Croissants is the last recipe in the French Pastry Classics chapter! Hallelujah! I’ve learned so much, but I’m kind of excited for some (hopefully) shorter blog posts! This post includes a lot of photos because not only do I just love croissants, but also because I had croissants in Paris, and I want to share my experience! 🖤 The day I had my first Parisian croissant turned out to be my favorite day in Paris. We woke up early to the sun starting to shine over the trees of Montmartre and the birds singing. Heather and I had gone shopping the day before and purchased summer dresses to wear not only because it was insanely hot (90° in April!) and we didn’t bring the right clothing,…

Hazelnut and orange japonais ♥︎. Two flavors I’ve surprisingly never put together that are phenomenal together. I totally plan on making macarons or cupcakes with them soon. Definitely heaven in a bite. Crunchy meringue and toasted hazelnuts on the outside, with decadent hazelnut mousseline and orange marmalade on the inside that taste phenomenal after they’ve been in the fridge overnight, flavors melding together. So so good. Also, if you’ve never made hazelnut praline paste, what the heck are you doing??? Hazelnut praline paste that is used in this recipe for the mousseline is God’s gift to man. It’s the texture of peanut butter but made with caramelized hazelnuts and sugar and it. is. the. BEST. Any recipe I’ve ever made with hazelnut praline paste I have…

Mille-Feuille means a thousand leaves, which describes the many layers of flaky dough in this beautiful pastry. Doesn’t it just sound crispy and amazing? It’s made of layers of puff pastry with pastry cream between each layer, and sometimes fruit is added. If you’ve ever watched The Great British Baking Show, you would have heard every single person say “Oh, never make your own puff pastry. Just buy it.” That’s because store bought takes TWO LESS DAYS to make lol! But does it tastes just as good? Well, let’s find out! Mille-feuille is easy and quick…if you buy frozen puff pastry…but that’s not how this recipe OR Jacquy works 🙂 Instead, the ingredients are rolled out into a rectangle, folded like a letter/book with lots of butter on the inside,…

The first time I tried making croquembouche, I’ll be honest, I was nervous. It looks intimidating. I ended up making the cream puffs too large and didn’t have enough. I was so disappointed when I went to stack them into a tower and only made it up 80% of the way. I just took it apart and was done. Taking it apart was difficult because I also cooked the caramel too long, and it was super thick when I dipped each cream puff making them impossible to eat 🙁 . This ended up being the last recipe I attempted in 2017… Croquembouche Difficulty in 2020: 2/5 Taste: 5/5 How long it took me: About 5 hours total. I made a double batch of the vanilla bean pastry cream as…

Coffee Religieuses. Definitely something I’ve never heard of before. Basically, a large cream puff is glazed with fondant and then topped with a small cream puff (both filled with coffee pastry cream), coffee mousseline is piped into teardrops on the sides…and a swirl is piped on top…without all the decor, I think they look like BB-8 from Star Wars lol. These are made with a lot of coffee extract and frosting. They are sweeeeeet. And super cute. Difficulty: Again, pâte á choux is easy now. I’m sure that’s the whole point to the way Jacquy put his book together. The only issue I had was with his instructions on how to make the glaze if you’re using dry fondant. My glaze resulted with no shine…womp womp Taste:…

Paris-Brest is a pastry I’ve seen pictures of before but didn’t know what it was called or why it was called Paris-Brest! Sad to say, we never tried it in Paris…and definitely missed out! There was a chef named Louis Durand back in 1910 who created this delicious dessert to celebrate the famous Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race. The shape is meant to resemble a bicycle wheel and has become a French classic found in pâtisseries everywhere. Apparently, the original recipe is kept secret, so the only place you can get a genuine Paris-Brest is from Pâtisserie Durand located in Maisons-Laffitte, France; however, I have a feeling most Paris-Brest’s are pretty close to the true recipe. I was so excited to make this! Paris-Brest Difficulty: 2/5. I feel like the…