Lesson 4 : Tarte aux Fruits and Tarte aux Pommes

Before the class, I was so excited about Tarte aux Fruits (Fruit Tart) and a Tarte aux Pommes (Apple Tart) we would make today. Saw in my favourite LCB alumni blogs; here and here, made me can’t wait to make that tarts. In the class, we were watching Chef Keith demonstration and the tarts looked so perfect! He made it so neat and beautiful..of course he is LCB chef L0L.

Unfortunately, chef told us that today we will make only 1 tart since this semester we got new demo kitchen for Patisserie students, which means we, new Patis students, have less time for practical. (before… the chef demonstration and student baking are in the same kitchen, students just looked chef demo and then go to work at their area). And chef decided for us to make fruit tart.

Chef keith's Tarte aux Fruits

Tarte aux Fruits (Fruit flan with creme patisserie) Crème patisserie is the custart cream made from milk and egg base.

Chef keith's Tarte aux Pommes

Tarte aux Pommes (Apple Tart with frangipane filling, glazed with apricot jam) Frangipane filling is a custart filling made with almond meals.

Honestly, at first I think I definitely prefer Fruit Tart to Apple tart since it has lots of Berries on it, which is my favourite. But after tasted the one chef made for us…OMG ! The Apple tart was so yummy…The crispness from caramelized sugar on the top of neatly arranged apples, the sweetness and sourness from granny smith apples, the moist and rich cake-like texture from frangipane filling, and the fine crumbly, slightly crisp texture of short pastry…wow…especially it has just came out from the oven!

Still, the fruit tart was good. The crème patissiere is rich and very good smell cuz we use a real vanilla pod. I just think that the apricot glaze was too sweet for me.

Ok..Let’s start making the fruit tart. As the Pate Sucree (Sweet short pastry) need about 30 minutes for resting in the fridge, we made it first by using rub-in method.

Rub-in Method: The fat is rubbed into the flour, dry mixture, resembles bread crumbs.. The most important thing when making any dough or pastry, do not work too much after the liquid has been added to the flour and fat. The gluten that is formed will eventually produce a network of long, elastic strands in the dough which will cause the shrinkage and toughness of the pastry.

Then we started making the crème patissiere by WHIPPING by hand. Such a tough job, but was good training. Hehe.. This is first time for me to use a real vanilla pod…so happy cuz I feel like very professional..haha…Then put the crème in the fridge and took the short pastry out to bake by blind baking method.

Blind baking Method: Covering the flan with a disc of greaseproof paper (Cartouche) and filled with dried peas or beans so that it will keep its shape when baking and the flan doesn't become to soggy . And the bean should be removed before the fland is cooked through and the flan returned to the oven for completion of baking.

After flan was cooked, piped chilled crème patissiere and then…time for Decoration!! The good thing about LCB is giving us a great ingredients…this time we got 1 punnet of strawberry, blueberry and raspberry for each students…and a big box of kiwi fruits and oranges for the whole class.

I think my tart is very beautiful…haha…of course everyone did a pretty great jobs for their tarts….But I still like mine the most…;D

And the best things...these classmate are so nice and funny...happy to have them all...(next time i will try to take more photos of other friends ^ ^)