My Birthday/ Burgundy

Last Friday we drove down to Burgundy. It was a very looooooong car ride.  When we arrived we fed the kids, did baths, and put them to sleep.  Then I still had to decorate Charlotte's cake.  At this point, I'm tired of dealing with conversions and ingredients that just aren't the same. I'm ready to be back in my kitchen ;)

Charlotte really wanted a Dora cake but that's kind of hard without a pan and with substandard ingredients and tools... so we convinced her to have a balloon (much more do-able). She wanted a pink balloon so I decked it out :) She loved it!

About that time the other families started to arrive. I really do enjoy their friends :) We had a cheese platter for dinner and stayed up talking.  By the end we were comparing American to British phrases. Quite hilarious.  The word fanny has a whole different meaning to me now....

Saturday I got up early to take the train to Dijon.  There I was picked up by Alex Miles, a retired pastry chef.  We went to his house (tiny) and met his wife.

We then started making dough. Puff Pastry was first on the list. Alex had already made the dough the night before because it needs to be refrigerated for many hours. We then the layering part... Lots of butter put in the middle, then rolled and folded many, many times.

We then made a Pate Brisee Ambassade (pie dough) and a Pate Sablee aux Amandes (Tart dough with almonds). That concluded the dough section ;)  We followed it by Creme d'Amande (Almond cream), Creme Patissiere (Pastry Cream), Creme Anglais (English Cream), and Creme Citron (Lemon Cream).

We took the pie dough and made an onion quiche.  We took the tart dough with the almond cream and pears and made a pear tart, and we took the tart dough and lemon cream topped with Italian meringue. The lemon tart was by far my favorite!  

Overall, I learned A LOT. However, I wish the class would have been more hands on for me.  I did a lot of "observing" which is not as fun, but I'm excited to get back to my own kitchen to test out all the recipes.

I took the train back to Beaune and walked around the town for a little bit.  I then took a taxi back to the house because I couldn't get ahold of anyone to come pick me up. AnneMarie had a chef make the evening meal and then we warmed it up at the house.  It was definitely not my first choice for a birthday dinner but it wasn't my choice at all ;)  We started out with prawns in a tomato soup with a lobster mousse. Then we had vegetables and chicken stuffed with escargot. Followed by chocolate mousse for dessert (best part by far).  I probably would have enjoyed the dessert more if I hadn't been on a sugar high from the pastry class ;) 

Sunday was spent sleeping in.  We all went out for lunch.  I ended up riding back with Rachel and Keith and their one daughter Evie.  It was a much more peaceful ride and more room!  Sunday night I went to a Scorpions concert with Sabina.  It was nice to get out, but not my cup of tea.  

I am now almost down with my second to last full week.  This weekend I'm heading to Brussels and very excited to go to Belgium.