Another day, another croissant! Today we finished Jamie’s class by completing all ten of the delicious laminated pastries. When we arrived to class this morning the pastries were in the proofer at 27 degrees celsius and 80 percent humidity. These had been started yesterday at 5pm and had been placed on a specific schedule to be ready to bake by 10am today.
We started by preheating the ovens and pulling out the croissants to egg wash. All of the pastries got an egg wash except the cross laminated dough and the brioche. A spray gun was used to make sure the egg wash was even but also it is helpful when mass producing pastries. When egg washing you want to avoid getting egg wash on the lamination/butter sections as it will mess with the visual affect. That is why the cross laminated dough does not get an egg wash, the brioche just doesn’t need it. For the danishes we only egg washed the tops of the pastries and then Jamie pushed the centers down to add pastry cream inside before they were baked.
While the viennoiserie was baking, we worked on the whipped ganaches and other toppings/fillings. A lot of the filling recipes were very similar to the whipped ganache recipes we have used in the past few weeks. The kitchen was filled with croissants coming in and out of ovens, mixers on high, and induction stoves heating off and on. All of the pastries were pulled out of the ovens to cool before being filled and topped. The croissants were split into plain croissants and then the other half were made into almond croissants by filling them with the frangipane from yesterday and baking again. Half of the pain au chocolat’s were made into the hazelnut pain au chocolat’s the same way.
The cross laminated pastries were brushed with a sugar syrup to give them a shine, the classic pain suisse was not topped with anything else so this was a good way to make it pop. The rest of the pastries were filled and topped accordingly, the leftover mascarpone whipped ganache and strawberry jelly were used to fill the brioche buns.
| Pastry | Fillings/Toppings |
| Dubai Chocolate Danish | White Chocolate Pistachio Katafi Filling Pistachio Whipped Ganache Dark Chocolate Ganache |
| Blueberry Muffin Pain Suisse | Blueberry Jam Vanilla Pastry Cream Muffin Cake |
| Almond Croissant | Almond Frangipane |
| Twice Baked Hazelnut Pain Au Chocolat | Hazelnut Frangipane Nutella Whipped Ganache |
| Cereal Milk Cruffin | Cereal Milk Whipped Ganache Sugar Toasted Cornflakes |
| Banoffee Danish | Banana Caramel Banana Confit Mascarpone Whipped Ganache Banana Bread |
| Peanut Butter & Jelly Churro | Peanut Frangipane Peanut Butter Whipped Ganache Strawberry Jelly |
Finally after all of that hard work we were able to divide and conquer as many pastries as possible. Unfortunately I was not able to eat them all even with Michaels help, but I shall continue tomorrow eating as many as possible! Only a few lessons left before its back to Boston!
Yum 😋. I wish I was still there for those.
Adding to my list of must haves: laminator and a sprayer! What fun!
Theres a typo in the line “When egg washing you want to avoid getting egg wash on the lamination/butter sections as it will mess with the visual affect.” You should use “effect” instead of “affect”.