Read Paris Pastry Club: A collection of cakes, tarts, pastries and other indulgent recipes Online
Authors: Fanny Zanotti
Tags: #ebook
Paris Pastry Club: A collection of cakes, tarts, pastries and other indulgent recipes (6 page)
If there ever was to be a tale about this cake it would involve a countryside cottage where you’d be locked inside, escaping a storm. Winds would blow, trees would block roads, candles would bring the only light. Of course there’d be a wood-fired oven. And cake would be made. A simple loaf cake. Light and deeply perfumed with lemons. And with a generous amount of crème fraiche to keep it moist for days.
In France, we simply call loaf cakes cakes, pronounced ‘kek’. But whenever cream is added to the batter it becomes a ‘weekend cake’, with the underlying meaning being that it’ll last over the weekend, making it the perfect getaway food. Sometimes I’ve even found it labelled in shops as ‘
cake de voyages
’. Who knew a loaf cake could be so poetic?
If you don’t have any crème fraiche you can use double cream instead. But, of course (and this is said with a heavy French accent), I can only advise you to have a constant stock of the stuff in your fridge. I love to serve this cake with a clémentine confit and a thick dollop of crème fraiche. If you can’t find clémentines, small mandarines, tangerines or even seedless oranges will do.
Makes 1 large loaf cake
FOR THE CAKE
1 tablespoon Early Grey tea leaves
250 g (9 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
4 eggs
200 g (7 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour
zest from 1 bergamot orange (optional)
1 teaspoon baking powder (baking soda)
150 g (5 oz) crème fraiche
50 g (1¾ oz) butter, melted
softened butter, extra for piping
FOR THE CONFIT
350 g (12 oz) clémentines, around 3–4 fruit
200 g (7 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
½ vanilla pod, with its seeds
150 g (5 oz) water
20 g (¾ oz) cornflour (cornstarch),
diluted in 40 g (1½ oz) cold water
TO SERVE
extra crème fraiche
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Butter and flour a 1 litre (34 fl oz) loaf tin.
Finely blend the loose Earl Grey tea leaves with around 50 g (2 oz) of the caster sugar until powdery. Place in a bowl along with the eggs and the remaining caster sugar and whisk for around 4 minutes, until light in colour. Mix the flour, bergamot zest (if using) and baking powder in another bowl.
Fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, then pour a little of this into the crème fraiche and melted butter in a separate bowl and mix well. Transfer back to the main batter mix and fold in gently using a spatula. Pour into the prepared tin.
Put the extra softened butter into a piping bag and cut a very small hole, around 4 mm (¼ in) wide, then pipe a line of the butter across the cake. Bake for 5 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 170°C (340°F)
for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature again to 160°C (320°F) and bake for a further 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack for 10–20 minutes, then turn out and set aside. If you’re not planning to eat it right away, wrap tightly in clingfilm and store in the fridge for up to 4 days.
While the cake is cooling make the clémentine confit. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Plunge in the clémentines and simmer for 3 minutes. Remove the fruit with a slotted spoon and pop them into a bowl of ice-cold water. Repeat, using fresh water, then chill the clémentines until they are cold enough to handle.
Slice very finely and add to a saucepan with the sugar, vanilla pod and seeds and water. Simmer for 30 minutes or until reduced and almost candied. Then vigourously fold in the cornflour mixture. Allow to boil for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a bowl. Chill until needed.
Serve slices of the cake topped with a spoonful of clémentine confit and a dollop of crème fraiche.
I like to make these poached pears in the morning with plenty of time to cook them into tender bites and, perhaps, read a book with a side of wool blanket and some sort of caffeinated drink.
It seems to me that cooled-down poached pears and ever-so-slightly-too-hot
Sticky Toffee Pudding
are kindred spirits. Of the opposite kind. Just like that boy you had a crush on in high school. But to be fair, they also make a decent dessert or
goûter
(snack), when still warm in their juices and placed whole on a plate, with a good measure of vanilla ice-cream. (Because, let’s face it, everything sort of tastes better à la mode.)
Serves 4
350 g (12 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
60 g (2 oz) butter, cubed
350 g (12 oz) pear cider
500 g (17½ oz) water
2 cinnamon sticks
zest of 1 orange
1 vanilla pod, with its seeds
4 small pears, peeled
Put the sugar in a large pan set over medium heat and stir continuously until it starts to melt. The sugar might clump together – don’t worry, just keep stirring. I find a whisk does a marvellous job on caramels as the sugar will eventually melt when it reaches the right temperature. As you keep stirring, the sugar will slowly turn into liquid gold. Who said making caramel was hard?
When it reaches a deep amber tint, remove from the heat and carefully add the butter, a couple of cubes at a time, stirring with the whisk after each addition.
Add the pear cider and water – it will splash and spit so make sure you back away for a few seconds before slowly stirring as it bubbles away. Place back over a medium heat and bring to the boil to dissolve any bits of caramel that might have seized.
Add the cinnamon sticks, orange zest, vanilla pod and seeds and the pears. Cover with a cartouche – a piece of baking paper cut to the diameter of your pan, with a small hole in the centre to let the steam escape (see
image
).
Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes or until you can insert a knife into the pears without any resistance.
The pears will keep for a week chilled in their poaching liquid. To reheat, simply put them back in a pan over a low heat until the butter melts and the liquid starts to bubble around the edges.
ULTIMATE MILK
CHOCOLATE
CHIP COOKIES
I think that eating the perfect chocolate chip cookie, still warm from the oven, feels like kissing (of the French kind). With no other reason than kissing being one of my favourite pastimes, I like to have ready-to-bake cookie dough stashed away in my freezer.
This recipe will make 4 logs of dough, each yielding 8–10 cookies.
I usually make a batch and keep one log in the fridge overnight to firm up and bake the next day, while the remaining logs go straight to the freezer for fun at a later date.
Makes 36 – 40 cookies
180 g (6⅓ oz) butter, soft
260 g (9¼ oz) light brown sugar
80 g (3 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
seeds from 1 vanilla pod
2 eggs
200 g (7 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour
200 g (7 oz) strong flour
1 teaspoon baking powder (baking powder)
1 heaped teaspoon sea salt
150 g (5 oz) milk chocolate,
chopped into small chunks
a little extra sea salt, for sprinkling
If you are using a stand-mixer, fit the paddle attachment and cream the butter and sugars. Add the vanilla seeds and the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternatively mix by hand with a wooden spoon.
Mix in the flours, baking powder and salt until just combined. Add the chocolate chunks and knead briefly in the bowl with your hand until there are no more floury patches.
Divide the dough into 4 and turn out a portion onto the centre of a large sheet of baking parchment. Fold the paper in half (like a closed book), then using the flat side a plastic scraper and holding both ends of the baking paper, push the dough into a tight log. You should have enough dough to make 4 x 5 cm (2 in) wide logs. Wrap each log in clingfilm and chill overnight or freeze for up to 3 months.
When you crave some cookies, simply take out one log from the freezer and leave at room temperature to thaw for around 10 minutes, or in the fridge for a few days. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and simply cut the log into 1.5 cm (½ in) thick slices, arrange on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and sprinkle with a little extra sea salt.
Bake for 10–12 minutes, depending on how well-done you like your cookies. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before lifting the cookies onto a plate using a palette knife.
