Friandises

In the last section of this phase the assignment was to make 12 of 4 different kinds of bite size treats, friandises. Everything available in the kitchen was allowed, plus some other selected ingredients as well. The treats have to be small and look pretty. 

At home I wrote out a whole game plan of what I wanted to make, what I needed for it and how it would do it. Turned out that things didn't totally went as planned. I was expecting the ingredients to be centralized available, but they were all over the place so it took some to find what I needed.

The game plan was:
- a lemon meringue pie with raspberry
- a lemon mousse ball covered with lemon glaze
- a lemon raspberry mousse on an almond cake
- an apple and lemon pie

I manage to execute two out of four since I was running out of time. 

First I started with making two different kinds of dough for my pies. 

For the lemon meringue pie I used a shortcrust pastry which normally would be made by 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter and 3 parts of flour. 

The recipe I used was:
- 80 gr sugar
- 80 gr light brown sugar
- 210 gr butter
- 290 gr flour
- 8,5 gr baking powder
- 2 gr salt
- teaspoon of lemon zest
- 20 gr egg yolk (or just 1)
oven temperature 180 C

I just mixed everything together and let the dough chill in the fridge.

On the bottom of this pie I piped a mixture of 30 grams of marzipan loosen up with a dash of water and 125 grams of crème pâtissière. After baking I put a little bit of lemon curd in the pie, a bit of lemon curd whipped cream and one fresh raspberry. Then I piped some meringue and used a torch to give it a bit of color.

Then for the apple and lemon pie I needed to make "sloffendeeg". I honestly don't know what this dough is called in English, but pies made with this dough are buttery, slightly chewy and soooo good. 

I used:
- 180 gr butter
- 170 gr light brown sugar
- 2 gr salt
- 1 egg yolk
- teaspoon lemon zest
- 250 gr flour
- 10 gr baking powder
oven temperature 160C but 170-180C is not a problem either

I mixed together all the ingredients and then add the sifted flour and baking powder last. This dough also has to be chilled in the fridge. 

For this pie I used a frangipane made by:
- 125 gr almond paste 
- teaspoon lemon zest
- 25 gr butter
- 37 gr egg (or 1 egg)

I mixed all the ingredients and poured it in a piping bag.

Then I cubed two apples, mixed them with some "spekkoekkruiden" (a mixture of several spices) since I couldn't find any cinnamon and head them up a bit so they could soften.

Then I went and made some lemon curd using my trusted recipe:
- 100 gr butter
- 200 gr sugar or more or less depending on taste
- 300 ml fresh lemon juice
- teaspoon lemon zest
- 2 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks
- pinch of salt

Mix everything together, cook till it thickens and chill in the fridge till needed. Very simple and almost fool proof recipe.

Then I also went and make some crème pâtissière:
- 250 ml milk
- 50 gr sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 22,5 gr custard powder
- vanilla pot/essence/sugar
- pinch of salt

I started cooking the milk with some sugar. The rest of the sugar I mixed with the egg yolk, the custard powder, salt and vanilla. When the milk boils I poured some on the egg mixture to loosen it up and to elevate the temperature so I don't end of with scrambled eggs. Then the whole mixture went back in the pan to cook for a couple of minutes. 

After all this mise and place I started with making the apple lemon pies first. I used this round shallow pie mold and placed the dough and stuffing in. Unfortunately there was to much dough and the pies came out way to big and not evenly cooked. So I couldn't serve that. I had to use a mold with smaller cavities. 

Because I had to start all over I didn't had time for the mousse ball and mousse cake. Luckily I wrote down another recipe just in case I needed a back up plan. 

I had some apple left I decided to apple almond cakes using this recipe:
- 30 gr flour
- 80 gr almond flour
- 100 gr browned butter
- 150 gr icing sugar
- 95 gr egg whites
- pinch of salt
oven temperature 200C

I beaded the egg whites till soft peeks and mix the rest of the ingredients together. Then I folded it into the egg white, poured the batter in the molds and topped them with some cubes of apple. 

Since I had some batter and apples left, I mixed them together and poured it into a different shape mold. This time I sprinkled some almond slivers on top to give them a bit of crunch. 

I had just enough time to decorate my friandises. I used a mixture of lemon curd and whipped cream and piped a dot on the apple almond cake. Then I sprinkled some chopped pecan nuts on top and decorated it with some white chocolate.

The other apple almond cake already had some slivers of almond on top so all it needed was a bit of white chocolate to make it fancy.

For the apple and lemon pie the teacher suggested to put a thin piece of apple on top. I also added two dollops of lemon curd whipped cream to give it a bit of freshness. Also I think a sprinkle of powdered sugar would take it to the next level. Idea for next time.

I loved working on the lemon meringue pie. At first I wanted to pip the meringue all over the raspberry as well so you have a little surprise biting into one. But I think this looks pretty as well.

At the end I ended up with four friandises that were complimenting each other in looks and taste. It was a lot of stress and hard work, but totally worth it since my plate was picked by one of the teachers as one of two of her to got to plate!