dinette pastry party n°1

Dinette pastry number one, or how to make a "pâte a bombe" with two egg yolks.
God! just at the thought of it, my Chef would probably raise his eye brows, sigh and say :" Alors, Manon ! on joue à la dinette aujourd'hui ? "Yes, "je joue à la dinette" and today marks the start of my "off work"pastry parties. Today, there will be no consideration of profitability, efficency, speed (the "terrible threes" that rule a pastry shop.) Today, I want to bake something (oui, oui, a "montage" and "a pâte a bombe" for one and only one "entremet") that I have been meaning to bake for quite a long time: a cake mainly consisting in a cheese cake mousse or a Philadelphia cream cheese mousse, if you prefer. This mousse, which could be "tasted" a few years ago in several of Pierre Hermé's pastries, can still be found nowadays in Angélina's Saori, in Tokyo Eat's Cheese cake and in a Chrismas log ( the Ephémère ) by Des Gâteaux et du Pain (cf. Journal du Pâtissier, November 2009). This is not surprising since the three chefs who like to use this particular mousse ( handsome Sébastien Bauer, Hermès Agboton, and Claire Damon) have all worked at some point at or with Pierre Hermé. They usually use it as a sort of layer to a genuine cheese cake base and with a fruit insert (either red fruit or citrus fruit). I didn't have enough Philadelphia cream cheese, so I omited the cheese cake base and used a passion fruit curd as an upper layer. The result wasn't quite what I had expected. Separatly the mousse and the curd were pretty good. Next time, though, I will put in less butter into the curd because, as I made it, the amount of butter I put in gave a bland taste which sploilt the true flavor of the passion fruit. So the combination of the crumble base, the mousse, and the curd was alright without being fantastic. The passion curd prevented you from tasting the flavor of the mousse. Next time, for this cake, I will make a cheese cake base, a cheese cake mousse and a red fruit insert.
I found the recipe for this in Piere Hermé's book, Les Desserts Préférés de Pierre Hermé. For the passin fruit curd, I used the recipe I already had used for lemon curd (with fewer yolks).


Angélina, 226 rue de Rivoli, 75001, Paris.

Des Gâteaux et du Pain, 63 blvd. Pasteur, 75013, Paris.

Tokyo Eat, 13 av. du président Wilson, 75016, Paris.

a fifteen minute walk and how an apprentice in pastry spends all her money

I never work on Wednesday, it is one of my two days off. Since most of my friends and the members of my family are not available to "play" with me,I do things on my own.For instance, this morning, I headed for a section of Paris where I should never have gone: the area near St Eustache and Les Halles. Indeed, in this part of the city, one finds just about anything one wishes for if one is an amateur or professional cook: kitchen utensils, books and special ingredients for cooking and baking. I intented to buy black sesame paste for a future desert, a pseudo zen cake(something in the mode of sadaharu aoki zen pastry. I went to the famous, busy, expensive but irreplaceable Maison Mora which sells kitchen ware and bought a fabulous mini offset spatula ("palette coudée mini mini")for small tarts and tiny entremets, only to be used home for my "dînette" pastry parties. Then I went to the wonderful bookstore "La Librairie gourmande" to check out Mr Conticini's (from the " Patisserie des Rêves") pastry book that just came out (by the way he will be signing his books on Saturday the 28 th of November). I chatted with the owner, bought the "Journal du Pâtissier" since my subscription had just run out(this month there is an article about the different "bûches" that one will find at Christmas at "Pain de sucre", "Des gâteaux et du pain", "Carl Marletti" ect).Then I went to "G Detou" (a food store whose name mean"I have everything"), hoping to find the magical black paste. Unfortunatly the nice shop assistant told me he hadn't any a slight dissapointment but I kwew I would find some at "Keiko", a Japanese grocery store); he suggested however I take a look at their new food aromas(pomme verte, barbe à papa, and so on) telling me that they would be selling soon savoury aromas like cheese aromas. Being a bit conservative on the subject of aromas( synthetic aromas un particular), I simply looked through the aroma shelves. However I was able to find many other delicacies (more traditional but just as elating to me): matcha tea, pecans, crystalised violets, maple sugar, and maple flakes which can also be ordered on the web on the site "couleur quebec" as a fellow food blogger("Tronche de cake") suggests. I came back home, thrilled and merry. No bloody black sesame seed paste and a lighter wallet but a bag full of wonderful things I didn't expect to find and many new pastry projects in mind.

Here are the addresses of the three places I visited:
Mora (kitchenware) 13 rue Montmartre Paris 75001 tel: 0145081924
La Librairie Gourmande (bookstore) 90 rue Montmartre Paris 75002 tel: 0143543727
G Detout (food store) rue Tiquetonne Paris 75

Just a grey November afternoon

Just a grey November day: here are two simple treats to try to cope with the weather (a rich and silky lemon custard tartlet and a sweet, ô so sweet pecan tartlet).
The sweet tart crust is made after a recipe found in Pierre Hermé's "Larousse des Desserts". This pâte sucrée has become my favorite because it is simple, sweet, delicate and yet quite crisp. Moreover the use of almond flour and of a vanilla pod really makes the difference.
For the lemon custard, I use a recipe given by a Japanese friend which comes from Antoine Santos's pastry book called "Comprendre en comparant"(except for its title, it is all in Japanese). This book is great (for what I can understand) and describes step by step, with pictures, the different recipes (thank God, the ingredients and the proportions are in French) but it cannot be easily found in Paris (still one can try the Japanese bookstores near Opéra ). Therefore I will be nice and will divulgate its lemon curd recipe. This curd has a very high proportion of eggs, which lends it an intense flavor and a smooth consistency. The lemons' acidity is more pronounced on the day after.

List of ingredients needed for a dozen prepared and baked tartlet shells:
250g lemon juice+ the zests of one lemon
180g egg yolks
200g eggs
200g sugar
190g butter at room temperature
In a large pan, heat the lemon juice and the zests until the mixture boils. Pour a small proportion of the juice on the yolks, the eggs, and the sugar previously blend together and whisk this mixture back into the pan. Return to the heat and cook, stirring constantly until thick and smooth. Set this curd aside to cool. When the temperature goes down to 40°c, mix in the butter at room temperature. Store the curd in the refrigerator. When it is quite cool, spread it in the tartlets shells with a small spatula and, just for a little shine, use neutral glaze.

Pecan tartlets:
These tartlets are very tasty but are also very, very sweet. So they are wonderful with an expresso, herb tea or any unsweetened hot drink you like.
I will remain silent on the subject of the origins of the pecan filling (it would too long and I believe quite uninteresting). I will just give straight out the recipe for a dozen and slightly prebaked tartlet shells. This recipe is very easy; just mix together the ingredients in the following order :
180g eggs
240g sugar
a pinch of salt
a teaspoon of vanila extract
36g flour
300g maple syrup
72g butter( melted)
210g choped pecans
Fill the tart shells with this batter and bake at 150°C until the filling colours, rises, and becomes slightly cracked. Take out of the oven and wait until it cools entirely.
Voilà, voilà c'est aussi simple que ça !

Manon

Introducing myself

Manon, 24

As a child,I loved the film Peau d'âne,the "suprise deserts" my father made,and the nice "goûters"I was given after my afternoons in the park. As some may remember, Catherine Deneuve, the princess in the film, sings the following song,as she makes the "love cake" (which will win the prince's heart). It goes something like this :

Prenez de la
Prenez de la farine
Versez dans la
Versez dans la terrine
Quatre mains bien pesées
Autour d'un puits
Autour d'un puits creusez

Choisissez quatre
Choisisssez quatre oeufs frais
Qu'ils soient du mat'
Qu'ils soient du matin frais

I loved it.

As for the "surprise deserts" which were a family tradition, they were for children only. After the meal, the nice children (it seems I always managed to be nice enough), were allowed to leave the table and then were called back to discover in their plates a wonderful work of art,which my father had artistically created "impromptu" in the kitchen for us. This work of art respresented a boat , a bunch of flowers, a lovely face, or an abstract painting (this being the least appreciated)etc. It was composed of delicious stuff; if it was a "portrait", the face would be "fromage blanc"; the eyes would be raisins or small fruit, the lips were a tangarine section or strawberry jam, the hair honey (if it was blond, of course) etc. How we loved to nibble an ear first, the nose second etc. until nothing was left of the face !

Now, about the days in the park and the wonderful walks in Paris. I don't know whether I liked the walks or the "goûters"(the word "snack" is not nice enough) that followed them best. But as we walked (my parents and I), we discovered bakeries (there always was a new one), we looked in the windows and, once in a while, I got to choose a cake (I would choose only among the "viennoiseries"since it was for a 4 o'clock "goûter"- and I would choose a type of sablé which was fashionable then, but which I rarely see today, and which had a round little hole on top that let you see the nice red jam underneath. I don't think it was very good, I just found it very lovely).

Then, I think there might be a fourth reason why I became an apprentice in pastry making : when I was a student in Paris, my university was situated in the middle of a sort of "sugar triangle" : rue Bonaparte (where Hermé is), rue Vaugirard (where Sadaharu Aoki is), rue d'Assas (where Christian Constant is). Too many pastry shops, too many pastries and too little time to try them all!
After my "bi-licence" in German and English,(I really enjoyed studying as much as I enjoyed sampling the "zen", the "plaisir sucré", the "tarte au caramel au beurre salé", the "deux mille feuilles"), I decided to study pastry making.

But I will leave my adventures as an apprentice pastry-maker for the next message.