had asked me five years ago if I ever baked I would tell you absolutely NOT - it’s all science and I like creativity. That’s why I LOVE to cook!
In the last few years, I have discovered just how creative pastry chefs can be and by the way…I really want to be one.

My first read: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Harold McGee, the world renowned authority on the chemistry of food and cooking, offers a translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science. Whoever thought that I could get so excited about science? It was always the class I loved the least and now I am perusing it with a meticulous passion. Go figure…lessons applied early in life can come back and hit you right between the eyes.

I will be blogging about the lessons I learn from some rather professional heavy weights over the course of the next 9 months.

Practice makes perfect so here are some of the techniques I learned in Lesson I: The Art of Croissants… and then practiced this past weekend.

Bon Appetit!