French pastry: Tradition and evolution
March 5, 2009
‘French pastry: Tradition and Evolution’ is the first professional book I ever bought, on the advice of my mentor and instructor, Chef George Wagner.
Bellouet was a teacher at the Lenotre Ecole, one of the top pastry schools in the world, and George recommended this book because it has some really good foundation recipes.
At 200 pages, th is is a very french book; heavy on recipes but a bit skimpy on the pictures. I have used it quite a bit, and found it useful for such traditional desserts as Paris Brest, Charlottes, Ste. Honore and Opera cake, for example.
One problem I have with the book is that the method of the recipes is rarely described in any detail, leaving lots of guesswork. For example, check this recipe:
LEMON ROLLED CAKE (roule au citron)
Soak a layer of rolled cake with 30 B Syrup and lemon juice.
Fill with:
- 300 g butter cream (10 1/2 oz),
-300 g lemon cream (10 1/2 oz). Roll on paper.
Cover butter cream and white genoise.
Cut into desserts or individual portions.
Finishing variation:
Use white genoise instead of italian meringue.
Flame with a torch.
These rolled cakes are often used in France to prepare the traditional Yule log.
That is the complete recipe – as you can see, it doesn’t have a lot of detail or explanation, making it somewhat difficult to actually use. Then there is the French-to-English translation: often somewhere between clumsy and atrocious, it can be difficult to understand Bellouet’s instructions and intentions.
So, in summary, this is a book with a lot of good content, that doesn’t make itself particularly useful or inspiring.