One thing that I love about the patisserie course is learning
new skills. I thought I was pretty clued-up before but there are always things
to learn and a few weeks ago it was puff pastry. Practicing pastry so often
doesn’t come cheap though and using butter actually makes the product unstable,
as it has such a low melting point. Although we were all shocked on our first
day to see Fabrice advocate the use of pastry margarine in lieu of butter, when
it comes to rough puff, I’m now a convert.
Now, though there may be a photo of a beautiful plum tart
here, this article is really to showcase a trade secret I learnt on the first
day of my part-time Patisserie course in Leeds (more posts on that to follow!).
And that trade secret is a little thing called almond cream. In my previous
ignorance, I’ve called almond cream a frangipane but was pulled up pretty quick
on this by my tutor Fabrice, who sighed very loudly when I described the recipe
in front of us as such. Apparently, a frangipane has twenty per cent crème patissière stirred into it. This
means that every recipe I’ve made in the past that’s called its filling a frangipane
has been downright lying to me. The cheek! Once I’d overcome this revelation,
in class we set about making the stuff. And boy is it good. Soft, sweet, moist
and dense. What’s not to like?
