Pate a choux (pronounced pat ah shoo)'

The second unit we covered in Level I was Pate a choux, which is French for 'cabbage pastry.' Gross, I know, but it doesn't actually have any cabbage in it, it's the French people's way of being tongue-in-cheek. The pastry puffs up really big in the oven and looks like little cabbages. This type of pastry includes eclairs, profiteroles, cygnes, croquembouches, and other fun little cream puff pastries. A croquembouche is the traditional French wedding cake, and though quite painful to make (READ LOTS of caramel burns!) they are really lovely and elegant. I was able to go easy on the tarts, but pate a choux is when I lost most of my self-control! The fillings in these little puffs of dough are rich and delicious, and pretty much limitless. We filled them with Bavarians, flavored pastry creams, mousselines, you name it! The thing I really love about this school is how thorough it is in our training. We really start from the most basic skills and techniques like making and rolling out a perfect tart dough and totally master them before we move on more difficult and complex tasks like a 6-tiered wedding cake with hand-crafted sugar paste flowers cascading down it. Every topic imaginable in the pastry world is covered here and taught by the best of the best. I'm truly in a utopia of sugar, butter and deliciousness. You get the point!