CAP Classes - Regional cooking of Burgundy
I can't stand it, I know you planned it
I'm a' set straight, this Watergate
I can't stand rocking when I'm in here
'Cause your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear
So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this f****ng thorn in my side
Oh my god, it's a mirage
I'm tellin' y'all it's sabotage
Ok, well, it wasn't intentional, but it still attacked our dish. We took the pear tart, set the oven, blind baked the crust, cooled it, filled it, and put them back in the oven. After 15 minutes I rotated the pans and they kept cooking. After 30 minutes of cooking we pulled the top tart out, and something wasn't quite right. We decided to let the larger tart cook for another 6 minutes. We were busy eating all the other dishes cooked in the class when Joe, the owner, came over and told us the oven was set to broil.
At this point I panicked, Alexia (Alexia Miles - the instructor) was concerned too. The tart is supposed to cool for 30 minutes, and the insides were not even close to being cooked. We were 15 minutes from the end of the class, so we got creative. I started scraping the burnt parts off the top of the smaller tart, and we let the larger one bake some more. TOTAL DISASTER! This was a sad looking dessert. especially since the pears were sliced at a bias and fanned out all prettily. Alexia and I started serving up tiny pieces of cooked tart. When we had everything plated, I had the bright idea to pull off the fanned pears and drape them over the petit fours. This improved the plating significantly, a little height, and some fruit. some of the cut pieces only had the filling.
They tasted pretty good, which was nice, since the baking was totally messed up.
When we were eating them I think I found out what happened. After we blind baked the crust, the other station needed to toast their bread. they asked em the temp of the oven, it matched theirs, I told them it was on bake, and they put their bread in. we left the oven on to keep it warm, my group was going to need it in a few minutes. The other group put the cheese on their croûtons and placed the pan back in the oven. We were coming close to overlapping oven usage - ours baked for 30 minutes, and theirs needed to broil for 2 minutes. Alexia said they should use the other oven so they could broil the bread. They opted to stay on our side, they said the baking would be fine. After the bread was in the oven for 5 minutes, the person working the oven said "maybe we should have used the broil on the other side, this is taking forever."
One minute later they were done.
Did you see what happened just there? I picked up on it on the way home. I kept running all the events in my head, then it hit me. The woman on the oven hopped it to broil right at the end, and didn't bother to tell anyone, or switch it back. Should I have triple checked the oven - yes, but I assumed that it would stay the same since they didn't need to change the settings. The oven has two knobs, one for temp, the other for bake setting. I had only checked the temperature.
On the plus side, the tart's flavor was good - so at least the class got to taste it.
-----------------------------------
I went back and made the tart at home. I poached the pears in red wine. Everything went perfectly - and it looks gorgeous. Here are some more pics of the pear tart :D
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: CAP Classes - Regional cooking of Burgundy.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.sketchyskitchen.com/blog/mt-tb.cgi/37
1 Comments
Leave a comment
Search
The tart looks and sounds divine. From the way you figured out it happened, I'd say it's a great lesson to have learned.
My problem is things like that sneak up on me.
My dad always tells me that's a SNAFU ;)