Gastroanthropology

Salted Caramel + Poilane Bakery

The greatest mistake of my life - well it wasn't actually my mistake, but that's beside the point - was when a kitchen intern accidentally put four times the amount of salt in an ice cream base I was having her make. Rather than throw the batch out we tweaked the recipe and turned into a deep caramel colored ice cream that was sweet, and salty. I'm definitely a believer of a pinch of salt in everything pastry, but extra salt with buttery, creamy caramel is out of this world. Salted caramel is certainly not new, as the French in Brittany have been making it for ages. However, the love for the flavor of salted caramel has grown exponentially this past year. 

It's been weeks since I've been to Paris (yes, you can hate me that I can jump on a train and be in Paris in two hours) and I'm out of my favorite Parisienne CBS caramels (Caramel au Beurre Sale).*** But, Chez Pim reminded me that I can try and recreate the flavor at home. Oh, and the sables she uses as a vehicle to eat the salted caramel I don't have to make because the best part of Paris has a location in London. 

You must be wondering what the best part of Paris is? Poilane Bakery, of course. You've got to check out their whimsical website and if you are in London or Paris anytime soon, their bakeshops are a must. Poilane started baking bread in 1932, but their Paris location in Saint-Germain had been the basement bakery of a 17th century monastery. Poilane bakes bread in the same tradition of this bakery, which was producing wood-fired sourdough loaves during the time of Marie Antoinette! 

A few of my favorites, aside from the bread, at Poilane, is the apple tart, with huge chunks of apple so you know exactly what you are getting into...

And a lovely, not too sweet vanilla custard cake (in the middle)...

Almost as famous as their bread are these little, buttery cookies called punitions. Punishment in French, and you can eat an entire box before realizing what you have done. These are ridiculously expensive to have shipped, but smitten kitchen has provided a solution to this matter.

So, back to where I started - salted caramel. I used good French butter, but it wasn't salted, so I added a 1/4 tsp of salt to the recipe. Chez Pim makes chocolate ganache to keep the caramel from oozing out, though once the caramel cooled to a certain temperature it stayed put. This would be lovely over vanilla ice cream if you don't want to bother with the sables.

SALTED CARAMEL (adapted from Chez Pim)

• 120 g sugar
• 60 g unsalted butter 
• 100 ml or 1/4 c + 2 Tbs cream   
• 1/4 scraped vanilla bean 
• 1/4 tsp salt (omit if you are using salted butter)  

METHOD

Melt sugar over medium heat. Cook till sugar turns amber. Add cream (microwave or heat the cream so it is warm... this will help to avoid the major spitter spatter of hot sugar) and mix well. Add bits of butter, vanilla bean and salt. Make sure everything is well combined and set aside to cool. Spoon onto sables, or whatever shortbread you might have and sandwich.

 
*** C.B.S. or Caramel au Beurre Sale is hands down the most divine thing I have ever tasted. I even walked for hours flipping my map every which way near the seedy Moulin Rouge to procure what has been rumored to be the best salted caramel in the world. P.S. It is! 

C.B.S. caramels by Henri Le Roux can be found at A l'Etoile d'Or - Denise Acabo at 30 rue Fontaine, 75009 Paris 

Poilane in Paris: 8 rue du Cherche-Midi, 75006 or 49 boulevard de Grenelle, 75015

Poilane in London: 46 Elizabeth Street, SW1W 9PA 

Flammkuchen and Handbrot - German Christmas Market, Part 2

Of all the food offerings at the Berlin Christmas Markets our favorite was the Flammkuchen and Handbrot. First, the Handbrot...a whole wheat bread with a gooey cheese and bacon inside baked in a wood-fired oven and then slathered with creme fraiche and sprinkled with chives.

The bread dough is rolled flat and the piped with a thick Mornay sauce and then rolled and pinched shut. Mornay is a Bechamel sauce (one of the traditional mother sauces made of milk and thickened with cooked flour and butter, or roux) that has cheese, usually Gruyere, added to it.

No reason for fancy ovens - a wood fired oven and a spray bottle of water create the perfect heat + steam combination for this oven handbrot.

It was served to us hot from the oven with cool creme fraiche and chives. Need I say more?

Well, yes. The handbrot was trumped by the flammkuchen. It's better known as the Tarte Flambe in France and Flammekueche in Alsace. It has a similar history to the petit four - a little something to test the heat of the oven before oven thermometers existed. The flammkuchen is a yeasted dough rolled thin, a bit of fromage blanc or creme fraiche is spread over and topped with thick-cut smoked bacon bits. When it comes out of the oven, green onion is sprinkled on top. So simple, yet so delicious.

I first experienced this wonderful creation in Paris at Flam's..

The version above was a bit dressed up with more cheese and the addition of mushrooms, but I must say I do prefer the one below - the wonderfully simple Flammkuchen I had at the German Christmas Market.

This would be really easy to make at home...I'm now on the search for the perfect yeasted whole wheat dough to recreate my own flammkuchen at home.

City of Lights? City of Bread.

It's not a myth - nearly every other person in Paris is carrying a baguette from their local baker. Since I've been living in Europe I've been eating a lot more bread. This for two reasons - the bread (quality + variety) tends to be better and bread isn't "bad" for you, just a part of the diet. There are a plethora of whole grain, cereal and dark rye breads.

A few delicious bread finds in Paris...

Des Gateaux et du Pain is run by Claire Damon, who trained under Pierre Herme. Her bakery is sleek and black and you feel like you are walking into a private showroom - of breads and pastries.

 

Sprinkled all over Paris is Eric Kayser. He is famous for his cereal breads and rightly so. The bread from crust to flavor to chewy-ness only reinforces the fact that Kayser has perfected the art of bread.

 

The bread can be enjoyed plain or with a little smear of proper French butter.

Most know that I am not a huge fan of olives, but who wouldn't want to eat this olive bread?

I've missed the all-American chocolate chip cookie which Europeans have not or do not care to master, but Kayser did have a tasty chocolate chip cookie with walnuts that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Des Gateaux et du Pain: 63 Blvd Pasteur - 15th.

Eric Kayser: Paris, multiple locations, click here for boutiques.

Bastille Food Market

A crisp, onion and potato pancake, hot off the griddle from the Bastille Food Market in Paris.

The Bastille Food Market is an open-air market, over-flowing with fresh produce, baked goods, fish, meat, poultry, kitchen tools and prepared foods.

Poulet + Potato. Roasting chicken with juice and fat dripping down for the most deliciously flavored potatoes.

Sauerkraut + Sausage. Tart kraut and sweet, juicy sausage.

Everything Basque.

Traditional Kouign Amann. A bit different from the Pierre Herme kind.

It's no wonder figs have such a history.

A reminder that in many places around the world citrus is coming into season. 

Bastille Food Market in Paris is on Boulevard Richard Lenoir between rue Amelot and rue Saint Sabin in the 11th. Thursdays and Sundays from 7am - midafternoon.

Pierre Herme

I've just returned from a whirlwind trip to Paris and wishing I had more willpower - I ate all my Pierre Herme macarons on the two and a half hour train ride back to London. They were so good - like close your eyes, tilt your head back, room goes quiet and all you can concentrate on is the wonderful taste in your mouth good. And Pierre Herme doesn't stop there...he has a cake called Desire. Sable cookie bottom, lemon cream and lemon cake, topped with these fragrant wild strawberries.

While Pierre Herme pastry shops are like jewel boxes overflowing with treasures from all over the world it's the regional French classics that really impressed me.

These are canneles and they are traditionally from Bordeaux. I've actually had an obession with them for years. They are quite hard to come by in the US, especially a good one, but popular in France. If your in San Francisco they sometimes come at the end of your meal at the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton and also at Fleur de Lys, further south in Los Gatos you can occasionally find them at Fleur de Cocoa - call ahead, the chef doesn't make them everyday. The cannele exterior should be crunchy and a uniform deep brown color, while the inside is soft, chewy, and yellow.

They are a bit labor intensive to make - the batter must be made ahead and often left to rest for days - at Pierre Herme it's three. Traditionally, the cannele molds are coated with a melted beeswax mixture to help create the cruchy outside, but a few very well known pastry chefs swear by straight butter (including Pierre Herme!).

Kouign Amann is a french pastry that hails from Brittany. It's usually quite thin and cooked in one piece and cut into portions. The bakeries in Paris, however, do them like this:

 *These are upside down!

The Kouign Amann is usually served flat side up and I can't understand why. The bottom, which is shown here, is so beautiful and clearly shows the crunchy, sugary, layers. If you've never had kouign amann its a croissant dough (and Pierre Herme's croissants are already in a league of their own), where it's not just butter folded into the layers - it's sugar as well.

Pierre Herme has three locations in Paris: 4 rue Cambon - 1st, 185 rue de Vaugirard - 15th, 72 rue de Bonaparte - 6th.