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LeMonde
a day ago
- LeMonde
Low-calorie French pastries struggle to win over chefs and consumers
France's dominance is being challenged in many areas, but it remains unrivaled in one field: pastry. A source of national pride, French pastry embodies an unparalleled savoir-faire, drawing enormous lines outside patisseries, whether for Cédric Grolet's trompe-l'œil fruits or meringues from Aux Merveilleux de Fred. It has inspired a wealth of literature (from Nina Métayer to Ladurée) and long-running television shows: season 14 of Le Meilleur Pâtissier ("The Best Pastry Chef") has just wrapped filming. Attracting tourists from all over the world, it also allows pastry chefs to expand internationally (Yann Couvreur in Miami, Jean-Paul Hévin in Taiwan, Maison Caffet in Japan, among others). In January, a project to have French pastry listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage was launched by the Pâtisserie et Patrimoine ("Pastry and Heritage") association, chaired by Pierre Hermé. The refined taste and aesthetic appeal of French pastry justifies its global reputation, but little thought is given to its nutritional value. In this discipline where sugar, butter, cream, flour and chocolate remain essential ingredients, is it not synonymous with junk food? Rich in fat and sugars, low in fiber, high in calories and with limited nutritional value, it certainly fits the definition. It is also worth noting that while French cuisine slimmed down in the 1970s, this movement never extended to dessert.
The Citizen
08-07-2025
- General
- The Citizen
Recipe of the day: Bake at home crispy meringue cake
Bake at home with our recipe of the day: Discover the secrets of perfect meringue. Renowned pastry chef Cédric Grolet says eggs serve multiple purposes. They act as emulsifiers, helping to combine fats and liquids smoothly, and contribute to the structure of the baked item. He also frequently uses egg wash, a mixture of beaten eggs brushed onto pastries before baking to achieve a golden-brown crust. Award-winning French pastry chef Dominique Ansel, best known for his invention of the Cronut (a croissant-doughnut hybrid made with eggs), is a huge fan of baking with eggs because of their incredible versatility. He notes that whole eggs are binders, helping to hold ingredients together and increase the viscosity of batters and doughs, while egg yolks add richness and flavour, and can be incorporated to provide structure and moisture. Whipped egg whites, he says, are the only way to obtain a light and airy end result. In his famous Buche de Noël, he uses both whipped egg whites and yolks, demonstrating how different parts of the egg can be used to create different textures. This season, we're giving a nod to artisanal bakers with a trendy high tea featuring a crispy meringue cake. ALSO READ: Recipe of the day: Simple no-bake holiday snacks to make with the kids Preparation time: 30 minutes Cooking time: 45 minutes Cost per recipe: Serves 12 for under R120 Ingredients: For the cake: 125 ml (½ cup) softened baking margarine 180 ml (¾ cup) sugar 2 eggs 5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence 60 ml (¼ cup) plain yoghurt 250 ml (1 cup) self-raising flour 2.5 ml (½ tsp) salt For the meringue: 3 egg whites 2.5 ml (½ tsp) cream of tartar 180 ml (¾ cup) castor sugar Icing sugar, for dusting Method: Working quickly, carefully spread the meringue evenly over the top of the cake. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the meringue is crisp. Cool. Turn out onto a cake stand and dust with icing sugar. For the cake, preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a deep 19cm springform cake tin with baking paper. Beat together the margarine and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla and yoghurt until combined. Fold in the flour and salt until smooth. Spread into the prepared tin. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cake is puffed up and slightly golden. Meanwhile, for the meringue, beat the egg whites until foamy. Beat in the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Slowly add the castor sugar while beating until glossy with medium peaks. Recipe of the day : Bake at home crispy Meringue cake Author: Thami Kwazi Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 45 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes Category: baking Ingredients Scale 1x 2x 3x FOR THE CAKE 125 ml (½ cup) softened baking margarine 180 ml (¾ cup) sugar 2 eggs 5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence 60 ml (¼ cup) plain yoghurt 250 ml (1 cup) self-raising flour 2.5 ml (½ tsp) salt FOR THE MERINGUE 3 egg whites 2.5 ml (½ tsp) cream of tartar 180 ml (¾ cup) castor sugar Icing sugar, for dusting Instructions For the cake, preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a deep 19 cm springform cake tin with baking paper. Beat together the margarine and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla and yoghurt until combined. Fold in the flour and salt until smooth. Spread into the prepared tin. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cake is puffed up and slightly golden. Meanwhile, for the meringue, beat the egg whites until foamy. Beat in the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Slowly add the castor sugar while beating until glossy with medium peaks. Working quickly, carefully spread the meringue evenly over the top of the cake. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the meringue is crisp. Cool. Turn out onto a cake stand and dust with icing sugar. Notes Serves 8-10 for under R120
Los Angeles Times
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Tasting the best Trompe-l'œil fruit desserts in L.A.
Trompe-l'œil desserts, the fruit desserts often molded and decorated to mimic mango, pistachio and an array of other produce and nuts, look like works of art. French pastry chef Cédric Grolet is credited with starting the trend, and the desserts are gaining in popularity in Los Angeles, with a handful of shops offering their take on the beautiful confections. We taste tested more than a dozen. Here are our favorites.
Los Angeles Times
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
I taste tested the viral cakes that look like fruit and nuts. Which L.A. bakeries make the best ones?
More than 115 million people watched a video of French pastry chef Cédric Grolet make fruit pies that resemble giant blueberries, peaches, oranges and raspberries. A peach dessert molded and spray-painted to look like a real peach drew 63.6 million views. Caramelized banana and peanut butter logs clumped together to mimic a bunch of bananas captivated nearly 33 million people. Grolet is known for his trompe-l'œil desserts, elaborate creations constructed from various fruit, nut brittles, mousse, cake, creams, custards and chocolates. He's created desserts that look like oversize peanuts, Buddha's hands and just about every other nut, stone fruit and berry. I have spent hours on TikTok, mesmerized by these edible works of art. 'These types of desserts have been around for a while, but Cedric would be the one who started the trend and brought these kinds of desserts into popularity,' says Catherine Zhang, chef and partner at Tu Cha boba and dessert shop in Koreatown. Thanks to Zhang, and a handful of other chefs in Los Angeles, the trompe-l'œil fruit and nut-shaped desserts have made their way west. Zhang and her partners opened Tu Cha in March with a short menu of fruit-shaped desserts and what she calls 'dream cakes.' The most popular is the My Man Go ($14.50), made with fresh mango encased in crème fraîche mango mousse with hazelnut praline in a tropical chocolate shell made to look like a real mango. When you crack into the chocolate, the mousse is smooth and almost jellylike with a center that tastes like you're biting into a ripe mango. The Berry3 ($14.50), pronounced 'berry cube,' is presented like a cube-shaped raspberry. It's a striking red dessert covered in crimson velvet spray that gives the surface the textured, almost hairy look of a real raspberry. Inside, there's a core of pistachio praline with both raspberry mousse and strawberry coulis. 'It's pretty crazy how popular these desserts have been with the help of social media,' Zhang says. 'We have food creators who have made it a trend to eat these desserts in your car. Those videos get millions of views and people come from that.' A small team of chefs works around the clock to produce about 1,000 desserts a day, but it's never enough. Tu Cha sells out of every cake, every day. 'I don't think people understand the complexity behind the desserts and how long it takes to create each one,' Zhang says. 'We are capped at the number we can produce each day because of our freezer space and the number of molds.' Each dessert takes three days to make. The various components are all made by hand, layered, chilled, molded, chilled again, dipped and sprayed. Then there's the Dubai Pistachio ($22). It's a heart-shaped cake embedded in a black tin, layered with matcha sponge cake, pistachio knafeh, matcha mousse and matcha white chocolate. You use a spoon to crack the matcha white chocolate, then navigate through the many layers to the bottom of the tin. The matcha flavor is intense, bitter and grassy, tempered by the sweet chocolate and crunchy, nutty knafeh. 'After we launched, these desserts have become massive,' she says. 'I feel like it's everywhere now. Everyone has picked it up. Every dessert shop is trying its own version.' The Grigoryan family has been making a wide array of Armenian pastries at their Burbank bakery since 2014. Owner Art Grigoryan started experimenting with fruit-shaped mousse desserts. Now, the bakery produces half a dozen varieties that resemble pears, red and green apples, oranges, raspberries and mangoes. The core of each dessert is a fruit filling, with fresh diced mangoes in juice that oozes from the center and a wallop of sweet and bitter citrus in the orange. The apple filling conjures images of cinnamon-spiked apple pie. All the fillings are sheathed in silky mousse with an outer layer of Belgian chocolate. 'We're planning on bringing back pistachio, coconut, avocado and lemon soon,' says Art's son David Grigoryan. At $10 each, they are the most affordable of all the trompe-l'œil desserts we tried. When Kay Kara opened Aurora on South La Brea Avenue in the fall of 2023, the glass case that lines the store was filled with classic French desserts and chocolates. His executive pastry chef and master chocolatier, Nour Ramlawi, was trained in Switzerland and spent years as a pastry chef in Dubai. Kara and Ramlawi first introduced a lemon-shaped confection in March 2024, and it quickly became one of the shop's top sellers. 'We are pretty much following an international trend that started in France, and we thought we could do something similar for L.A.,' Kara says. 'The city was being underserved and the choices were not as novel as what was going on in Europe.' Kara tasked Ramlawi with transforming an existing mango dessert into a mango-shaped creation called Mango Madness ($15). It's a sunset-colored orb with a crunchy white chocolate shell, mousse and a fresh mango center. 'When we saw the trend of the fruit-shaped desserts was catching, we thought maybe we should follow the theme and we changed the shape,' Kara says. 'I needed to have something that was Instagrammable, and eventually people caught up with what we were doing and it became viral,' he says. 'It's been going viral for over a year now.' Ramlawi introduces a new fruit dessert every couple of months. Recently, there was a Meyer lemon-filled Lemon County ($12) and a banana-shaped Musa ($15) built with layers of double chocolate and Speculoos, banana coulis, caramel and chocolate fondant spongecake. The Orangiumum ($25) and Rose Razzleberry ($25) are massive approximations of the fruits they are meant to resemble. A cross-section of the orange boasts eight different preparations of orange and multiple days of assembly. There's orange cake, a crispy crepe, orange rind, mousse and coulis. Near the center is a round of rice pudding and the entire thing is dipped in white chocolate that's decorated to look like a sun-kissed orange. An actual leaf (I learned this the hard way) protrudes from the top. The Rose Razzleberry is just as elaborate, with a base of chocolate cake, Pop Rocks candy, Champagne mousse, chocolate mousse and raspberry coulis. 'I think it's time for L.A. to evolve beyond the doughnut and the cupcake,' Kara says. 'The city deserves more.' Anita Aykazyan says the La Pistache is 'the best dessert' in the pastry case at the Glendale shop. The dessert mirrors an unshelled pistachio, with beautiful striations of green and brown and an uneven surface covered in realistic grooves. 'This is actually his,' she says. 'I took classes with Grolet and was inspired by his work.' The La Pistache ($18) is a three-day process that involves a pistachio cream crunchy with pistachio praline, pistachio ganache and white chocolate. Each one is molded and decorated by hand. Before La Pistache, there was the Raspberry Petit Gateau, a dessert originally offered when the shop opened in April 2024. It underwent a series of transformations, including a heart-shaped design, before Aykazyan found a raspberry mold. 'When we started a year and a half ago with the raspberry dessert, there were not a lot of places doing them,' she says. 'Some places were making lemon or orange but no raspberries.' Aykazyan only offers the raspberry during the summer, and makes an effort to keep her dessert case as seasonal as possible. The petite gateau may be the most lifelike of them all, with a deep red color and a furry velvet exterior. Inside is a light, luscious mousse she learned to make while studying under Ksenia Penkina, a Russian baker based in Vancouver, Canada. And in the very center, a whole raspberry. 'We're a little behind Europe, but right now, this is a trend in L.A. because they look realistic,' Aykazyan says. 'I also think it's because they are fun and really yummy.' To see our favorites, watch a full taste test of all the desserts mentioned above in our video here, or on YouTube.
Daily Mail
27-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
La Dolce Vita! Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's VERY Italian €1,000-a-head wedding menu is revealed with guests set to tuck into dishes beloved by celebrities - and cooked by a Michelin star chef
Details of the menu for tonight's post wedding dinner have emerged and it's strictly made in the south of Italy. Spaghetti, cheeses and desserts, all made from the Campania region around Naples will be served for the lucky 200 guests for an eye-watering €1,000-a-head. Michelin star chef Fabrizio Mellino of the restaurant 'Quattro Passi' in Nerano, in the province of Naples is said to have been hired for the catering. Among the main courses of the menu will his signature dish of spaghetti alla Nerano, a recipe based on fried courgettes and a smoked cheese called provolone, which is a traditional dish that the Mellino family has passed down for generations. Patisserie Minori Sal De Riso is providing mignon pastries, desserts in a glass and single portions of lemon and ricotta and pear. While for the all important wedding cake, which will be cut by the newlyweds, they have gone for famous French pastry chef Cédric Grolet, known for his theatrical creations. The scale of the nuptial do means it's been dubbed the 'wedding of a century' by some, with the 61-year-old Amazon founder - one of the world's richest men - and his bride-to-be, 55, having invited some 200 guests for a three-day celebration. However, despite the opulence and extravagance of the event, it has not been all smooth sailing so far, and the couple has already faced a number of issues. The scale of the nuptial do means it's been dubbed the 'wedding of a century' by some, with the 61-year-old Amazon founder - one of the world's richest men - and his bride-to-be, 55, having invited some 200 guests for a three-day celebration Many are unhappy about Bezos and Sanchez choosing Venice at the location for the wedding, and the run-up to the festivities has been beset by protests, carried out by anti-capitalist and environmental advocates. Tensions have been brewing over the past week as locals and protest groups object to the $46 million Venice nuptials due to fears it will 'take over the city'. The couple have already been forced to change one of the venues due to 'rising global tensions', but as news of protests continued to threaten the wedding, the couple still found themselves mired in controversy. Around 20 activists were seen on Thursday holding placards in St Mark's Square, the iconic heart of Venice, with some trying to climb a post. Elsewhere, there is a potential issue with the venue, which includes the fabulous 15th Century Madonna dell Orto church in Venice's quaint Cannargio district. The structure, however, is undergoing some maintenance; meaning that what guests will first see when they arrive is the historic bell tower covered in scaffolding. Ahead of the do, in preparation, security guards blocked off entrances to the closure where the party was set to be held. However, it is believed that the first thing guests would have seen upon arrival at the venue was the iconic bell tower covered in scaffolding. Bride-to-be Lauren Sanchez (pictured) cowered under an umbrella after a freak thunderstorm hit the couple's first pre-wedding party on Thursday Meanwhile, partygoers were hit by a freak thunderstorm last night leaving guests soaked and forced to cower under umbrellas. The couple's A-list guests like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner were forced to take cover from the rain, forcing Thursday night's star-studded soiree into an early close. Bride-to-be Lauren was snapped surrounded by tuxedo-clad gentleman carrying blue umbrellas over her as she carefully stepped on to her awaiting boat. Another element of the nuptials that has come under scrutiny is the invitation sent out to guests. A copy of part of the material sent out by the couple had been obtained by ABC News, with some saying it looks like it could have been made by a 10-year-old. The document, which is decorated with whimsical cartoon images says: 'We're excited for you to join us! We have one early request: please, no gifts It also features what appear to be computer-generated designs of butterflies, doves, the Venice canals, gondolas, and feathers in purple, gray and pink-hues. One of the most unexpected stories that has gained headlines during the Bezos/Sanchez wedding celebrations was the split of Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry - who had reportedly been together for nine years. News of the pop princess and hunky actor's shock break-up came at the start of the Amazon billionaire's lavish three-day wedding celebrations. The headline-grabbing break-up comes after nine years together, six of which the now ex-couple - who share a four-year-old daughter together - spent engaged. This explains why 48-year-old Bloom attended the Bezos and Sanchez wedding without Perry, 40, and why he was seen appearing to wrap his arms around a mystery woman at a lavish pre-wedding party on Thursday. A source has told US weekly that the split was 'amicable'. 'Katy and Orlando have split but are amicable', said the source, adding that the break-up was so far 'not contentious'.
