LoveTheJourney

Chef Laura writes:
I have never really understood the whole scald-the-milk-for-a-still-custard thing. I understand the neccessity for creme anglaise and pastry cream, but I don’t get the importance for baked custards. I scanned previous posts and didn’t see an answer to this. I have nothing in my notes from school. I have made bread pudding without [...]

Reader Barry wants to know why, since pastry cream (another custard) is thickened with starch, Bavarian cream is thickened with gelatin. That’s a great question, and one I’m not sure I can fully answer. My feeling as that in centuries past, pastry chefs used whatever thickeners were available to them, so there were no hard [...]

Reader Laura asks this about lemon bars:
Why can’t you just cook the curd in the pan to 196 degrees and then spread the fully cooked curd on the baked crust?

That’s an excellent question that’s going to allow me to get good and geeky. It’s a fair thing to wonder. I mean, if I’m going to [...]

If I were to try to describe Joe Pastry heaven to you, it would go a little something like this: a warm spring afternoon, the kids and the missus are taking a nap. There’s a cold bottle of suds open, and a big ol’ pastry to build.
That was my Sunday, friends, and here’s what [...]

So, it’s the day of your marjolaine “build” and it’s time to make your fillings. Marjolaine typically has two different cream fillings (usually pastry cream or buttercream, but I’ve also seen whipped cream versions), one flavored with nuts, nut paste or praline, and the other flavored with vanilla and a liqueur of some type. What’s [...]

Praline is what we’re going to use to flavor one of the layers of pastry cream. It’s a simple, fun and kinda silly part of the marjolaine-making process. Start by greasing a sheet pan or cookie sheet. You can use butter, oil or cooking spray like I’m doing here. (A Silpat comes in very handy [...]

One batch of pastry cream as listed on the components menu to the right, with one exception: leave out the vanilla bean.

I know what you’re thinking: What the heck is that? It’s a fair question, since Marjolaine is one of the dark horses of the pastry world, not often spoken of, rarely served (at least in this country), but a certified winner nonetheless. Its name means “sweet marjoram”, but doesn’t it just figure that not only [...]

Ah yes, a good question indeed. Marjolaine is the invention of the late French master chef, Fernand Point, whose restaurant La Pyramide outside of Lyon was widely considered to be France’s premier eating establishment from the close of World War I up until Point’s death in 1955. It was there that Marjolaine was invented and [...]