If I can summarize baking and pastry week three in a few words, it would be “no more pie crusts!!!” I think all I did for 8 hours this week was make pie crusts. I don’t want to do it again anytime soon. While the crusts themselves were SUPER delicious, making, and more specifically, rolling them out was a pain in the rear and a skill for which I don’t have enough patience to perfect.

Yummy quiche with spinach, cheese, mushrooms & tomatoes. Crust was a pate brisee.

First, we made dough for a quiche, the recipe for which I will post at some point. Now, I like a good quiche, but never did I think I’d be the creator of something so de.li.cous. We made a quiche on Wednesday night, I took it home, cut a slice for Terry to taste, took a bite and decided immediately that we’d be keeping this entire dish to ourselves.

Also on the menu this week was a fruit tart made with pastry cream. I really liked the process of making the pastry cream because you have to be pretty concise – you have to constantly mix the ingredients in order to make sure the eggs are cooked enough without curdling. It’s a great upper-body workout for sure. Not to mention the pastry cream tastes like heaven.

On that particular night, I was tired and realllllly just wanted to go home so after finishing off the crust and the pastry cream, I grabbed the easiest fruits to cover the tart with, brushed on the apricot glaze and promptly asked the chef where I should place it in order to get it to the café the next day. I already had a cake box full of apple pie tarts and on top of carrying my bag with my work clothes, my backpack containing the 8 lb. textbook for the class and my 15 lb. knife kit, I did NOT feel like carrying one more thing. So I took a picture and bid adieu to my fruit tart.

I vow to try that recipe again; however, I’ll be doing it in a smaller bite-sized form.

The icing on the cake this week was spending Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm each day in food sanitation class. (Did you catch my sarcasm there?) It’s a mandatory class, and actually, I learned A LOT and question why anybody in their right mind, with all these mandates, would ever want to own or operate a restaurant. Really though, I actually found some of it fascinating and I have to say that we the public are putting a huge amount of trust into food establishments to ensure that the staff has been properly trained and properly follows through on keeping the flow of food safe for consumption.