It’s quite crazy how those past five days went by. I arrived home. Unpacked my (thousands of) bags. Baked a little. Filled in paperwork. Visited Pascal Lac to say hello and make sure he still wanted me to work for him.

Answered an interview. Put some green tea recipe together for an online magazine. And then, October showed up. So did deadlines.

Can you believe I forgot about the daring bakers‘ challenge. Yes, forgot! And I do really feel sorry for that. However, I did not forgot about you guys who sent me terrific pictures and recipes for delicious and creative cupcakes. You made my day, week and even month!

So here comes the first part of it. Thirty six lovely cupcakes. Just what I need to cheer me up. I’m starting my internship tomorrow and I am downright scared.

ps. thanks to all of you who so kindly offered to send me s’mores kits. You truly rock and I’m so happy to count you as my friends. However, Allison of the best blog ever for sushi addicts like me: Sushi Day. So thank you all, and now… onto the cupcakes. Enjoy!

Denise of Chicky Egg made those terrific cupcakes, fluffly as little clouds

Nic of Cherrapeno made Banoffee cupcakes. Now, may I suggest we focus for a sec.

Ash of Butterflyfood made beautiful lemon cupcakes with strawberry frosting.

Deedee of Bricole at home finds the perfect remedy to procrastination: cupcakes!

Michael of Herbivoracious made inspiring beet and goat cheese cupcakes.

Natashya of Living in the kitchen with puppies made corn cob-like cupcakes.

Vera of Baking obsession made self-icing ricotta and plum cupcakes.

Tori of Mama baker made the cutest capital city cupcakes, aka: nanaimo bars turned into cakes.

Monica of the Sour plum made delicate rosemary chiffon cupcakes.

Vaishali of Holy cow! made vegan baking easy by putting lemony vegan cupcakes together.

Joyce of Te@mo made simple yet delicious oreo cupcakes with a twist: honey and green tea!

Mae of Rice and noodles made drop-dead gorgeous pandan cupcakes with nutella frosting.

Illyana of NYAM made fluffy chocolate pavlova cupcakes topped with fresh fruits.

Cathy of La prochaine fois made crunchy peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes: puppy chow.

Elsa of Buzz et companie made adorable pink and blue hello kitty cupcakes.

Sylvie of Amuses-bouche made crispy crackles chocolate cupcakes; love them, eat them.

Vanille of Down under made sophisticated pistachio and chocolate cupcakes.

Enza of Da grande made luscious ricotta-frosted chocolate cupcakes encased in crisp pastry.

George of Culinary travels of a domestic goddess made brownie cupcakes with Baci hearts.

Hannah of Bittersweet made stylish adzuki bean-mousse filled cupcakes.

Laurel of Corpus bon vivant made organic chocolate and marshmallow cream cupcakes.

Rita of Clumbsy cookie made genius yoghurt cupcakes served in yoghurt pots!

Rachel of Coconut & lime made chocolate and vanilla tiger cupcakes.

Candice of Mmm tasty! made chai latte cupcakes. Trust me, I’m bookmarking the recipe.

Holly of Phemomemon peanut butter banana chocolate chip cupcakes with ovaltine frosting.

Arika of Yummy life made beautiful cherry and chocolate black bottom cupcakes.

Stef of the wonderfully cupcakey blog Cupcake project made toasted ravioli cupcakes.

Brilynn of Jumbo empanadas made delicate and deliciousvanilla cupcakes. Me lovey.

Shari of Whisk made stunning cupcakes baked in clementine shells.

Annalisa of the cutest Pera cotta made to-die-for pear, cinnamon and chote chocolate cupcakes.

Aimée of Under the high chair made pink buttermilk velvet cake cupcakes.

Elga of Semi di papavero made pomegranate cupcakes con panna. Perfect for autumn!

Jasmine of Jasmine cuisine made comforting apple and spice cupcakes.

Lorraine of Not quite nigella made gorgeous Ispahan cupcakes. Not quite Nigella, quite Pierre!

Laura of Earth muffin bakes made breakfast gingerbread cupcakes with apple and raisin.

Kelly of Sass & veracity made walnut and apple cupcakes, with apple chips. So delicious!

Part deux, coming very very soon(ish). I promise!

Shortly after I received an email from Anna - the girl who used to bake all the viennoiseries, tart crusts and cannelés, and turned out to be a lovely friend -, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic about the overwhelming ten weeks I spent at Pierre Hermé Paris.
This is the place I want to be right now. The place I miss the most I the entire world (hopefully, I might be able to go back; cross your fingers for me).

I’m afraid you won’t hear more for today. Just my endless love for pâtisserie, and more specifically Pierre Hermé’s. It’s funny how, more than two months after it finished, I still have some automated reactions:
- I tend to use vous a lot, even when talking to people my age
- I shout chaud! when walking behind someone
- I hate it when my flatmates put knives in the sink. “Didn’t you learn that any sharp tool should be washed immediately to avoid unnecessary cuts?”
The list could just go on and on, but well, I need some sleep. And just to tease you: what baked good exactly weighs 180g before going into the oven? Hmmmm hint hint. The next Pierre Hermé write-up totally will be about that.

[Just like Pierre Hermé's - Black olive shortbreads]

Remember the day when I said I would write about my internship at Pierre Hermé’s pâtisserie on a weekly basis? Well, I seem to have forgotten that last part: weekly basis…
I have to admit I’ve been doing really bad. Out of ten terrific weeks, I managed to write two articles. Just two.

I had high hopes though. I intented to tell you about how I got to taste the bûches de Noël and new macarons months before their official release at the palace Crillon. I also meant to write about the awesome two weeks I spent au tour, making doughs, pâtes feuilletées, sucrées et à foncer*.
Oh those two weeks…certainly the best at Pierre Hermé Paris. It is probably where I learnt the most, but my sweetest memory has nothing to do with the techniques Guilhem taught me. Three words: sablés aux olives.
I think I spent hours (and yes, I do mean hours) cutting out 5,5cm-wide disks out of the amazingly smooth yet speckled with crushed black olives dough. The pâte à sablés was so fragrant that as soon as I took it out of the fridge, it filled the room with a strong and delightful olive perfume.
The dough was then rolled, détaillée, arranged into small silicon moulds and baked. Possibly the best cookies I’ve ever had: sweet yet pleasantly salty and perfectly short-textured.

I left Paris with one obsession: making those cookies at home. And so did I. Once, then twice… As you can imagine they quickly became my go-to recipe.

* I promise I’ll try to whip up some posts about those weeks ate Pierre Hermé Paris.

Sablés aux olives noires comme chez Pierre Hermé
Adapted from Pierre Hermé and Julie Andrieu’s Confidences sucrées

I recently bought Pierre Hermé’s new cookbook, co-written with French food writer Julie Andrieu and it appears to be a great book.
Pierre Hermé reveals some of his signature recipes: macarons passion, tarte tango, cake ispahan or sablés aux olives noires; just to name a few.

The recipe for the sablés is the same as the one used at the laboratoire, but is so straightforward that you can easily make it at home.
First, you start by hard-boiling an egg. This might seem weird to you, but you’re only gong to keep the hard yolk, finely grate it and incorporate it into the dough. The use of cooked egg yolk is traditional in Alsace and gives a light and crisp texture.
Then you mix the butter, olive oil and sugar, in which the egg yolk goes. Finally, to rapidly fold in the flour and starch, and crushed black olives.

The key is to mix the dough just until it comes together. Then you have to work fast: roll it and chill overnight. Pierre Hermé suggests refrigerating the dough before rolling it out; but I always find it too hard to roll when too cold; so I chose to roll the dough just after it’s been made, taking care not to overwork it.

At the laboratoire, the sablés are baked in small silicon moulds. Sadly, I don’t have any at home so I went for my muffin tins and it makes wonders. I guess you could also bake them on a lined baking sheet, they just wouldn’t be as regular-looking.

The recipe can easily be halved; just make sure you don’t overwork the dough and you’ll be just fine.

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 into pâtisserie that I assume everyone is to and honestly, I thought it was the case; this until I found my mum storing some store-bought pâte sable in the fridge.

‘Maman, tu pourrais quand même la faire toi-même; c’est tellement meilleur!’ [Mum, you could make your own; it's so much better!], I said and then what she answered made me realise that some people do see pâtisserie as the very-complicated-and-not-enjoyable part of gastronomy.
‘Oh mais non, la pâte sablée, c’est tellement difficile à faire.’ [Pâte sablée is way too difficult to make.]

I realise that some pastries are time-consuming and require some advanced skills, but pâte sucrée… No way! Once you get the few basic principles, you’ll produce a flawless and consistent (not to mention lick-your-fingers delicious) pâte sucrée.

The few basic principles as said above are:
1. Do not overwork the dough or the gluten will develop and you’ll get a chewy and elastic crust (while, what you want is a crisp one).
2. Do not overwork the dough or the butter will melt and your crust will be greasy.
See, just a few principles to respect and now, you’re ready.

I can’t stress enough on the importance of mise-en-place. Getting all your ingredients ready before actually starting makes you save time and teach you to be organised.
Here you’ll need:
300g unsalted butter, at room temperature
190g icing sugar
60g ground almonds
seeds from 1 vanilla bean
2 eggs
500g flour (ordinary type 55 will do wonders)
1 tsp fleur de sel

Start by creaming the butter until soft and smooth (I use my kitchenaid stand mixer with the paddle attachment just because I’m still excited by the fact that I got one for my birthday, but mixing by hand is just as easy).

Then, mix in the icing sugar, ground almonds and vanilla seeds.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time until fully incorporated.

Remove from the mixer.

Mix in the flour and salt until just incorporated. Do not overwork! The dough should be crumbly, lumpy… Definitely not what you would expect from a French pâtisserie standard.

Form three balls (each weighing approx. 365g) , gently press them down and wrap them tightly in cling film. Refrigerate overnight.
At this step, the pastry can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or it can be frozen for a month (you’ll just need to thaw the pastry in your fridge the day before you want to use it).

Roll the dough between two layers of baking paper. Cut into a disk 5cm larger that your tin (ie. if you’re making mini-tarts and using 8cm cercles, you’ll need to cut your abaisse into a 13cm disk).
Refrigerate the disk for at least 2 hours.

You can now start lining (foncer in French) a buttered cercle à tarte. The butter helps the dough to slide on the sides of the cercle.
I will try to make a video about fonçage so you can see how you need to proceed, as it can be quite tricky sometimes. Basically, you need to pinch the dough between your right finger and push it down using the sides. Keep doing this, until the full cercle is lined and check if the dough forms a 90° angle (if not, push it towards the bottom a little more).
Chill for an hour.

It’s now time to bake the crust. Pre-heat your oven to 175°C.
Take the lined cercle out of the fridge, cover the base and side of the pastry with baking paper and fill with dried beans or rice (baking weighs are to heavy for this fragile pastry).
Bake for 17 to 25 minutes (depending on the size of your crust. Remove the dried beans/rice and baking paper and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes or until nicely coloured.

Can you guess what’s coming next?

La coupe glacée: pétale de rose et lychee with gaspacho de framboises.

I could share with you my foolproof recipe for a perfect tarte au citron meringuée [lemon meringue tart], my new exciting idea, the lovely places I discovered during my one-week road trip around les Alpilles, the best risotto ever to be made or even my method for flawless pâte sucrée. Yep, I could, but instead I’m spending my mornings at Pierre Hermé’s pastry shop – making pâtes, viennoiseries, sablés and brioches -, and my afternoon wandering around Paris.

Yesterday, I had lunch at Le café La Jatte – a lovely place located on the Jatte Island in Neuilly.
The food was simple yet elegant, with clean and fresh flavours: just the way I love it on a daily basis.

I started with a tartare de saumon d’Ecosse. The salmon was deliciously accompanied with a tangy fennel salad – a perfect match.

The chèvre frais moulé à la cuillère with concombre émincé and pamplemousse à la menthe fraîche was a hit too – ideal for a hot summer day.

Then I had wonderful lasagnes vegetariennes; these vegetarian lasagne had a great smoky flavour (brought by roasting the vegetables, I guess) that balanced the creaminess of the ricotta cheese.
My fellow lunch-er picked the daurade royale grillée, beurre citron-poivre,
pommes de terre roseval, which although scary-looking (am I the only one to find whole fish on the creepy-side?) was utterly delicious.

As a I-want-to-be-a-pastry-chef person, I had to have dessert – to taste, you know.
I chose a very aromatic pêche rôtie served with glace à la vanille Bourbon and amandes caramélisées. The peach, which is roasted, has a delightfully soft and sweet flesh.

The coupe glacée * : pétale de rose et lychee with gaspacho de framboises was fresh and as you can guess, inspired by Pierre Hermé’s signature entremet: Ispahan.
* I just love the old-fashioned connotation of the words! (I know, I know, useless note, but I had to say it).

As you may imagine, the lunch was seamless. But the day was about to become even better. As I was riding my bike home, I made a détour and stopped by Galignani – a great English bookshop where I bought the Rose bakery cookbook and Skye Gyngell’s book (blame Keiko and all her wonderful articles about the Pertersham Nurseries for that one).
As I was craving to read them, I crossed the Seine to visit le Café de Flore – a favourite for citron pressé, café glace and Mariages Frères teas.
There I had my regular citron pressé, which is basically freshly squeezed lemon juice served with a grande carafe d’eau and some sugar – sooo refreshing.

Now, if everyday resembles that one, how am I going to share with you my foolproof recipe for a perfect tarte au citron meringue [lemon meringue tart], my new exciting idea, the lovely places I discovered during my one-week road trip around les Alpilles, the best risotto ever to be made or even my method for flawless pâte sucrée?
Moreover, I still have an awfully insane number of things to do in Paris. Here is the liste officielle (the real one if much too long for me to tell you; I’m way too ashamed of it):
- buy weird Asian ingredients at chez Tang Frères
- have tea or lunch or brunch at Rose bakery
- buy the most wonderful organic vegetables at marché Raspail
- eat more prawn and chicken Chinese wontons from la Grande Epicerie (and while I’m at it, buy Jean-Yves Bordier’s butter)
- have some falafel at l’As du Falafel
- try Berthillon ice-creams
- go and see Rachel at La Cocotte
- visit La librairie gourmande
- try anything from Sadaharu Aoki
- buy Pierre Hermé’s croissants, croissants aux amandes, brioches… for the upcoming write-up about the two weeks I spent au tour (the post where doughs are made)
And many many many more… Any ideas?