Pastry Pro I: Week 12: Finished Product

My sad looking banana cream pie

It's really Week 13 for the class but 12 for me since I missed a couple classes. Today was a make-up day because I was out of town earlier in the week and missed class, but it's finished product class so it really doesn't matter. My assignment was to make a banana cream pie and pots de creme. I have never made pots de creme before which is not a good idea, since I wasn't quite sure how it should taste and I had never tried the recipe. The pots de creme was rather grainy tasting, probably over cooked the custard, although I did it in the bain marie. I topped it with a chantilly cream mixed with cherry preserves. My pie should have been a cinch. I have practiced making several pies over the semester and know how to make a good pie. I made the first mistake by putting the dough in the freezer. When I took it out it was so hard and dry. It took a while to work it out and then it didn't roll out well. I ended up with a rather shrunken crust and not very nice looking. I made the pastry cream but I was trying to make extra in case on the pie crusts didn't work out. By making a big batch of pastry cream and not cooling it fast enough it overcooked some and tasted "eggy". I also made an orange caramel sauce which tasted bitter. So nothing worked out right in the end. The pie crust was slightly underdone, the cream overdone with a bitter sauce! But, Julie, the office manager at the school ate a piece and said it was tasty! I know I can do much better though.

Next day:

I had to make another pie so I made both a fruit tart with a pastry crust and a chocolate cream pie. They both turned out very nicely and got lots of compliments at the dinner party.

Sometime I'll post the chocolate cream pie recipe. I would make it again and may make it for the final.

In my "real" life I am going away for a week for a deployment training exercise. No gourmet food there!