Rustic French Desserts

This Saturday, my almond-flour-friend and I took a class on Rustic French Desserts by Clemence, who owns and runs Gourmandise Desserts. My friend had taken a class with her before, and told me she liked Clemence's style. I think we signed up for Rustric French Desserts because I wanted to take the Business of Baking class (which she had no need for), and my friend wanted to take a Cake Decorating class (to which I responded, when are you ever going to decorate a cake?), so we agreed on something useful and interesting to the both of us.

I have actually never taken a cooking class, which was a surprising realization for me. It made me start to think about how people learn how to cook, especially in light of the cooking class I taught a few weeks ago. There's always the opportunity to watch parents cook, as well as watching chefs on the Food Network cook. But you never really learn unless you do.

During the cooking class I taught, I tried to get all of my "students" (aka friends from work) to participate in the various tasks. Some came in with a lot of experience, having been cooking for their entire lives. Others came in with a few things under their belts and wanting to learn more. I think one friend had never used a hand-held mixer before. Another had trouble with making pasta and asked how to get pasta that wasn't either super al dente or much too mushy. Everyone participated, and I think (I hope) everyone left feeling confident that they could reproduce the dishes we made.

Clemence took the same approach in our class. There were eleven students, ranging from a 7th grade girl to her grandma, to a few other young people, to a couple of middle-aged women. Some came in with a good amount of experience baking at home, and others were starting from scratch. Clemence got everyone involved, and we made five different desserts in three hours.

We started out with a Tarte Tatin, making caramel in a cake pan, and placing sliced apples into the hot caramel to melt down before we covered the apples with puff pastry. I was in charge of slicing the apples and got started slicing them very thin...until Clemence told me to slice larger slices...and my friend told me to just slice the apples in eighths like Clemence asked. I got so caught up in wanting to do a good job that I just didn't pay attention! I was a little embarrassed, but Clemence had a very "let's move on" attitude, and so I did. But I took that little lesson to heart - in culinary school, I need to pay attention and do things the way I'm told - not the way I think would be prettiest or most impressive!

After the Tarte Tatin, we made mini-tarts with pastry cream and almond cream. I was impressed with Clemence's way of handling the materials. I tend to be extra careful with everything I bake, partly because I'm still learning techniques, but also because I think I have this idea that everything needs to be perfect to be delicious. She was rough with the tart dough, pressing it into the tart pans instead of carefully rolling it out with a pin on a lightly floured surface. She also just laughed when eggs were dropped instead of being properly separated and had us grab another egg and keep going. I think a great deal of that attitude comes with getting really comfortable with how things go with baking - it's not always going to be perfect, and (as she said) if things come out a little messy, you can always just call it "rustic".

We also made flourless chocolate cake and Honey Almond Chocolate Mousse (to which I've provided the recipe) which were both extremely easy. I ended up with chocolate on my shirt and under my nails, the leftover tart dough (which Clemence wasn't going to use so I took it) and with a box full of the desserts we made.

As we were packing up, I asked Clemence if she teaches full-time, or if she runs a bakery somewhere. She said she teaches and consults with chefs and restaurants that want to incoporate seasonal ingredients in their desserts. She said it was the best job in the world.