Kings’ Cake & Mille-Feuille Public Class Review
It is now quite a special time to publish this article, and so if you are reading, we Shanghai Young Bakers would like to first wish you safe and well in this Novel Coronavirus outbreak. We know many people’s schedules and travels have been interrupted. We hope that you still have a good time at the moment and have a safe journey if you are returning after the break.
As most of us are likely staying at home to avoid exposure to the virus and perhaps feeling quite boring, let us have a look back in our last SYB public class before Chinese New Year.
On 19 January, SYB welcomed 10 participants to our kings’ cake and mille-feuille public class. Learning about making kings’ cake was, of course, the focus in the kings’ cake season, and we indeed had a few French students in the class! (If you are not familiar with kings’ cake, feel free to search ‘kings cake’ in our official account for the relevant articles.)
Overall, the participants had a good time at our baking centre and had made some nice products with their own hands and learned knowledge. Let us have a look at some of the key moments:
Participants working on the dough for the puff pastry.
Using a machine to make a sheet of puff pastry.
One participant kneading the folded sheets of puff pastry. The folded or stacked sheets of puff pastry should be kneaded to be flat.
This is smoothly flat, and good for the next steps!
Our very focused participant is cutting the sheet into the preferred size.
In practice, the above stages are useful for both mille-feuille and kings’ cake. For the mille-feuille, once the sheets of puff pastry are in good size and shape, we can simply bake them according to the recipe, and then assemble. For the kings’ cake, though, we would first assemble the cake:
Brush some water or egg wash on the edge of the cut rounded puff pastry, then put on the frangipane. This is also the stage when you put the fève in the frangipane if you so prefer.
After the frangipane has been put in, put on another layer of round puff pastry, and well seal the two layers. You can use a knife to cut the edges of the seal, like in the picture, to better decorate and seal the cake. On the top, use a knife to slice the patterns you like.
Brush a layer of egg wash on the top of the kings’ cake before going to the oven. The egg wash will add the lovely brown colour and shiny layer after the cake is baked.
A participant brushing the egg wash on a kings’ cake.
A participant assembling a mille-feuille.
A closer look at the products made by the participants.
If you put a paper crown (that is, corona) on top of the kings’ cake, then it is ready for a family gathering and celebration.
And that is pretty much the public class. You can see our participants had all made great products in the class! We thank all the participants for joining us. You can also do it by coming to our public classes! And it is a very good way to support charity, as all the proceeds will help funding our charity programme.
You are probably asking: when will be the next public class? Well, due to the ongoing epidemic, to avoid putting our supporters at risk, we will probably adjust our public classes. Please check our WeChat channel regularly to follow the latest updates. In the meanwhile, we wish you all safe and well, and the rest of the year will be very good for all of us. See you in the next article!