A Day of Cooking and Eating

We made a quick stop (before sunrise) by the Eiffel Tower for todays pic. Its the only time you can get a photo without lots of people in it.

In case you think we are doing nothing but eating in Paris you are correct. On the agenda today we have two pastry classes. 

The classes today are all the way across town so we bought some metro tickets and figured out how to get there by train. 

After about a 10 minute walk, we boarded the metro at Bir-Hakeim station, taking the green line #6 for 5 stops to Charles de Gaule, then switched to the yellow line #1 for 8 stops to Quai de l’hotel de ville. Then it was about 2 1/2 blocks to the school. Of course that would have been true if we had known where we were going. By the time we figured out where it was, we had walked many, many blocks. 

On the train. 

We decided to go early since we weren’t sure exactly how long it would take us to get there and to allow for any mistakes we might make (good plan). This allowed for a breakfast stop. Of course the options were pastries or pastries.

So we had pastries, hot cocoa and tea. I'm not complaining mind you.

We had time to wander around the neighborhood a bit. 

The classes we're taking today are at La Cuisine Paris.

Our chef for the morning (you guessed it) pastry class was William. 

This is our croissant dough with the butter block inside. 

Learning how to roll out the dough and cut the croissants. 

From the same dough, we also made pain au chocolat with these chocolate sticks. We tasted a few just to make sure they were good 😀 

Jo Anne is trimming the sides off the dough, using the chocolate strips as a guide. 

The third thing we made from the same dough was pain au raisin with pastry creme. 

There is a technique to rolling it up.

This is a little bit backwards but this is the order of the class. Because croissants take several days to make, we were using dough made by a previous class and our dough will be used be another class in a day or two. We made the détrempé (starting dough). It is flour, salt, sugar, yeast, water and butter. After making the double-walled well, you crumble the yeast cake (right above the flour in the pic) into the center and then pour the water and butter mixture in the middle and begin to work the inside wall of flour into the liquid. Then continue working the outside wall of flour in until you have a nice dough.

After kneading the dough for 10 minutes we formed a ball, then let it rest. 

Pain au raisin with pastry creme. 

Croissants

All the pastries we made today.

There was a family of four, (mom, daughter and two granddaughters) who were late getting there, throwing the entire class behind. The youngest of the granddaughters was just there to play. We guessed her age at about 12, and her interest level at about age 5. The chef was very patient with her but because we were already behind, and he had to spend extra time with her, it was a bit frustrating for him and the rest of the class. After the morning class we had a little over an hour to grab some lunch before the next class. 

Baguette

French onion soup (gratinée à voignon). It was superb. 

This is the little cafe where we ate. Le Louis Philippe Cafe. It was quite the locals place, very little English spoken here and I'm pretty sure we were the only Americans in the cafe.

After lunch we walked around and looked at all the shop windows. Of course this meringue shoppe was quite intriguing. For one, I can’t imagine having a shop that only sells meringues and two, I’ve never seen anything quite like these meringues. And yes, we each bought one for later. 

A walk across the river with my little meringue box sitting in the foreground. 

The afternoon class was dessert pastries starting off with madeleines.

Our chef this afternoon was Éline. She was quite a character and made the class lots of fun. 

We made perfect little orange blossom madeleines in the seashell shape with the signature hump on the back. 

We also made Baba au rum with chantilly creme. This is the way you knead the dough for the babas. You scoop up the dough with a spatula and then slap it back down in the bowl. I think one girl ended up with more in her hair than anywhere else. 

Baba moulds. 

Piping the babas. 

After baking, the babas get soaked in a rum sugar syrup. It’s called killing the babas. You hold them down with a slotted spoon and when the bubbles stop rising to the surface it means it has soaked up all the syrup it can and you have drowned it. 

Finished baba au rum. 

Piping on the chantilly creme. 

Dipping the madeleines in caramel sauce. 

Just having fun. 

Next on the agenda is creme brulee. 

Filling the custard cups. 

Torching the crème brûlée. Yikes!

We also made Fondant au Chocolat, which you can see in the foreground of the picture of Jo Anne and me up above. It is similar to a molten lava cake.

 Since we were so efficient in class, and had time, we also learned to make caramel and chocolate sauce. After class it was back to the hotel by foot and train. We had just enough time to get ready for our get acquainted dinner with the other participants in the classes we will be taking over the next 3 days at Le Cordon Bleu. It’s an interesting group. 

The starter for dinner was roasted pumpkin and egg salad. I wasn’t a huge fan. 

We ordered the chicken with mushroom sauce and potato mash but got the fried Korean chicken with frites (it was a language problem). Again, I wasn’t a huge fan and didn’t eat much of it. That might have had something to do with sampling all the goodies we made in class today.

And now back to the meringues we bought for later. Have you ever seen anything like this? It is two meringues sandwiched together with a flavored whipped cream, then coated with the cream and rolled in shaved chocolate or nuts or some other decadent crumble. I have no words. 

It is now 11:20 and I’m exhausted so it’s off to bed. Please forgive any typos, I’m just too tired to proofread it. 

18,928 steps

8.2 miles 

6 floors

Oui Kody. Strolling around Paris does add up to lots of steps.