Paris, patisseries and passionfruit!

As promised, I will now be reviewing the patisseries that I visited in Paris! I went to France armed with a list of six patisseries that I had researched and was eager to sample. I only managed to visit four because they were inconveniently located in completely different parts of the city (I know…how dare they!)

So, first, I went in search for Jacques Genin’s patisserie at 133 rue de Turenne but when we eventually found this street, there was a closed brown door at number 133 paired with a confused look on my face. However, at 134 rue du Turenne, there was a patisserie! I have absolutely no idea whether this is Jacques Genin’s shop but either way it was a good find. The bakery was clearly very popular with the locals as we had to queue for ten minutes before we even got into the shop! The queue was similar to those found on the Champs-Elysées and frankly, I’d rather queue for the perfect baguette than a handbag. Perfect the baguette was too; as we got closer to the window, we discovered that the patisserie had won 2nd best and 9th best baguette in Paris (on separate years of course) so we eagerly anticipated this delicious treat. We ordered a ham baguette and a tarte au citron and they were incredibly delicious. As I mentioned in my previous blog, it’s astonishing the difference between English and French food and this baguette was another example of this; so simple and yet so perfect, I was instantly addicted. The tarte au citron was also very delicious, light buttery pastry and a sharp, yet sweet, filling that wasn’t too acidic.

On our way to the next patisserie, we passed a very tempting bakery and of course, I cannot help but give in to temptation where baked goods are involved so we went in. I think that the bakery was called ‘Reves 180’ but I’ve included a photo anyway.

Here, I bought a chouquette and a viennoise chocolat. The viennoise was sadly disappointing as I found it quite bland but this may have been my expectation of it tasting more like brioche, which clearly it wasn’t. The chouquette however was so simple and yet so delicious. I’d heard of chouquettes before and desperately wanted to try them when I saw Rachel Khoo make them on her TV show and in her cookery book ‘The Little Paris Kitchen’. They are almost bite size balls of choux pastry coated in sugar nibs and were very nice, I can quite see myself being obsessed with them if I were a young child in France…wait a minute, I can quite see myself becoming obsessed with them anyway! I will definitely be looking into trying Rachel Khoo’s recipe for these delicious bites and I’d like to try them with chocolate chips as well as sugar nibs.

After this delicious diversion, we were back on our way and heading towards one of Pierre Herme’s ‘macarons et chocolat’ shops. I’ve never really been one for macaroons; they usually come in unnatural colours and grate on your teeth when you bite into them. Sufficed to say, I was quite reserved about going into this shop but I trusted my research, decided to give it a go and was very glad that I did. They were an absolutely ridiculous price so I only bought three macaroons but they were incredibly delicious and have converted me to their ways! I decided to go for the creme brulee, praline noisette and mogador (which was chocolate and passionfruit). The creme brulee was a little disappointing and didn’t have much flavour, whereas the mogador may have had too much flavour if that is even possible! It tasted entirely of chocolate and then you suddenly got a zing of passionfruit and it was shocking but I liked it. The praline noisette however was absolutely heavenly so if you ever have the opportunity, taste that macaroon!

A couple of hours later, we finally found our last stop, Jean Paul Hevin’s patisserie. I ended up spending a ridiculous 10 euros but frankly, given the standard, I don’t even care anymore. I decided to go for an eclair and a longchamp praline. The eclair was perfectly nice but a bit rich for my likely as the cream inside was chocolate, I much prefer the eclairs I can get from my local bakery as they are fresh and light. The longchamp praline however was the find of not only the trip but the year. It consisted of hazelnut cake, praline mousse and meringue and was coated in milk chocolate and chopped almonds. So many different elements but they worked so brilliantly together and I’d go back to Paris purely for this gem.

Unfortunately, this was all we had time for (unless I’ve mentioned something in a previous post) but how brilliant a day was that? Definitely worth a trip. Please excuse the photos, I couldn’t take my camera with me so had to take the photos on my phone. I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures in Paris! I’ll be posting again soon when I get back into the kitchen, freshly inspired to bake just about everything!

Paris! The first extract from my diaries…

The difference between French and English food is frankly astonishing and yes, slightly unfair. I’m not talking about the high end, Michelin-star restaurant food because obviously, that will be delicious wherever you are; I am talking about the day to day general food that is available to all. Admittedly, I was in Paris so the standard of food should be good for the food capital of the world but even if you compare it to London, the food is still of a significantly better quality in France. In London, you find street vendors frying burgers and sausages that will inevitably give you a stomachache the following day but in France, I casually walked past a street vendor, fully intending to ignore it completely, only to find that he was cooking pizzas in a proper wood burning oven…in a van; how incredible is that?

Not having been to Paris for almost ten years, I’d forgotten just how much I love the atmosphere, culture and, of course, the food. I had the best pain au chocolat I have ever tasted on this trip and I didn’t pay 6 euros for it in a fancy patisserie… oh no, I paid just over a euro for it in the train station. This was another revelation of mine; pain au chocolat noisette. It was essentially a pain au chocolat with nutella inside it and topped with chocolate nibs and roasted hazelnuts, so simple yet so delicious. I am baffled as to why the English have not adopted this, given our obsession with nutella, but I will definitely be attempting a similar recipe at some point in the future.

I went to Disneyland for a couple of the days and after becoming very fed up of the food on offer, I went to a French supermarket on my way back to the hotel and bought cup a soup, bread and soft goats’ cheese for my dinner; what a difference it was to those same ingredients in England. The cup a soup tasted like real soup rather than boiled water, the bread was delicious and the goats’ cheese was the best I’ve ever had and it only cost me a euro. Now tell me, how can the French get such amazing day to day food when we have to go our of our way to farmer’s markets?

The trip to Paris was truly incredible and I have been so inspired to try out new flavours and new recipes (more on those to come!) but one of the best things I tried was ravioles. Not ravioli but raviole du Dauphine; a French version of the traditional ravioli that consists of small squares of pasta encasing three types of cheese, egg and parsley and then boiled or sauteed in butter. I had them in a pumpkin cream soup and it was so utterly delicious that I could have had three courses of this and been more than happy. If you ever have the opportunity to try these, do! You will not regret it.

I’ve inserted a photograph of the view from my hotel room just to tempt you all to read my next post, where I will be reviewing all of the patisseries I visited! Look out for that as it will be coming very soon!