Bye-Bye Balthazar

Much of what you are about to see are known in baking as "laminated pastries."

Sounds like something you would break a tooth on but could leave out in the rain for weeks.

The truth, in this case, may not set you free, but it will melt in your mouth.

If you find "laminated pastries" hard to swallow, there's always "viennoiserie," which is a classic European term for essentially the same thing.

That is, pastries assembled from layers of dough with butter or margarine between the layers. You can forget margarine at Balthazar--in their viennoiserie they use nothing but high-butterfat Vermont butter.

Picture One:

The king of buttery viennoiseries may be the kugelhopf, seen here in a large size. Introduced about a year ago, it's a relatively new addition to the Balthazar pastry line, which is sold only at the retail shop in the Englewood bakery.

Chief baker Paula Oland smiles almost wickedly when she describes the amount of butter in a kugelhopf. Not only between the layers of dough but also the sugar and butter melted over the top when it comes out of the oven.

Her advice is "Warm it up first." I took an individual kugelhopf home and did exactly that. Believe me, when you bite into one of these babies the last word that comes to mind is "laminated."

The interior is rich and uniform, yet it has backbone--a texture neither gooey nor greasy, but with a soft yet discernible "crumb." The speckles of buttery sugar on the outside add another texture, and so does the slivered almonds and the perfectly browned exterior.

I've never tasted anybody else's kugelhopf, but I can say that Balthazar's is, yes, sweet and buttery, but every element is as controlled and balanced as an aerialist riding a unicycle on a tightrope.

Picture Two:

Another form of laminated pastry, or viennoiserie if it sounds more appetizing, are croissants and, as seen here, brioche. Balthazar's are subtly flavored with orange.

Picture Three:

My tour lasted only about ten minutes, yet I have managed to drool over it for three days here in Plain Sight. By the end, I had stopped asking questions and was just taking pictures as a form of vicarious tasting.

So I don't know exactly what you call the rolled pastry you see being cut here, but I'm sure I've eaten my share over the years.

Picture Four:

All I can tell you is that after the roll is cut into individual pieces, the pieces are placed two to a cubby in these trays before fulfilling their destiny in one of Balthazar's convection ovens.

PS: As I mentioned yesterday, if any of the pictures slip under the Re/Max add when you expand it, simply scroll down until the ad is off the screen, then open the pictures. But read the ad first. They paid good money to be on our website.

Tags: Newark | Balthazar Bakery | photography | bakeries