Pastry Maestra
Free Video Tutorials on Baking, Pastry making and Creating Desserts. Have a sweet life!
R
emember cake balls? Chocolate coated, ball-shaped, dense mixture of leftover crumbed cake, chocolate, jam or a filling of any kind is always a highly appreciated and popular item in any pastry shop, in spite of the fact they are made of leftovers! Go figure!
C
rispy shortcrust pastry, creamy caramel and silky milk chocolate ganache… hmmm, that sounds serious! And it is, so this time you’ll need to roll up your sleeves a bit! However, I promise – it will be worth your while!
C
hocolate caramels are the best, right? Pure heaven in a single bite! Yet, there is this strange phenomenon on the planet Earth, an entity that is never satisfied completely, that always yearns for more! It is the human being, of course. Why am I saying this? Well, guess what – if you want to improve chocolate caramels, to make them even more heavenly – use salt!
R
emember my amazing raspberry raw cake? Well, that one was delicious! Even the most uptight non-believers experienced enlightenment once they found out they are eating something sweet and healthy in the same bite!
D
ecorations made of chocolate are the most beautiful and sophisticated display of pastry chef’s skills when done properly, but they are also fun to make! That’s what I like the most about being a pastry chef – you get to play with chocolate all day long and on top of that – you get paid! It’s a sweet life!
O
blong and elegant, simple, but sophisticated, éclair is one of the French classics. The combination of freshly baked, crispy pâte à choux shell, light crème pâtissière and sweet fondant icing is a symphony of flavors and textures for your taste buds. No wonder the French are so proud and sensitive about their éclairs! And when it comes to making them, you’ll learn that it’s always the most difficult task to achieve perfection within simplicity.
M
endiants [mɑ̃.djɑ̃] are small chocolate discs topped with dried fruits and nuts. There are so many great things about these sweet little snacks! First, you can use either dark, milk or white chocolate. Even better, you can put any nuts, dried or candied fruits you like, so can easily make different mendiants for each member of your family! And last, but not least, they are so attractive that you can wrap them in a cellophane bag, put a ribbon, and you will have the most beautiful handmade edible gift ever!
H
ave you ever bought a chocolate bar or a chocolate bonbon, and when you impatiently opened the sweet package, you discovered an unappealing layer of something white on the surface of your supposed-to-be-pleasurable snack? And if you took a bite of that chocolate, it crumbled in your mouth in a kind of sandy way? Well, don’t worry, that chocolate bar wasn’t old or spoiled, and the white thing is not fungus, no – the problem is in a process called the ‘tempering’.
O
nce you taste this combination of silky, airy chocolate parfait and sweet and sour cherries, you will perfectly understand why parfait means “perfect” when translated from French.
I
have to admit that I am not that crazy about white chocolate. Actually, if you stumble upon me in a supermarket, my shopping basket will contain a significant quantity of various chocolate bars, from creamy milk chocolate, filled with crunchy pecan and caramel bits, orange or almonds to bitter ones with high cocoa solids content. However, you won’t be able to find white chocolate inside whatsoever…
