Winter Garden

Another trip to Le Petit Paris today, to learn about multigrain bread; I’ve wondered whether the difference in multigrain is just the addition of “grains” and it turns out yes that is basically it – the dough is pretty similar to the sourdough we made last year, except that Stefan added toasted sunflower and flax seeds:

We then were given three separate pieces of dough which we flattened to get out the air then folded into a basic bread shape, with one going in a tin to bake and a second just on a tray. For the third dough I wanted to make small multigrain rolls so Stefan demonstrated cutting the dough into three and hand rolling each to a round shape. All three shaped doughs were rolled in a mixture of oats and seeds, before baking …

This dough takes a long time to work with – it needs resting time after mixing, a lot of proving time, and a 40 minute bake – and for the tin we ran short of time so I suggested that we take the tin and bake at home; the tray bread and my bread rolls needed a bit less proving time so we baked them, and they all came out really well! And when I got home I baked the tin (which had risen really well by now) and it also was delicious:

Another fun morning at the bakery, with lots of flavor to enjoy at home.

Another entertaining morning at Le Petit Paris yesterday, this time a workshop creating savory petit fours (which are small “bite size” foods); this workshop focused on using a single dough mix (with added tomato powder for color and subtle flavor) in different shapes with different fillings – we used brats (fancy hot dogs), salmon, ham, cream cheese, and more! This time I found the dough to be easy to work with, and it seems that my piping skills have improved a little since the macarons last month!

Even trying not to bring home too much (because Margaret isn’t keen on pastry) we had a lot (see last photo above), so we invited friends Linda & Berch to share with us …

I returned to Le Petit Paris yesterday for another of their fun workshops, this time [basic] macarons (there’s also an advanced macarons workshop!) … Stefan provided instructions for plain and chocolate versions (the plain could be flavored as desired, we used vanilla); there’s a number of steps involved but this was a less complex workshop than some I’ve gone to … the shells are made with an Italian meringue recipe using egg whites and almond flour, while the ganache filling is (for the chocolate one) simply heavy cream and melted chocolate!

As always I took photos throughout the afternoon:

I recorded a few videos also – these two show the careful folding of egg whites / flour / chocolate into the shell mixture so that the egg whites don’t lose the air that’s been beat into them, and show piping the shells which takes care but we learned quite well within about 20 shell attempts!