jmacnaughtan

If you can get hold of them, duck hearts are delicious briefly seared. Also, rabbit kidneys. And no discussion can be complete without mentioning confit duck or goose gizzards. So, so good.

I don't use them very often, but when I do I can't taste any difference. If you're using a whole bottle of colouring in a cake, you should probably switch to powdered colours. They are a lot more powerful (don't wear white when you use them), so you'd never use more than about half a teaspoon. Nobody's ever complained about the taste when I've used them in glazes.

Depends on where you are. For me, that's always been a crème légère, whereas a crème diplomate is similar to a bread and butter pudding.

Many things simply don't work if you don't put the full amount of fat or sugar into them- for example, enough butter into a pastry case or enough sugar into a meringue. I would recommend working on your technique, learning the basics and mastering classic desserts before trying to mess around with proportions. From my experience, it's better to know the classic techniques inside out before you start trying to change the fundamentals: that way you know what's gone wrong and why it's gone wrong. Then you can just eat less of the desserts and make lots of friends by giving the rest away PS: I don't think that crème pâtissière recipe is any more ergonomic than the traditional one. In fact, it seems like much more work as you're constantly stirring the milk from cold, rather than just the last 30 seconds.

They look good- you wouldn't think that they were gluten and grain free. The cream I used for the Tropézienne was adapted from Philippe Conticini's Millefeuille recipe, and I posted about it here. Today I was asked to make a dessert for a party, so I made an updated version of a classic Damson Tart. Pâte sucrée Roasted damson crémeux Sacher chocolate sponge soaked in a muscovado and Slivovice syrup Golden syrup Italian meringue Microplaned tonka and vanilla bean It was supposed to have a spiced Chantilly instead of the meringue. I think my local Monoprix is defrauding me- 15 minutes whipping the cream over an ice bath and it stayed resolutely liquid. Bah.

I've never done a side-by-side comparison with and without butter, so I'm not sure if it has a huge impact. However, I still like to do it For the more advanced one, I use (as a percentage of the weight of the milk) 1.6% bloomed gelatin, 10% cold butter and 6% cocoa butter. Once the pastry cream is fully cooked, take it off the heat, stir in the gelatin, butter and cocoa butter and then blitz it. Let it cool and set overnight, then whip on a fairly low speed for a few minutes, and if you're feeling luxurious, incorporate 6% mascarpone too. I love the texture and flavour release you get from this- it's almost like a very silky ganache, but not at all heavy. It's firm enough to hold its shape when piped, and can hold up a millefeuille no problem.

Thanks! In general, I find the idea of a tropézienne much more alluring than what you normally get from a bakery- what could be better than brioche and vanilla? Unfortunately they tend to be bland and stodgy. Your cookies look good, but what are GF (girlfriend?) cookies?

For what it's worth, the pâtisserie where I worked included butter with the milk at the start of the process. If you blitz in the butter at the end, once it's cooled down somewhat, you're looking at something more like a crémeux. If I'm doing a pastry cream that'll be eaten on it's own (choux, éclair, or this) I'll use a more advanced method, incorporating butter, cocoa butter and gelatin at the end then blitzing that together. If you let it set overnight then whip it in the kitchenaid, it's fantastic. So much smoother, lighter and more more stable. If not (for a soufflé, mousseline or frangipane, for example), I won't bother. A normal, bog-standard pastry cream is fine.

To celebrate the late summer, I made a Provençal classic, the tarte tropézienne, with a slight twist. Brioche Lemon confit Lemon Verbena "advanced" pastry cream Sugar crystals

I've eaten onion soup in restaurants here and I can put your mind at ease: nobody uses those bowls. Also, while I love fondue and its accompanying kitch-ness, it's not retro at all here. It's just another savoyard dish, and there are dozens of restaurants around the city that do the whole log cabin-fondue thing.

If only I could get hold of a duck press... The only one I've ever seen is in the Tour d'Argent. Deryn, thanks for the link. I think you've just provided me with a whole new way to waste my workday You may be right that there are fewer fads in Western Europe (excluding the UK), but they certainly existed. There were a few in home cooking: pseudo-Vietnamese ginger prawns and anything "en croûte" spring to mind, but they were most prominent in restaurants. Vol-au-vents are the most iconic, but there were also great fads for anything to do with puff pastry, fruit, vegetables and butter sculpted into flowers, hollandaise-style sauces smothering everything and then torched... And that's before you even get to the desserts.

Sorry, completely overlooked your original question. If everything goes to plan, it'll be for the end of October. And yes, I like to plan dinners well in advance You have a good point, and I hadn't thought about that. Steak Diane with pommes duchesse sounds like a good idea, and would aptly be served with green beans amandine. I need to find somewhere that still makes these. Failing that, I'm pretty sure there's a recipe in a 1950's Good Housekeeping cookbook at my parents' house.

True, I'm leaning heavily towards Western Europe, mainly because I'm not familiar (and I don't think my guests would be either) with, say, Chinese dishes which are no longer trendy. Also, my cooking style and skill set leans towards classic French. With that in mind, the best bet would be dishes that would not look out of place on the dinner table of a socially aspiring household circa 1940-1970 in the UK or USA- many French influences, but also a serious amount of fad cookery. Thanks for the information about the Knickerbocker Glory. With a name like that, it's a shame that it's just a sundae. And kudos for lobster thermidor. If only I had the oven space and the money to splash out on half a dozen lobsters (they're ridiculously expensive here)... Tell me more about this cake...

I love chaud-froids! If I was going to spash out on a very expensive unfashionable dinner, I'd do the truffled equivalent, demi-deuil. I'm not aiming for any particular decade (anything from 20's to 80's) or a particular location (the guests will be from France, the UK, Germany and the USA) so I'm very open in terms of dishes. I just want them to be once-trendy, now mostly either forgotten or unjustly reviled. I'll take Sylvia's advice and leave tomatoes in aspic well alone though But thanks for the wealth of ideas. Interestingly, there was a very chic modern michelin-starred restaurant around the corner offering Cherries Jubilee. For the final dessert, I'd rather not have too much à la minute preparation, so Baked Alaska is tricky. I generally like to finish with something flashy, though Also, I've heard the name Knickerbocker Glory bouncing around for some time. Does anybody know what it is?

I've never heard of Veal Holstein or steak Diane- what are they? Beef Wellington is certainly a possibility, but it still seems fairly popular. My idea was to trawl the era and bring up dishes that were all the rage, but now are essentially pariah foods. In France, this is embodied by the humble (but delicious) vol-au-vent. I've been thinking about trifle as well, but I'd like to end the meal with an unfashionable kind of cake- maybe a charlotte or cheesecake (but that's been having a revival). And of course, I want to serve it à l'ancienne, with roses made from tomatoes, carved lemons and parsley strewn liberally over everything. If anyone has any other old-school garnishes, please share.

Thanks for those, Lisa, you've provided a mountain of inspiration. Waldorf salad and crêpes Suzette might be very good choices, then... Also, is tomato aspic what I think it is- just tomato in jelly?

Hi, I've decided that I'm going to host an unfashionable dinner party, replete with forgotten (but good) hits from the fifties, sixties and seventies. Unfortunately, I have no first-hand experience of this era, and am looking for suggestions for dishes and drinks. Here's a hazy first draft of the menu, but I'm still looking for suggestions and improvements: Prawn cocktail Vol-au-vents Beef Stroganoff Grand Marnier soufflé Death by chocolate and hopefully involving Madeira and claret. Does anyone have any better suggestions, or even better, any good recipes? Many thanks, James

I wouldn't worry about it. Get the size you're happy with, scale the pastry dough recipe up 10% (or double it, dough freezes well), and make a little more filling (but don't overfill the tart).

Why is it evil? It looks pretty cute.

This may be a bit late coming, but your base looks fine. Just let it come to room temperature and whisk it to loosen it a bit. The more important part is getting a good meringue to fold into it, folding it in properly and properly buttering your moulds.

Continuing with the soufflés, I used this recipe. It looks OK and the centre is pleasingly molten, but the flavour was a little subdued. Does anyone have a better chocolate soufflé recipe?

Anna N, With these ones I made 4, but I imagine you could halve the recipe easily. I don't think I'd take it down further though, because whipping very small amounts of egg white can be tricky. Luckily, however, you can bake these, let them cool down and then hold them for a few days without any adverse effects. They'll still rise as high and taste the same (case in point, I just had one for breakfast). Here's the recipe I used: 200g banana purée 15g cornflour 30g schnapps 90g egg whites (around 3) 100g sugar (I'd probably take this down to 60/70g) melted butter, sugar Heat the purée in a pan. Combine the cornflour with the schnapps. Incorporate into the hot purée and boil for 30 seconds, stirring continuously. Transfer to a sheet of cling film, cover and leave to cool to room temperature. Brush melted butter all the way up the sides of the ramekins/cups and leave upside down in the fridge to set. Brush a second layer, then coat with sugar. Whip the whites with the sugar on medium speed until they reach firmish peaks, then add the rest and mix on high until you have a stiff meringue. Put the purée mixture into a different bowl, loosen with a whisk and whisk in a third of the meringue to loosen it further. Gently fold in the rest of the meringue until the mixture is homogeneous. Transfer to a piping bag, cut a fairly wide hole in the end and pipe into your cups/ramekins, filling past the top. Level out with a spatula so the mixture is perfectly level with rim. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes, dust with icing sugar and serve.

I've started thinking a lot about soufflés. This is handy because I've got about a kilo of egg whites and various fruit purées kicking around the freezer. Here's my second attempt at a dessert one, plain banana. The structure and appearance are good, but it's way too sweet. I adapted the recipe from a blackberry soufflé, but it has none of the sweetness or bitterness of blackberries.

For the best finish, often it's better to mould the cake upside down- add a layer of mousse (getting into all the corners), add your insert, add more mousse then place a biscuit or cake layer on top (with a slightly smaller diameter so the mousse covers the whole cake). Cover this with a sheet of acetate and weigh it down with something flat and heavy, and you should get a perfect result. Also, you can buy rolls of acetate to fit the height of your moulds. I use 4.5cm, but they vary. No need to use lubricant unless you get mousse between the plastic and the ring, they should just push right out. Now you just need to glaze or spray the cake and you're good to go.

A slightly non-traditional Sachertorte. It was nice, but I'm not sure if it beats the original (when made well). 2 Sacher cake layers (from Pierre Hermé) Dark chocolate ganache (1:1) Roasted plum coulis Dark chocolate mousse (from Francisco Migoya) Shiny dark chocolate glaze (also Migoya) Btw, does anyone know how to preserve the light texture of a sponge cake after freezing? Mine start off perfect, but in the finished cake they are far too dense. I've tried messing around with trimoline, but I'm still not happy with the texture. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.