Monday, February 22, 2010

French pastry: branch in Thomery

Last Saturday it was a great sunny day and I was wondering how to spend the weekend when I got an email from my Indonesian friend Genie Njoto. She invited me for a Sunday branch at her place. There was no need to persuade me :)
10 am, Sunday, we are in the Fonty morning market (I’ve written about it before, when we did the cheese plate masterclass). We pick up some pastry, cheese, baguettes and jam and drive out of Fonty. We pass the garden of Chateau de Fontainebleau and drive through the Fontainebleau forest to an amazing small ancient village, Thomery. The village is on the river. It looks friendly and hospitable under the morning sun.
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When we start serving the food our Indian friends Prash and Sunil come.
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Everyone is hungry, so it takes them a serious effort to continue to listen to me talking about what we have bought for the branch.
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So I’ll better write it, hoping that you will enjoy reading :)
We’ve picked up pain aux raisins that seems to be very popular. You can find it in virtually any patisserie. What makes it that delicious (in my view) is the vanilla cream that they add to the stuffing along with the raisins. Hard to stop eating but it is still too much to taste left.
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Chocolate twist is also great. It is stuffed with small pieces of chocolate that melt if you heat the pastrie. Vanilla cream is also in place!
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Flan is also sold everywhere. Custard baked on the short dough base to form a round cake. Personally I’m not amazed by it. But it seems that the French like custard very much. Another example of this is crème brûlée
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Finally – a fruit cake with pears in almond dough – delicious. I don’t know how they make it. Should ask my French housemate for a recipe!
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This time we did a lot of tasting at once :) We are talking about classes and plans for the week. Genie might cook something Indonesian for us at one of the upcoming club events. A pity, but it is time to go home. We’ll meet at school tomorrow.

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