The Little Paris Kitchen (27 page)

TO MAKE THE MERINGUES:
Preheat the oven to 175°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put half the egg whites into a clean glass or metal bowl. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and salt and whisk until snow white. Add the rest of the egg whites and continue whisking until the meringue forms stiff peaks.

Spoon four heaped peaks of meringue onto the prepared pan (ideally they should look like mini mountains). Bake for 2 hours or until crisp, opening the oven door a few times to release any steam. Remove them from the paper and leave to cool on a wire rack. (Once cold, the meringues can be kept in an airtight container for a good couple of days.)

TO MAKE THE CHESTNUT CREAM:
Split the vanilla pod in half lengthwise and scrape out the grains. Put the pod and grains into a pot with the rest of the ingredients and bring to a simmer on a medium heat. Simmer for 10 minutes or until the chestnuts are soft and slightly mushy. Remove the vanilla pod and whizz the chestnuts to a soft, creamy purée in a blender. Chill until needed (it will keep for up to a week in an airtight container).

TO ASSEMBLE:
Whip the cream to soft peaks. Place the meringues on individual plates, spoon over the whipped cream, and pour over the chestnut cream (if it has set too thick, whisk in some heavy cream). Serve straightaway.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Resting time: 1 hour
Baking time: 2 hours

A
vacherin
dessert is not to be confused with the gooey, pungent cheese of the same name. Apart from the name and shape, they have little else in common. The dessert is composed of large meringue disks layered with whipped cream and fruit. It looks stunning until you try and cut it, when it turns into meringue-and-cream carnage. I find it easier to make individual portions, and I also think it's fun to pipe the meringues and sandwich them together with rhubarb and cream to resemble hot dogs.

SERVES 4

For the compote:
2–3 stalks of rhubarb • 7 tbsp superfine sugar • 1 sprig of rosemary

For the meringue:
2 egg whites • ½ cup confectioners' sugar • a couple of drops of lemon juice • a pinch of salt

To assemble:
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp heavy cream

TO MAKE THE COMPOTE:
Trim the rhubarb and cut the stalks into eight pieces, each about 4 inches long. Put the sugar and rosemary into a pan over a medium heat and heat until the sugar has melted. Add the rhubarb and reduce the heat to low, then cover and cook gently for 5–10 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender but still holds its shape. Leave to cool, then remove the rosemary. (The rhubarb tastes better if it's cooked at least a day in advance and it can be kept in the fridge for up to a week.)

TO MAKE THE MERINGUE:
Preheat the oven to 175°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put half the egg whites into a clean glass or metal bowl. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and salt and whisk until snow white. Add the rest of the egg whites and continue whisking until the meringue forms stiff peaks.

Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a
⅜
-inch nozzle and pipe eight 4-inch-long strips onto the prepared pan. Bake for 2 hours or until crisp, opening the oven door a few times to release any steam. Remove the meringues from the paper and leave to cool on a wire rack. (Once cold, they can be kept in an airtight container for a good couple of days.)

TO ASSEMBLE:
Whip the cream to stiff peaks and spoon into a piping bag fitted with a ¼-inch nozzle. Lift the rhubarb out of its juice and drain well. Pipe a line of cream on the flat side of two pieces of meringue and sandwich two pieces of rhubarb between them. Repeat to make four hot dogs and serve straightaway.

Preparation time: 30
–
45 minutes Baking time: 2 hours

When I tell French people that I studied and now teach
pâtisserie
, their eyes often light up. One friend was so impressed with these tartlets that he nicknamed me Tartlet. Translated as “little tart,” this may sound rather dubious, but in French it doesn't have the same connotation.

MAKES 4

• 6 tbsp soft butter • 1 tsp sugar • a pinch of salt • 1
⅓
cups all-purpose flour • 2 egg yolks • 2 tbsp ice-cold water

For the almond cream:
2 cups ground almonds • 1 cup sugar • scant 1 cup soft butter • 2 eggs

• 10 oz raspberries
*

Using a wooden spoon, beat together the butter, sugar, and salt until soft and creamy. Mix in the flour followed by the egg yolks and ice-cold water. Bring together to make a smooth ball, adding a little more water if the pastry is too crumbly (only knead as much as necessary to bring the dough together). Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of an hour (best overnight).

TO MAKE THE CREAM:
Beat the almonds, sugar, and butter just until smooth, then beat in the eggs.

Remove the pastry from the fridge 30 minutes before using and preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll out the pastry between two sheets of parchment paper until
⅛
–¼ inch thick. Cut out four rectangles of pastry large enough to line four 4½-by-2½-inch tartlet pans with a ¾-inch overhang.
**
Place the pastry in the pans and prick each base several times with a fork. Spread the almond cream in the pastry shells and arrange the raspberries on top, keeping them close together so that they almost cover the cream. Trim off the pastry overhang.

Bake for 15–20 minutes or until the pastry edges are golden brown. Best eaten warm. Cold is fine too (but not refrigerated).

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Resting time: 1 hour
–
overnight
Baking time: 15
–
20 minutes

In the late-nineteenth century, the Tatin sisters came up with this great recipe at their restaurant in Lamotte-Beuvron in the Sologne. It was all an accident, apparently. They burned their apple tart and decided to remove the burned pastry at the bottom, keep the caramelized apples, and put new pastry on the top. Who said that accidents can't be a good thing in the kitchen?

My version has the pastry baked separately instead of over the apples. This way, the pastry stays crisp rather than going soggy.

The traditional
tarte Tatin
calls for a classic caramel sauce but I like to make a salted caramel sauce, which is typically Breton, and serve with ice cream or a dollop of crème fraîche.

SERVES 6–8

For the salted caramel:
• ½ cup sugar • 4 tbsp soft butter • 1 tsp salt

• 8 oz puff pastry • 14–16 dessert apples • 2 tbsp butter, melted • sugar, for sprinkling

TO MAKE THE SALTED CARAMEL:
Sprinkle a thin layer of the sugar over the bottom of a heavy-based pan and place on a medium heat. Once the sugar starts to melt, add some more of the sugar. Repeat a couple of times until all the sugar has melted. Continue heating the caramel, swirling it around in the pan (do not stir). When the caramel is almost a Coca-Cola color, take the pan off the heat and swirl in the butter (stand back a little as it may splatter) and add the salt. Pour the caramel into the tart pan and swirl it around to cover the bottom and sides.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface until it is
⅜
inch thick and cut out a disk that is about
⅛
inch bigger than a 10-inch round tart pan. Place the pastry on a baking sheet and prick all over with a fork. Bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is puffy and golden.

Peel, core, and halve the apples. Sit them tightly upright in the tart pan, making sure they are really snug (they shrink when they cook). You can cut the last apple into quarters to stuff some of the large holes. Brush the apples with the melted butter and sprinkle some sugar on top. Bake for 30 minutes or until the apples are tender but not mushy. Remove from the oven and leave the apples to cool until they are not too hot to the touch.

Place the pastry on top of the apples, then invert a large dinner plate on top of the pastry. Turn the tart and the plate over so that the apples come out on top of the pastry. Serve straightaway.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Baking time: 1 hour
Resting time: 30 minutes

Cook'n with Class is a little cookery school in Montmartre where I used to teach French
pâtisserie
. The students are a pretty international crowd, from young backpackers and honeymooners to pensioners, but they all have a few classic dessert recipes that they would like to learn. One of the top-ten favorites is
moelleux au chocolat
.

Moelleux
means “soft” or “tender,” which perfectly describes this dessert. Like a volcano, the cake has a center that explodes when you dive in with your spoon. Pair with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or fresh berries.

Special thanks for this recipe to Eric Fraudeau, the owner at Cook'n with Class.

SERVES 6–8

• 2 tbsp soft butter, plus ¾ cup butter, cubed • 6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder • 6 oz dark chocolate, finely chopped • ¾ cup light brown sugar •
⅔
cup all-purpose flour • 6 eggs, beaten

Prepare 6–8 ramekins by brushing them with the soft butter and then dusting with the cocoa powder. Make sure to tap out all the excess cocoa powder.

Melt the chocolate with the cubed butter in a bain-marie (a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water), stirring occasionally. Alternatively, melt them in the microwave on a low setting.

Combine the brown sugar and flour in a bowl. Mix the melted chocolate with the eggs followed by the flour and sugar. Divide the mixture between the ramekins and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour.
*

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the cakes for 15–20 minutes or until the edges are firm and the centers slightly runny. Test by inserting a toothpick in the center—it should come out wet. Leave to rest for 2 minutes before turning the cakes out of the ramekins onto plates. Serve immediately.

*
Pourquoi?
Baking your batter from cold will make it slower for the heat from the oven to penetrate the middle of the cakes, which will make the centers all the more gooey. The ramekins filled with the batter can be covered with plastic wrap (don't let it touch the batter) and kept in the fridge for several days. They can also be well wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen, then baked from frozen (they will need an extra 5–10 minutes in the oven—test to see if they are done as above).