You may be wondering why we keep reiterating the fact that we use real, pure ingredients and don't take any shortcuts. Ensuring that our products are made with good quality ingredients is important to us because we care about the food that we make. As a trained pastry chef, nutritional training is included. Now, that does not make us professional nutritionists but it does show that we do know a thing or two about good ingredients and nutrition.
Obviously, food is extremely important. The food you put into your body can do so much to you; you are, after all, what you eat. It can change your mood, your health, etc. No product is good without good ingredients and fake or harmful ingredients can be anywhere. This doesn't mean you have to give up your favourite junk foods and treats but it does mean you can take the time to really check the label or get to know what you are consuming.
Therefore, at Patisserie Lebeau, we value freshness and high quality. We source all of our ingredients and take the time to ensure our ingredients are from the best. As things are constantly changing, we are constantly checking and researching where to find good ingredients and how to get them.
BUTTER: comes from New Zealand. We used 7.2 tones of butter year. We ensure that it is grass-fed and has a strong butter flavour to reflect in our baking. We look at the percentage of fat content worldwide; good quality butter will have only 10% humidity. Lower quality butter will have 25% humidity to 75% fat content and if it goes any lower, then the butter turns bad faster and can cause the pastry to have a different taste and texture. Our butter has 82% butter fat and 16% humidity/moisture. An MOF, which stands for "'L'Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France" and is a high honour amongst French chefs, even said that the secret to the best croissant is the butter.
FLOUR: comes from Montreal, with a European milling method. They rotate the crops when milling so that the wheat is more nutritious. Without rotation, you are over-milling the wheat and the nutrients get drained out more. As a result, the wheat comes from sustainable farming. For our baguettes, we use a special baguette flour.
EGGS AND MILK: All of our eggs and milk are locally sourced. The milk also has many approved compliance and quality assurances from a variety of Canadian government agencies.
To us, single origin ingredients are extremely important, because there is less interference with third party members. That way, we know that every ingredient has not been tampered with and we can give you the best! This includes our chocolate, our coffee and more.
However, there is a common misconception with pastry is the amount of sugar or butter used to make them. However, pastry chefs are taught how to make pastries using just the right amount of every ingredient. We are taught to balance the sugar, taste and all other contents. Each recipe has the necessary amount of sugar to create the consistency of the pastry without overly changing the sweetness of it. It takes many years of training and we have over 27 years of experience in our hands as well. So, you don't have to feel bad about buying a waffle or rice pie! Our food should be more of a comfort.
Essentially, nothing is from a ready-made box or pre-made from a different company; we learned the basic and every part of the pastry is prepared by us from scratch, ready for assembly. So while it takes us a while to bake everything or prepare a sandwich, that's because every single step is supervised, by Olivier himself, and double-checked to ensure it is of the absolute best quality. We will never compromise the quality of our food.
That's all for this week. Hopefully, our message and values resonate with you. See you next week!