The secrets of French pastry 🍰 | Ask The Expert 👩‍🍳

Hi, I'm Charlotte Toubot and I'm deputy chef of the pastry at La Grande Épicerie de Paris and I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about French pastry. So pastry will be everything sweet, cakes, danish, pies, but for French pastry it's a legacy of centuries of transmission. It started in the middle age and then of course it's been a huge evolution of the French pastry starting with Antonin Carême. Then everything is a heritage from that will be French pastry. For me the most iconic pastry will be the croquembouche. You'll have it in lots of weddings and I think it's just amazing when it's well done and the Saint-Honoré is very iconic with all the whipped cream of course and then you have these little choux which are caramelized and what you cannot see is that inside there's vanilla custard with the vanilla from Tahiti so just delicious. I think the pastry that tourists go the most for is Mille Feuilles which is very popular and of course you have the macarons. They come in all different colors and flavors and they're very popular. I think it's because they're so pretty right and also delicious and easy to eat and of course the chocolate one. I think you need to master the science of it for it to become an art. The ingredients for pastry are very simple. It's eggs, butter, cream, milk, sugar and flour and that's about it. The butter. So the AOP butter is for Appellation d'Origine Protégée and it means it comes from a very specific area in France but also that all the different steps of the fabrication controlled everything about transmission and legacy and centuries of craftsmanship. The crème fraîche I think speaks for itself right. It's really smooth and rich and savorous so it's very important to have top quality ingredients because it's going to give all the taste to the cake and so if you don't have top quality ingredients you will never get a top quality cake. You just need to make sure it's been done by a craftsman that it's homemade and with quality ingredients. Chantilly is basically whipped cream with sugar. It's basically nuts. You can use hazelnuts, almonds and you're going to caramelize those nuts and then you're going to ground them until it's fine and more or less smooth. I think that tradition in pastry is very important because French pastry is all about legacy of savoir-faire. Of course we have to innovate because the taste of the people changed. For example now people don't like pastries that are too sweet but if we don't have the tradition it's difficult to innovate. I think that the most common mistake will be to eat pastries straight from the fridge. It's really better to leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes. For example for Paris-Brest the butter is going to be smoother inside so it will be creamier and silkier and it's quite the same for all the pastries. You'll have more the taste of it if it's not too cold. I don't think there's a best time during the day. You can eat pastry whenever you want but when you eat pastry it's only for the pleasure so make it a good moment. You need to take your time, sit in a nice place even if it's just on a bench in the park but just take your time and enjoy it. Bon appétit!