Monday, June 13, 2005

How to have a successful practical





O.K. many of you may not need to know this, but if you have a group of 13 and 14 year olds with perhaps not the greatest ability in terms of cooking and baking, but they REALLY like to cook...you can't go wrong with this recipe.

Cheese and Bacon Puff Pastries
400 to 500 grams of bought Puff Pastry (don't suck in your breath and tick tick, it makes sense to buy it in pre-made when there is only 100 minutes in a lesson to do everything, proper puff pastry takes hoouurrss to make if you do it properly)
200 grams of cheddar cheese (mild for the wimpy ones)
1 small onion
4 slices of bacon (smoked is really nice)
1 egg
salt and pepper if you can be bothered

oven at 200*C gas mark 6

in a large bowl, grate cheese, chop onion and bacon, mix together
crack the egg into a measuring jug and beat lightly
add 3/4 of the egg into the cheese mix, save the rest for sealing pastry and glazing
set aside

Divide the pastry into four equal portions in the form of a +
Divide those four portions in half
Roll out all of the pastry, keeping it's rectangle shape and fairly thin

Set out 4 of the pastry sheets
Divide the filling loosely into 4 in the bowl, press into firm portions
place in middle of the pastry, eggwash edges
with the other 4 pastry sheets, either fold in half and cut lines into the fold, not going all the way to the outside edges (sometimes you have to be REALLY clear about that with the kids)
and place them on top of other filled sheets.
Crimp all the way around and egg wash the top
bake for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown on the bottom.
Voila! Happy Kids, who can't believe they have made such a professional looking product.

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