Pastry Class: Puff Pastry, Chocolate and Pear Tarts

As usual, the ride home from pastry techniques class was heavenly. These little guys were riding in the passenger seat:

Poached pear frangipane tart

and…

Chocolate tart

We spent most of our evening, however, doing this:

What the hell is that, you might ask? It’s the way puff pastry is born: with a flour-salt-shortening-water mixture that’s rolled out to make an envelope for a block of butter. You spend the foreseeable future rolling that envelope out, turning it 90 degrees, folding it again, letting it rest, and repeating. I will describe this long and interesting process tomorrow.

In the meantime, I wish you puff-pastry dreams.