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Intermediate Pâtisserie, Week 1: Galette, Pithivier, Mille Feuille!
It’s hard to believe, but summer has come and gone, and the fall term at LCB is in full swing. And unlike Basic Pâtisserie, which started out with a few easy lessons like cutting and plating fruit, in Intermediate things really hit the ground running!
We spent the first week of classes learning more about puff pastry. We’d made puff pastry once during Basic, but it was nice to revisit it and gain some additional practice at making and laminating the dough by hand.
Galette and Pithivier
For our demo, we learned to make a puff pastry galette filled with poached cherries and an almond and pistachio pastry cream. The chef also demonstrated a pithivier. This is a round pie consisting of two discs of puff pastry, with a filling (can be either sweet or savory) in between.
We made the galette in our first practical, and I was very happy with how mine turned out. The puff pastry had a nice lift, and the color (owing to a tinted egg wash) was a nice, vibrant red. The only thing I need to work on is my scoring, which was a bit too deep in a couple of places.
Later in the week, I made a pithivier at home to try my hand at what I’d seen in the demo. In the demonstration the chef made a sweet pithivier, but I decided to do a savory version. I filled it with caramelized leeks, mushrooms, potatoes, and Gruyere cheese, and it was delicious!
Pear Mille-Feuille
For our second lesson of the week, we continued expanding our puff pastry knowledge as we learned to make a mille-feuille layered with spiced poached pears, dark chocolate, praline creme mousseline, and caramel:
In the demo, we also watched the chef prepare pear turnovers. Since we didn’t make these in practical, I have added them to my list of things to bake at home!
I thought that my mille-feuille practical also went pretty well. My piping could be a bit sharper, and the puff pastry was more difficult to roll than I’d anticipated, but overall I was happy with the end result:
All in all, a successful first week of Intermediate Pâtisserie. I’m happy to be back, and looking forward to the semester ahead!
Missed last week’s pastry school diary? Read it here.
About Rebecca:
Rebecca earned the Diplôme de Pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu London in 2020. She kept this detailed diary as a record of her journey, and as a way to help others decide if pastry school might be the right choice for them. Rebecca also holds an MSc in Culinary Innovation from Le Cordon Bleu and Birkbeck, University of London, and a Professional Chocolatier’s Certificate from Ecole Chocolate. She currently works as a recipe developer, food stylist, food photographer, writer, and pastry chef. Feel free to make one of her original recipes, or to follow her on Instagram @bastecutfold for more baking and pastry inspiration!
