Gâteau Mille Feuille De Chocolat à L'orange, Crème Diplomate, Petits Fours Glacé, Preserved Fruit Peel

Chef Gert's Mille Feuille & Petits Fours Glacé

Mille Feuille or "a thousand leaves" describes the feathery light layers (48 in this case) created from the underlying lamination. Known fondly as Vanilla Slice in Australia and Napoleon in France, it made with layers of puff pastry and a creamy filling, topped with fondant and "chocolate feathers". First mentioned in 1651 by François Pierre de La Varenne, it was later improved by Marie-Antoine Carême in the 18th century, noting it of "ancient origin."

Petits fours were probably created in the 18th century, when wasting heat was unheard of: tiny cakes would be baked during the cooling process of the ovens, hence the name which means "little ovens". Cute, eh?

But that's not all. Petits fours glacés are cakes iced  and decorated in fondant or glacé icing, petits fours secs are its dry cousins such as biscuits and meringues. Then there are the petits fours salés, savoury  appetizers commonly served at cocktail parties or buffets.

Inversely Puffy Layers Of Feathery Lightness

Chocolate Reverse Puff & Crème Diplomate

Due to its dark appearance, baking the chocolate puff requires extra care to ensure it bakes without burning, and today's Crème Diplomate was made with orange zest for extra oomph.

Components all in place, it's time to get cracking!

Layering Puff & Crème Diplomate

 Drizzling Chocolate & Feathering

Chef Gert left out his favorite ingredient in the above demonstration: apricot jam. Sacrilege! He cried inconsolably. For all you perfectionists out there, the jam goes on the top layer of puff, before the fondant is poured on.

Beautiful Layers

Covering With Fondant, Chocolate Piping

 

The petit fours are structurally similar to the Mille Feuille, and yet so different. Look closely and you'll note the latter has layers of dark chocolate puff against the sunshine-yellow cream, while the former, layers of golden jaconde and dark chocolate ganache. 

Both however, are finished off with fondant and decorative chocolate piping.

Semi Petits Fours Glacé

Goofin' Around

My My Mille Feuille

I found Chef's Crème Diplomate quite bland so I added more sugar (A first!), zest and kirsch in mine. Margarita later pointed out there was no kirsch in the recipe. :p

I've never been a fan of Mille Feuille, as it makes such a mess when you slice into it. But the more I tasted it the more I liked how the mild chocolate crunch of the puff complemented the soft Crème Diplomate with its fresh hint of orange. It's slowly growing on me.

My Petits Fours Glacé

The fondant was too sweet for my liking, no matter how much water I thinned it down with. Nonetheless, they look absolutely adorable and make the sweetest gifts. :)

Petits Fours Glacés, Pâte Feuilletée Inversée, Crème Pâtissière, Marzipan Roses, Preserved Fruit Peel

Chef Keith's Petits Fours Glacés Mise En Place

It's another mise en place day, which meant no goodies for us to take home. "You can take yourself home" jokes Chef Keith. Sigh, I'd like to take you home instead.

Right, first things first: Reverse puff pastry. I'm sure you know by now how we make puff pastry, and how I'd much rather be spared the agony of making it and buying from the shop instead. That said, the Reverse or Inverse puff made today was quite different coz (a) it was made by enveloping dough in butter, not the other way around and (b) we used a chocolate dough, which not only smelled amazing in the making but will look splendidly impressive when sliced, showing off all the beautiful lamination we worked so hard to achieve.

I first read about Reverse puff in Desserts by Pierre Herme and thought it was him who created this backward madness. Since I have not found evidence to prove otherwise, I shall take this to be true, though I'll be happy to be proven wrong if anyone out there is resourceful enough to find out the true origin of this inside-out creation.

 Conditioning Butter With Flour

But Ally! you cry, How do you get butter around and all over the dough without making a gawddamnoily mess? The secret, Annikin, is to first condition the butter with half its weight in flour and kneading thoroughly until you get what resembles butter, but ain't really it.

 Kneading Conditioned Butter & Chocolate Dough

It starts out resembling a mess of white, sloppy vomit, but keep kneading and squeezing and pressing and kneading again and the vomit will come together. As for the dough, it is a basic flour-water-melted butter-salt combo with a dash of cocoa powder for color and taste.

Placing Chocolate Dough Inside Butter

Completing A Book Turn In Reverse Puff

A book or full-turn is when you fold the ends of the rectangular butter-and-dough block to meet in the middle, and fold that again in half like you would a erm, very long book.

Repeat once more before finishing off with a half turn and viola! Reverse puff done!

Word of caution here: Dust liberally. The butter will melt into an oily mess when handled for too long so dusting the puff and countertop as well as your rolling pin will keep the butter from sliming off itself and sticking onto everything it comes into contact with.

Oh Yes, We Also Made Crème Pâtissière

Dividing Jaconde Into 3, Spreading On The (Chocolate Ganache) Love 

We use the jaconde leftover from making Brasilia for the petits fours glacés, or tiny cakes. Sandwich 3 layers of jaconde with ganache, also leftover from making Bûche de Noël and stack the happy trio together, topping it off with a thin layer of marzipan.

This is meant to be tiny, as it will be sliced tomorrow and covered with fondant, and we do not want the stack toppling over under the weight of the white cement. So keep it low-rise, 2.5cm is what we're aiming for here.

Just Checking!

Chef Keith's Marzipan Roses...For Valentine's?

Nope, they are for the Fraiser Cake we'll be making on Saturday!

Preserved Orange Peel...Sugar Overload!

This time we removed the peels, added yet more sugar to the syrup and brought the pot to a boil, adjusting the sugar level until a Brix of 49 was attained. This potent solution was left to cool down before reintroducing the peels back in, as we do not want to overcook the peels at this stage. This had better be worth it in the end.

Creme Diplomat, Caramel, Gateau St Honore, Tarte Au Chocolate Noir

Chef's Gateau St Honore & Tarte Au Chocolate Noir

In Asia we honor the Fortune God, oh Great One who bestows upon us blessings of wealth and lottery winnings. For the French, more specifically French bakers and pastry chefs, their revered patron saint is the 7th bishop of Amiens, Saint Honore, and no better tribute befits a patron saint than a gateau in his name and honor. What did I tell you about the French, eh?

French bakers and pastry chefs, is there a sexier calling? Stuff the cop uniform and handcuffs, on my hen night my stripper will be in a chef jacket, tall hat and a whisk, but I digress.

Pouring Filling Into Blind Baked Tart Shell

French chocolate tart is a double whammy of a chocolate sensation. A dark chocolate tart shell is blind baked, then filled with a heavy duty solution of full cream and good quality dark chocolate. Into the oven it goes to bake at a low temperature until the filling is set.

 

Instant Gratification

The tart is simple to knock out, the filling dense and the chocolate flavor very full-on, hence it's usually served in very thin slices. Quality over quantity, folks.

Cooking Caramel, Piping Choux Puffs

While most of the mise en place for the St Honore was done, the sum is always greater than its parts, which meant more work in store as we brought the components together.

Water, sugar and glucose is heated until the sugar caramelized into a rich golden hue. The puffs are dipped, very cautiously, in the lava-hot caramel and left for a glossy top to form.

Sugar work, not my favourite thing in patisserie. Reaching a temperature of up to 190'C, when it burns, it burns man. So be very careful not to come into direct contact when you're working with it, or be prepared to have your skin completely burnt off.

Piping Creme Diplomat, Rounding Up The Gateau

Creme patisserie is mixed with whipped cream and gelatin to create a stiffer yet lighter Creme Diplomat which, when piped onto the gateau in the trademark "leaves", helps it hold its shape.

The puffs are also filled with the cream before being placed around the edge of the cake with some caramel to help them stick. Topped with berries and spun sugar, and you're good to go.

Making Spun Sugar

You've gone through the trouble and 3rd degree burns to create that beautiful caramel, so might as well make full use of it and do some spun sugar work. Boil the caramel down till light amber in color, then dip a brush in and swish it about till web-like strands gather. Round them up gently into a ball and you have yourself a beautiful centerpiece for any occasion.

Mini St Honores

Mille Feuille

With the leftover puff pastry, Chef Gert made Mille Feuille by filling each slice with diplomat, whipped cream and raspberry jam. Finally, fondant and chocolate is poured on top to decorate.

Dripping Delicious

My Shiny Top

I didn't expect my St Honore to turn out so well, as I was having a hard time with the caramel, which at times was either too hot to handle or too cold to glaze the puffs with. I am lucky to have Petra as a partner, that girl knows her sugar and cooked the caramel beautifully. 

I covered 1 gateau only partially with the spun sugar, so the piping can be more clearly seen. At the end of the day, you do want your hard work noticed.

Function Over Form

I might have done myself in with this one. While the other tarts were baking gently in the oven, mine was feriously bubbling away, which probably had sometime to do with the half litre of brandy I put in my filling. Sure it's ugly, but it'll go down well. Alcohol never lets you down.