Remember to DANCE & a recipe!

The best message I got on my birthday was an e-mail from Mike with a link to a you tube video. He said "its your birthday babe, remember to dance..."

Couldn't have said it better myself. I love this song and adore this video. Perfect way to wake up on my first day of 25!

Here is the recipe for the peach and hazelnut cream tart! Enjoy!!

Pate Sucre

250g flour
100g butter (room temperature)
100g icing sugar
1 egg
20g water

sift the flour.
cream the butter and icing sugar together.
add the egg. mix until smooth and homogeneous.
add the sifted flour.
if using a mixer, beat until the dough comes together.
if using your hands, use your hands or a scrapper to "frasage" the dough. basically, take a handful of dough and press it into the table while sliding your hand or scrapper so the dough smears. once all the dough has been frasaged, gather it. wrap in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Creme noisette

250g butter (softened)
250g sugar
250g hazelnut powder
200g eggs
50g flour
5g vanilla extract
50g cooled pastry cream
cream the sugar and butter together.
add the hazelnut powder and cream together.
add the eggs, one by one.
beat the mixture to "blanch" it. (make it white/lighter in color)
add sifted flour, mix.
add rum and vanilla. mix to combine. 
fold in pastry cream.cover and fridge.

2 white peaches, sliced.

roll out your pate sucree, poke the dough to make holes for steam while it bakes. line your tart ring or pan with the dough (decorate the edges if you want!) and bake until lightly golden (you are baking it again so you want it to be under baked at this point so it doesn't burn later). 

Let the shell cool for a few minutes (use this time to cut your peaches?) and then pipe or spread a layer of cream in the bottom of the shell. The cream will puff/rise a little in the oven so leave space for that. Place your peaches on top and bake again for about 20 minutes or until you see the cream browning around the edges. Let cool and bon appetit!

La Pêche

This summer season I rediscovered my love for peaches. White peaches in particular. They are so much more sophisticated than those canned and cubed yellow peaches I used to eat as a kid in my lunch box. Not that I didn't love those too.

I wish I had started eating them earlier in the season so I could have enjoyed even more but of course my stubborn mind thought I didn't really like them and didn't want to give them another try. Stupid. I love them! They are so beautiful too so I just had to make something with them.

The fruit deserves to be the star of the show so I went with a simple baked peach tart and nestled the juicy slices of peach into hazelnut cream. Wow, was it good. I wish I had some whole roasted hazelnuts to scatter on top for some extra flavor and crunch but I guess I'll have to wait until next time.

What is your favorite summer fruit or dessert?? Now its the time for apples, pears and figs!

home baking with summer strawberries

In my fabulous new apartment I am happy to report that I now have a real, live, functioning oven! It is such a luxury here in the city. I am really excited to start using it once I am settled. In my last apartment I had this old microwave-oven that I had written off as a useless piece from the beginning. One night when I was waiting for my brother and his friends to get to my apartment I decided to give it a go and try to make a simple strawberry tart.

Lo and behold, the appliance wasn't useless after-all. When they arrived we had some wine, bread, meat and cheese and topped it off with this little dessert. It was a really nice evening with family and friends.

Here is the recipe if you want to give it a try. You don't have to use strawberries either. Just pick your favorite fruit!

Pate Sucre

250g flour
100g butter (room temperature)
100g icing sugar
1 egg
20g water

sift the flour.
cream the butter and icing sugar together.
add the egg. mix until smooth and homogeneous.
add the sifted flour.
if using a mixer, beat until the dough comes together.
if using your hands, use your hands or a scrapper to "frasage" the dough. basically, take a handful of dough and press it into the table while sliding your hand or scrapper so the dough smears. once all the dough has been frasaged, gather it. wrap in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Creme d'amande

250g butter (softened)
250g sugar
250g almond powder
200g eggs
50g flour
40g rum (optional)
5g vanilla extract

cream the sugar and butter together.
add the almond powder and cream together.
add the eggs, one by one.
beat the mixture to "blanch" it. (make it white in color)
add sifted flour, mix.
add rum and vanilla. mix to combine.
cover and fridge.

roll out your pate sucree, poke the dough to make holes for steam while it bakes. line your tart ring or pan with the dough and bake until golden. let the shell cool. pipe the creme d'amande into the bottom of the shell and top with strawberries. you can put the strawberries in whole or cut them in half and lay them in a spiral design. top with a sprinkle of icing sugar. store in fridge.

bon appetit!

Update: Internship

I've now completed my third week at work, time is flying already! After my first week I posted this little doozy of a post. I was feeling really overwhelmed, frustrated, alone and just straight exhausted. The exhausted part hasn't change that much but everything else has gotten so much better. It was as if one day I walked in and it just all made sense. I fell into the flow of the kitchen and finally organized all the little bis of information in my mind and I have been enjoying it ever since. I guess I just had to pass through the learning curve.

The hours are pretty tough because like I told you, I am not the best morning person. If you ask Mike or my parents they would probably just roll their eyes at my ridiculous need for sleep. So when my alarm goes off at 5 or 6 am all I want to do is throw my phone against the wall and stay all snuggled up in my bed. By the way, you know what is better than coffee? Riding a bike 20 minutes to work in the dark and sometimes sketchy streets of Paris. Now THAT will wake you up.

And I know what your thinking. This girl can ride a bike?! Yes, its true. I have become a master. Surprising, I know!

So the verdict is that this internship will be great. I am so thankful that I don't want to pull my hair out or cry everyday like I did at the beginning. Things are looking up! It is also pretty cool to go into the store front and see something that I made sitting in the counter with a 23 euro price tag on it.

Here are some of the things that come out of our kitchen each day...

Pastry School: Entremet

We were lucky to have another week of making entremets which is everyone's favorite! We made Fraisier (strawberries and cream), Sweet Cherie (cherry), and the San Marco (chocolate and pistachio). They were all really nice. Mandy and her mom were here this week so they were subject to me force feeding them. I pretty much brought them a cake per day!

Scary thing, starting tomorrow I will have to be making these cakes in a real Parisian patisserie. I start my internship tomorrow morning! I can't believe it is already here. I'm not going to lie...I am pretty nervous! Wish me luck!!

playing catch up!

It has been a busy two months. Mike came to visit and a week later my best friend came to visit and now I am prepping for my entire family's arrival in one week! It has been and is amazing. I love seeing everyone and am so happy they have come/are coming. Only problem is, it doesn't leave too much time for keeping up on my blog!

I was just going through my photos thinking.."what should I write about now?" and realized...holy motherload I have a lot to cover!

So I am going to play a game called "lets get you up to speed" and am going to throw together the past few weeks of school...well, bits and pieces.

I am in my final three weeks of classes. Can you believe it? I can't! This coming week we work with ice cream (YUMMM) and then plated desserts and then... c'est fini! It's gone quickly but I am going to enjoy these last few weeks with my classmates and my insane chef as much as I can.

 pate de fruit

 nougat

 mint marshmallows

 painting on pastillage

making praliné ...so good

 the mighty kouglof

 petit brioche

 focaccia

 Pain aux lait

 baba aux rum passion fruit and cassis

croissants

 bostock

almond croissants

All caught up? Phew, thank goodness! :)

Entremets: Mogador

We already know that raspberries were put on this earth to be combined and eaten with chocolate. I mean, thats pretty obvious right?

We had our first week of entremet which is basically a mousse cake. This has been my favorite week so far. The possibilities really are endless! You can put any flavor into an entremet and change up the textures, design, flavors...anything!

Before I get too carried away here...we are just learning the basics and techniques here in school. Some are better than others and my favorite was the Mogador. It is a chocolate genoise cake mixed up with some raspberry jam and syrup and chocolate mousse. It was heavenly.

Chocolate Genoise cake soaked in raspberry syrup 

The topped with raspberry jam

Filled with chocolate mousse and topped with more raspberry jam

Week 4: Puff Pastry

This week we entered the world of puff pastry. I have always loved this dough, not only because it is tasty and full of butter (more than you want to know about) but because it is so versatile and can take on a lot of different flavors. It is great with sugar, fruits, cheese, chocolate, cream...anything!

This dough takes brute strength though. You have to roll it out, fold it up, roll it out, fold it up..again and again. That is what creates all those flakey delicious little layers. It is a great way to get out some aggression. If your dough has been refrigerating it can get very firm. So, naturally you just take your rolling pin and beat the shit out of your dough. It is a crack up watching everybody just bringing rolling pin down on the dough. Great therapy! You should try it!

We made these the last week that my mom was here in Paris. She really loved the Chaussons aux Pommes. So much so that she packed them on the plane back to the states with her! Right now, she is either missing all the treats I bring home or she is thankful to be away from the potential 50 pounds I might be gaining here...

Chaussons aux pommes (filled with apple sauce), Brown Sugar & Apple in Chocolate puff, Chaussons Italienne (filled with pastry cream with rum raisins)

Dartois (puff pastry filled with almond cream), Bande Pommes (puff pastry topped with pastry cream and fruits)