Culinary Demonstration – Bill Clark, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort

This was our third demo of the day, our 2nd Culinary Demonstration… When we were seated, we noticed that there was no water on the tables (first time), at 4:59 they begin to bring out pitchers of “fresh” water. Note… God Love ‘Em some of these seasonal cast members are quite long in the tooth and a bit slow in the movement.

Wine: Brad Phillips, Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, New York

Food: Bill Clark, Pasty Chef, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort

Brad is from a family winery on Seneca Lake (hey! we know that area).

Brad had heard some of the Wine 101 class earlier and asked if the audience was familiar with vinifera (european styled wines) and labrusca (american grapes, actually native american grapes – nope not indian grapes). His winery makes labrusca wines (we looked at each other and said “scuppernong?” or “muscadine?”), from the niagra grape which is also know as the white concord. They used to grow white concords for Welch’s White Grape Juice, then they decided “why don’t we make wine out of our grapes?” Our wine today was called “White Cat” and Brad tends to think of it as a light, sweet wine that goes well with spicy food.

Chef Bill was there with his assistant, Mallory. He started by giving us some background information…

• he started at WDW at the Disney Institute where he taught baking and pastry classes
• he’s been at the Grand Floridian for five years
• the Grand Floridian bakery operates 24 hours/day, there are 40 bakers, this bakery does all of the weddings at WDW with a staff of 6-7 pastry chefs; they do not do ALL of the baking for WDW, there are 6 or 7 bakeries scattered throughout property
• the holiday gingerbread house
• all of the gingerbread honey dough is already made and stored
• they’ve started baking or they will start soon (sorry, nora can only take notes so fast)
• the house is constructed by carpenters and overlaid with gingerbread by a large crew of bakers
• they will begin baking the ornaments to sell inside the house very soon
• November 9th and 10th is the “live build” of the gingerbread house & it will come down near January 1st

• today we’re having Brie in Puff Pastry
• want to select a very firm brie, not something too runny – it took a few tries to find a brie that could be used for our individual brie in puff pastries — goat brie was too soft, it just runs out of the puff pastry when baking; cow milk brie is much better
• nick recalls that Chef was not happy with the brie. Chef did all his practice making a “full-sized” portion like he would serve to 3 or 4 people. When he scaled it down to the individual portions the brie lost too much of it’s “firmness”. He hinted that the individual ones did not do what he wanted.  Certainly there was no room to work with the whole cranberry sauce. Thus nick’s pastry was sorely lacking in cranberry – disappointing.
• one of the dishes served at the Grand Floridian uses “Champignon” brie — this is a brie with mushrooms
• if making today’s recipe with smaller brie (like what we’re served) – just put the cranberry sauce and apricot jam underneath the brie before you wrap it in the puff pastry
• used Pepperidge Farms frozen puff pastry
• need to let the wrapped brie “rest” for 15 minutes (on the counter in a cool kitchen) to 30 minutes (in the fridge) – but you can let it sit for longer before baking — why are we letting it rest? to allow the pastry to relax before “decorating”
• after baking the wrapped brie, you can leave it out at room temperature for 2-3 hours
• our individual wrapped bries were done in a silicone cupcake pan – Chef really likes silicone “pans” but he stops short of saying that we can buy them at WalMart
• don’t have to “fork” the puff pastry (even though the recipe says to) – if you don’t let it rest and if you aren’t stretching it a lot, “forking” isn’t necessary – if you do “fork” the pastry, do it after you wrap the cheese and before you decorate it
• Chef doesn’t encourage preparing the wrapped brie and then freezing – he didn’t say it but doh! you don’t freeze this kind of cheese, experience has taught nora to be very careful with freezing things with high butter fat content, they can act very strangely when you go to use them later

Tastings

Wine:

• without food
• aroma: very much like muscadine and scuppernong grapes, it’s very grapey and inviting
• taste: very fruity, tastes like late summer to nora; nick says “it’s a bit sweet” but with a grin
• Brad suggests pairing with spicier foods and was a bit concerned when he learned that it was being paired with baked brie
• with food
• aroma: paired nicely with the slight muskiness of the brie and the buttery-ness of the puff pastry
• taste: it paired well, but nora wouldn’t call it fantastic!; nick says that he thought it was “too sweet” – even so, we both finished our glasses

Food:

• nora: this was more like a savory dessert to me; the cheese was still a bit warm (nice) and the crust was buttery; I would have liked a bit more cranberry I think
• nick: tasted good,  but it seems dessert-like
• suggestions were to serve this at a holiday brunch with the White Cat wine; nora thinks it’s like something from Southern Living magazine for an “occasion” (baby shower, wedding shower, easter brunch, some special event/occasion)

Recipe

serves 8

• 1 15-ounce wheel Brie cheese
• 1/2 cup Ocean Spray(r) Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce
• 1/2 cup apricot preserves
• sliced almonds
• 1 1-lb box of puff pastry sheets (2 sheets)
• 1 egg + 2 tablespoons of water (for egg wash)