We started off making crème patissiere. We began by taking 1 cup of milk from a quart and adding, with a whisk, 3 ounces of cornstarch. Broke 4 eggs and added 8 yolks to the cornstarch/milk mix. Beat them up. The remaining milk we added to 1.5 cups of sugar, then brought that combo to a boil. Then took it off the heat and added the egg/milk/cornstarch gradually, beating the whole time. Then strained it back into the pot. (The pot, by the way, was a saucier ... rounded sides, so that whisking got into all of the edges and sides.) Then we put it back on the stove, and brought it to a boil, whisking constanly. It got very thick. Then we took it off the heat and beat in 4 ounces of unsweetened butter and 4 teaspoons of vanilla. We put this in a steel bowl, and put that bowl into another filled with ice. As soon as it cooled down we put the finished crème patissiere in the fridge.
Then it was onto apples. We cut, cored and sliced piles of Golden Delicious apples.
We made individual fruit tarts, tarte tatin, and two kinds of apple pie. The dough for
Once again Chef Drobbin was patient, encouraging and more casual about pastry measurements and techniques than I had thought possible. As usual I took oodles of pictures. You can see the rest of them here.
