Un Petit Peu de Pâtisserie

So this weekend saw another birthday celebrate. This time it was the birthday of my partner Lawrence and we had a weekend full of celebrations. 

So to start off with I spent pretty much the whole of Friday in the kitchen making French Pastries. You already know my love of croissants and all other things to do with French food.

A wonderful friend of my family (Francis) who was, until his retirement, a fantastic pastry chef in the Medoc region of France (obviously he is still a great chef!). He has indulged both mum and myself in cooking courses to show us how a real pastry chef works. He taught us the basics of choux pastry and the numerous things that can be done with it. So mum and I had a go on our own. 

We made three things:
1) Chouquettes
2) Lemon Eclairs
3) Canelés De Bordeaux

Chouquettes are simply choux pastry balls that are typically just cooked with rock sugar on the top, or filled with cream or creme patisserie depending on the occasion.

These eclairs were of my own invention, I decided to for something a bit different from traditional flavours. These eclairs were filled with lemon cured laced cream and covered with lemon icing.

Canelés are a regional speciality of Bordeaux (a place fond to the hearts of our family) and have a soft custard centre and a dark caramelised crust on the outside. Serve one up with a lovely cup of hot coffee, a complete winner!

If you are interested in the recipes and fancy giving any of the above a go do leave a comment below and ill do some special posts with a run down of all the instructions.

After a day of baking we then went back to visit our favourite chef Jules at the Secret Supper Society in North Oxfordshire. We had such a fantastic time for my birthday in October that Lawrence was keen to go again. Needless to say the food was yet again fantastic  - better than what you get in so many fine dinning restaurants! I packed up a little box of my pastry treats to give to Jules as a present - from one food lover to another what is better than a present of food! She quickly ate one up and really like them, if her food is good enough for Raymond Blanc and my pasties good enough for her I think I am onto a winner!

Until next time.

Emily