Puff Pastry Completion in Pithivier & Turnover Forms...

Hello everyone!

Terrific Tuesday :) This was our creation today. The center Puff Pastry is a Pithivier Almond Cream Puff Pastry and the side pastries are jam filled turnovers. Day two on this project and it went awesome! These taste amazing! I have never been a fan of puff pastry, but I am a fan of these.  Even better, the Chef brought out Lemon cream for our turnovers! My oh my, that is a dream come true. I absolutely adore anything LEMONY :) Have not had anything sweet with lemon in such a long time.  I know, I know, "lemony"  may not be a word, but its MY favorite word. :) Since I am not the only one tasting these little devil's I made some with Strawberry and Blueberries as well.  Fun Fun day.....

To start, we took the dough created yesterday out of the cooler and used 1/3 of it!  We rolled that out 1/4 inch thick and pulled out two 10" circles and 8 squares. The two circles were for the Pithivier and the squares were for the turnovers. The dough has to be cold to cut these out. Remember, they are made with butter and once butter gets warm, your dough gets soft and gooey.

Once you roll out and cut your shapes, you then begin to create them.  You take your first circle and you place your Almond Cream right in the middle of it. You then egg wash around the cream on top of the dough.  Place your second sphere on top and gently press the two doughs together. The egg wash is what will hold it in place. You will then create a shape like a flower around the edges, score the center  with a whimsical shape and egg wash the entire top and sides as I did here:

With the turnovers, you will place them in front of you slightly angled so it looks like a diamond instead of a square.. mentally cut it in half and place some jam of choice on the middle of the bottom half.  Egg wash the sides around the jam and gently bring over the other half so you have a perfect triangle.  You will use a fork to press it around the sides, egg wash and create a small vent with scissors, right in the center as seen here:

Bake these babies until they are golden brown and cool them. This will be your result:

I ate TWO lemon turnovers while they were nice and warm... You know how I am :) First of all, I cant wait.. and secondly, I like my baked goods warm! BIG SMILE!

Here is the recipe for those of you who have LOTS AND LOTS of time to do this! It is very time consuming, but if you have the patience and the tools to create it, a mixer, :) you will have a happy audience to share with. I love baking! I would make this at home any day! I do hope you give it a shot!

Puff Pastry

3 lbs 12 oz of BREAD FLOUR

.75 oz of SALT

2 lbs 2 oz of WATER

Pack

3 lbs of BUTTER ( soft, room temperature)

6 oz BREAD FLOUR

Create both of those separately. You will need a mixer for the Puff Pastry, mixing for just a few minutes on the 1st level,  and you can use your hands to create the Pack. Do not overwork the dough because if you go to my blog from yesterday, you will see that you continue to work the dough as you roll out and fold.. 4 times, letting it cool in the refrigerator 15 minutes in between each fold. :)  Pop in those Sex and the City CD's because you will need some entertainment. :)

Almond Cream

3 oz of BUTTER

3 oz of SUGAR

1 EGG

VANILLA to taste

3 oz of ALMOND FLOUR

1 oz of CAKE FLOUR

Create this with your hands as well.

Again, if you make this, I am here for you!! Be patient with it, it will be well worth it!  This is a delicate dough and the presentation is key. Take your time and do it right... ooh!!! That was an old school jam!! I wont break into song to spare you the corniness.

Ok my darlings! Enjoy your night! Tomorrow we do two different shapes and will be filling them with cheese and other yummy fun flavors.

Good night!