Pastries Foods II

Summary

Students will explore the basics of pastry dough production and complete a pastry listening guide with accompanying power point. Two labs are included.

Materials

• Pastry Listening Guide
• Pastry power point
• Pastry Dough Recipe - including Tart Shell lab and Cinnamon Sugar Pastry Cookie
• Pastry Unscramble
• Pies and Pastry Crossword

Background for Teachers

The Art of Pastry Making
A pastry is a baked, flaky delicacy such as pies, tarts, cream puffs, and puff pastries.

Making the Perfect Pie Crust
All of the :various and sundry: suggestions you have ever heard about making pie crust are true, because pie dough is a very special kind of dough. It isn't hard to achieve, once you know what you're going for and why, but pie crust can still intimidate a lot of people.

What Makes Pie Crust baking Different Opposed To Making Other Dough's?
What makes a pie crust good and flaky is making sure you only coat the fat with flour, not blend them, as you would with cookie dough. This is much easier to do if the fat is very cold. When adding liquid (and it could be water, egg, even a little vinegar) you don't want it to mix in, so much as collect all the flour-coated fat particles together and make them stick to one another. That's why less is better than more, and cold is better than warm. Colder and quicker are the watchwords with pie crust.

Pie Crust Recipe
Recipes can use butter, shortening, or lard for the fat. Some recipes will include an egg and sometimes vinegar. Butter makes a tasty dough. Shortening makes and especially flaky dough. A combination is always good. This kind of butter pie cough is called pate brisee, which means "broken dough" in French- broken because of the way you cut the butter in and the way it flakes.

Cutting Butter/shortening Into Flour Tips:
When cutting butter/shortening into flour for pastry dough, the process is made much easier by cutting the butter into small pieces before adding it to the flour. First cut each stick of butter into quarters lengthwise. Second, keeping the quarters together, cut into pieces approximately one-sixteenth of an inch long.

Rolling Our The Dough
This part takes practice. Use a lightly floured board. Add a little flour as you go and turn the dough frequently and work fast. Putting the dough between waxed paper or plastic wrap will help avoid the sticking problem. Begin by rolling from the middle of the disk up. Turn the dough one quarter and repeat. Always roll in one directions and turn to dough often. This process helps to avoid overworking the dough, preventing the formation of gluten. If the dough splits, just push it back together. The dough just needs to be large enough to fit the pan.

Fitting The Dough Into The Pan
Bring the pie plate near the work surface, carefully fold the dough in half, pick it up and lay it across the plate. Open the dough up and gently work it into the plate. If it tears or splits, just pinch it together again, or use scrapes to repair any holes.

Crimping The Edges
Crimp the edges either with a fork or by pinching around the edge with fingers, if making a double crusted pie, wait until you add the topcrust for this step.

The Finished Pie
Follow the specific pie recipe for filling and baking directions.

Storing Pies and Tarts
Refrigerate baked desserts made with custard, chiffon, or cream fillings. These pies need to be eaten within 1-2 days. (Banana Cream, Coconut Cream, etc. Remember that Banana Cream pie is not a fruit pie; it is a cream pie. ALL CREAM PIES MUST BE REFRIGERATED.

While fruit pies can be held at room temperature for 1-2 days or can be refrigerated. (Apple, Rhubarb, Cherry, Peach, and Blackberry, these are all fruit pies.)

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will identify and prepare tarts, identify the main ingredients found in pies and their functions, and the storage and handling of pastries.

Instructional Procedures

Day 1
Begin with the introduction power point - Pastry or Not? Have the students decide which food items are pastries and which are not. This is a good time to talk about the qualities that make a pastry.

Hand out the Pastry Listening Guide and go through the Pastry power point and discuss the slides with the students.

Demonstration: Using the pie dough recipe, show the students the basics of making pie dough and review the topics that were just talked about in the power point.

Student lab: Using the techniques just demonstrated, have the students make the pastry dough recipe. The recipe will be used for Cinnamon and Sugar Pastry dough cookies. The instructions for the students are on the recipe. This lab is in preparation for the tart shell lab to follow.

As students have time while baking, hand out the Pastry Cross word and instruct the students to use their listening guide to complete this.

Day 2:
Introduction - Pastry quiz. Have the student use a 1/2 sheet of paper and record their answers. When all are done, go over the quiz and correct. Have the students hand in their quizzes.

Before beginning the tart lab, review with students and have them tell you how to make a successful pastry dough. Have student go to their labs, and follow the instructions on the recipe. As the teacher, you will need to have 3-4 bowls of a variety of instant puddings available to use as pie filling for the tarts. The students also really enjoy the canned whip cream. This is one product that is best served by the teacher! The students will complete the tart shells, allow them to slightly cool, and then come to the demonstration table to add 1 heaping tablespoon of their choice of pudding to their own tart shells. The teacher will garnish with canned whipped cream and if there are any spare sprinkles or mini chocolate chips around, these are fun to add too.

To utilize any additional time, have the students finish the Pastry Crossword and there is an additional pie scramble that can be used. At the end of Day 2, have students turn in the Pastry listening guide, puzzle, and scramble if assigned.