Create decadent texture and tastes as you learn how to make French pastries, guided by expert pastry chef Colette Christian! Discover pâte à choux, the only pastry dough cooked on the stovetop, and learn to hand pipe it into perfect éclairs and cream puffs. Whip up luscious vanilla pastry cream, chocolate ganache, and Chantilly cream, and transform pâte sucrée into an incredible tarte aux fruits and a poached pear and almond cream tart. Plus, make phenomenally flaky puff pastry with step-by-step guidance from Colette, and turn it into exquisite palmiers, addictive cheese straws and a flavorful apple tarte tatin, complete with homemade caramel. Once you've mastered these elemental doughs and techniques, combine your new skills to create your grand finale: a Gâteau St. Honoré complete with spun sugar topping!
As you assemble and glaze your fresh fruit tart, you'll learn pastry shop secrets for perfect cutting, foolproof assembly and an easy, inexpensive recipe for nappage (glaze).
En route to your finished pear tart with almond cream, you'll see how Colette infuses flavor into poached pears and how to make frangipane, or almond custard.
Three different treats show the versatility of puff pastry: sugar-crusted palmiers, golden-brown cheese straws, and tarte Tatin, an apple dessert invented by mistake!
The pièce de résistance is the opulent Gâteau St. Honoré, a combination puff pastry/pâte à choux base edged with caramel-glazed cream puffs and filled with vanilla and chocolate pastry cream, with a party hat of spun sugar on top. Bon appétit!
