Strawberry tiramisù

This might surprise some of you, but shopping and cooking are not the only things that eat up all my time. I also read - and not just cookbooks. When lovely, poetic Lucy invited readers to turn to page 123 of our current reading, count five sentences and post the following three, I came up with this:
"Look at the sky," she said quickly. The sky had grown darker. "I think it will thunder again."
It seems fitting that the haunting novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters explores the theme of greed, as today's recipe is for greedy people only (which means anyone who might be reading this blog, I hope). I first spotted this summery variation on classic tiramisù at the bakery Bread & Roses in Paris, and had been wanting to recreate their recipe for months.
A little research led me to a recipe by Alsatian Christophe Felder, former pastry chef at the Hôtel Crillon in Paris and a prolific author of pastry books. Felder uses ladyfingers, but I followed the advice of the pastry chef at Bread & Roses and replaced these with pavesini biscuits. He showed me the little packets of thin, airy biscuits and said, "This is the true tiramisù biscuit." Authentic or not - there seems to be some debate on the subject - the pavesini turned out to be just the right size for my tapas glasses, also known as verrines.
Another change I made was to add a splash of Baume de Framboise, a raspberry liqueur from Burgundy which I keep on hand for making kirs with white wine. I might have used more, but I knew that Sam would be testing this dessert. Finally, I replaced Felder's red-tinted sugar with crumbled amaretto biscuits, which added a touch of almond that complements the fruit.
By the way, if you think it sounds a bit technical to pipe the mascarpone cream with a pastry bag, consider that Sam was bouncing around at my side throughout the making of this dessert, and yet it still turned out fairly presentable. A spoon would do fine, too.
I don't think I need to tell you that you'll want soft, sweet strawberries for this - nothing that would bounce if you dropped it on the floor. Lately I've been flirting with bankruptcy by indulging in daily baskets of ciflorettes and gariguettes, early strawberry varieties for the impatient (and greedy).

Strawberry tiramisù
Serves 6-7

1 lb 2 oz strawberries (500 g)
1 tbsp confectioner’s sugar (icing sugar)
2 tbsp cold water
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp strawberry or raspberry liqueur or syrup (optional)
3 eggs
4 oz sugar (100 g)
14 oz mascarpone (375 g)
7 ladyfinger biscuits or 14 pavesini biscuits (small Italian biscuits)
A few amaretto biscuits, for the garnish

Take 200 g (7 1/2 oz) of the strawberries, choosing the least pretty ones. Place these in a blender or food processor with the confectioner’s sugar, cold water, lemon juice and raspberry liqueur or syrup, if using. Blend until smooth and strain into a shallow bowl. Set aside in the refrigerator.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. In a mixer, beat the egg yolks and half the sugar (50 g/2 oz) until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the mascarpone and whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, starting off on low speed and gradually increasing the speed. As they increase in volume, slowly pour in the remaining sugar (50 g/2 oz). Beat until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, starting off with 1/3 of the whites to lighten the mixture.

Soak the biscuits in the strawberry juice as you assemble the ingredients for the tiramisu. Cut the tops off the strawberries, then cut them in half lengthwise and place them upside-down around the bottom of the glasses. Using a pastry bag or a small spoon, place a dollop of mascarpone cream in the bottom of the glass. Top with a soaked biscuit (or 1/2 a ladyfinger). Cover with more cream, then place a biscuit on top of this and cover with a spoonful of the strawberry purée. Cover with cream to the top of the glass, then smooth off the surface with a palette knife.

Repeat this procedure for each of the individual desserts and chill for at least 2 hours. Just before serving, sprinkle the top with crumbled amaretto biscuits.

A quietly delicious Paris pâtisserie

My love affair with French food began with pâtisserie and I still take pride in knowing where to find the best, from Pierre Hermé's passion fruit and milk chocolate macaron to Sadaharu Aoki's green tea millefeuille. That's why I was surprised to come across an interview with Pierre Hermé in which he spoke of a pastry shop that had somehow escaped my notice.
Though I thought I could sniff out sugar from miles away, La Petite Rose is in a residential part of the 8th arrondissement not far from where I live when I'm in Paris. You can imagine that I wasted no time in dashing over there to see what I had been missing since it opened a couple of years ago.
In an age where pâtisseries and chocolateries are looking ever more intimidating, with stark facades that barely suggest there might be cakes inside, it was refreshing to find this cheerful shop with pastries in the window and a few tables scattered outside and inside. The walls are painted pale pink and chocolate brown, a combination that seems to me typically Japanese. Pastry chef Miyuki Watanabe is indeed from Japan, and she let me take a few photos while she shyly told me about training in Tokyo and working at Gérard Mulot before opening her own shop.


I resisted the small but exquisite selection of pastries as I was on my way to a three-course lunch, but chose a few chocolates, which I proceeded to gobble, lunch or no lunch. Most original was the soft nougat wrapped in dark chocolate, though my favorite was probably the subtly zingy ginger-spiked ganache. At €4.70 for about ten chocolates, her prices are well below those of the ultra-chic chocolatiers of St-Germain, and I couldn't detect a difference in quality.

Next time I'll be sure to try her Valentin, the chocolate mousse and crème brûlée cake that Hermé recommended, as well as her chocolate and raspberry macaron. (I won't be afraid to go back to this shop, since I didn't destroy any cakes.)
On the way out, I looked to my right and admired this view of Sacré Coeur as I crossed the street: proof yet again that Paris always holds new surprises.


La Petite Rose, 11, boulevard de Courcelles, 8th, 01 45 22 07 27.

Five minute soufflé

Soufflé is the quintessential show-off dish, so it's no wonder the French have kept quiet all these years about how easy it really is to make.
This version from chef Christian Plumail in Nice is one of the simplest and best I have ever eaten. It calls for only four ingredients - lemon, eggs, sugar and a pinch of salt - and comes together ridiculously quickly with the help of an electric mixer.
You can bake the soufflés in ramekins, but I've found that my tapas glasses withstand the heat of the oven and create an even more dramatic result.
The only secret to this recipe is to fill the ramekins or glasses right to the top and smooth them off with a knife before baking. If you get the timing right (the recipe below works perfectly for me), they will hold their shape for a good two or three minutes after coming out of the oven.
Of course, as the French say, "A soufflé waits for no-one." Be sure your guests wait obediently for their soufflés, and not the other way around: soufflés are not known for being docile.
I'm lucky enough to have heaps of local lemons in my kitchen as the lemon season is at its peak here. If this isn't the case where you live, look for organic or untreated lemons so that you can use the zest without having to scrub the fruit.
I often serve this soufflé with an apple and star anise compote, but have also paired it with raspberry sorbet: lemon and raspberries are made for each other, I think.

In Paris, the soufflé is the little black dress of the dessert world. Here are a few of the most spectacular that I've encountered (so far):

- Grapefruit soufflé with grapefruit sorbet at Le Jules Verne.
- Grand Marnier soufflé at the St-Germain bistro Chez Dumonet - Joséphine.
- Vanilla soufflé at the Le Troquet in the 15th arrondissement (the pastry chef made a collar of butter around the top of the ramekin so that the soufflé would rise evenly).
- Chartreuse soufflé at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.
- Valrhona chocolate soufflé at Paule Caillat's cooking class.

Lemon soufflé
Serves 4

2 untreated lemons
3 eggs
50 g + 1 tbsp white sugar (1/4 cup + 1 tbsp)
A pinch of salt
Butter and extra white sugar for the soufflé dishes
Icing sugar (Confectioner's sugar)

Carefully butter four individual soufflé dishes and sprinkle with sugar to coat each dish evenly.

Zest the lemons and chop the zest finely. Squeeze one of the lemons and set aside the juice.

Separate the eggs. In a mixer, whisk the egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar until the mixture thickens and lightens in color. Add the lemon zest.

Clean the whisk and beat the egg whites in a separate bowl with the pinch of salt until stiff but not dry. Add the 1 tbsp sugar, then the lemon juice bit by bit.

Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and beat with a whisk to lighten the mixture. Add the rest of the egg whites, folding them in gently with a spatula.

Fill the soufflé dishes right to the top, smoothing the surface with a knife. Sprinkle with icing sugar. Place the dishes on a baking sheet and bake in a 375 F (180 C) oven, preferably on the convection setting, for 8 minutes, until well risen and lightly browned.

Brioche des rois

Just when you think you can't eat another cake or drink another glass of champagne (well, ok, I can always drink champagne), the French find another reason to bring the workday to a halt and indulge.
The epiphany is a serious culinary event here, lasting not just one day - officially January 6th - but the whole month of January. Pâtisseries vie to outdo each other with their epiphany cakes, inside each of which lurks a small porcelain figure known as a fève because in the original version it was a humble dried bean. Finding the fève makes you king or queen for the day and is a highlight of any French childhood - I can still remember wearing the golden paper crown and choosing a king from among my classmates at Sam's age, when my family spent a year in Paris and changed the way I would look at food forever.
For many people, the fève - though inedible - is the best part of the epiphany cake, which most often consists of two layers of puff pastry with a frangipane filling. No matter how flaky the pastry or how rich the almond cream, I think there is something a little monotonous about the cake known as the galette des rois. So I was happy to discover that Provence has its own version of the epiphany cake, made with brioche and decorated with candied fruit and coarse sugar crystals.
A brioche des rois that feeds four to six people sells for around €10 in bakeries, and since I had some candied fruit hanging around after Christmas it made sense to attempt it myself. For reasons I'm still trying to understand, the first recipe I tried, from Andrée Maureau's Desserts et douceurs en Provence, nearly went horribly wrong when the dough stubbornly refused to rise even when left overnight. Determined not to let it go to waste, I dissolved another packet of yeast in a little warm water the next morning, making sure it bubbled, and incorporated it into the dough with a couple of scoops of flour. Left in a warm place, the dough finally cooperated and the resulting brioche would have looked at home in a bakery window.
In the meantime, feeling the first recipe was not to be trusted, I had started on a second brioche from the blog Eggs & Mouillettes. French blogger Fabienne is from Provence and this was her mother's recipe, so I was fairly confident that this one wouldn't flop. Indeed, this was a brioche better than anything I could have bought in a bakery thanks to its almond filling, an embellishment that bakers in Nice invariably leave out.

The brioche is very good in itself, but the gooey almond, sugar, candied fruit and egg mixture in the center takes it to another level. If you're one of the millions of people who finds candied fruit too cloying, it's entirely optional and can be replaced with dried fruit or simply forgotten. Fabienne uses angelica and raisins, but I substituted some not-too-sweet candied orange rind from producer Loulou, which had also gone into my Christmas pudding. I topped one brioche with candied fruit just for the fun of it, but the other looked almost as pretty sprinkled only with the coarse sugar. I had to visit three specialty shops before I found coarse sugar and ended up paying a ridiculous €10.50 for it at Le Pain Quotidien (so much for the money I saved making my own brioche), but the cake did look naked without it.

Sam helped with placing the fèves and there may have been method to his madness because, after instructing me where to cut the finished cake, he promptly became king for the day. His fève collection is growing by the minute.

By the way, I'm off to Rome tomorrow for a few days and will have internet access, so if you have any favorite places to tell me about I'd be extremely grateful!


Brioche des rois
Adapted from Eggs & Mouillettes
Serves 10

Brioche:
150 ml milk
1 packet dried yeast
400 g flour
75 g sugar
125 g butter
2 eggs
1 tbsp orange flower water

Filling:
100 g sugar
1 egg
50 g butter
150 g powdered almonds
50 g candied orange rind, finely diced

Egg wash:
1 egg
A pinch of salt

Glaze:
2 tbsp strained apricot jam
2 tbsp icing (confectioner's) sugar
1 tbsp water
Candied fruits
Coarse sugar crystals

For the sponge, warm the milk and stir in the yeast, 50 g of the flour and sugar. Place in a warm spot, such as near a radiator, until the mixture bubbles and doubles in size, 1-2 hours.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and beat the eggs in a small bowl. Place the sponge mixture in the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook or continue working by hand. On low speed if using the mixer, add the rest of the flour, butter, eggs and orange flower water. Mix for 5 mins on low speed or knead by hand for 10 mins, until smooth and silky. Cover with a plastic bag and set aside in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Work the dough a little by hand, then stretch it out to make a large rectangle (the dough should be easy to work with at this point). Fold it in three, give it a quarter turn and stretch it out again into a rectangle. Repeat this process 4 or 5 times, then let the dough rest, covered with a dish towel, for a few minutes while you make the filling.

For the filling, melt the butter in a small saucepan and stir in the sugar, egg, ground almonds and candied fruit (if using).

Roll the dough out into a long, narrow strip. Spread the filling along the center of this strip, then fold the dough over the filling to cover it completely, pinching it well. Join the ends of the strip to make a doughnut shape (my strip wasn't quite long enough, so the hole filled up as the brioche cooked). Carefully transfer the brioche to a baking sheet and let it rise, covered, for about 35-45 mins.

Beat the egg for the egg wash with a pinch of salt and brush this all over the brioche. Bake the brioche at 200 C for 20-30 mins, being careful not to burn the base.

For the glaze, bring the ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan until slightly thickened. Brush the cooked brioche with the glaze and top with candied fruit and sugar.

World Peace Cookies: rejoice!

I'm not the first blogger to discover Dorie Greenspan's all-time favorite World Peace Cookies, but I must add my voice to the chorus of praise from people whose lives have been changed forever by these chocolate sablés.
As Dorie herself points out, this recipe is really a straightforward slice-and-bake cookie. The difference is that it comes from Paris pastry chef Pierre Hermé, who has been described as "having a computer in his mouth." When Pierre tastes a chocolate cookie his computer tells him, "just think how much better this would be with fleur de sel."
It's a simple addition, just half a teaspoon of pure white Atlantic salt crystals, but what a difference it makes. Just about any cake or biscuit is improved by the addition of a little salt, yet here the salt brings a new dimension, one that makes these buttery cookies laced with cocoa and hand-chopped chocolate simply impossible to stop eating.
The name comes from a neighbor of Dorie who believes that if everyone ate these cookies every day there would be no more reason for war. But what I like about the title is that it's open to interpretation. The way I see it, if each of us gives a few bags of these cookies to the people around us at Christmas (or at any other opportunity), the world will be that much more peaceful. If you happen to live in Paris, imagine how the attitude of that bus driver - the one who closes the door on the young mother with the stroller - might change if you handed him a bag of World Peace Cookies (well, it's worth a try).
I've set the example by selflessly giving two bags of these cookies to Sam's teacher and her assistant - something I was able to do only because I hadn't allowed myself to taste them yet. It's a mystery to me how kindergarten teachers maintain any kind of peace in the classroom, so I thought these couldn't be more appropriate.
These sablés mark the beginning of my Christmas baking, which has got off to an awfully late start this year. As I write there are two fruit-laden puddings steaming on the stove, one of which will make my parents very happy on Christmas Day. The other I will give to producer Loulou at the market, who was kind enough to contribute his candied orange rinds to this year's pudding.

Meanwhile, my local grocer Antoine is picking up a 3-kilo block of top-quality chocolate from the wholesale shop for me so that I can continue my bid to spread world peace.
Try Dorie's recipe and you too will rejoice, I promise.

Crisp oatmeal cookies

Sometimes what I want is not fanciful layers of meringue, mousse and ganache but a crisp oatmeal cookie studded with tiny purple-black currants. Raw mascobado sugar, its soft golden crystals speckled with molasses, streaked these cookies with deeply flavored caramel. They are perfect for a child's goûter and with a mug of thick hot chocolate in front of the fire (or, in my case, the oven), far from the madding Christmas crowds.
I had been after a recipe for crisp oatmeal cookies for years, ever since I stupidly lost the one handwritten for me by my ex-boyfriend's grandmother, and finally found it while flipping through The New Basics Cookbook. From the founders of the famed Silver Palate deli in New York, it's a book I had been neglecting for some years without good reason. I'll be coming back to it for the vegetable-packed soup recipes, buttermilk waffles and deliciously retro-sounding Spiced Party Nuts.
These cookies are buttery and crisp with a touch of chewiness, just the way I like them. The organic mascobado sugar from my local Fair Trade shop added so much character that I decided cinnamon wasn't necessary. I also dropped the walnuts, because I think that in a great oatmeal cookie there should be little to distract from the oats themselves. So, tempting as they might be, keep your chocolate chips for another cookie.

Lacy oatmeal cookies
Adapted from The New Basics Cookbook

1 1/2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar (preferably an interesting one like mascobado)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried currants

Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Lightly grease 2 baking sheets and line with parchment paper.

Toss the oats, flour and baking soda together in a bowl.

Beat the butter and sugars together in a bowl until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Fold in the dry ingredients and currants.

Drop the batter by rounded teaspoonfuls, 2 inches apart, onto the prepared baking sheets and bake until golden about 10 mins. Leave the cookies on the baking sheets for 2 mins, then transfer them to wire racks to cool.

A sour taste

Some women buy jewels. I buy pastries. The luxury I allow myself might be relatively small, but I take huge pleasure in every moment of the experience. That's why nothing depresses me more than dour service in a pâtisserie, which goes against my belief that sharing space with chocolate and cakes all day should imbue people with well-being.
In fairness, I'm the one who provoked the pastry chef's stern disapproval at Pain de Sucre, an ultra-chic Marais pâtisserie whose whimsically named cakes - the Lili, the Rosy Rosa - normally fill me with glee. I made a mistake and I'm deeply sorry for it. Still, I wish I could have left the shop feeling a little less disgraced.
Before dropping into Pain de Sucre (more literally than I expected), I had spent the morning showing a small group the food highlights of Paris. We joined a long queue to try the coal-black truffle macarons at Pierre Hermé, made of the pungent black tuber rather than chocolate. At the deceptively modest-looking Blé Sucré we sampled the famed lemon tart, as well as a fluffy new coconut and pineapple pastry called the Aligre. Though both pâtisseries were at their busiest, the staff could not have been more patient and cordial. On the way back to the Métro, I walked past Pain de Sucre and despite the morning's indulgences decided that a few more pastries couldn't hurt.
I am always fascinated by the shop's innovative éclairs and this time I ordered a raspberry one, plus three macarons, a glossy-topped scone and a praline-filled chocolate bar for Philippe. As I was about to pay, I thought of Sam and said to the cashier, "I'll just take a chocolate lollipop." He made no move to stop me as I took a few steps and pulled out a lollipop from a small stand above the cakes. Unfortunately, the display wasn't as stable as it looked and two of the lollipops fell off — one of them directly onto a €40 cake, creating a dent in the fluffy white icing.
No-one had noticed and I could have got away with sneaking out without a word. Honesty overcame me, though, and full of remorse I pointed out the damage to pastry chef Didier Mathray, who worked with star chef Pierre Gagnaire for 10 years before opening this shop.
"You should not have done that!" he exploded. "You should never touch anything! Look what you've done to that €40 cake!"
I apologized again but he made it clear that my blunder had been unforgiveable. I then paid €19.50 for what I had bought, feeling very very small and suddenly remembering what it's like to be Sam's age. On the way out, I once again tried to convince him of how much I regretted my gaffe. He muttered blackly and shook his head, not looking at me.
Once out of the shop, my remorse started to lift a little. Someone of Mathray's skill would be capable of touching up that icing, I was sure. And lollipops are meant to be touched - aren't they? Why else do they put them in those tempting stands?
The stress must have got to me a little, though, because I didn't manage to photograph the cakes without taking a bite out of each one in the hope that they would lift my spirits. Not surprisingly, they tasted a little sour.

Pumpkin pie with perfect pastry

Why pumpkin pie, you might ask, when Thanksgiving is over?
Well, for one thing, this pumpkin pie is good enough to make just for the pleasure of eating it, and not only as part of a harvest ritual that will leave you far to stuffed to appreciate it. And, for another, it gives me an excuse to talk about a method of making pastry that has changed my life - and just might do the same to yours.
I've published this pastry recipe before, as part of July's strawberry tart. But at the time I didn't realize quite how significant a revelation it was.
Over many years of making pastry, I'd come to accept that pâte sucrée, sweet pastry rich with butter and egg yolk, is tricky to work with. Unlike pâte sablée (short pastry), in which the butter is kept cold, pâte sucrée is usually made with butter at room temperature. This means that you have to chill the dough before you can work with it - at least for a couple of hours but preferably overnight. When you remove the dough from the refrigerator it is inevitably too hard to roll out right away, which calls for even more patience (or, in my case, some vigorous banging with a rolling pin to soften the dough). Once you finally roll it out, you have to let it rest again - preferably for an hour or two - so that it doesn't shrink when it bakes.
The soft-butter method, favored by star bakers such as Pierre Hermé and Eric Kayser, is ill-suited to the impulsive baker - what could be better, after all, than realizing that you have a couple of spare hours in front of you and deciding to treat your family and/or friends to a homemade tart? Enter this foolproof recipe, which I came across in the Books for Cooks no. 7 recipe compilation. This is the standard recipe in the Books for Cooks kitchen, which turns out beautiful cakes and tarts every day, and it has fast become my favorite too.
The ingredients are the same as for traditional pâte sucrée, but the butter comes straight out of the fridge and the water is ice-cold. You could make it by hand, but I've had the best results using the food processor, which keeps the ingredients cool. The magic part of the recipe is that once the dough comes together you roll it out right away, skipping a step that can take up to 12 hours in other recipes. Because the ingredients are cold, the dough is soft, silky and a joy to roll out.
You do need to let the rolled-out dough rest for at least an hour in the refrigerator, but that should be easy to do while you prepare the filling. For some recipes - such as my fig tart with almond cream and this pumpkin pie - I bake the pastry directly with the filling, but you can also bake it blind the standard way, by lining it with parchment paper filled with dried beans or rice. If you freeze the pastry before blind-baking it, you shouldn't need to weigh it down - just keep an eye on it and pop any bubbles with the tip of a knife.
Should you want to use this pastry for a savory tart, all you need to do is leave out the sugar. Try this recipe once and you'll wonder why you would ever go to the trouble of buying ready-made pastry.

Pumpkin pie
Serves 6

Canadian Thanksgiving comes several weeks before the American celebration, which means that I'm usually completely unaware of it. By the time American Thanksgiving rolls around, fall has really come to the Côte d'Azur and I'm in the mood to make this pie. It's a hit with the Niçois, who have been making sweet tarts with vegetables for centuries.

Pastry:
6 oz (1 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour (175 g)
5 tbsp confectioner's (icing) sugar (45 g)
Pinch of salt
3 oz very cold butter, in pieces (90 g)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp ice water (30 ml)

Filling:
A piece of pumpkin or winter squash weighing a little more than 1 lb (500 g)
A little vegetable oil
2 oz Speculoos biscuits or other spice biscuits
3 eggs
1/2 cup whipping cream (double cream) (125 ml)
4 oz light brown sugar (110 g)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
A pinch of salt

For the pastry: Sift the flour and confectioner's sugar and place in the bowl of a food processor with the salt. Pulse once or twice to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg yolk and water and process until the dough forms a loose ball. Be careful not to overmix, but do let the dough come together. Turn the dough out onto a board and form into a ball with your hands. Flatten with the heel of your hand.

Flour the board and roll the pastry out quickly, turning it now and then and lightly flouring the board and rolling pin as necessary. Line a tart tin with this pastry, pressing it well into the corners to prevent shrinkage. Let the excess hang over the sides. Trim the pastry or, if your tin has sharp metal edges, cut off the excess with a rolling pin. Then press the pastry a little above the edge of the tin all the way around. Place the pastry in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

For the filling: Lightly oil the pumpkin or squash and bake in the oven at 375 F (180 C) for about 1 hour, until soft. Peel it and purée in a food processor or, better, though a food mill (mouli-légumes) to remove the fibers. If it seems very wet, drain the purée in a fine strainer for a few minutes.

Blend the spice biscuits to coarse crumbs in a blender or food processor, or place them in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin.

In a bowl, beat the eggs. Add the pumpkin purée, cream, sugar, spices and salt. Sprinkle the spice biscuit crumbs over the uncooked, chilled pastry and top with the pumpkin filling. Bake at 375 F (180 C) for about 45-50 mins, until the filling is set and lightly browned.

This tart tastes best to me when it's cold, and the cream, although pretty, is a rather unnecessary flourish. If you do use cream, you might like to sweeten it with maple syrup.

Butternut squash muffins

After the sugary excesses of my trip to England I wanted something sweet but not too sweet, healthy but not too healthy. The answer was these butternut squash muffins, which I came across on the Channel 4 website while looking at Jamie Oliver recipes to compensate for British television withdrawal.
Butternut rivals potimarron as my favorite squash thanks to its sweet yet delicate taste and non-stringy texture. Its smooth surface and elongated shape make it one of the easiest squash to peel, winning it many bonus points in my book. Often I purée it with butter until smooth and top it with sautéed wild mushrooms, but Jamie's recipe looked like the perfect breakfast or after-school treat.
This morning I tested these muffins on the Cours Saleya market vendors, who are often suspicious of anything "foreign" (ie. not originating from within a 15-mile radius around Nice). They accepted them quite readily despite the presence of cinnamon, a spice that rarely makes an appearance in French cakes. "It's like pain d'épice," they said, nodding approvingly and licking their fingers.
I replaced the olive oil in Jamie's recipe with deep yellow sunflower oil from Russia that I bought at the Armenian grocery store. Its taste turned out to be a bit strong, and next time I might try a mild-tasting olive oil. I would also be tempted to replace half the oil with applesauce, a good way to reduce the fat in just about any muffin recipe. Instead of Jamie's soft sour cream icing I topped the muffins with a light sprinkling of cinnamon sugar, which created a crunchy little crust that contrasted nicely with the tender orange-gold crumb.

I'll be submitting this post to November's Sugar High Friday, which in honor of American Thanksgiving is focusing on the beta-carotene harvest. It's hosted by talented fellow Canadian Leslie.

Butternut squash muffins
Makes 18 muffins

Adapted from a Jamie at Home recipe

400 g butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks (15 oz) (Jamie Oliver uses unpeeled squash, but I didn't notice that until now)
350 g light soft brown sugar (13 oz)
4 large free-range or organic eggs
A pinch of sea salt
300 g plain flour, unsifted (11 oz)
2 heaped tsp baking powder
A handful of walnuts
1 tsp ground cinnamon
175 ml sunflower or olive oil (2/3 cup)

Cinnamon sugar:
2 tbsp light brown cane sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

For the cinnamon sugar, combine the two ingredients in a small bowl.

Place the chopped squash in the bowl of a food processor (I used my Thermomix) and chop finely. Add all the other ingredients and pulse until a smooth batter forms, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Be careful not to overmix. Pour or spoon the batter into greased muffin tins and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Bake at 180 C (375 F) until well risen and cooked through.

Fantasy vs reality

The fantasy:

Perfect Mother that I am, baking gingerbread "skeleton" and "pumpkin" cookies with my five-year-old is a breeze, like an episode of Martha Stewart. I assemble the ingredients ahead of time, teaching Sam the importance of mise-en-place. I speak to my son in a sing-song voice, letting him do most of the work as I marvel at his precocious poise and talent in the kitchen. The cookies are, of course, flawless. Helping a small child decorate them poses no challenge to someone who happens to be a cooking instructor in her spare time (when she is not being a Perfect Mother, that is). My camera has a memory card in it and Sam waits patiently while I seek out the most flattering natural lighting for my artful photos.

The reality:

There is flour all over the kitchen. I reach for the ingredients in the cupboard one by one as we go along, forgetting the baking soda and salt. The recipe for gingerbread biscuits in the Rose Bakery cookbook calls for "spice mix," the one thing I don't have in my extensive spice collection, so I substitute Chinese five-spice powder (good enough). Sam is all over the place, dragging his stool from one side of the kitchen to the other. The only words that come out of my mouth are "No, no, no!" The cookies emerge from the oven looking a bit flat (lack of baking soda). The tube of icing that I unearth from my cupboard with a sigh of relief, thinking it will be easy for Sam to use, works like a dream but runs dry after the second cookie. Quickly I throw together some icing sugar and milk to ice the rest of the cookies, but the mixture comes out too runny. Sam eats the two skeleton cookies before I have a chance to photograph them. That's OK: I have no idea where my camera's memory card has got to. I am not the Perfect Mother, but life is too short for superfluous guilt. Sam is happy.

A rustic fruit tart

In France you are either a pastry chef or a baker, rarely both.
Pastry chefs are precise perfectionists who know just how many grams of gelatin it takes to bring structure to an airy raspberry mousse. They are chemists but also artists, who finish off their creations with a single red rose petal or a paper-thin square of white chocolate streaked with gold.
Bakers are more instinctive types who sense the need to adjust the amount of flour in their pain au levain to the humidity outside. They like to make cakes, but chances are you'll never find them fussing with agar-agar.
Much as I love making and eating any kind of pastry, if I had to choose a camp I'd definitely fall into the second. Dough of all kinds comes naturally to me, while I have to kick my lazy side into submission to make the more complex French pâtisseries with their layers of mousse, ganache and sponge cake.
Eric Kayser is my kind of baker. His famed baguette Monge is probably one of the top five baguettes in Paris—it's always hard to judge, since the quality of baguettes can vary from day to day—but what I really love are his rustic fruit tarts. Just as I prefer to make the more rustic cakes, they are also (rather conveniently) what I prefer to eat. They give you something to sink your teeth into, and they don't collapse into a messy heap when you try to share them.
After reading about Les tartes d'Eric Kayser on a few blogs, I found myself ordering it impulsively on Amazon one day. A few days later it arrived, like an early Christmas present with its red and green tart on the cover (redcurrants with matcha tea filling, very intriguing).
Of course, I couldn't wait to try it out and for my first project I settled on the pear and grapefruit tart, which I seem to remember finding irresistible at his bakery in rue Monge. It's the combination of the cream-colored pear and pink grapefruit that does it for me - without the grapefruit, it could easily look boring.
Pâte sablée is not new to me, but it's always interesting to read a baker's tips and probably the wisest words in this book are (my translation): "The only real secret to good tarts is time. You need to let the doughs breathe, allow them to relax, protect them. The ideal is to prepare them the night before."
Indeed, I've noticed that whenever I make a tart at a slow, relaxed pace, allowing the dough to rest in the fridge before and after I roll it out, it doesn't do anything nasty like shrink or tear.
Even though this is a rustic tart and therefore, in principle, easy, it was a two-day project because of the overnight resting time for the dough. I also decided to poach the pears myself rather than use canned pears as Kayser suggests. It's pear season, after all. Honestly, though, I think canned pears would be just fine.

I also spent a little time wondering what to do about pistachio paste, an ingredient I can't easily find in Nice. I was almost ready to use green-tinted almond paste from Auer, which the saleswoman had assured me was made of pistachios (hah!), when I remembered that I still had a few Bronte pistachios from last year's Salone del Gusto in Turin. It wasn't enough to make Pierre Hermé's recipe for pistachio paste, which calls for 500 g (a little more than 1 lb) of pistachios, but I found my own solution to make just enough for my tart.

My dear friend and guru Sylvie thought the bitterness of the grapefruit added nothing to this tart (which she gobbled up anyway), but I love their bright pink color and think that a poor-quality imported grapefruit was to blame. This tart might be best made with canned pears during grapefruit season (around February in France). See what you think.


Pear and grapefruit tart
Serves 6-8

For the pears in syrup:
2 pears, not too ripe
500 ml water (2 cups)
125 g sugar (4 1/2 oz)
1/2 vanilla bean

For the pistachio paste:
15 g pistachios (1/2 oz)
15 g powdered sugar (1/2 oz)
1 egg white (you won't need all of it)

For the pâte sablée (enough for three tarts):
300 g butter at room temperature (11 oz)
60 g white sugar (2 oz)
125 g powdered sugar (4 1/2 oz)
60 g powdered almonds (2 oz)
5 g salt (1 tsp)
2 whole eggs
500 g flour (1 lb 2 oz)

For the filling:
Poached pears (see above)
2-3 pink grapefruits
125 g butter at room temperature (4 1/2 oz)
125 g white sugar (4 1/2 oz)
125 g powdered almonds (4 1/2 oz)
10 g flour (1/3 oz)
3 whole eggs
30 g pistachio paste (1 oz)
2 tbsp apricot jam

For the pears:
Peel the pears, cut them in half and scoop out the cores with a spoon or melon baller. Combine the water, sugar and vanilla bean, scraping out the seeds from the vanilla bean and adding them to the water along with the bean. Bring to a simmer, lower the heat and cook at a simmer for 25-30 mins, until soft when pierced with a knife. Set aside to cool in the syrup, then remove from the syrup and drain on paper towels overnight in a covered container in the refrigerator.

For the pistachio paste:
In a pestle and mortar or small electric grinder, pound or grind the pistachios to a fine powder. Add the icing sugar, then just enough egg white to make a thick paste.

For the pastry:
In a food processor or mixer (I used my Kitchenaid with the paddle), beat the butter until soft. Add the sugars, almond power and salt, mixing well. Add the eggs one by one and combine, scraping the sides of the bowl. Add the flour and mix on low speed just until the dough comes together.
Form the dough into three flat rounds and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Place two in the freezer for future use (they can be defrosted overnight) and one in the fridge.

Finishing the tart:
The next day, remove the pastry from the fridge and let it warm up for at least 20 mins before rolling it out. Use just enough flour so that it doesn't stick to your board, and roll it as thinly as seems feasible, turning it often.
Roll about half the dough around your rolling pin and quickly lift it up and place it in the tin (Kayser likes square tins and so do I). If it tears, you can always squeeze the cracks together. Press the pastry into the corners of the tin, then cut off the overlapping pastry with a sweep of the rolling pin. Press the edges a little higher than the edge of the tin to compensate for any shrinkage.
Let the dough rest in the fridge for another 30 mins at least while you prepare the filling.
Using a sharp knife, peel the grapefruit from top to bottom, removing all the pith. Holding the grapefruit in one hand, cut between the membranes to release the segments.
Cut each piece of pear in half, then cut each quarter into three even pieces.
For the filling, beat the butter in a mixer until soft. Add the sugar, almond powder and flour. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well, then the pistachio paste.
Pour this mixture into the pastry (without blind baking the crust - if Kayser says you can do this, it must be OK!). Top with alternating pieces of pear and grapefruit. Bake at 180 C (375 F) for 35-45 mins, until done. (Kayser's recipe says to bake the tart at 160 C for 35 mins, but I found that it wasn't hot enough or long enough.)
Once the tart has cooled, melt the apricot jam in a small saucepan and brush it over the tart for a glossy finish.

A big coffee éclair

Coffee éclairs and I go back a long way, to my first year in Paris when I was four. My memories of that year are vivid, probably because I was learning a new language (I entered the maternelle knowing only how to say "oui" and "non" and came out fluent, at least temporarily) and adjusting to a new culture (in Canada park wardens don't blow the whistle and aim a threatening finger at children who step on the grass).
I particularly remember going for walks with my dad and marvelling at the chaotic traffic along boulevard Garibaldi. At the time no self-respecting Parisian would drive anything but a Citroën 2CV and these seemed to crash into each other a lot more often than cars do nowadays in Paris. I entertained myself by watching cars back down our one-way street - reversing at high speed was still an acceptable way of getting around the one-way street problem - and waiting for the inevitable crunch of metal on metal. The drivers would get out of their cars, yell and shake their fists, then get back in and casually drive away.
My dad, being a fellow gourmand, always found time for a pastry or ice cream on these walks. In the early 1970s (!! am I that old?) most pâtissiers still made their own ice creams and sorbets, which were displayed outside the shop. Eating coffee ice cream made me feel very sophisticated and it wasn't long before I discovered the coffee éclair, with its crisp choux pastry, coffee pastry cream filling and shiny coffee glaze.
I think my love of cooking may have sprung from the coffee éclair - or, rather, the lack of it in Canada. My mother had a book called La pâtisserie pour tous by Ginette Mathiot (Le livre de poche) and, as soon as I was old enough (around 8 or 9 years old), I began teaching myself to make French pastries. The results were often pretty disastrous and I shed my share of tears but after a while I did master the éclair, more or less.
Our family's original copy of this classic book has gone missing and only recently did I think to buy one of my own. Looking at Mathiot's brief instructions for the most complex French pastries, I could understand why my pastry apprenticeship was strewn with obstacles (the instructions for making bûche de Noël, a complicated rolled and decorated cake, are six lines long). The book also made me realize how flawed memory can be: I eagerly started looking for the croissant recipe I remembered, only to realize there isn't one.
I haven't yet revisited Mathiot's coffee éclair recipe, but when I do I promise to give you a full report. In the meantime, I had one of my most spectacular éclairs ever in Paris at the restaurant Rech, which has recently been taken over by star chef Alain Ducasse. The XL éclair has always been a specialty at this art deco seafood restaurant in the 17th arrondissement, and Ducasse has wisely kept it on the menu. The glaze was so good that I wanted to pick up the éclair and lick it, but I've grown a little more dignified in the past 30 years or so, at least in public.
After all these years I still have a special fondness for the éclair, an untrendy pastry that has lately taken a back seat to the show-off macaron. I feel gratified that Sam, with no encouragement from me (really!), has developed his own passion for the coffee version. Though he is tolerant of my solo trips to Paris, he is having a hard time forgiving me for eating this entire éclair without him.

A classic tarte aux fraises

You know you've lived in France a long time when strawberry tart with crème pâtissière starts to seem banal. In any pastry shop in Paris you'll find this classic, the scarlet berries perched on an eggy cream and glazed with red jelly. I like it, but it's not something that I've thought of ordering in years (well, would you, when you could have Pierre Hermé's raspberry, rose and lychee tart or Sadaharu Aoki's salted caramel tart with milk chocolate?).
I associate crème pâtissière with the Cordon Bleu, where I worked as an interpreter for nine months when I first moved to France twelve years ago. Every Thursday the pastry chef, a man of blessedly few words, would turn out dozens of cakes and éclairs and tarts with quiet precision in the course of a two-hour demonstration. On these days my diet (if you can call it that) consisted solely of cakes and perhaps I had my fill of crème pâtissière, the obligatory filling for so many French desserts.
In Nice I like to fill strawberry tart with nothing but strawberries, the prettiest ones left whole and the rest boiled with sugar and a little lemon juice to make a vivid red jelly that I drizzle over top. As fate would have it, though, I found myself recently at a little restaurant in the pretty town of La Turbie called Café de la Fontaine. It looks like a regular café but is in fact the annex of the elegant Hostellerie Jérôme, where chef Bruno Cirino turns out some of the best food on the Côte d'Azur - or so I hear, as I haven't yet eaten there.
We arrived very late for lunch, past 2.30pm, but the waiters made room for us in the cacophonous dining room (the terrace is presumably a bit quieter). I went for the steak-frites with béarnaise, which was remarkable for the quality of the meat, while Philippe had the equally meaty pork with blood sausage and Sam devoured a plate of asparagus-stuffed ravioli. It was all lovely, not haute cuisine but clearly good quality ingredients prepared with thought and care.
All the time, though, I had my eye on the strawberry melba on the blackboard menu, hoping against hope that the waiter wouldn't come along and cross it out as he had most of the other desserts.
Finally, the plates were cleared and the moment had come.
"Three strawberry melbas, please."
The waiter looked regretful. "We've just run out. We have strawberry tart, though."
It wasn't much of an endorsement but at least I would have my strawberry fix. And then the big wedges of tart arrived, with delicate pastry, a surprisingly light vanilla-scented cream and sweet ruby berries. A marvel of simplicity, this tart reminded me of why crème pâtissière should never be filed away under "too old-fashioned."
Naturally I wanted to recreate this tart at home, with the same light pastry cream. The classic French recipe is often quite dense, with butter giving it a glossy finish but adding weight in the stomach. I slightly modified a basic pastry recipe from Books for Cooks no. 7, a compilation of recipes from my favorite cookbook shop in London, and tinkered with the pastry cream from O délices to make a strawberry tart that came remarkably close to what I had eaten in La Turbie.
In summer I prefer to make pastry in the food processor, which keeps it as cool as possible. Lately I've taken to sifting the flour, a step I used to ignore, as I've concluded that it really does produce lighter pastry. I didn't bother with red glaze (pastry chefs use melted redcurrant jelly), but you might sprinkle it with icing sugar.
The key is real vanilla bean and the sweetest, juiciest strawberries you can find - but you didn't need me to tell you that.

Classic tarte aux fraises
Serves 6

For the pastry:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (175 g)
5 tbsp icing sugar (45 g)
Pinch of salt
3 oz very cold butter, in pieces (90 g)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp ice water (30 ml)

For the crème pâtissière:
1 1/3 cups whole milk (350 ml)
1/2 vanilla bean
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar (75 g)
1/4 cup flour (30 g)

1 1/2 lbs strawberries (700 g)

Pastry: Sift the flour and icing sugar and place in the bowl of a food processor with the salt. Pulse once or twice to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg yolk and water and process until the dough forms a ball. Be careful not to overmix, but do let the dough come together. Turn the dough out onto a board and work it very lightly until smooth, pressing it forward bit by bit with the heel of your hand.

Roll the dough out immediately (going against tradition, which says to let it rest in the refrigerator) and line a 9-inch (24 cm) tart tin with the pastry, cutting the edges off with a rolling pin. If it tears, don't be afraid to press it back together, using stray pieces of dough to reinforce any weak spots. Place in the refrigerator for at least an hour before using.

Preheat the oven to 425 F (200 C), or 400 F (190 C) on the convection setting. Line the pastry with a round of parchment paper and fill with beans or rice. If you don't have beans or rice, you can use a second tart tin of the same size instead (if you have one!).

Bake for 10-15 mins, until the pastry starts to brown around the edges. Remove the paper and weights or tart tin and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so, until evenly golden. Set aside to cool.

Crème pâtissière: Pour the milk into a medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds of the vanilla bean into the milk and add the bean to the milk. Bring to a boil, being careful not to let it burn.

In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Add the flour and whisk well until smooth. Pour the boiling milk slowly into this mixture, whisking constantly. Return the milk mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking to prevent lumps from forming. Lower the heat and continue to cook the pastry cream, whisking, for 2-3 mins over very low heat to cook the flour (if you're using an electric burner, switch to another burner so as not to burn the pastry cream). Remove the vanilla bean, pour the cream into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap so that the plastic touches the surface, preventing a skin from forming. Set aside to cool.

When the pastry and pastry cream have cooled, pour the cream into the pastry shell and spread it out with a spatula. Top with the strawberries, cut in half, with the cut side facing upwards to prevent too much juice from soaking into the cream.