A few weeks ago, while browsing the websites of Paris’s top pâtisseries, I spotted Hugo et Victor’s Tarte Fraise (strawberry tart). The pastry’s strawberry-red shell complemented its meticulously arranged strawberry slices superbly—I was quite inspired by its colour.
This weekend, I had a chance to experiment with adding food colouring to tart dough. The results were impressive. The trick is to use a food colouring that does not lose its pigment when baked.
A couple of days ago I flew from Toronto to San Francisco! My brother promised to take me to Chile once I had graduated high school (this was a promise he made six years ago), but I recently decided to switch destinations to the land of sourdough bread.
Before I left, I made these amazing Ispahan croissants, which were inspired by Pierre Hermé’s croissants of the same name. Inside these croissants is homemade rose-scented almond paste and a delightful raspberry-lychee gelée. These are also glazed with rose icing and crunchy freeze-dried raspberries. The Ispahan croissants are totally amazing and surprisingly not much more difficult to make than regular croissants!
I was wondering a few days ago what flavours went well with raspberries besides the classic vanilla and rose. I eventually had this idea that chives would pair well with raspberries. Yup. Chives – relatives of the onion. So, I tried to find a recipe online that used chives with raspberries and found none. At that point I questioned whether or not chives were a good choice. Online research made it seem as though chives would complement raspberries as well as Worcestershire sauce would (you know, the sauce that no one knows how to spell). At first, I decided against using chives with raspberries since it would be too risky. But, eventually, I did it anyway just to see what would happen (and to entertain you).
I decided to made a hazelnut dacquoise for the cake layers. Dacquoise is made very similarly to French macarons, except when the nuts are folded in the goal is not to deflate the egg whites (while making French macarons you’re trying to deflate then). Here, you want to keep as much air inside the egg whites as possible so that the cake is light and fluffy.
