jmacnaughtan

Thanks judiu. It looks fine, but the dacquoise didn't hold up its end of the deal- it was supposed to provide a little texture, but almost disintegrated into the confit. I should have coated it with chocolate... Also, the confit was off-puttingly tart and the milk chocolate mousse was a little soft. Back to the drawing board...

Two more bûches, one hit and one miss. The miss: Almond dacquoise, Apricot confit, Milk chocolate mousse, Praliné crémeux, Dark chocolate glaze, Milk chocolate. The hit: Almond financier, Lemon confit, Whipped lemon curd, Vanilla mousse, White chocolate glaze, White chocolate.

Thanks. I'm using a 35cm x 8cm gutter mould, in aluminium. The glaze is the white glaze from Philippe Conticini's "Sensations", based on sugar, glucose, condensed milk, white chocolate and gelatin.. If you want the recipe, IM me.

If you made your own, it might be worth increasing the sugar and decreasing the gelatin, and maybe adding a little alcohol to lower the freezing temperature.

First Bûche de Noël of the year. Pain d'épices, lemon confit, pineapple crémeux and vanilla mousse, with a white chocolate glaze, spiced meringue kisses and white chocolate. It works pretty well.

Another one from Philippe Conticini: Pineapple Cheesecake. Biscuit "cheesecake" (pâte sablée crushed, mixed with butter and muscovado sugar and rebaked), cream cheese mousse, a pineapple insert and a white vanilla glaze. The original is encased in a tall tart shell, but apparently I can't follow instructions, so it collapsed in the oven. This one is put together like a traditional entremet. Pretty tasty, but the pineapple overwhelms the mousse a little.

I don't see why you're so worked up about fruit confit. "Confit" just means preserved; les fruits confits have existed in France since the arrival of cane sugar. It just means candied. I recently made Philippe Conticini's confit de citron, a sort of hyper-concentrated lemon marmalade for use with desserts- just lemon peel simmered with lemon juice and sugar, reduced and blitzed. It's delicious. On the savory side, I recommend lamb shoulder. Salt it, rub it with garlic and leave it overnight. Lay a layer of garlic and rosemary in an oven-proof pot, add the lamb, cover and fill any spaces with more rosemary and garlic (I used around 8 heads plus a big handful of rosemary). Bake for 8-10 hours at 120°C. Serve with some kind of fried potatoes and condiment. You know it's done when you can press your finger into the meat and the bone just slides out.

Nice macarons, &roid. This is from Philippe Conticini's book, "Sensations". It's a pâte sucrée base with a spiced fruit tagine and whipped crème fraîche with Pouligny goat's cheese (the recipe called for Valençay, but I couldn't find any). Almost a cross between the cheese course and the dessert- the crême fraîche is unsweetened and the tagine uses only a little muscovado sugar, so it's really the tang of the tagine and the cheese that carry the tart, not the sweetness.

If you want a little more stability, you could make it like a French flan. Make a pastry cream with about half the normal starch, then fill the pastry while it's still hot. It'll set nicely and won't curdle, but it's a little more dense.

Pumpkin pie (for people that don't like pumpkin pie). I'm sure the traditional is a great dessert with lots of history, but it's stodgy and heavy and will always remain in pecan pie's shade. Here's mine: pâte sucrée, a butternut squash crémeux and spiced golden syrup meringue. It's nice to grate some spices onto the meringue before torching it, it amplifies the aroma. I used tonka, cinnamon and nutmeg.

I disagree. Pâte sucrée tends to be much more forgiving in terms of gluten than any other tart pastry. The problem is possibly the thickness (4mm is really thick, for most tarts you want around 2mm) or that you haven't rested it enough. Rest it for 24 hours, then roll it out. So much easier. I use a different recipe, stolen when I was an apprentice. It uses egg yolks only, plus milk, and gives a great texture. It's also really easy to work with. Ingredients: Flour 400g Butter 200g Egg yolks 120g Icing sugar 70g Milk (lukewarm) 30g Salt 8g 1. Sift flour onto a large piece of greaseproof paper. 2. Warm butter until very soft (almost liquid, but without breaking the emulsion). 3. Whip butter until white. 4. In a separate bowl, combine egg yolks and icing sugar. Whip until pale and creamy. 5. Incorporate milk and salt. 6. Pour the egg mixture into the whipped butter, and whisk to fully combine. Scrape the bottom of the bowl to ensure everything is homogenous. 7. Pour the sifted flour into the butter mixture. 8. Mix with a wooden spoon (or mixer paddle) until fully combined. Scrape the bottom of the bowl again. 9. Scrape onto cling film, wrap, press flat and refrigerate for at least one hour, preferably overnight. 10. Knead gently until pliable. Roll out to the thickness of a £1 coin. 11. Cut a circle around 2cm larger than your tart circle/tin in the pastry. 12. Line the tin, ensuring you've pushed the dough into the bottom edge all the way round (to avoid the sides collapsing in the oven). Refrigerate for 20 minutes. 13. Preheat the oven to 180°C. 14. Remove the dough from the fridge and trim the edges with a paring knife. Prick the base with a fork. 15. Bake for 12-18 minutes, until lightly golden. Leave to cool before unmolding. It gives you something like this:

Thanks for the link, I had no idea about this brand of Armagnac. Seems to be pretty good, just a shame there's no date.

Digging around the attic a few weeks ago, I found this bottle of Armagnac: And naturally I wanted to see what it was, and whether it was a drinker, a keeper or a seller. I scoured Google, and found not much. Anyone recognize this one? Thanks, James

Yes, chiqueter is the term you're looking for. I don't know how many hours I've spent doing it on Galettes des Rois...

Zumbo entremet n°2: Tanzanie. I used a standard 4.5cm high cake frame- the recipe doesn't state the height you need, and I should have used 6cm. That meant I couldn't fit in the chocolate jelly, but the rest of the layers are (sorry for no cut pictures, the cake disappeared too quickly): Flourless chocolate cake Tanzanie 75% cocoa ganache with salted chocolate shards Cocoa meringue Vanilla "crème brûlée" (I just made an anglaise and set it with 1% gelatin) Chocolate sabayon mousse Standard chocolate glaze

How true. Making the dough is easy, making an eclair that doesn't look like a dog's chew toy is not. My cream puffs and chouquettes are pretty, my eclairs and paris-brests... The less said the better.

It's the "Pastries" one I think. Mine's the French version, called "Rêves de Pâtissier" and the cover's different, but I think it's the same book. I think with the choux buns, you''ll never have the best of both worlds. If you wait until the last minute to fill it, you'll have a crisp bun but the filling will be too liquid, but doing it beforehand leaves you with softer pastry. I've found that the pastry dough you put on top of the choux stays crisp a little longer, and ensures that you have relatively even choux. The trick is rolling it thin enough though... I've been looking at the Ladurée book. Is it worth buying? I'd like to know the recipe for their rose Saint Honoré. I'm tempted when I walk past the boutiques, but spending upwards of 40€ for a cake is a little much.

I don't think they use the cookie dough on top, but judging by the sheer quantity of choux they make, they'll be using a machine to pipe them. Réligieuses are a great dessert, but I find the biggest problem is size control. Nothing worse than a massive body and a tiny head. My next choux project is the Saint-Honoré. I've been eyeing the recipe in the Pierre Hermé book for weeks...

There's been a lot of discussion about pâte à choux technique recently. It's a tricky dough, to be sure. But what are you doing with it? Does everyone just make the traditional éclairs and cream puffs, or are there more adventurous types making glands, salambos or the elusive divorce? Is nobody game enough for the croquembouche? (Sorry for the French links, I couldn't find anything in English) For my two centimes, here's an old favorite: the Paris Brest (originally posted here). Makes a great birthday cake. Bon appétit.

Freezing can be hit or miss- the last time I used frozen dough I split it in half before freezing, there was practically no rise in the frozen batch compared to the fresh. Professionals generally use improvers if they're going to freeze the dough. It takes the risk out of it.

I've been looking at this recipe- how well do the flavors work? Does the chocolate not just overpower the fairly delicate fig and jasmine?

You are supposed to eat them when warm. I was told to heat it up before consuming. 20 seconds in the microwave will do. I never found any to be tough (except the shortcut one). Agreed. The first time I had them was in a café by Termini station, and it was cold and fairly tough, especially the thick dough at the end. The better ones I found were at il fornaio due and, surprisingly, at the Fiumincino airport café next to Obika. The video technique looks good. I'll see if I can find a cheap pasta machine...

Wow, thanks for the input. An eight to ten meter table might be a little tricky, are you sure it's in meters and not feet? I've never worked in a pastry kitchen with that sort of workspace all together, let alone in the home. Would I be wrong in thinking that you could stretch it like a strudel dough? I noticed that every recipe calls for the dough to rest at least three hours, and one specifically advises to coat the dough ball in fat, exactly like a pâte à étirer. It's tempting to give up and order the frozen ones, but after seeing the recipes I have to try at least once myself.

That's horrendous. I thought the V8 was extreme...

Sour apples seem to me to work much better with white chocolate. Especially with dark chocolate, the acidity and aroma seem to clash. If you're set on using apples, maybe something in the tarte tatin style would work better- toning down the acidity and adding a bitter caramel note could be good with a chocolate cake.