Braver than me.

  A good friend is responsible for the education of some children. I'm assured he has taken this role voluntarily but it definitely sounds like some twisted form of punishment. In the process of carrying out his duties, he wanted to cook something French with them but was restricted by one of the students intolerance of both tomatoes and eggs.

  He insisted that excluding this kid from the class wasn't an option and therefore he wanted me to help him find something that was easyish and French yet tomato and egg free. I had a bit of a struggle but finally suggested fruit tartlets. I just needed to coach him on his coaching.

  He has a couple of his own kids so I proposed he could have some fun with them practicing the recipe before having a go at school. Bizarrely, the idea of practicing the recipe before having a go with the pupils hadn't occurred to him. This was the most astonishing part of the story for me; he was quite happy for me to give him some instructions and he'd then go into school where he'd get twenty kids to have a go at making pastry, something he'd never tried. Mental!

  It's fortunate he did have a go because the picture above is his first attempt and not a replica of the elephant man's ring-piece, (Is that imagery quite necessary? -Ed.). Basically, he had rolled out the pastry, used it to line tartlet cases, put some grease-proof paper over the top and baked it not realising that the bake blind is not something optional but integral to the process.

  In case this is news to you too, it works like this; various recipes involving pastry require the pastry to be baked alone before being filled, mainly because part of the cooking of pastry involves the pastry drying out. However, you need to weigh the pastry down because it has a tendency to puff up and lose its thin, rolled out form, (as you can see above). The weighing down is usually done with something like dried beans, rice, lentils etc. (known as bake blind), and to stop the blind sticking to the pastry, a layer of paper or foil is used.

  To cut to the chase, I'm assured that no children were harmed or traumatised as a result of his teaching, even if the kids were ushered outside to play while he, and a couple of teaching assistants, finished everything off so they could finish on time. Most importantly, he gave it a go and the kids have had a chance to make pastry. Kudos.

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Kirk out

Chefsebastian.com