How to beat egg whites

(Found inTexts)
Beat egg whites is very common in cooking and pastry, here are some tips to get there easily.

How to use gelatin

(Found inTextsStepsIngredients)
Gelatin is a gelling agent use in some desserts where a rather firm texture is required when cold. It can also be used to stabilize a dessert (mousses especially) that you need to keep longer than usual.

Strawberry Charlotte

(Found inTexts)
This is a faily quick charlotte recipe. It begins, as usual, by soaking finger biscuits in syrup, in this case flavoured with lime. The charlotte is then assembled with alternate layers of Chantilly (whipped cream) and strawberries.

Fruit crémeux

(Found inTextsStepsIngredients)
This kind of "crémeux" (it means "creamy", but contains no actual cream) is a basic recipe in the repertoire of French pastry chefs. It is smoother but less frothy than a mousse and uses gelatin to set it as it cools. Often used as a tart filling or in other desserts, crémeux is usually poured to set in a mould. This fruity version is made with raspberries.

Diplomat cream

(Found inTextsStepsIngredients)
Diplomat cream or "crème Madame" (a much prettier name) is one of many creams in French pâtisserie based on confectioner's custard. The classic confectioner's custard (crème pâtissière, or french pastry cream) has gelatin added while hot, then whipped cream is folded in when cold. This gives a very light, velvety mixture, halfway between custard and Chantilly.

Apple paste

(Found inTexts)
Apple paste, like most other fruit pastes, is a simple mixture of apple juice, sugar and a gelling agent - pectin here.

Clementine diplomat cream

(Found inTextsStepsIngredients)
Diplomat cream, as delicious as ever, in a double clementine-flavoured version. It can be used in lots of desserts and pastries.

Bavaroise cream

(Found inTextsStepsIngredients)
A "bavaroise" is made with custard, set with gelatin after cooking, and with whipped cream added once it has cooled. This makes a delicious, smooth cream that can be used to create many different desserts.

Lime meringue tart

(Found inStepsIngredients)
For this delicious tart, you will see how the crisp, sweet pastry is the perfect foil for the distinct taste and slight sharpness of the lime filling and, of course, the smoothness of the Italian meringue topping.

Pistachio panna cotta with custard

(Found inStepsIngredients)
In this dessert, the pistachio panna cotta is teamed with real vanilla custard and topped with a few caramelised pistachios.

Two-coloured chocolate-orange tart

(Found inStepsIngredients)
This tart, with its twinned chocolate and orange flavours, is a bit fiddly to make. The fillings are fairly straightforward (classic chocolate ganache and orange curd), but it is tricky to ensure that the fillings do not run into each other. You will need to make a divider but, as you will see, this makes everything possible and, of course, I explain all the details.

Plum and almond panna cotta

(Found inStepsIngredients)
The combination of plums and almonds is always a winner. Here's a version that uses almonds to make a delicious panna cotta with a difference.

Blackberry and almond fondant tart

(Found inStepsIngredients)
Balckberries and almonds go so well together: the slight tartness of the berries is the perfect foil for the sweeter almonds. This combination makes for a delicious tart. The sweetcrust pastry case is filled with a blackberry jelly and an almond panna cotta, presented in a bold and unusual way as a change from the usual layers.

Bounty-style tart for Alison

(Found inStepsIngredients)
This Bounty-style tart combines, as you might expect, chocolate and coconut in a sweetcrust pastry case.

Lime crémeux

(Found inStepsIngredients)
This "crémeux" is a creamy mixture ideal for filling tarts, either on its own or as a bottom layer topped with fruit, for example.

Little vanilla, clementine and chestnut verrines

(Found inStepsIngredients)
This is a fresh-flavoured verrine with 3 different flavoured layers: vanilla panna cotta, clementine and chestnut mousse.

Clementine Creamy

(Found inStepsIngredients)
A clementine cremeux is a little different from cremeux based on pulpy fruits (such as blackcurrant or raspberry), this time more juice is used and the zest.

Crunchy blackcurrant and mascarpone cream verrine

(Found inStepsIngredients)
A three-tiered verrine: mascarpone whipped cream, blackcurrant coulis and granola crunch.

Thin tomato jelly and avocado tart

(Found inStepsIngredients)
For this sophisticated recipe, we'll be preparing a disc of tomato jelly to sit on a puff pastry base. This is topped with slices of avocado in a lime dressing.

Frozen nougat

(Found inStepsIngredients)
Dazzle your guests with this delicious dessert, a creamy blend of meringue, whipped cream and dried fruit that can be prepared several days in advance.

Gelatin is a magical ingredient for making light, creamy, structured desserts, yet it's often misused in the kitchen. A common mistake in some recipes is the idea that it needs to be boiled for it to work properly, but this is a mistake indeed: gelatin melts at a much lower temperature, around...
November 21^th 202413 K5

A question I'm often asked is: how do you come up with your recipes? How do you perfect them? This is something I've already mentioned on this page, but I'll take this opportunity to go into a bit more detail.
October 15^th 201219 K4.4

We are well into summer as I write this, and this is the time when most of the fruit is giving or about to give in full. And for many of us, it will also be the time for jams and jellies, one of the best ways to preserve fruit for the next winter.
July 12^th 202129 K4.5

In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...
February 27^th 201349 K4.3

There are many ways of making a fruit mousse, but one of the simplest is to prepare a fruit jelly (basically a fresh fruit coulis with gelatine) and then mix this jelly before it sets completely with whipped cream. The result is perfect for filling a charlotte, for example. But do beware;...
March 6^th 201382 K4.0

When you make a traditional mousse, that is to say without using a siphon, whatever the recipe, it's always the same principle: on one side you have a dense mixture, very tasty, and on the other side egg whites beaten until stiff. All the difficulty of the success of a mousse, it will be to mix the...
April 3^rd 202111 K4.6

You've probably heard this before, we're talking about "nervous" meat, or meat with nerves, to describe what is indicated by the blue arrow on the left. This is a piece of beef, and what we call a nerve is not a nerve, it is in fact collagen (chemists sometimes call it a "collagen sink"), a...
April 16^th 202143 K4.4

In this post, I propose you to make a small tour of the different creams in pastry. If you like to make them at home, you have already noticed the many creams that exist for the different desserts: Chantilly, custard, diplomat, Bavarian, etc. etc. Each one more delicious than the other, they...
March 12^th 202216 K4.5

If you start making a Bavarian cream for example, or any other that contains a gelling agent such as gelatin or agar-agar, you will sooner or later be confronted with the problem: How to properly incorporate this gelling agent into my cream? (and we will focus on gelatin).
June 18^th 202216 K4.9

Making a béchamel sauce is going to confront you with a little miracle that happens every time: You pour milk over a roux, it's very liquid, you stir over a low heat, and then all of a sudden, miracle, the sauce sets, it thickens, you've got your béchamel. Let's see what happened.
August 27^th 202411 K4

As you may have already noticed, when you cook potatoes in milk, especially in small pieces (slices or cubes) for a gratin for example, a surprisingly abundant white foam forms on the surface. Where does it come from?
April 26^th 20263,3075

Gelatin

(Found inTexts)
Gelatin is a gelling agent, of animal origin, which is used in cooking to thicken or set preparations. It dissolves when heated (at about 60°C), and then acts as a gelling agent when the temperature drops again.
23 K4.1