Defeated by the baguette

It’s time for some patisserie! 

I awoke full of excitement as the day’’s field trip was to the chocolatiere in Nerac! La Cigale was actually the inspiration for Joanne Harris’ novel (and later film) “Chocolat” and the nearby bastide town of Vianne was the namesake of the main character. 

The chocolatier at La Cigale is nothing short of a magician and the ways in which he works with chocolate are a wonder to behold. The flavour combinations are out of this world and I particularly enjoyed to spiced ganache which incorporated the flavours of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg etc.

After loading our arms full of heavenly chocolates we strolled around the old town and stopped for a spot of chocolate tasting. 

We arrived back at the house for a lunch of croque monsieur and lentil salad before assembling in the kitchen for our first session of patisserie!!

Chocolate and lemon tarts are clear favourites at any patisserie yet the recipes and ways in which these classic tarts are made can differ quite significantly from one establishment to the next. 

We made a lemon curd type filling for the lemon tart as well as a chocolate ganache made with creme anglaise for the chocolate tart.

The base of both of the tarts, a sweet shortcrust pastry was blind baked before adding the filling and then chilling in the fridge to set. 

My brain really was not working today as I kept miscalculating measurements. I even managed to splatter Marlene with lemon goo when I was trying to blend. (Sorry!)

Alas, it would seem that I was finally defeated by the baguette. A baguette (in case you didn’t know) is a very airy and light bread which has lots of air pockets and a crunchy crust. It, therefore, requires the gluten to be worked well.

In the bread world, this would normally require a lot of kneading to get the stretchy gluten working yet the dough for a baguette is very wet so it's less a case of kneading than it is of slapping the dough on the table. Cue my baguette dough to go flying all around the kitchen.

Once the dough is nice and smooth and very, very stretchy will need a long prove, preferably overnight. As you are slow proving the bread dough it should be kept quite cool, which for the south of France means keeping it in the fridge. 

Our baguettes will be revisited and baked tomorrow.