Puff Pastry 101 Workshop
Attended the Bake It Better: Puff Pastry 101 Workshop conducted by Guest Chef Christopher Tan this afternoon at Shermay's Cooking School.
Counting down to the big day soon, so this gonna be my last workshop for a few months to come I guess. Thankfully I was still able to attend this class as I love puff pastry!!! Admittedly, puff pastry is fattening due to the amount of butter used but I just like the crisp of the pastry with strong notes of heavenly butter and preferably with savoury fillings. Fresh from the oven, the buttery smell never fails to make me salivate :d~~~~
Have always resisted making puff pastry at home due to difficulty in managing the pastry in our humid weather. Attempted traditional rough puff pastry before and ended up with messy dough and having to stick the dough into the fridge to chill every now and then as the butter melted quickly. When I read the description from Shermay's website that it's a quicker and easier method, I was sold.
The master puff pastry recipe was demonstrated, along with 3 recipes for variation (and 2 bonus recipes).
- Classic quick puff pastry - easier method than traditional puff pastry but bakes and rises equally nicely.
- Smoked chicken vols-au-vent - dainty puff pastry cases stuffed with smoked chicken filling. Great for parties!
- Galette des rois - traditional french confection of almond butter encased in puff pastry shell.
- Lattice apple tart - Puff pastry tart with apple compote with a blanket of eye-catching lattice top.
Chef Christopher started with the classic puff pastry since as this would take almost the whole lesson, given that the pastry has to be rolled, folded and chilled sufficiently for total of 6 turns. Though time consuming, he assured us that it was fairly manageable just slightly tedious. Once pastry is ready, it could be rolled to the intended thickness and even cut into the intended shape and freeze for some 1 month before use.
Vols-au-vent casings could be cut into shape well in advance and freeze for later use. Shape depends on personal preference. Square pieces would be more economical since less wastage as compared to rounds.
The smoked chicken fricassee was easy to cook and enhanced with tomato paste. Didn't even need to add salt since smoked chicken was used.
Combining the smoked chicken and vols-au-vent, decorated with a tiny piece of pastry as cap and pasley for colour. Looks totally tempting and appetising!
The puff pastry was so light and crisp with subtle hint of butter! We could go for seconds or thirds without feeling the burden or overdose of butter. Certainly unlike the heavy handed buttery puffs by Polar Puffs and Delifrance.
Not really familiar with french confection so this was the first time I learn about this dessert. Filling is a frangipane, which is good for tarts as well. With the puff pastry done, it's relatively easy to make the filling consisting of butter, sugar, creme fraiche, rum, ground almonds and flour.
Decorations for the galette are flexible. Could do curves.
Zig-zag cuts.
Or leave shapes. All baked and puffed up beautifully.
Best served warm. Once again, the puff pastry was crisp and light and the frangipane filling was moist and not too sweet. The hint of almond was quite distinct, those who love almond taste would love this dessert.
Cooking the apple compote was easy as well, just need to select the right type of apples.
A special lattice cutter was used to roll and cut through a piece of pastry and once the pastry was opened, viola, a pretty lattice!


Hong Guan Cooked Food



















Seriously a lot of hard work goes into the Fraisier. Preparing the Pistachio Butter Cream itself requires another 2 recipes - butter cream and crème patisserie. Not to mention the almond genoise sponge. Assembling the cake itself is also tedious - almond genoise sponge, pistachio butter cream, neatly placed strawberries, more butter cream to fill all the gaps, sponge, spread with layer of Italian Meringue, caramelised the surface using blowtorch for colour, topped with a layer of apricot glaze and finally some fruits for decoration. Phew!
The Strawberry Tart requires 2 components - the sable dough for the tart and almond cream for the filling. Both are fairly easy, except that got to work very fast with the sable dough as the dough does not work well in our hot and humid weather. Just look at the amount of strawberries, rasberries and blueberries that go into just one tart. These fruits are not cheap, especially strawberries which preferably from Korean or Japan (even more ex) as they look nicer and are sweeter. End result, very lovely and vibrant and sure whets my appetite.
And now for the star. The strawberry shortcake remains one of the best seller and hot favourite of Bakerzin, according to Chef Daniel.






The restaurant looks so different in daylight (previous time, it was night time and the whole place seemed quite dim and secluded).













We took up a 4-hr fishing package which included fishing guide, bait and 2 rods. And we got our very own fishing hut as well. Cool. 2 fishing guides were attached to us on that day, probably coz there weren't any other anglers around, and 1 teenager, probably a relative also came to help out.















Moving along, we saw many pizza places offering wood fire pizza along the main central Chaweng but couldn't find parking lot for car anywhere. The bane of driving in Samui.
Service was very very slow and food so-so only. Can't even recall name of restaurant. By the time we were done, it was quite late. Quickly went back to resort for a good bath and hit the bed after a long day.


Naturally hubby went for his 1hr 'Tiger Balm' Back Massage, whereas I settled for a soothing foot massage to ease my tired legs from water retention. Bliss.


Tom Yum soup again. Not as spicy, very 'mum's place' style.



Entrance to the resort by main street of Chaweng Beach, considered mid-south area.






Sofa and TV is bedroom which we didn't use since we prefer hanging around the living room.
Spacious and impeccably clean bathroom with separate shower and bath tub. I love the overhead shower.

Separate walk-in wardrobe area which is most useful for depositing our luggage and hang the clothes and stuff.

Beach is fairly deserted at this part of Chaweng Beach.



Betelnut Restaurant where we have our daily breakfast included in the rate. Didn't have chance to try other meals.



There is also a menu where we could place orders for various hot items. My order, omelette and pork sausage, which was fairly standard.
After lunch, we decided to go for some massage (yes, again for hubby) at a spa (Paragon Massage & Spa) we passed by that looks not bad.
I did a foot scrub, foot massage (not reflexology) and pedicure, whereas hubby did foot scrub and foot massage. The therapists were quite skilled and gentle knowing that I'm pregnant. It was totally soothing for me, whereas hubby still preferred his Tiger Balm body massage at the other spa.





Modified the recipe very slightly, using the available ingredients I have at home.


By 11.45am, all of us were famished and couldn't wait to tuck in to the sumptuous 8-course seafood lunch. Couldn't remember all the dishes now, there were prawns, squid, crab, fish, veg... not bad!
After lunch, we took a short 10min boat ride to the chalet (1/2hr to walk). Overall, the chalet is quite spacious and clean with 3 bedrooms (enough for 24pax), 1 living room, 2 toilets and 1 kitchen. Important thing, there is air-con.


Sunning small shrimps before fermenting to make Cincalok.
Cleaning up jellyfish.
Sorting out shrimps and small fishes.
Houseflies. Very common in fishing village.

Spread was pretty decent. The usual like chicken wing, fishball, hotdog. I love the tender satay and totally raving about the deep-fried prawn cracker with sweet chilli sauce, a local specialty apparently.





Decided to leave decoration simple as I ran out of patience for the frosting part :p
















