Search the Community

I'm planning to attend pastry school in France at the end of this year but there are so many to choose from. After some research, I've narrowed it down to three schools: 1) Le Cordon Bleu 2) ESCF (Ecole Superieure de Cuisine Francaise) - Ferrandi 3) ENSP (Ecole Nationale Superieure de la Patisserie - in Yssingeaux) Are there any recent grads from the pastry arts programs above who can share how their experiences were and if they know how the schools compare against each other (eg. strength of teachers, curriculum, practical vs. theoretical time, reputation, intership opportunities, etc.) (I did look into Lenotre but my french is not strong and the program requires a significant upfront deposit with the application which I'm not too keen on.) Thanks

If there are any bakers out there looking to get your hands on French type 55 flour, here is a source. This is the flour the French use to make their famous baguettes. http://www.lepicerie.com/catalog/category_447_FINE_FOODS_French_Flours_Organic_page_1.html

Host's note: these were moved over from the Chevre experiment topic so they would be better searched and discussed. Ok, here's a virtual tasting that anybody can try. Two cheeses both cows milk & both raw milk. Both pretty readily available. Here they are: So, St Felicien and Chaource. Buy, try taste. They should be easily findable. As my old prof used to say; "Compare & contrast" in 500 words or less. Let's see who prefers which. And why? Finally, a question for the enthusiast. One of these cheeses is modern dating from the 1950's the other has been made for 500 years or more. Which is which?

On the theory that a baker's reach should exceed his grasp, I just bought La Patisserie de Pierre Herme, which, sure enough, is in many areas beyond my quite modest abilities. I'm determined to press on, though, and decided to start with his basic genoise recipe. PH's note says the cake "is easier to make and has a more interesting taste" than the classic Genoise. It's obviously scaled to five or six cakes: 600 g almond paste 500 g caster sugar 330 g egg yolks 1,500 g emulsifier Peco 50 1 kg bread flour 350 g lukewarm melted butter The recipe says to cream the almond paste and sugar, then add the yolks one by one, then the whole eggs. Replace the paddle in the mixer with the whisk, and then beat for 15 minutes. Fold in the flour and butter as normal, and bake at 180 C or 255 F. I made the cake with a quarter of the listed ingredients, and it came out fine, in a bland Genoise sort of way; it's not the sort of thing you'd want to eat by itself, but it would be splendid in a bigger construction. While it hardly rose, it wasn't at all heavy, and it had a nice gentle dome on top. I had a couple of questions, though. 1) I read elsewhere that I could just skip the Peco 50, so I did. I am curious about what it is supposed to do in the cake, and whether there is any sort of easily-available substitute. (Peco 50 seems to hail from France.) 2) The instructions say nothing about heating the eggs before beating them, so I didn't. Had I done so, would it have made a difference in how high the cake rose? 3) In a related vein, in Desserts by Pierre Herme, DG says to heat the eggs to between 130 and 140 F; that is considerably warmer than other recipes, which seem to average around 100 or 110 F. Any insights on who is right? Or do they all work equally well? 4) As I had been warned on this site, the book makes frequent use of ingredients not recognized by an American home baker -- syrups at various Baume degrees, invert sugar, sorbitol, HF, NH pectine, etc etc. Does anyone know of a link here on eGullet, or else an external site, that deals with many of these in one place? The alternative is lots of Googling, which I am happy to do but would rather be spared the need to if I could. Merci mes amis.

This past March, my husband and I traveled to Provence and one day, we had lunch at La Forchette in Avignon. Heavenly lunch and the highlight was this amazing coconut sorbet for dessert. It had such an intense flavor and wonderful texture. Here is what I tried, and it is good, but lacks to the intense coconut flavor. I should also mention that I have never really made anything with coconut (excepting my very fine coconut layer cake), so I am unsure as to how to coax the flavor out of it. I used: 14 oz coconut milk 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 cup sugar 8 oz milk 2 tbl flake coconut I combined the coconut milk, salt, sugar and coconut flake and stirred until the sugar dissolved and chilled for several hours. Then I stirred in the cold milk and made the sherbet. I realize that this is a sherbet base rather than sorbet. Even though La Forchette called it a sorbet, it seemed richer than a sorbet--more like a sherbet, and on that front, I think I was correct, but the intense coconuttiness is lacking. It was still a very nice ice cream. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!

Yesterday at lunch I tried a small experiment with cheese tasting. I had purchased three little goats cheeses from our local Friday market. They came from a small organic producer who's farm is just a few miles away. Raw milk of course. The first was 'frais' or fresh & young. The type that's so delicious at breakfast with a good jam. The second was older, sort of in between in age. It was firmer and stronger in taste. More of a 'classic' chevre. The third was 'sec' or dry and had been aged far longer. It was smaller having lost a lot of moisture and much much sharper in taste. Of the seven of us at table 4 preferred the medium cheese, 2 the frais and one, me, the sec. I was going to take pictures, but the cheese got eaten before I could get around to it. I'm going to try the same sort of tasting with sheep's milk (Brebis) cheeses next time I go to Villefranche market. There's another local producer who has a stall there. It would be fun to try a regional tasting. SW chevre against Loire valley chevre for instance. Anybody want to try posting a tasting along these lines?

According to Web Radio du Gout the newest fad is Le Slunch a most non-Anglo-Saxon meal invented by a journalist at the French Elle. One gathers ones friends at the end of Sunday and eats mets without plates between 5 and 10 PM. Examples are: fruits, tartlettes, cold soups, ham, haddock rillettes, dips, salads and grilled pumpkin as well as fruit juices, teas and unusual wines of all colors. The book is “Slunch" by Pascale Weeks (Alias Scally), Editions First.

We were finally in the area with part of a free day and I insisted we go the the Abbaye de Cîteaux and try to buy some of their famous but incredibly hard to source cheese. We were in luck in that the cheese was both in season and in stock. We bought a huge (9" x 1/1/2") wheel for 11€. The price is 15€ a kilo. This is a lovely cheese, slightly smelly, oozy but nutty and mellow in taste. Worth a go if you are driving the Cote d'Or. It's only some 10km off the main Beaune-Dijon wine route. We shared half the wheel with our host and the balance is a diminishing souvenir in our refrigerator.

I had Navettes in Uzes, France recently and I cannot seem to find a recipe. Any help would be appreciated

In the US of A many restaurants serve shoestring potatoes (McDonald's cut) and call them Pommes Frites What thickness cut is most common in France? 1 cm? Do any respected bistros or restaurants serve a shoestring thickness pomees frite?

Hi all, Are there still some old school high-end classic French cookbooks available? I have considered Escoffier and Larousse but I seem to recall some book in 1980s Asia that had recipes taken from a 1960s and 1970s book. They come with lots of colour photos for very old-school haute dishes. Would it be Henri-Paul Pellaprat's book or something else?

Does anyone know if there's such a thing as 'kosher salt' in France? It's prevalent in the US, even though (I suspect) a majority of people who use it don't use it for koshering. I've checked in some of the Jewish épiceries in the Marais, as well as in the kosher section of supermarkets, and never saw anything. Was just wondering if it is available. (According to that bastion of truth, Wikipedia says that only in the UK is there something called 'koshering salt. Elsewhere, they say, it's called "(coarse) cooking salt." Hmmmm....because the gros sel in France, grey or otherwise, is a lot larger than the kosher salt that I'm familiar with.)

Besides Divay is there a shop or two that Parisians swear by for their Rilette and other Duck and Goose products? I have seen Bon Marche talked about. Is there by any chance a shop that specializes in the products of SW France? In addition I am hoping to find some amazing pate` both to eat and to travel home with. Is there a particular shop or are there so many wonderful shops they are too numerous to name? I am going to be sleeping in the 6th but will be all over the city, including a trip to the 18th for bread http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/g...-paris-2008.htm David

Forgive my ignorance of Anthony Cheeses, where besides an expensive restaurant might one find these? Does Anthony (or whomever is the person behind the name) have a shop? TIA David

Heather Stimmler-Hall in Secrets of Paris notes that La Dernière Goutte, 6, rue de Bourbon Le Château in the 6th is open everyday in August and has a bilingual staff and daily tastings. She lists their times as: “Tue-Sat 10am-8:30pm, Sun 11am-7pm, Mon 4pm-8:30pm.”

Lobster at 89 € / kilo? Shrimp at 55 € / kilo? (Cunningly expressed at the marketplace as 5.5 € per 100g.) What gives? It's not like these are manna shrimp from heaven. I can get shrimp for 9 € / 300g at Picard or 4 € / 400g at Leader Price, and I wager they're the same quality of farmed Indonesian shrimp... I'm used to meat costing a king's ransom as compared to the US, but seafood is outrageous. I once bought a single wild salmon steak and it cost me something like 20 €. I have to move to the 19th arrondissement, I think.

Today, Colette Monsat et al in Figaroscope, rated the pain au chocolat at 25 places, awarding the following: 1. Julien 2. Secco 3. Ble Sucre Of interest were: 5. Pierre Herme 6. Dalloyau 7. Kayser (Monge) 8. Fauchon 14. Lenotre 18. Gerard Mulot 18. Angelina 21. Laduree 21. Paul 23. A. Poilane

So, I a moment of foolishness I bought a frozen capon today. He weighs about 3.5 kilos. We have cooking friends coming next week & I though it would be something different to try. Only later did I realize that I've never cooked a capon in my life. Plenty of other birds & I'm sure I can just roast it successfully. But In honor of our friends first visit to the French countryside I'd like to do something local with the capon. Any suggestions? Yes, I have Googled it & there are plenty of recipes, but none seem French. Help!

I was invited to a gorgeous Breton lunch yesterday, for which I made kouign aman and gateau Breton. Photos and some recipes are here. This has really gotten me in the mood for our upcoming trip to Bretagne. If you have some suggestions for less-known foods not to miss, please post them here. Shellfish, galettes, and of course kouign aman are already on the list.

This is one of a series of compendia that seeks to provide information available in prior threads on eGullet. Please feel free to add links to additional threads or posts or to add suggestions. Patisseries open in August Wine shops open in August What’s in the markets

I'm working on a batch of Pain D'Epices, and have recently come across some new ideas/information regarding TRADITIONAL recipes, of which I was curious if any of you had opinions/experience. Several articles talk about resting the batter- some overnight (gluten-relaxation, basically), but some as long as two weeks, causing mild fermentation. Any thoughts? Have any of you tried the slightly fermented style? I use an old-world rye flour & anise recipe, for the record... Many recipes use brown sugar, all use honey, but i've come across a few that use burnt sugar- - -will this change the structure too much due to the lack of glucose from a honey-substitution? Any other fun tips/tricks/stories regarding your traditional Pain D'epices?

Monday shops open This is one of a series of compendia that seeks to provide information available in prior threads on eGullet. Please feel free to add links to additional threads or posts or to add suggestions. Asian groceries

The US Government recently announced that it will triple the already high 100% duty applied to the import of Roquefort cheese in retaliation for the European Union's refusal to import hormone-fed beef. Is it fair to tax one particular product--although high taxes were levied on hundreds of other products as well, but from what I have read, the famous bleu is the only one with a 300% tariff--in order to punish Europe for not wanting hormone-fed beef? An Article from the Times And another from Time

Those of you in France probably have many favorite places where you buy your cheese. Since I am not in France - and live in a place where you can't even buy something like Pont l'Eveque - I don't. Anyway - my favorite place for ordering cheese from France is fromages.com. I am sure it is not the best cheese in France - but it is good cheese - and the service is excellent (overnight Fedex). If you order by late morning in the eastern US - the cheese will be on your doorstep next morning. Anyway - it is having a sale through 12/2 - 15% off cheese. Promo code is 281108. Only problem these days with buying cheese from abroad is customs (Department of Homeland Security). It will not allow through any cheese that isn't aged for at least 60 days. So if you have a favorite cheese that is past its prime at 60 days - don't order it. Fromages.com follows the rules - so your shipment doesn't wind up being rejected when it enters the US. BTW - I say this not to invite discussion of this rule - but only to bring it to your attention. BTW - I have nothing to do with this firm - except I am a satisfied customer. Robyn

I have watched a documentary about Paul Bocuse on Youtube (the part about the ham in hay begins at 6:48 minutes into the video and after a short interruption, ends at 8:37). He simmers a ham in a huge pot with hay and mint or tarragon for four hours.Does anyone have any more information/experience with this cooking method? It is so remarkably rustic that I am dying to try it.