Drawing your cake thumbnails

 

           At last we’re drawing CAKE🤸‍♂️ in Thumbnail class👍👏 🍾 

Finally something I can sink my teeth 🦷 into 😂

Eclair Mystique et Fauchon Noel Éclat

Since I came up for air I've been immersing myself in the land of chou.

Here's a map of what I tasted yesterday and today.

While painting Jill's éclair I was struck by lightening. I asked Jill about the stunning ridges on the sides of some eclairs. They look so labor intensive. Nothing of the sort. It depends on the shape of the nozzle on your pastry bag.
C'est tout.

Oh.

 Eclairs are made of the very basic pâte de chou pastry, same as the lowly, quelle ordinaire cream puff. In fact Jill says they're brother and sister, cut of the same cloth, just different shapes. One round and empty. The other long and empty. Both filled with flavored (or not/nature) creme patissiere. Yet the eclair is far more upper crust than the petite chou..well depending on their surroundings. A round chou, caramelized and set into a towering piece monté was the queen of French wedding cakes till the macaron showed and pushed it aside. Chou has been making a stylish come-back the last few years. Even pastry king Christophe Michalak now has a choux shop.

Time to visit Fauchon, maitres of the eclair and deep in the throes of holiday festive desserts.

Firstly my eye landed on the perfect marriage of chou pastry, cream puff and éclair in the savory department!

In desserts eclairs have been king for a long time at Fauchon.

Just think of this as an elongated chou/puff decked inside and out in luxuriou deep chocolate.

I fell hard for their holiday  religieuse de vanille de Tahiti. (8€)

What is it? 

Two chou/puffs pasted together. That's all, with fancy clothes on, outside and in, white chocolate and so forth.

Fauchon's latest for the kids is an all-black Batman eclair. Shhhh Colored chou pastry.

Still quite a stunner.

For a witty twist on the traditional eclair Fauchon has special for the holidays mini eclair-like marzipan. Adorable no?

All this research is so exhausting. Time for an afternoon gouté(snack) of fromage blanc topped with red fruits preserves.

Fortified, I moved on to Maison Lafayette to look for more choux pastry samples. (3,50€) A chou a la crème from Sadaharu Aoki.

Why not a salad eclair? Not yet. The l'Eclair de Genie stand of Christophe Adams formerly of Fauchon and creator of the Mona Lisa éclair.

I got the vanille-cerise combo to try. (5€)

Back on Ils St.-Louis good old (empty) little puffs covered in rock sugar, chouquettes - a mere 2,50€ for 100 grams. That's a lot of choux.

Not to be missed - the new chou in town on St.-Louis, La Maison du Chou

5, rue Jean de Bellay 4e

Baked inhouse and filled before your eyes with pastry crème.
woo woo

Bottoms up.

Top down.
It doesn't get fresher that this, my absolute favorite of all the chou tasted. They have another shop in the 6th at 7, rue de Furstenberg. You can sit down and have a caffe crème should you need a little more crème in your life.

Well I hope I've dispelled some of the mystique of the eternal éclair, my mission. Clearly the little chou puff and the high falutin' éclair are joined at the hip. And mine especially after this research project. The wonderment of Parisian pastry can never be brought to far down to earth. Let's face it, we're all 5-year olds like this kiddie trying desperately to pass through glass.
What's not to love?

Choux d'Enfer

Last night an outdoor degustation/tasting of cream puffs/choux

 

The new kiosque, Choux d'Enfer, a collaborative effort by top chefs Alain Ducasse and Christophe Michalak.

 

The kiosque is at quai Branly and rue de la Jean Rey. A different kind of food truck offering snacks to take to the nearby Eiffel Tower + Champagne. Pastry chef Michalak with food designer Coco Jobard. He's won every pastry prize out there including chef of the year at Relais Dessert still you couldn't meet a nicer guy.

 

He comes up to us (I'm with French Girl) and introduces himself,

"Hi, I'm Christophe Michalak".

He's the George Clooney of Paris Pastry.

 

The puffs are baked on the spot at this kiosk.

 

And filled on the spot too with fresh sweet flavors; vanille, café, chocolat, citron, and caramel.

 

The savory flavors; poivre noir, curry et piment d'Espelett, cumin and piment d'Espelette are flavored gougeres.

 

Crunchy on the outside and creamy inside. Not too sweet and trés leger/very delicate so it's easy to eat many more than one puff.

 

There's caramel dipping sauce of course.

 

Coco dips a vanilla puff.

 

The vanille is delicious.

 

A little background history on pate a choux pastry. Catherine de Medici's Italian pastry chef Pananelli invented the dough in 1540. Called choux because the little puffs were cabbage-shaped. Later Antoine Caréme made changes to the recipe. You're eating pate a choux whenever you bite into an eclair, Paris-Brest, croquembouche, beignets, St. honoré, cheesy gougères or profiterolls to name a few. This pastry can be tricky to make, yet you don't need fancy equipment. It must be airy and light, the inside hollow, perfect to fill with pastry cream or ganache. And perfect to stack up into a tall towering piece montée.

The design of the kiosque is by Patrick Jouin

 

It reminded me of Corbusier's sculpted building.

 

In fact the swooping organic shapes come from Art Nouveau architect Hector Guimard.

 

Jouin's designs are everywhere in Paris - from publicity signs to Velib stands. "He's contributed over 46,000 designs to the urban landscape" says Valerie Guillaume, Pompidou curator.

 

Restaurant designs for Alain Ducasse to boot.

 

The wind was blowing fiercely as we left the Choux d'Enfer kiosque.

 

Clutching my gift bag of choux, I thought I might lose them crossing the rainy,windy pont/bridge on the way home.

They are gone now. I polished them off after painting them.

Do stop by on quai Branly and rue de la Jean Rey when you visit the Eiffel Tower. For no other reason than a perfect snack/gouter of deliciousness. 

CHOUX d'ENFER is open 7/7 9 am - 8:30 pm

 

The New Choux!

Another French pastry lecon today deconstructing the basic creme puff or French choux. Sharpen your pencils svp. Everyone knows the traditional French croquembouche wedding cake - a tower of choux pastry filled with chantilly whipped creme, then dribbled with molten caramel. Here a mini version minus wedding, obligatory hat and gloves. Indulge yourself! What is the religieuse but a double-decker stack of choux?

La Maison du Chocolat helps you out with a nice pastry cross section view of the innerds. Not so helpful since you can only buy these on Fridays/ Saturdays in October in Paris. I missed out.
 

I loved this informative drawing on the walls of new patisserie Sebastien Degardin.

If you buy a how-to eclair book you can also make choux - same pastry.

Different shape.

Sadaharu Aoki deconstructs the creme puff by slicing in half and exposing a naughty chou a la creme.

Another new patisserie, Cyril Lignac gives the religieuse a modern twist.

Angelina makes the religieuse's pate a chou crustillant, a newish pastry look = crusty, crunchy texture.

Angelina has a book out showing the revisited Saint-Honore - more choux innovation.

At hotel Mandarin Oriental pastry counter a Saint-Honore of creme puffs de-stacked (8 euros).

Their trio de choux(8 euros) - some say the choux is the new macaron. What do you think?

Some choux you don't want to bite into! Candles.
Choux/religieuse do NOT travel well. Avoid the Metro and order a limo for gawds sake.

BONJOUR THE NEW CHOUX!