Daring Bakers~September Challenge~Vols-au- Vent

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

These are my mini vols-au-vents filled with lemon curd (Chou's recipe), topped with fresh raspberries.
The initial butter block. Glad "Press n Seal" wrap worked well while I pounded/pressed the butter into a solid block.

One of the first folds of the puff pastry dough. The final dough.
Look at all those layers.
My vols-au-vents all stacked up and ready to be placed in the oven.

Puff pastry "slugs." By the time I was ready to bake the puff pastry, I was super tired and did not read the instructions as carefully as I should have. So I did not place a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough prior to placing them in the oven. BIG MISTAKE!
These are the Vols-au-Vent I made the next morning...with a sheet of parchment paper on top.

Grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese.
With the leftover scraps of puff pastry, I made cheese twists. Mmmmm....yummy.

Update

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Did I mention...

*I defended my dissertation and passed.
*Dropped off my dissertation to the thesis office yesterday...so it's official, I'm done with school! ~*~woot woot~*~
*Been cleaning and packing up my apartment for the past few days. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in 4 years!

*Flying to Vegas on Saturday (2 days from now) to hang out with my sister and to attend a friend's wedding (get this, she planned it so that she and guests could attend the UH game against UNLV).
*Flying from Vegas to Hawaii~send me an email if you want to hang out in Hawaii
*Flying from Hawaii back to Illinois to clean up my apartment and move out.

My sister has already emailed me an itinerary for my trip to Las Vegas and its filled with LOTS of restaurants. I will try to blog about them, but I'll be on vacation and enjoying my new found FREEEEEDDDOOOOMMM!