I taught the French classic apple tart class in April and it was a delight experience, as the apple tart associates with lots of good memories.
It was the first dessert I learned. Before I started culinary school, I was learning French at La Sorbonne.
In September, we visited the ceramist Jean François Fouilhoux in the Loire region with two friends. Jean François makes celadon sculptures, which are blue-green ceramics. His house was next to the forest, with his studio of ceramics. It was astonishing to see the giant oven to fire ceramics at someone’s house, which he built in the 1970s. In his early 20s, he saw the celadon from Song Dynasty at the Guimet Museum in Paris, and fell in love with it right away and decided to choose celadon as his career.
During dinner, we talked about ceramics. Jean Francois showed us some albums of his artwork and Chinese celadon. His wife served us the apple tart. It was so delicious that I asked how she made it right away. She told me the recipe, and I wrote it at the dinner table. She emphasized that the apple is called Chantecler, a yellow-greenish apple that has a special aroma. The next day, we collected mushrooms in the woods with thick red orange leaves on the forest floor. When we got home, we didn’t have many edible mushrooms, and I saw their cat was pressing a dead mouse.
That is how I learned the apple tart recipe. Everyone has enjoyed the apple tart as much as the story.
In September, we visited the ceramist Jean François Fouilhoux in the Loire region with two friends. Jean François makes celadon sculptures, which are blue-green ceramics. His house was next to the forest, with his studio of ceramics. It was astonishing to see the giant oven to fire ceramics at someone’s house, which he built in the 1970s. In his early 20s, he saw the celadon from Song Dynasty at the Guimet Museum in Paris, and fell in love with it right away and decided to choose celadon as his career.
During dinner, we talked about ceramics. Jean Francois showed us some albums of his artwork and Chinese celadon. His wife served us the apple tart. It was so delicious that I asked how she made it right away. She told me the recipe, and I wrote it at the dinner table. She emphasized that the apple is called Chantecler, a yellow-greenish apple that has a special aroma. The next day, we collected mushrooms in the woods with thick red orange leaves on the forest floor. When we got home, we didn’t have many edible mushrooms, and I saw their cat was pressing a dead mouse.
That is how I learned the apple tart recipe. Everyone has enjoyed the apple tart as much as the story.
Feedback from the participant:
It was a very well organized class. Everything was setup professionally and the recipe was also explained very clearly and easy to follow. It was an amazing experience to be able to create such an elegant pastry for novice bakers like me. I also liked how you explained the story behind the apple tart and how you got the recipe from the family that you visited when you were in France.
I have made the apple tart at home from the dough that I took home and the apple tart came out so delicious. It didn’t last even till the next day. My family ate it all up that evening!
----Deppa V.
It was a very well organized class. Everything was setup professionally and the recipe was also explained very clearly and easy to follow. It was an amazing experience to be able to create such an elegant pastry for novice bakers like me. I also liked how you explained the story behind the apple tart and how you got the recipe from the family that you visited when you were in France.
I have made the apple tart at home from the dough that I took home and the apple tart came out so delicious. It didn’t last even till the next day. My family ate it all up that evening!
----Deppa V.