All Hail Butter

This week, Butter was king.
Rich, wonderful butter was featured prominently in all recipes, used as much for texture as for taste. Sunday night’s class began by baking our pre-made Brioche dough (from way back when- Tuesday night). They came out of the oven golden brown and delicious, and most prominently ended the reign of Yeast Breads. Onto bigger and better and Buttery-er things.
We began with Croissants and Danish dough that same night- both are in a family called Laminated Doughs. Why such an odd name? Because the layers of dough are insulated and separated by, layers of butter. To do this, we pounded out a pound block of butter into a thin sheet- about a quarter of an inch thick. We then rolled out our dough and wrapped the butter in it like a business letter. We rolled out our dough, sandwiching the butter and folded it again. Roll out thin and repeat. The layers of dough and butter multiply exponentially until you have about 80 layers of alternating dough and butter-impossibly thin and impossible delicious.
Monday night’s class was devoted to rolling out our croissants and making a dozen or so fillings for our Danishes. Apple, prune, cheese, raspberry, chocolate, almond, crumb and so on. There were endless flavor combinations and endless shapes you could make your Danish into. As for the croissants, we stuck to the basics and the universally familiar- crescent shaped plain croissants, chocolate croissants and, optionally, ham and cheese pocket croissants. I opted out of the last one. Interestingly, chef recommends making the croissants with part whole wheat flour. “Wont that make them taste healthy?” I asked. She looked at me like I had said something ridiculous, which I guess I had- the idea of a healthy croissant is laughable. Chef explained that the whole wheat gave the pastries a deeper flavor.
When we took them out of the oven, they were puffy, and flaky, and golden brown (the French like their croissants a dark brown on top, Americans prefer golden) and sizzling slightly around their edges where the butter had oozed out and melted. The kitchen smelled heavenly. Making the laminated dough is a long process from start to finish, and require strength, endurance, patience, perfection and a deep love for butter. Anyone up for helping me practice?
Onto Tuesday night. Finally, the class I had been waiting for- PIE
We didn’t actually bake pie this week, but we made pie dough and other baked good using similar doughs and similar methods. Pie dough is a type of Pate Brisee, literally meaning "broken dough" in French. This is because the butter is broken up in the dough, and when baked properly, produces a flaky (broken) crust. Other baked goods using this method include biscuits and some scones- they too are best when flaky and buttery. A similar dough, called pate Sucree, or mealy dough, has you break the butter up into smaller pieces, until it ultimately looks like corn meal. Scones, tart doughs and short cakes use Pate Sucre- it has a finer texture than Brisee.
As Chef introduced this topic, I got so impatient to begin I literally couldn’t sit still- I began to play with the bowl of flour sitting in front of me. I tried hard not to finish Chef's sentences for her and allowed others to ask questions and attempt to answer hers so as to not give away my pie-freak tendencies. After what seemed like ages but what was actually about a half hour demo, we began making our dough. Thankfully, we weren’t asked to do this with a partner- I very much doubt I would have allowed my teammate to touch our (my) dough.
Begin with flour (a mix of all purpose and cake flour) and a bit of salt. If you have no faith in the leavening ability of the butter (I will explain soon) you can also add some baking soda. But this is for the faint of heart! You see, the reason you must keep the butter cold and in large-ish chunks is so that when it bakes and the butter melts, the water in the butter creates steam. The steam pushes the dough apart and then the protein structures from the flour form around these air pockets, creating the flaky result- no chemical leavener needed! Back to the ingredients. To the flour mix, quickly add the butter and try to break it up into small pieces- around the size of a cranberry. Once this is accomplished (if your warm hands and the heat of the kitchen hasn’t already melted your butter and ruined your dough) add in cold water and mix just until the dough forms. Don’t over mix! Gluten will form and butter will melt, and that can only lead to heartache later on.
We froze our dough, to be used next week when we prepare, fill and bake PIES.
The second half of class was happily and hastily spent making quick breads- the genre used to describe scones, biscuits and short cakes. They are a really a mix between a cake and a bread (and cookie of you over bake them), the word “quick” is used because they use chemical leaveners and not yeast to rise, making them much quicker to make than bread.
My team made chive cheddar biscuits and currant scones, both of which I am eager to try on my own, swapping out the currant for chocolate, of course.

-Sarah Baer, Flaky and Proud