Réussir la pâte feuilletée, pas à pas - Mastering puff pastry, step by step

If you know how to use a rolling pin, then you know how to make pâte feuilletée. This could be the tagline of this pâte feuilletée 101 post.

For those of you who don’t know it yet, pâte feuilletée [literally, layered dough] – pat fe-yeah-teh – is the French for puff pastry, a fine and versatile pastry used in many pâtisseries and baked good: from mille-feuilles to flans. It consists in a basic dough, the détrempe – deh-tramp – spread with a good share of beurre manié – bear man-yeah –, then successively folded and rolled out […]

Réussir la focaccia, pas à pas - Mastering focaccia, step by step

By now, you guys should be aware that to me, Dan Lepard is to bread-making what Pierre Hermé is to pastry. My icon and absolute role model.
I never really used to make bread, except for the occasional pizza dough; but since I’ve discovered Dan’s take on bread making I’ve literally been unstoppable. Fresh yeast has […]

Mon pain quotidien - Simple white bread

[My daily bread - Simple white bread]

Call me arrogant, but I’ve never considered myself lucky to live in France. To my eyes, nothing could beat the UK. I called London home and Harvey Nicks was my temple.
However, as years passed by, I started to realise that I am in fact blessed to live in such […]

Réussir la pâte sucrée, pas à pas - Mastering pâte sucrée, step by step

I’m not sure I should tell you this, but there are many things I take for granted; at least in the pastry realm.
Indeed, I tend to think that every single person on earth knows how to make a Forêt Noire from scratch or that Ispahans are referred to as easy-peasy. It seems I’m that much […]

Eclairs et choux à la vanille

[Vanilla eclairs and choux buns]

I hate to fail with something - especially when it comes to the cooking realm.
I remember my vain attempt at making a pièce montée for my sister’s birthday. I had to face the truth - I utterly failed. I tried again and again (making pate a choux at least twice in […]