Pastry Delights in Paris (Part 2)

Of course, no "Paris pastry tour" (even if it were simply a quick visit to a few pastry shops) would be complete without a visit to Pierre Hermé, which is famous for its macaroons (or macarons in French).

I know you might think the macaroons there are quite pricey (16 euros for 7 macaroons), but I just had to sample some, out of sheer curiosity... And I was not disappointed. I have to say the flavour combinations for the macaroons were quite extraordinary.


Here are the names of the Pierre Hermé macaroons (and cream fillings) I tasted in Paris (from left to right): Montebello (crème à la pistache, compote de framboise), Arabesque (crème à l'abricot et abricots moelleux, praliné croustillant à la pistache), Rose (crème aux pétales de rose), Mogador (ganache au fruit de la passion et chocolat au lait), Éden (crème à la pêche et au safran, morceaux d'abricots moelleux), Chocolat (ganache au chocolat pure origine Venezuela Porcelana), and Cassis (crème au cassis, baies de cassis). That's some of the information that was included in the little red booklet I found inside the box (I considered the booklet a nice touch).

I am sure you can work out the flavours, even if you didn't know much French. (Note: Pistache = Pistachio, Abricot = Apricot, Framboise = Raspberry, Pêche = Peach, Cassis = Blackcurrant)

In case you are wondering: Yes, I like fruit-flavored things, and I love fruits. Mmmm ...


And this is where I got the macaroons from: Pierre Hermé, 4 rue Cambon (which is not far from the Louvre and the Musée de l'Orangerie).



This is the window display at Lenôtre (44 rue d'Auteuil), not far from Musée Marmottan Monet (which houses many of Claude Monet's paintings). If you look at the photo, you can see there's a fruit tart and a lemon tart in the foreground -- things we had learned to make at LCB Ottawa, but the presentation of the tarts here is very professional and very attractive.



I remember the chefs were telling us that the Feuille d'Automne (one of our Superior Pastry cakes) was invented by Lenôtre, so I made it a point to look out for this cake in the Lenôtre shop window. There it is to the left -- the cake covered with chocolate decorations.

This cake is not terribly hard to make (even though it is introduced in Superior Pastry), but it is not easy to make it look beautiful. That's one of the lessons I learned at LCB Ottawa: If some French pastry or cake looks exquisite, it is because the pastry chef who made it is very experienced and well-trained; NOT because the recipe is easy. There really is no "easy" recipe in French pastry, unless you've had years of experience or lots of practice making it. Trust me on that. :)



These are the mini-cakes sold at Fauchon (Place de la Madeleine). You can just tell the pastry chefs who prepared these cakes have had lots of experience, because everything appeared perfectly uniform and neat, even though they were handmade individually.


All in all, visiting Paris and some of its more well-known pastry shops has broadened my horizons quite a bit... I am glad I decided to check out the City of Lights on my way home to Australia.

Pastry Delights in Paris (Part 1)

I would like to show you a few photos of the lovely cakes and pastries I saw in Paris.

Before I left Ottawa, I had asked Chef H for the names of a few good pastry shops in Paris. Then I set about visiting these shops while I was in Paris. It was not too difficult to visit one shop a day, because most of these shops were close to famous sights in Paris - I even stumbled across a couple of them on my way to various sights. (I stayed in a hotel a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower, and found it quite convenient to get around Paris by metro and on foot.)

What I saw made me so excited about making cakes and pastries because I never imagined cakes and pastries could be so beautiful. I loved the way the cakes and pastries were arranged and displayed in the shop windows too.

I wish I had seen these cakes and pastries before I went to LCB Ottawa to study pastry.


Individual portions of desserts in Ladurée (75 avenue Champs-Elysées). As you can see, the religieuses (nuns) were beautifully-made. I thought they look nice, even with the pink or purple fondant glaze. The ones I made at School (during Basic and Intermediate Pastry) look nothing like this because it takes great skills (and tons of practice) to be able to make them look pretty. I'm still a long way from being this good.



The petits fours frais sold in Ladurée looked so tempting. Don't you just love the combination of colours and the wonderful texture in this display? This is what I mean when I say I love the way they arrange the pastries in their display.



This is, of course, what many customers go to Ladurée for: the macaroons. See how even the shapes and sizes are? Great piping skills!

I bought six macaroons (six different flavours), and found them to be nice enough. The texture was rather similar to what we had learned to make at School -- I guess that's what macaroons should taste like.



Cakes displayed in the Fauchon (located in Place de la Madeleine) shop window. I reckon LCB Ottawa has taught us all the techniques required to make cakes like that, but, until I saw these cakes, I just didn't imagine cakes could look this gorgeous. I was most inspired by the designs.



These were cakes I saw in the Dalloyau (101 rue Faubourg-St Honoré) shop window. I was mesmerized... This was a real feast for the eyes. All I could say to myself was: Wow, the pastry chefs here are soooo artistic!!!

An Interesting Version of the Eiffel Tower (Photos)

Today, while I was volunteering in Production Kitchen, I watched Chef A make an edible (and, might I add, healthy) version of the Eiffel Tower for tonight's function at LCB Ottawa (Apéritif à la française). I took the opportunity to snap a few photos.






I reckon even if you're a meatlover, you would find the vegetables on this platter most appealing. :)

SP Special Lesson: Lard Sculpture (photo gallery)

Chef A taught us how to make lard sculpture the other day. It was the last demo class we had for Superior Pastry, and it was a fitting way to end the course.

In lard sculpting, we use styrofoam to form the basic shapes, and using skewers and toothpicks, we connect/join all the shapes together, then we cover the styrofoam with a thin layer of lard, which is not at all easy to work with, but it is an interesting experience to work with it for the first time. After that, we used various tools (e.g. cake modeling tools) to create texture on the thin layer of lard.

I am very glad LCB Ottawa included fruit carving and lard sculpture in our Superior Pastry course, because I think exposure to these skills and art forms really helps to stimulate our imagination and creativity.


Chef A's lard sculpture, which he made in order to show us basic skills in lard sculpting


Here's what my classmates and I created in under 3 hours in our practical classes (with some help from Chef A, of course)... from cartoon characters (Mike from Monsters Inc.) to animals (Penguin, Crocodile, Polar Bear) to objects (Chef's Hat, Handbag and Stilleto):
























This is my lard sculpture: A fan and an embroidery hoop. Why these two particular objects? Personal reasons, which I will not elaborate here. (No, I don't do needlework. If you gave me a choice between peeling 200 carrots and doing needlework, I'd choose the 200 carrots any day.)

Notice there is a Star Trek logo on my sculpture. It's not just because I like Star Trek; it is also because I wanted to juxtapose an actual past (people -- particularly women -- in the past used/made silk fans and did embroidery) with an imagined future (Star Trek's imaginary universe, hundreds of years from now). Or, you might even say, arts & crafts versus science fiction...(Yes, I like to think about philosophical questions, even when I am taking a pastry course.)

Anyway, it was a fun workshop. Most of us felt really relaxed by the end of the class, and that was good, because we were starting to stress out about our practical exam coming up next week.

SP Lesson 9: Wedding Cake Demo

In Superior Pastry Lesson 9, we saw Chef N demonstrate how to make a wedding cake, but we did not have to make a wedding cake in our practical, because we used that time for our sugar showpiece exam, which I've mentioned in an earlier post.

Chef N showed us the techniques for covering a wedding cake and some of the tools we could use for doing that. He also showed us examples of what we could use to decorate the cake. Here's the one he made:

The two hearts on top of the wedding cake are made with blown sugar.


It is certainly an unusual-looking cake... I'm glad Chef chose to show us something different from the usual form of wedding cake.

More Sugar Showpieces (Photos)

Here's what my classmates made for their practice sugar showpieces. Lovely, aren't they? And remember, this is just the practice session. Imagine how much nicer they would look for the exam session next week.