Achieving Lamination
Achieving Lamination!
I decided to venture into the world of fussy pastry and make Almond Pastries from 'How to Bake' by the baking maestro Paul Hollywood.
I call this fussy pastry because you need to make it the day before, or at least 8 hours before using it. The proper name for this pastry is Danish Pastry.
Not only do you need to make the pastry in advance, you also need to laminate the pastry.
Laminated dough according to Wikipedia .....is a culinary preparation consisting of many thin layers of dough separated by butter, produced by repeated folding and rolling. Such doughs may contain more than eighty layers'.....
I don't know if my pastry contains 80 layers but the rolling, folding and chilling the pastry is really tiring.
But never mind.
Some people study how to do this in colleges and professional patisserie schools. I take my hat off to them because making pastry can be very fiddly and intricate.
I will never be a professional pastry chef because I don't really want to be but I am so glad I tried this.
I decided to venture into the world of fussy pastry and make Almond Pastries from 'How to Bake' by the baking maestro Paul Hollywood.
I call this fussy pastry because you need to make it the day before, or at least 8 hours before using it. The proper name for this pastry is Danish Pastry.
Not only do you need to make the pastry in advance, you also need to laminate the pastry.
(Yes that is my measuring tape)
Laminated dough according to Wikipedia .....is a culinary preparation consisting of many thin layers of dough separated by butter, produced by repeated folding and rolling. Such doughs may contain more than eighty layers'.....
I don't know if my pastry contains 80 layers but the rolling, folding and chilling the pastry is really tiring.
Maestro Hollywood in his recipe recommends about four times of folding and rolling, and you need to let the pasty rest and chill in the fridge between each roll/fold.
For the amateur like me this takes most of the day but I managed by sandwiching the roll/fold between emails and work. At least it is a good way of taking regular breaks from my lap top screen.
I also had to make Frangipane which is an almond cake mix. That was much easier but still an additional step in the overall baking process.
The morning after the night in the fridge, I battled with rolling out the chilled dough, shaping it and leaving it to rise. It didn't really rise much and I forgot to take a photo before spreading the frangipane and covering it with flakes almonds.
For the amateur like me this takes most of the day but I managed by sandwiching the roll/fold between emails and work. At least it is a good way of taking regular breaks from my lap top screen.
I also had to make Frangipane which is an almond cake mix. That was much easier but still an additional step in the overall baking process.
The morning after the night in the fridge, I battled with rolling out the chilled dough, shaping it and leaving it to rise. It didn't really rise much and I forgot to take a photo before spreading the frangipane and covering it with flakes almonds.
But never mind.
After two days of slogging away with fussy pastry I achieved lamination and made some Almond Pastries. You can see the flaky layers in the pastry in the picture above and a few in the picture below.
😋
Some people study how to do this in colleges and professional patisserie schools. I take my hat off to them because making pastry can be very fiddly and intricate.
I will never be a professional pastry chef because I don't really want to be but I am so glad I tried this.
These bakes taste so much nicer than the ones in the local supermarket and they don't look too bad either.
😋
😋
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