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CHEF: When I think of decorating pastry,
I always look outside of the pastry world.
I always talk about contrasts in food-- contrasts of textures,
contrasts of flavors, but also, contrasts of colors.
Decorating a tart or finishing something
is like putting makeup on.
You don't want to put too much.
You don't want to overdo it.
The type of rendition that I like
is always going to be modern--
a nice ombre of color, thin slice, and beautifully
presented.
Holiday season is one of my favorite time of the year.
At the bakery, we do hundreds and hundreds of pies.
There is so many chefs in the kitchen.
And we're so busy.
Every fridge is full.
And the time of the year where we have a lot of apples.
Everyone's peeling apples.
And everyone's trying to go as fast as they could.
And this is when I start thinking to myself that there's
tools that could help us peeling apples faster.
This is not something conventional
that I'm going to show you-- something a little creative
that I've made on my own.
If you are going to do it at home, just be careful.
So essentially, I took an apple peeler--
a classic one with the handle.
I removed the handle and I put a power drill on the back.
So for this always cool apple peeler,
usually, we crank the handle, and we turn it very slowly.
I decided to add a power drill on the back to go much faster.
When the team first saw me doing this,
they thought I was crazy, that I was going to hurt myself.
And of course, you've got to be very careful with this.
You got to start very slow in the beginning
to get it to catch on the peeler.
And then you can go really fast.
And you get your apple peeled very quickly.
Here we go.
Just less than three seconds.
I'm a little messier.
But of course, keep it clean at home.
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A strawberry tart might be a little bit classical.
But I want to show you a fun way of using tools
to finish this apple tart, and also,
a fun way of decorating it.
So when I think of decorating pastry,
I always look outside of the pastry world.
And in that case, pottery--
pottery art is something I'm fascinated with.
And today, I've brought this pottery wheel.
I'm going to show you a fun way of decorating an apple tart.
We're going to start with our tart shell that is blind bake.
and put the pastry cream on the bottom.
So this pastry cream can easily be
flavored with cinnamon, which goes very well for the holiday
season with apple.
And you can also do an apple compote or apple
butter that goes on the bottom of the tart shell.
So once we have our cream-- our pastry cream--
that fill the entire tart shell, we're
going to place it in the center of the wheel.
So here, I've prepared ahead of time
just some whipped cream at 10% to 20% of sugar,
depending on how you like it.
I placed it in the piping bag.
And I have a really fun tip.
So this tip is called a [INAUDIBLE] tip.
[INAUDIBLE] is a French classical cake
that is finished with this strange tip that
is-- that looks almost like a plain tip,
but it has a little carve-out inside.
Once you center, we're going to just start
running it over the tart and pipe very slowly.
So even pressure.
Very important.
Just start going out.
So while piping, I start right in the middle of the tart,
and then I slowly push out little by little.
So my eye is actually not looking in the center
of the tart anymore.
But every time I pipe, I'm looking at the outside line
that I just piped.
So I didn't cover the entire tart.
Because I want to finish it with those beautiful apples
that I got today.
So here, I have three different kind of apples.
If you don't like the apple peel,
you can, of course, peel the apple
with a regular apple peeler, or with the fun
way I just showed you.
Just be careful.
For this tart, I actually like keeping the skin on.
If the apple is cut very, very thin,
actually, it can have a beautiful pattern of the mix
of color with the apple tart.
I also like to cut the apple in third.
So I'll get about--
the first time, I'll cut the apple straight, about a third.
And then I'll go back here and I'll get another third,
looking for the end of the apple here and the last part right
here.
And of course, I will then slice the apple as thin as possible.
So I'll always suggest you use a very sharp knife,
and to be really careful while cutting.
So when I cut the fruits, I use my knuckles.
And I put, actually, the knife against my knuckles
so I don't cut myself.
And this is one of the first techniques
that you learn at [INAUDIBLE] school.
They actually teach you, with three fingers,
you put your knife against your knuckles
and you cut straight down.
So the tip of your fingers are always inside.
I still remember, my very first nice knife
was actually when I was apprentice.
I was a sever chef.
And I cooked in a restaurant for a few years.
And I didn't have much money back then.
I was barely making $200 a month, because I was learning.
And my chef decided to actually buy me a knife.
And I was so excited.
But before giving me the knife, he asked me to give him a coin.
And I was surprised.
I was like, what are you talking about?
Like, give me a coin.
And I asked him, why are you asking me for money?
Isn't it a gift?
And he told me, yes, but we have a tradition in kitchen
that, when we give someone a knife,
we actually don't want to cut the friendship.
So you'll always have to give me a coin
so I can give you the knife.
So we're going to have a nice variety of color.
So the light pink, the yellow here, the red, and the green.
I always talk about contrast in food--
contrast of textures, contrasts of flavors,
but also, contrast of colors.
When you finish something, you want it to look beautiful.
There's a lot of easy ways you can also
add colors to your dishes.
You can use herbs.
You can do some little finishing touch.
You can use cocoa powder, for instance.
It's a nice contrast with some cream, something white
you have on your cake.
There's many, many different ways.
Always think of contrast of color, right?
I love black and white photos, for instance.
And I think there's beautiful contrast, when
you look at black and white photo versus a color photo.
Now we're going to finish our tart.
We have the tart shell.
It is blind bake.
We have our pastry cream.
We've piped our whipped cream on top.
And we're going to use our sliced apple to decorate.
So there's many different ways you can decorate this tart.
The way I like to do it is actually something new
I'm doing just for today.
I'm going to use a nice varieties of colors
and mix them up throughout the tart.
So I'm going to try to stay inside the tart shell
to keep the consistency and nice shape-- the nice,
round of the top.
And I'm going to put the apples as close as
possible to each other to actually overlap.
And we have as many apples as we can.
So if your knives still are not that sharp,
you can also use a mandolin.
And mandolin is a great tool to use in the kitchen.
You can adjust the thickness of what you need,
and actually have a very thin slice of apple very quickly.
I love good food.
And I think it should always look appetizing.
But I also love the beauty into pastry.
So I always tend to go for modern presentation
versus a rustic one.
Modern for me is a pattern.
It's the same way of presenting something.
For instance, with a simple fruit like apple,
we can easily, easily do a nice thin cut
and have a repetition of the pattern on top of the tart.
When I first opened my bakery on Spring Street seven years ago,
people were telling me first not to open a French bakery,
that a lot of people have tried, that it wouldn't work,
and I should think of doing something else.
But I had my ideas.
I wanted to do my own style of pastry shop.
And I always hated those old school pastry
shops with the chandelier, with the gold everywhere.
I wanted a happy place, and a place
where people would come and eat good desserts
and remember them, as well.
So in our bakery, the style, the presentation,
the design is very casual.
It's really relaxed.
And one big lesson that I learned
when I first opened my bakery is not to listen to everyone.
So I always like to look back and know who I am
and what I like to do.
And what I like to do are things that are simple--
beautiful food, beautiful presentation,
and connecting with people.
Lots of emotions in the food.
And I think it speaks for itself.
Now look at this.
Finally, this beautiful ombre layout of apples.
It looks really pretty.
It looks light and dedicate and you can do it at home.
You can be creative as well.
Using simple ingredients, think of the way you can present it.
Think of the way you can cut the fruits.
There's many, many things you can do.
And it doesn't have to be that complicated, as
long as you keep it clean, consistent, the nice variations
of color, a thin and consistent pattern.
It'll make something beautiful for sure.
So our final touch--
putting the glaze on top of the apples.
And this is going to help us protecting the apples
and preventing the oxidation.
So you don't want the apples to turn all dark on you.
We're going to take the glaze and brush
just the top of the apples.
Just pulling the glaze, and try to keep it as thin as possible.
And we're going to have this beautiful shiny and glossy look
for the apples.
So if you have some leftover glaze, keep it for next time
you want to use it.
This will be good for one or two weeks.
And we have a beautiful apple tart that is finally finished.
The tart shell is very thin.
We have the pastry cream inside.
A little bit of whipped cream on top with a cool technique using
the wheel, and the thin sliced apple
with a nice ombre of color, thin sliced, and beautifully
presented.
I'm pretty happy with this one.
One last thing I like to do, before we put this away,
is actually finish the apple tart with whatever's inside so.
If we use a cinnamon pastry cream,
I like to give a good indication of what's inside.
So I always like to use some cinnamon stick
and place it over on top.
And finish with a tiny dust of cinnamon powder,
just on the side.
Not too much.
And that'll be it.
And the smallest addition always make a difference.
I always tell my chefs, decorating
a tart or finishing something is like putting makeup on.
You don't want to put too much.
You don't want to overdo it.
So very delicate, very little.
Just some accents to make it look beautiful and pretty.
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