Pete Fred

It hadn't even ocurred to me to indulge this year until the panettone pushers on here popped up. In the absence of much else to go on, I saw that Wirecutter did a review and plumped for their overall winner, Olivieri 1882... Excellent perfume of orange and vanilla. The fruits were soft and moist, particularly the candied orange which was remarkably good. Once warmed through, the texture was delicate and melting, and the taste of butter, orange and vanilla very well balanced. I reckon I could easily polish it off on my own in a couple of sittings (or maybe just the one 😏).

I was planning on making a flourless chocolate cake from a Milk Street recipe, but when I saw the accompanying video on YouTube it took me down a little rabbit hole. I'd never heard of Torta Barozzi, a celebrated cake from near Modena, made to a 'secret recipe' at Pasticceria Gollini. Oooooo... 🙄. Anyway, there seems to be a pretty standard knock-off recipe kicking around, so... It was nice, quite light and moist, but not much different from many other flourless chocolate cakes. This one's missing the ground peanuts of the original so I'll try that at some point, but I don't expect it to make a world of difference. I was also keen to make it after seeing a video of Massimo Bottura pairing the cake with 25-year aged balsamic vinegar. So I broke out my stash of Extra Vecchio, waited for my world to be rocked, and... hmmmmm, not feeling the "fantastica", sadly. Maybe it's that chocolate/peanut/coffee/balsamic combo that takes it to the moon.

Brown sugar peach cake from Yossy Arefi's Snacking Bakes... As you can see, it was not a success, aesthetically. According to the book, it should look like this... I'm not sure why my slices sank. I used tinned peaches, but can't conceive that would account for it, and a half-inch thick is a half-inch thick everywhere in the world, last time I checked. The only other ingredients that might not translate from American to French were crème fraîche (as called for, not a substitute) and the flour. Who knows? Anyway, I think I've had similar issues with her recipes before. The cake was ok but not sufficiently interesting to make me wanna try and fix it. C'est la vie.

Pear, polenta and almond cake (Julia Turshen recipe)... It was so-so. I found it a little dry, and the baby food 'hack' was disappointing (I think making my own purée would've been more flavourful). Maybe my pear was a little under-ripe but the slices didn't soften much, which didn't help. You can see it better without the icing sugar... If I made it again (which doesn't seem likely) I'd try softening the slices with some butter before arranging on top.

Baked rice pudding... I normally flavour these with vanilla but this time I grated at whole nutmeg on top instead, much as I do when making a custard tart. It was good, and I'll be doing it this way from now on. Incidentally, although perhaps not unconnected, I was chatting with a friend a couple of days ago about how these days you never hear of kids sniffing glue or aerosols for a cheap high, at which point his teenage son (who seemed to have a wide knowledge of such matters) chimed in that an alternative is nutmeg. Nutmeg! This was news to me so I did a search and, yup, it's a thing. I've just thought to check what that whole nutmeg I grated represents and, according to the shadier parts of reddit, I may be currently experiencing a very light buzz equivalent to a beer or two. It brings a whole new meaning to 'baked' rice pudding. *Before any of you crazy kids rush off to the spice rack to get fried, do check out the dangers of myristicin toxicity.

Be aware that this applies to the US but is probably not the case if you're in Europe. I say probably because I've read so much conflicting advice online. When I have a fail with American recipes I reflexively blame it on this rather than operator error. 😏

There were a couple of apples and some puff left over from the Tatin so I tried my hand at a tarte fine aux pommes... I might ask Santa for a mandoline this year for neater slices, but it was simple and tasty.

Tarte Tatin...

Pineapple Pudding by Nicola Lamb (recipe)... It was so-so. I liked the (tinned) pineapples but didn't care much for the cake, which was less "ultra-light, fluffy" and more clafoutis-esque or Dutch Baby-ish. I didn't have créme fraîche so subbed-in Greek yoghurt; maybe that was the problem. Out of curiosity I might make it again as directed, but I suspect I'd be better off sticking with the spoon-cake batters I've enjoyed in the past, or even the NYT Plum Torte mix.

You might've had more luck writing to the Fawlty Towers Hotel in Torquay. Or maybe not.

I made some Singin' Hinnies, mainly out of historical curiosity and the cute name... They were unremarkable. I'll stick with Welsh Cakes for this type of griddlecake (similar, but spiced and sweetened).

I've had a jar of store-bought stuff hanging around for several months... Yesterday I saw a recipe for Preserved Lemon Bars and thought I'd give it a go. Seeing as I was only curious about the lemony bit I just made a small dish of the cream... Possibly because of trying to blitz one lemon with a stick blender, the cream retained some texture rather than being smooth... I've only just noticed that I omitted the flour, so mine was a softer set, but I quite liked the taste, lemon curd-y but 'different'. If you read the comments, however, it seems to have polarised opinion.

A couple of cookies from Jesse Szewczyk's Cookies: The New Classics... Lemon Poppyseed Tea Cookies and Vanilla Sumac Cookies. Both were a bit 'meh'. I like the lemon poppyseed combo but didn't much care for his shortbread so I'll just transfer that profile into one of my regular shortbreads. The sumac cookies didn't pop, spicewise, despite using more than the recipe called for; it was just a basic sugar cookie tasting mainly of vanilla. The vast majority of his recipes seem to contain a tablespoon of vanilla extract. He explains, "I believe it's difficult to overdo it with vanilla". I'm all for using vanilla as a seasoning in most cookies, but if I make anything else from this book I'll be a little more circumspect with the quantity.

It's simply an egg-white baked custard. I mentioned it here a few months back. There's additional info in the article linked in that post. Anna Higham's original recipe employs a water bath but I don't bother, just going with 90C/195F until set. I guess that might result in a slightly more noticable 'crust' but I quite like the clotted cream feel to it. (BTW, if you have a combi/steam oven she recommends 90C with 60% moisture at fan 3). I go with a ratio of around 20% egg whites to cream (30-35% fat), sweetened with a finger-scoop of sugar (or maple syrup, honey, etc.). So typically that'd be: 70g egg white (2 whites), 375g cream, 20g sugar. I like the smooth texture and cream-forward flavour, but often it's just a way of using up a couple surplus of egg whites!

Strawberry spoon cake... This was featured on a recent list of NYT reader favourites. I wasn't expecting much, given the basic ingredients, but it turned out to be more than the sum of its parts. The strawberries turned a little jammy, and the crusty edges contrasted nicely with the soft sponge. (Even the truly awful frozen strawberries I was forced to use didn't seem to spoil the party.) I had some vanilla baked cream in the fridge so paired it with that... Warm cake, cold cream, job done. But I'm now kicking myself having just looked back at the article accompanying the recipe and it mentions a drizzle of balsamic syrup. This would've been an ideal candidate for the real deal that I picked up earlier this summer. Didn't even cross my mind. 🤬 (Having said that, I'll be waiting until next year for much better strawberries.)

Not in English, but I'm sure your browser can lend a hand. Recipe here. Substitute a strong flour. Cassonade is brown sugar. I modified the method slightly, weighing out 80g of the chilled dough and rolling with a pin. Bon chance!

I'm continuing experimenting with my recently gifted waffle maker. This time, Liège waffles... It's a Pierre Hermé recipe, basically a brioche dough with lots of added pearl sugar. Crispy and caramelised outside, buttery and chewy inside. Rather good.

Circling back to a couple of regulars in my repertoire. Tarte au Citron... And gâteau Basque... This was a departure from my usual recipe (which itself is not exactly traditional). I met a friend of a friend who turned out to be Basque herself, and she gave me her amatxi's (grandmother's) recipe, or at least as best she could remember it. I'm not entirely sure her recollection was accurate because the cake element was more like an extra-buttery Breton sablé (cookie). But then again, her memory might be spot-on because it was absolutely delicious.

In terms of meringue, some useful info on Kitchen Projects.

I used one of Pierre Hermé's. In English here (with some actually useful tips on technique) or in French (with egg quantities in grams).

I think the reason the Cassonade canelé won this mini taste test was because it was manufactured in the shop. You can see them being made and baked from the street, and with good timing you can get your hands on a freshly made one. Baillardran and Toque seem to be outlets supplied from a central manufactory, which possibly accounts for them being past their best. I also visited several independent bakeries on my pastry tour but the canelés didn't cut it, either being made in silicone moulds or in some other way looking unappealing.

As this appears to be the most currently active canelé thread, I'll put this here, in lieu of the Mods finding a better home. I passed through Bordeaux recently and took the opportunity to sample a few canelés in the city of their birth. The two big players in town are Baillardran... and La Toque Cuivrée... Both were quite disappointing with chewy exteriors and pasty insides. I marginally preferred the Toque due to a stronger rum flavour, but there wasn't much between them. The Toque, however, was remarkably inexpensive at just €0.75, whereas the Baillardran was a total rip-off at €3.10. Better was the offering from Cassonade... This at least retained a hint of crunchiness in the shell, had decent flavour, and the inside was less gummy. These were €2 a pop. All three may have improved with a quick refresh in the oven, but if you're simply a tourist passing through then I'm afraid it's slim pickings (unless you remembered to pack an air-fryer in your luggage). Weirdly, I think you're more likely to find a good canelé in North America, or Tokyo or Sydney than you are in France. They're no big deal over here, just another commodity product, sometimes at exorbitant prices - I'm looking at YOU Baillardran 🫵.

French custard tart goes by several names (flan Parisien, flan pâtissier, flan nature). It's a cheap 'n' cheerful staple in most bakeries, seemingly made with a box mix most of the time. So it's a treat to make one with real vanilla... I prefer mine on the creamier side with quite a dark top for that burnt milk flavour, which means a relatively quick blast in a very hot oven. The only downside is the thin layer of what looks like undercooked pastry on the base. I think it's cooked, just not coloured. Even the fancy flans of Paris seem live with it. Anyway, the pastry around it is so well cooked and crunchy that you'd never know. (I think I tried blind baking in the past but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it.)

Maxime Frédéric's Île flottante/Œufs à la neige (Floating islands/Snow eggs)... I'm not sure that a picture of the insides of a meringue brings any extra information but... This was delightful. Before getting a quick flash in the oven the meringue is dusted with icing sugar, resulting in a delicately thin crust. It's like eating a crispy cloud. You can watch him make it here.

Chocolate Buckwheat Truffle Cookies (recipe)... If cake-brownie is your thing then go for it. But not for me. I found them better cold from the fridge when a little chewier. (And I actually preferred the raw batter; kinda like a dense chocolate mousse. Go figure.) A batch of The World's Best Cookie... A bold claim. They turned out to be, indeed, very good... These might be of interest to @ElsieD who is searching for her Platonic crispy, oatmeal coconut cookie. In the recipe linked above, the volume measures are from the book. I don't do cups, and didn't like the look of a couple of Heidi's conversions, so I did my own. It's so nice when something actually lives up to the hype for a change.