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Pastries around the world


Sugarella

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[...]Anka says, "A little whipped cream on the top doesn't hurt.

Hungarians like their tejszinhabb (whipped cream). :biggrin:

Austrians too; as ludja's old sig said, "Immer mit Schlag." (Always with whipped cream.)

:smile:

jgarner53 shared this beautiful photo of a galette de rois here. The pastry is traditionally served on The Epiphany or Three King’s Day in France

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As far as I can tell it is very similar if not the same as a Pithivier. It is comprised of puff pastry dough and is filled with a frangipane or almond cream. (I have also seen variants with a hazelnut frangipane). For Three King's Day there is a small charm or feve baked in the cake which bestows "king status" for the day to the eater who finds it.

After seeing her photo and description, I found this site that has blow by blow instructions for assembling the pastry. click

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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I was thinking the other day that the pastry is the most photogenic food item in the whole world. It encompasses so much meaning in addition to being something structural and sculptural, not to mention, when you have a little pastry, intimate. Let's post more photos here.

P. Hermé's Kougelhopf

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Photo from a shop window when we were at a wedding in Brittany

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This tasted pretty good.

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jgarner53 shared this beautiful photo of a galette de rois here.   The pastry is traditionally served on The Epiphany or Three King’s Day in France

There are also some stunning examples (3 pages) on the CakeChef site:

http://www.galette.info/recette/index.html

What an interesting link, sanrensho! A "Club de la Galette de Rois"!?! The photos are spectacular.

Thanks for sharing, bleu d'auvergne. The gugelhupf is a masterpiece that I want to put in my mouth right now. The photo of the Gateaux Breton is also amazing.

Edited by ludja (log)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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Here's the Dutch pastry mergpijpje (little marrowbone) that filipe's traestamme reminded me of.

These are mass-produced ones from the supermarket, but you can imagine that with good cake, fresh cream, real marzipan and quality chocolate, these can be delightful! Unfortunately you don't often see them at good bakeries, they are thought of as rather old-fashioned.

mergpijp.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

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the above pics were taken this morning and over the weekend, it's at snapshot a pretty good representation of what I am all about. Most of the individuals are being sold at or just above the $4.00 mark (introductory pricing) I have only been with this outfit for two weeks but I had them custom configured and up and running in six days. Rome wasn't built in a day, but in about a week, LOL

Michael

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Oh wow Michael....thanks for sharing. :smile:

You mentioned the singles are $4 as an introductory price..... would you mind sharing whereabouts you're located, and how much you hope to increase the price to eventually? And is this an already established patisserie or a new location without a real customer base yet?

... And I'm also wondering how you're keeping the cut edges of cakes from drying....I can't see if there is acetate wrapped around those or not. Sorry for all the questions.

Again, great work. I just LOVE when we get these kind of pics. :wub:

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Thank You Cheryl and Sugarella,

the oblique is a Pistachio/chocolate Pistachio bavarian, dark chocolate mousse, pistachio Financier embedded with marinated brandied griottes, and wrapped with a pastel joconde banding, we only for the moment will be using acetate on the frasier.

the whole cakes are priced at different ranges, from 19.99 for a Wildberry/Praline to

29.99 for triple chocolate mousse dome with that fancy shmancy "mirror glaze" as recently demo'd here.The flagship store is located at the Reston Towne center II in fairfax, Virgina. So far the response has been favorable, the office workers, even the construction workers, from across the street are stopping in there tracks. I passed up on significantly larger more lucrative U-boats(including the White House and Vegas) to spearhead this, it should pay off, I hope. It's kinda a big secret for Fairfax-no press release yet, I need more help, before this projectile goes Polaris.

As to how much we will raise the price to, good question...I will still like to charge only 3.50 for a very good fresh apple tart, but due to our company, with the Condos going up across the street for a modest cool million I don't think $5.25 for the Signature Elite fun stuff is out of the question.

P.S. Sugarella, you may ask away, please don't feel your asking too many questions.

Michael

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Thank You Cheryl and Sugarella,

the oblique is a Pistachio/chocolate Pistachio bavarian, dark chocolate mousse, pistachio Financier embedded with marinated brandied griottes, and wrapped with a pastel joconde banding, we only for the moment will be using acetate on the frasier.

snip

Michael

You're killing me -- I LOVE financier, and the flavor combo sounds divine. My keyboard will stop working shortly due to being soaked by drool... :raz:

As for prices, I don't they are out of the question at all. Where I worked, we sold stuff for 4.99 and it was NOTHING like what you are showing! Best of luck! If I ever get down to DC/VA area, I'll look you up.

Cheryl, The Sweet Side
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Whenever I find pastries of such a fine quality, being a simple home baker, I'm always wondering, how do you all sell them so cheaply? I haven't a lot of money or anything, but it seems to me that a nice cake, even a small one, should be at least US$30 dollars, and yet, there they are, US$20! How do you do that and still make a living? It's like an amazing cookie that's only one dollar, or a US$3.50 dollar tart, how do you do that?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Anna K recently posted a neat thread about a recent promotion/celebration for EU Day instigated by the reigning Austrian EU presidency-- "Sweet Europe" which features a representative cake or pastry from each EU country.

Here's the link to the thread which also has a cool poster with all the cakes on it:

click

Thanks for linking to this, Anna K.

Leave it to the Austrians (who have the current rotating EU presidency) to come up with a "Sweet Europe" campaign with cakes and pastries as a way to unify the EU!  Funny, but this doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, but maybe that is also because I have Austrian blood in my veins...

As far as I understand it, a cafe in the capitol of each EU member state (or pending member) had a cafe designated as "Cafe D'Europe" and they served each of the designated state pastries from each country.

Does anyone know if this was only for EU day?

Does anyone know if there is any way to obtain a copy of this poster???

I'm dying to have one of these posters and/or the free recipe booklets that they are handing out.

I found this official site: Cafe Europe

Here is a list of the official pastry for each country. 

If anyone can add more description on the pastry or cake, please do!

Austria                  Gugelhupf

Belgium                  Belgium Waffles

Bulgaria                Mliako s Oriz  (a type of rice pudding with cinnamon?)

Cyprus                  Baklava

Czech Republic        Czech Kolach

Denmark    Wienerbrot  (Danish)

Estonia          Kaerahelbeküpsised  (a type of cookie?)

Finland        Laskiaispulla  (some type of cream-filled bun)

France          Madeleines

Germany      Streuselkuchen  (a crumb-topped coffee cake)

Greece        Vasilopita  (????)

Hungary          Dobos Torte

Ireland          scones

Italy                tiramisu

United Kingdom          shortbread

Luxembourg      Apfeltorte  (apple cake)

Malta  Imqaret  (deep-fried date sandwich made from a dough  containing red wine)

Netherlands              Tompoezen  (has Klary made this?)

Poland  Mazurek Kajmakowy

Portugal  Pasteis de nata    (custard filled pastries)

Romania                Cozonac

Sweden  Kanelbulle

Slovakia  Orechovy Zavin  (a type of strudel?)

Slovenia Prekmurska gibanica  (Prekmurje doughpie)

Spain  Tarta de Santiago

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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  • 10 years later...

I don't know if this is the proper topic to put this up, but my wife and I were wandering around in the nice weather tonight and I picked up one of these French little beauties, in NYC...

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Pistachio financier... I know it looks more like a muffin, but it had a really intense pistachio flavor, and the inside was a nice pale green color. Very tasty!

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