Florentines, Sable Hollander

Chef's Checkerboards

After 2 arduous days spent preparing our Sable Hollander (or Checkerboard cookie) dough, mixing and kneading, precise layering and slicing, they were finally ready for the oven!

Great Florentines Come In All Shape & Sizes

Pretty as Hollanders may be, the Florentines are by far my favourite cookies to snack on: thick slabs of sweet, crunchy almond slices topped with an equally thick coating of dark coverture chocolate, the Florentines were not only easy make but more so a breeze to devour straight after!

But wait! There's more! Notice how smooth and shiny the chocolate disks are? That, my friends, is what you get from tempering the chocolate, something else we tried our hands at doing today. How wicked is that!?!

A Little Treat

One of Chef's little helpers brought along the Concord she made in Intermediate Patisserie for us, how lucky are we? I gave it a miss, though, thoroughly content with the Florentines I still had in my mouth. I remember Concord being a decadent chocolate mousse and meringue cake, having my first taste of it from Sweet Secrets when I was just a wee little girl...ah sweet memories...

My Cookie Tray

I managed to get most parts right today, Hollanders looking pretty good, Florentines tasting even better. Tempering chocolate I'll have to try again, seeing how I wasn't able to hit the exact temperatures. You may also notice the sky scraper of a chocolate disk each almonds base was struggling to support. That, my friends, is the result of unbashful, undeniable  greed. Not that there's ever anything wrong with that. ;)

Biscuits Viennois, Biscuits Sables Rounds (Sables Diamantes), Sables Hollander

Chef's Cookie Collection

Cookies galore today as we made 3 simple yet so scrumptious varieties: Piped Viennese cookies with a hint of rum, sugar crusted sables with a light touch of orange, and yet more prep work on our Hollander, or checkerboard cookies. I haven't baked too many cookies in my lifetime,  so simple as they may seem in the making, and esp given yesterday's follies, I was taking nothing for granted.

Cookie Art

Gotta admit I was very pleased with how mine all turned out, and always happy with a creative outlet, I went all out decorating the various shapes with chocolate buttons, sliced almonds and to a lesser extent (for color and brownie points with the Chef), macerated cherries. Yeeeww... 

The secret to Viennese success? Lots of rum! In fact, go crazy with it, not so far as to alter the ideal texture of cookie dough, but push the envelope on this one. I sure did, and I tell ya, I've never had such a rummy-ly perfumed cookie in my life: in fact, this might be the first time I've even tasted rum cookies, so I'm telling you now: they are the future. Not the children, not Gaia, but Rum Cookies. 

Orange Mosaic

As for the sables, go with twice the amount of orange (or your preferred citrus) zests called for,  and you will be duly rewarded with a whiff of citrus heaven every time.

For The Cookie Jars

More than enough, but I've come prepared. I cannot wait to share these gems for I'm sure they'll go down a treat. When has rum ever failed to? ;)

Update: Kept in an airtight contained, the cookies will stay crunchy for at least a week. I gave most away to some friends I made that very weekend when I in Fiji to attend a wedding; they kept their crunch and rummy/orangy flavors and made for a great gift. :)

Tarte Aux Fruits, Creme Patissiere, Sables Echequier

Chef's Creation

This one's for the gold, the Fruit Tart being an item we will be required to produce in our practical assessment, so no mucking around now. 

It seemed straight forward enough on paper: A sweet crust base filled with lusciously thick pastry cream and topped with a mountain of gloriously rich coloured berries. And I thought I did a pretty good job with my tart, which looked sexy and rather French to me, somehow. 

My Masterpiece

Looks can be so deceiving. When I sliced up my Tart at home I found the crust much too thick, which explains the bucketful of cream left over from filling it. Speaking of which the cream did not set into the solid, wobbly base as expected. Oh no, it was as runny as your nose can be on a cold winter's night after you've been caught in the rain and are down with the flu and what you suspect to be the onset of hypothermia; worse yet, being terribly allergic to pollen you were in a field of sexually heightened pollinating oak trees when the thunderstorm began (ok imagine it's summer now). And now your nose is so runny you're losing invaluable fluids as you slowly dehydrating to death through the facet on your face.

Crowning Glory

But enough about you, I was pretty upset about my tart not turning out like Chef's. There's something bloody annoying not getting it right on the first go that makes me want to try and try again until I do, more so when it's something as important as The Tart That Will Be Tested On. 

Convention aside I rather prefer my custard runny. There's nothing more alluring than a wave of sweet berries swimming in a pool of silky rich cream as they come pouring down on your crust, and when you scoop a big spoonful of the party into your mouth, you crunch down on the sweet berries and crunchy tart as the custard fills your mouth in a wave of orgasmic delight. 

Unfortunately sex alone will not get you far in the LCB marking scheme, so I have to find a way to right the oh-so-good-it's-bad wrong, gotta get this right, I must. I must.