L'Academie and Cream Puffs

Gimme a woot woot! I started my first-ever actual baking class a couple weeks ago at L'Academie de Cuisine and I am in love! I've been a butter-smelling, batter-tasting, brainstorming-recipe-combos-in-my-free-time crazy person for the last couple of years and I thought it would be fun. Right again, Molly. Thank you.

Each week Chef Mark, who worked at the White House and trained with Chef Mesnier (he's famous)---how cool is that?!---teaches us about all kinds of beautiful pastries and I take pages of tiny scribbled, yet ridiculously organized, notes on every detail that comes out of his mouth. It's fascinating!

These are some beautiful cream puffs, made out of choux pastry and filled with fresh whipped cream. Way better than the frozen store kind, fyi. The rich buttery pastry shell is just barely crisp and browned in the oven while wonderfully soft and flavorful on the inside. Then, when you bite into the little guy, it bursts open with chilled, silky cream and you have to close your eyes to let your mouth enjoy every bit of flavor!

I'm going to apologize right now for only sharing mouthwatering imagery of class projects and miscellaneous baking attempts. These projects are best explained with detailed step-by-step images and my camera/laptop can only handle so much flour/butter/eggs mixed in between the buttons.

So basically what I'm saying is you should probably invite me over to have a baking party. Oh yeah!

Baked Apples

During the fall, I become obsessed with everything apple, as you may have noticed. So when I saw some beautiful baked apples on Cherry Tea Cakes, I just knew I had to try them!

Baked Apples   [click to print]
Makes 4 baked apples

For the crust: 
1-1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 stick (8 oz.) butter, unsalted and cold
1/4 c. water, ice cold

For the appley part: 
4 apples (I used honeycrisp)
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cloves

Whisk together flour, sugar and salt in large bowl. Cube butter in 1/2" pieces and add to flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter, work butter into flour mixture until it forms crumbles about the size of peas. Slowly drizzle water over butter mixture. Use a rubber spatula to gather dough, working around the edges. When dough begins to clump together, use fingers to gently knead together a few times until it forms one mound. Place dough on plastic wrap and flatten to about 1/2". Wrap tightly and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

Core apples; if you don't have a corer, stab your vegetable peeler in a circle around the core and then push it out. Peel apples. Slice horizontally into 1/4" slabs. In a small bowl, whisk together sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Remove pie crust dough from refrigerator and separate into four balls. Roll each ball out between two pieces of plastic wrap to about 1/8" thickness. Chill about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp. sugar mixture in center of dough. Set your first apple slice (bottom piece) on sugar and cover with 1/2 to 1 tsp. sugar mixture. Layer next slice on top and sprinkle with 1/2 to 1 tsp. sugar mixture; continue alternating apple slices and sugar mixture until your apple is reassembled on the dough. Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp. sugar on top of apple. Stuff center of apple with about 2 tsp. sugar mixture. Gently pull edges of dough to wrap entire apple. Trim off any excess dough.

Bake at 375 for 45-60 minutes.

Source: Adapted from Cherry Tea Cakes