Couldn’t decide if I wanted a flan patissier with vanilla or chocolate. So I made both in one, creating this nice two-layered vanilla chocolate flan patissier.
Flan has so many different variations with each country having its own flan, egg tart, pasteis de nata and so on… It initially is based on British custard cake than have spread across Europe first and then the world throughout the time of colonisation.
Sticky toffee pudding is made from a classic cake batter with boiled dates added in. This dough is then traditionally baked in a pudding mould (bowl), not in an oven but in a saucepan, just like the Christmas pudding and many other puddings. It is served hot and topped with a caramel sauce.
In this recipe I’ll be making it in the oven, to add a touch of practicality and to not lose too much of the authenticity of the dessert.
Millefeuille is another pastry that you can find in any boulangerie in France. Commonly flavored with vanilla pastry cream, I made this raspberry millefeuille for Valentine’s Day (I know I’m late) with raspberry pastry cream.
I decided to use the raspberry pastry cream to have a refreshing flavor of raspberry to it and to add a romantic vibe.
Traditionally, a millefeuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry, two layers of pastry cream and the top layer is glazed with icing or fondant in alternating white icing and brown stripes then combed.
The French name (Thousand-leaf) of this pastry refers to the large number of layers of puff pastry. With the traditional method of preparing puff pastry, made with six folds of three layers your millefeuilles will have 729 layers we are still far from the thousand.
The ‘Galette des Rois’ is typically a French tradition that celebrates the Epiphany. This celebration derived from the night the three kings (wise men) Gaspard, Balthazar, and Melchior, voyaged to pay their tribute to one of the world’s most famous enfant born on earth, bringing with them gifts.
This tradition has lost much of its religious significance over the years. For many French families, this tradition has become a day where the family gathers and shares a Galette des Rois (a puff pastry pie filled with a smooth mixture of frangipane, a mixture of both almond and pastry cream, and finished by hiding a small charm in the frangipane).
The most important part of this tradition is the ritual that goes along with it. The youngest child of the family must hide underneath the table while an adult cuts the Galette. The hiding child must then call out which slice goes to whom, in order for it to be totally random. Whoever gets the charm in their slice is the King (or Queen) for the day and gets to wear the golden paper crown, that the Galette typically comes with. Also that person has to pick who will be their Queen or King for the day.
Chocolate éclair is the pastry that you can find in any boulangerie in France. Commonly flavored with chocolate or coffee and situated close to the counter when you buy your daily bread, you can’t not see them.
Éclair can be translated as ‘flash’, it is called like this because it can be eaten very fast.
The beginning of the recipe is the to prepare the chocolate custard. Feel free to replace the chocolate custard by any flavor of your choice, vanilla, hazelnut …
The chocolate custard is part of my chocolate éclairs recipe but can be used as filling for any type puffs or cakes.
It can be used to make any custard, only the step 8 needs to be change to the taste you want, pistachio, white chocolate, caramel, coffee …
Vanilla pods is better than vanilla extract, it gives a stronger flavor to the custard.