Puff Pastry Vol Au Vents, Bouche's and Brie en Croute

Well, its not a French school for nutt'n :)  Thanks to the chef, I can actually pronounce these lovely names! Check them out in all of their splendor:

You have in the far right top corner, a wonderful bundle of deliciousness which is Brie en Croute... Brie cheese covered in dough, egg washed and baked for your appetizing pleasure. Middle to bottom left are those circles called Bouche's, they mean 'small bite', filled with a crab and shrimp filling. I left a few unfilled because these can be made savory or sweet :).  You know which I prefer.... :)  The diamond shaped puff pastries are Vol Au Vents, they are filled with lemon, blueberry and strawberry bakers jam.

To create the Brie en Croute, we cut the dough and wrapped and pleated it onto the Brie.  We took the extra dough and made little shapes to put on top. I of course, made the "sun" and "moon". :) You can kind of see them here, although its not the best picture. :)

I then created the Bouche's.  We cut the dough into spheres and then cut a center hole with a smaller cookie cutter into half of the original cut sphere's, creating the tops of your Bouche's . Egg wash the bottom of the sphere's and then place the cut  out sphere's on top. The egg wash will hold those together. You then want to egg wash the tops for color during baking.  It will look a little something like this:

The Vol au Vents are a little tricky, but once you understand how to create them, they are simple, you just have to make sure that your folds come out correctly and that all of your puff pastries are consistent in size. This is the first time I make these so mine are not consistent in size but they did come out kind of nice and nicely filled.  To create, cut your dough into 4x4 pieces.  Place them in front of you sideways so you have a diamond staring back at you. Yes, I said it, diamonds :) The best friend of many many a woman.  See, baking can be sparkly! :)  Ok... so anyhow, you want to fold the top down to create an upside down triangle.  You will cut the dough 1/4 of an inch on each side like this:

You can see the space you need to leave at the bottom tip of the triangle.  Open up the triangle and egg wash the edge of the inner square to look like this:

Fold in the left outer triangle so it sits on top of the inner right triangle.  Then flip the right outer triangle tip over to the left inner triangle so you create the Vol Au Vent shape.  Fill them with your choice of pastry cream or jam and they will look a little something like this:

Pretty!! Yes, those are lemon :) I cant help it!! I have to do it! I know I am the only one who likes lemon, but what do you want me to telly ya?!  What if the lemon runs out? What if I never see it again? Uh huh,see what I mean? :) These babies went off to my sister's and the kids.   I left a few here at my brother's house so that they can taste them as well. I need the feedback :)

It was a rush kind of day. We have 42 people and we are using dough that constantly needs to be in and out of the cooler. You also have 42 people needing to bake their products and pull them out of the ovens.  BUT, I am proud of all of us! We all work well together, RESPECTFULLY, and as a united front.  We get out of there on time every day and even have time to spare.  Its really cool to experience. I think we can all appreciate it.

Anyhow my darlings, tomorrow we make Napoleon from the rest of our dough! I can not wait! We made the pastry cream for it today. Layers and layers of yumminess. :)

I hope you guys are enjoying the pictures. I would love all of your feedback.  Thank you to all of you who read continuously. It makes my heart smile Big, big, big.

Muah!!

Until tomorrow....