A pie dough comes together exactly like a biscuit only there is very, very little liquid and no leavening involved. Other than that, the same rules apply. My best advice: handle the dough as little as possible.
I've always been hooked on baking.
My grandmother taught me how to make the basic pate brise pastry crust when I was young. The one thing I learned simply by eating her endless variations on delicious tarts for dinner every night is that this dough can be used for just about anything - sweet or savory.
I lived in Cyprus for six years where I learnt all about flatbreads.
Pate a choux is a mixture of simple ingredients - flour, water, milk, eggs - but the proper technique is essential. Unlike other doughs, the pastry is pre-cooked on the stovetop before being enriched with eggs, piped, and baked.
I have never baked. I have cooked thousands of meals big and small, but I have never cooked a cookie. I have never roasted a cake, or a pie.
In some ways, chocolate chip cookie recipes are my favorite algorithms. You put a bunch of bad-for-you stuff in a bowl and get a delicious result.
My dad's an architect and my mom owned a French bakery for twelve years.
Pastry school is great for a foundation and introducing you to basic techniques, but it is really up to the chefs to practice, practice, practice and refine their techniques.
Even when I make pizza, I make it from the scratch and prepare the dough.
My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest, Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.
I worked from 12 to 17, six years in a bakery. I was a pastry cook.
Baking is my business, and it will always come first.
