Practical #16 - Triomphe aux Noix
Lesson #15 - Entremets Passionata & Fruit Jellies
This cakes consists of a layer of raspberry mousse on a layer of passionfruit cream on top of a coconut dacquoise and wrapped in a cigarette biscuit. The Chef also made some pretty pear jellies.
Pistachio dacquoise, pistachio cream, and strawberries. I was looking for an excuse to use my sugar decoration on something, so I made these little cakes. I used pistachio paste that I made myself with persian pistachios.
Pastry Sampling Day
I never imagined that I would call sampling different pastries “research” one day. You might think this sounds like a lot of fun and I must admit the first bite of the first pastry is always exciting, but I can assure you, it is not that easy.
On that day we ended up trying various pastries from Lenôtre, Dalloyau, Hugo & Victor, and the apricot & pistachio bread of the month by Eric Kayser. Some we ate on the street and some we brought home to photograph then try. Very rough day hahahaha..
Galette des Rois Party
One of my friends from LCB had the great idea to gather a bunch of people and try some of the best gallete des rois of Paris. We got the No.1 and 2 best rated galettes and a third one from Sadaharu Aoki. They were all wonderful. My favorite was the 2nd ranked one by Stephane Louvard that had a frangipane filling. I found a token in my slice and was therefore a “Queen for the day”.. I didn’t make good use of my short reign. Julie and Hiroko also found tokens, so there were quite a few royals at the table.
Afternoon Tea and Pastries at Ladurée
While we wanted to order one of each, we settled for just two; a “Paris-Brest” and a “Divin”. As my friend so wisely said “The only problem with sitting here too long is that you want to start ordering more stuff”. We will be back!
Chocolates and other sweets around Brussels.
Lesson #11 - Individual Tartlets Assortiment
Today Chef Jordan showed us how to make 6 different tartlets. He was working and talking so fast to finish everything in less than 3 hours that it was hard to keep up with him. The lemon tartlet was my favorite because it had just the right balance of sweet and sour for me.
Pastries that caught my eyes around Munich
La Maison Stohrer
This is one of the oldest pastry shops in Paris. It was opened by Nicolas Stohrer in 1730. He was the pastry chef to King Louis XV and the creator of the Rum Baba. Here is a clip I found on their site. I actually saw the chef you see in the video at the store today.
Angelina’s
So I finally made it back here to try their Mont Blanc, which generally consists of chestnut puree, meringue, and whipped cream. Coco and I stood in line for about 15 minutes to get in. This gave us plenty of time to study their pastries in their store at the front.. no pictures allowed though. Once seated I decided to eat something savory and ordered this veal dish.. totally nasty. Looked pretty, but was much too oily for me. We decided to share a Mont Blanc and skip their hot chocolate as that just seemed like a bad combination. I’m sad to report that I didn’t like it. Though the chestnut puree had a nice taste, it was too sweet, I think they might have used some honey to (over)sweeten it and the texture was too dense. There was also too much whipped cream in the center. The meringue was decent. The combination was in my opinion not worthy of the “Best Mont Blanc in Paris” status. Overall, food was very disappointing but service was very friendly and sweet.
