The season of all things open air is in full fling in Paris. With Paris beach (don’t laugh , it’s quite cool with palm trees and some sand. It’s not a bad attempt), cinema, concerts, dancing along the Seine and of course the most important the PICNICS.

I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for a long time. Helen over @ Tartelette made them a while ago and they just sounded delicious. A picnic with friends seemed a great opportunity to try this out.

Last year when I studied @ Le Cordon Bleu we made regular Brioche. It all got a bit messy while kneading the butter as it was extremely hot. 40°c with the ovens on full blast and wearing a nasty chefs uniform. We added extra salt to the recipes with the sweat dripping off our foreheads. Nice! With a stand mixer and the dough hook attachment you can avoid the melting-butter-kneading problem.

‘Let them eat Brioche’ as the famous Marie Antoniette said.

Keep reading…

Remember the ‘cake which did not make the blog’, well here it is. I made it at home today.

Everything went pretty well. The cake sponge didn’t melt on me which meant I could pipe without too many problems. The raspberry mousse set perfectly and I even managed to do it in 2 1/2 hours which will give me enough time to do my shortcrust pastry tart in the exam (we only get 3 hours to do both a cake and the pastry).

I was so happy I did a little cake dance around the kitchen, don’t think I’ll be doing that on Wednesday though.

So this is it, the last cake on the course. And what a nightmare. Chocolate ganache, chocolate glazing (didn’t turn out quite right, wasn’t quick enough) and a chocolate rose. And to top that off we had a tough chef teaching. Ouf! I’m finished.

It’s chocolate all the way until the end now. This and another chocolate cake and than that’s it. Chocolate ganache sandwiched between a light pistachio sponge with more chocolate ganache covering it and to top it all off, a chocolate glaze.

Typing this is turning out to be a bit troublesome, I cut myself on the dreaded breadknife (worse knife in the whole kit). I now have a bandaged index finger, great look.

Keep reading…

No, it’s not supposed to be a giant daisy. It’s a puff pastry pie filled with almond cream.

Also known as ‘Galette des Rois’ or ‘Three Kings cake’. Normally eaten at the beginning of January to celebrate the arrival of the three kings. They are sold with a golden crown and a small figure hidden in the cake. The ‘aim of the game’ is to get the piece of cake with the figure and be crowned king for the day.

Pithiviers500g ready made puff pastry
Little figure

Almond cream
60g butter
60g sugar
1 egg
60 ground almonds
rum optional

Finish
Egg wash
Syrup
50ml water
50g sugar

Bake at 200°c

Almond cream
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla together. Then add egg and finally the ground almonds. Add rum if desired. Put into piping bag.

Preheat oven to 200°c.
Roll out half of the pastry into a square about 2-3mm thickness. Sprinkle baking paper on tray with water (this will help stop the puff pastry shrinking in size). Place pastry on tray. Use a large bowl to lightly mark the centre circle. Making sure you still have enough pastry left for a border (about 5cm). Pipe an almond cream snail shape within the circle. Put the little figure in pastry cream. Brush the outside with the egg wash. Roll out the 2nd half of the pastry to the same size. Place over almond cream base. Use the bowl to gently press down/mark the circle. Refridgerate for 5 minutes. Cut petal shape border. Egg wash, making sure you don’t let the eggwash run down the sides. This will hinder the rising of the puff pastry. Refridgerate until eggwash is dry. Eggwash again carefully. Use back of knife to do curved pattern on pastry. Poke a hole in each of the petals and 4 in the top. Bake for 30mins. Brush with syrup when still hot.