Every last Friday of the month there is an atelier organized to make pastries for the residents, about 65 servings. 4-5 volunteers usually, not really skilled people, a lot of handicaps to deal with, meager means of production (e.g. tabletop oven, money for the ingredients) and limited time as we start around 10 am and we have to be done by noon. But who doesn’t like a challenge?

Today we tested recipes to be served to the Christmas market: pallets Bretons and amaretti. The combo use egg yolks for the former and egg whites for the later, so we don’t have excess to store. Recipes had to be adapted to avoid use of rolling pins/cutter or individual forms for the pallets, keep the mixing of the ingredients as simple and fast as possible, reduce the cost and make it possible to bake the 130 pieces in an old tabletop oven 😅

The result is a little bit weird as all the pieces were shaped using a Mooncake mold which isn’t usual for pallets or amaretti. But it’s easy to use with one hand and gives cookies of the same size to bake evenly.

Miraculously we were done by 12:05 pm. And by done I mean everything baked and everything cleaned! with only two people remaining in the room, Sandra, the animator of the atelier, and me. Everybody else had left for lunch, served at 12:00 sharp!

As these are intended for the Christmas market the recipes weren’t adapted for dietary restrictions: saccharose and flour and butter and eggs were used. Next step will be to use only vegetal lipids, sugar substitutes, flaxseed eggs. And keep the result as close as possible at the original.

I’ll log progress here under #AtelierPatisserie.