Under the Table by Katherine Darling

bring out the sweetness of the fruit.
    After twenty minutes or so, the apples had softened and the water had evaporated, leaving us with a pot of something resembling rustic applesauce. We stirred constantly until the apples were cooked through and beginning to break down, careful not to beat all the chunks out.
    â€œLeave it a bit interesting, eh? Not like baby food,” Chef directed.
    While the apple compote chilled in an ice bath, we returned to our lumps of dough. Armed with heavy wooden rolling pins, we pulled our chilled dough circles from the lowboys and began to roll them out. Once the dough had been rolled out into a thin, even circle, it was ready to press into the waiting tart pan. The air was soon full of flour as overzealous students added handful after handful to their dough in order to ensure that it would not stick to the work surface. Chef Jean took a shot of flour right to the face as he was prowling the aisles of the classroom, and exploded, a French Krakatoa.
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing? What is all this flour? If you did it right, you need no big handfuls of flour! Just a dusting! A sprinkle! Un petit petit peu! Morons!” Chef shouted, blowing little puffs of flour off his face with each furious syllable.
    In a paroxysm of rage, he grabbed the nearest dough lump and tore it into two pieces. We were shocked, thinking that he had destroyed someone’s effort in a fit of pique. But no. Angry though he might have been, Chef was never vindictive. He held the two flaccid pieces of dough up and showed us the insides. It was plain to see that there were large gobs of butter that had not been properly incorporated into the whole. We gasped and gawked at the poor performance of our classmate, like motorists passing a particularly gruesome traffic accident. No one got out to help, however. I felt like kissing the feet of the patron saint of bakers that Chef hadn’t chosen my pitiful dough for an object lesson. Chef took a deep breath and began to rework the dough he had destroyed, slapping small pieces of it against the work surface in frottage to thoroughly incorporate the rogue lumps of butter. Soon the dough was once again a homogeneous whole, and Chef rolled it out in a few brusque movements of the rolling pin. Carefully he folded the dough in half, and then in half again. Scooping the little package up, he placed it over the buttered and chilled tart ring and unfolded it, its halves of dough fluttering open like a paperback caught in a high wind. He tucked the dough in with deft pats and then pinched a decorative edge around the sides with his meaty thumb and first two fingers, spinning the tart ring around like a child’s top.
    His good humor once again restored, Chef explained that a further spell in the lowboy to chill the dough and let it rest after being rolled out would ensure that the dough would not shrink up in the oven, leaving too much filling and not enough crust. Rolling out the dough must be done very quickly, like mixing the dough once water has been added, for the same reasons: the more dough is worked and played with, the more structure is created. Structure in this instance means the formation of strong strands of gluten, which give bread its marvelous chewiness but wreak havoc with the texture of pastry dough. Letting the dough rest after working with it allows the molecules of gluten to loosen the bonds they form witheach other, enabling the dough to “relax” and perform properly. This was another revelatory moment for me. For years I had been making piecrust, rolling it out, and sticking it straight into the oven without any additional rest, despite my grandmother’s insistence that a “nap” would produce better crusts. I thought it was just an inefficient step I could cut out of the procedure with impunity, but I was wrong. I cast my eyes up to heaven and said a little prayer to Nan, thanking her for all the insights she gave me and letting