Classic Puff Pastry (and update on Tom)

First, an update on Tom. Turns out that his wound did culture up as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph Aureus, a fancy abbreviation for a bad infection). The good news is that the antibiotic sensitivity results showed that the antibiotic he IS on is very effective against it. So, he should be improving a lot very soon. (His day 12 picture is attached - again, graphic.)



In food news, we made classic puff pastry today, both by hand and another batch using the machines (20 qt Hobart mixer and the dough sheeter). The classic puff pastry by hand takes HOURS and is very, very intense. It's pretty much the hardest thing for pastry chefs to make, but it is rarely done by hand in the industry. It's just so labor intensive that it rarely is justified in terms of cost and manpower. But, I really enjoyed it. The exercise of making it makes me appreciate what is really happening with puff pastry - 867 layers of butter-dough-butter-dough. WOW! That's a flaky pastry. If made correctly, puff pastry can rise up to 8 times it original height when baked. Mine is about 1/4" thick right now, bundled up in the fridge at school, so it should get to 2" if I did everything right! A picture is attached of our dough going through the dough sheeter, and also a video of Chef Chad showing us how to make the beurrage (butter) to insert in the pastry. Imagine all 16 of us doing it at the same time - it sounded like a war zone!