We love to visit Paris for the sales, for the museums, and for the sheer ambiance. But as long as we’re being honest, we love to visit Paris for the patisseries. Small French pastries are always a highlight of any trip to the City of Light. Combine our love of French pastry with our longing for far-too-distant Paris, and Petite Patisserie couldn’t have crossed our desk at a better time. It gives a shot at baking our way back into the Bois de Boulogne—or at least one of our favorite pastry shops in the Marais.
Petite Patisserie: 180 Easy Recipes for Elegant French Treats by Christophe Felder and Camille Lesecq (Rizzoli, 2020, $45) is a 350-page guide to financiers, madeleines, Napoleons, petit fours, tartlets, and much, much more. The authors operate a patisserie, Les Pâtissiers (lespatissiers.fr), in Mutzig, Alsace, and Felder operates Studio Christophe Felder, a pastry school open to the public in Strasbourg. He spent 15 years as pastry chef at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, while Lesecq was the former pastry chef at Le Meurice—some distinguished credentials indeed. Not surprisingly, the book was published first in French.
But this translation by Carmella Abramowitz Moreau is marvelously clear and exacting. Add in recipes structured to make the home pastry chef succeed and you have a real winner of a cookbook. That does mean the elimination of certain techniques, so you won’t find recipes for macarons (which require making both French and Italian meringues) or most delectable desserts baked in molds set in hot water in the oven. (The to-die-for chocolate mousse cake is the single exception.)
Beyond the basics, the authors also include some marvelously quirky items, like this Alsatian adaptation of a German honey cake.
EDMÉE’S ANISEED LOAF
A few notes on this recipe: We find that the high level of sugar and honey in this cake makes it prone to burning on the edges. Watch carefully and tent the edges with foil for the last 10 minutes or so. Remove from oven as soon as cake tester comes out clean. Also note that this recipe produces a generous amount of batter. Do not overfill the pan. We cook the extra batter as cupcakes, filling cups two-thirds full and baking 18-20 minutes. Slices of this loaf are perfect with afternoon tea. —Pat and David
Serves 8
INGREDIENTS
Unsalted butter for brushing
5 ⅓ cups (1 lb. 1 oz. / 480 g) cake flour, plus more for dusting
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground aniseed, plus whole aniseed for sprinkling
1 cup (250 ml) water
2 eggs, separated
1¼ cups (9 oz. / 250 g) granulated sugar
¾ cup (9 oz. / 250 g) pine honey or other flavorful honey
1 drop kirsch
Equipment
An 8½ by 4½-inch (22 by 11-cm) loaf pan
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) convection. Brush the loaf pan with butter and dust with flour.
Sift the flour with the baking soda.
In a small saucepan, bring the ground aniseed and water to a boil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove
the pan from the heat and let cool to lukewarm.
In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites until they hold a firm peak. In a large bowl, combine the
sugar with the honey, kirsch, and aniseed infusion. Beat in the egg yolks and the dry ingredients, but do
not overmix. Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.
Spread the batter in the loaf pan, filling three-quarters full. Sprinkle the top with whole aniseed
and bake for about 1 hour, until well risen and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let
the loaf cool slightly in the pan, then turn out onto a rack and let cool completely.