Cygne et choux, puffy swan

Cygne is the name of this cake, it’s swan in French. I need to precise as mine could be a turkey as well… It’s kitsch like an after-school salon de thé visit with granny. They were proposing those when I was a kid…

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

BTW, I’ve opened a Daring Baker Pinterest Board. Mostly my posts now, but I’ll add others’ progressively.

So, let’s go, mon chou. The recipe is already here (click on text) :

flockenshane

Well, the puffs. Very simple, I eyeball ingredients : water, oil, flour, eggs… a little salt, sugar, vanilla. I shape with the hands like a kid with playdo. So that doesn’t look pro.

I garnished them with Chantilly, vanilla flavored whipped cream (veg’ version), slightly colored in red.

Decorated with sugar.

Variations…

La religieuse… de Pise. Pisa tower style…

The bad gag is those jewel sugar lose their color on the cream…

Nougat glacé aux noix et au miel

Walnut honey nougat ice-cream.

With raspberry coulis. Sweet and sour. That’s one of my favorite party dessert. I made some for the 13 desserts of Christmas and I had a few servings left. It is ice-cream so it can be stored in the freezer very conveniently.

The classic nougat is made of egg white, honey, roast nuts. This version is a honey Italian meringue, mixed with whipped cream. It is enriched by walnuts bits in caramel, a little Grand-Marnier soaked raisins and mandarin orange peel and grated lemon zest.

Then in the freezer, in a mold.

Crack… the bits of caramel nut stay deliciously crunchy. It really has the honey meringue flavor of nougat. And the citrus hints of Grand-Marnier.

The unsweetened raspberry sauce is a little sour. I didn’t add any sugar, on purpose. That makes a great contrast with the nougat.

Pearly Arabian nights : crème persane à l’orange

This is the thousand and one post on this blog… or nearly. So let’s celebrate with a sweet story.
It has the name of a tale you read to kids at bed time : crème persane (Persian cream), because it’s an old style dessert French grannies would make for children… or because it actually comes from old Persia ?
No idea, it’s simply a mousse with tapioca pearls in it.

I wondered if that existed only in France, and I found that in English a “cream Persian” is a furry sofa ornament like this :

creme persane

If you want to buy this “cream” in Spain -I don’t know the company, only linked the photo- the shop is there.

It’s flavored with orange peel, juice and a hint of Grand Marnier.

Light and fresh…

Holes and bubbles.

The juicy bottom.

Trois petites marquises noires

Fresh….

Marquise noire gourmande

Yield 4 servings as part of a dessert, 2 servings if there is only the marquise and sauce

cocoa mass 40 g
butter 40 g
sugar 5 g
egg yolk (1) 20 g
“creme de framboise”, a raspberry liquor 15 g
egg white (1) 30 g

Make a mousse : Beat egg whites. Melt cocoa, stir in butter, yolks, sugar, liquid, then, incoporate egg whites in 3 times. Pour in mold(s). Freeze 2 hours, then keep in the fridge. Or refrigerate 6 hours.
It tastes better the next day.

The plate is wet with more “creme de framboise”. The powder is sweet potato (Japanese cake ingredient).

Iced. Thick sweet cranberry juice on the plate.

With green tea.

Pure mousse au chocolat

Just eggs and pure cacao are needed to make a mousse au chocolat.

Cocoa mass. 100% cocoa.

Basic pure chocolate mousse :

1 egg,
same weight of chocolate

Melt the cocoa chips or broken bits.
Beat egg white.
Add a little water to the chocolate and mix in the egg yolk.
Add delicately the white.
Wait 2 hours to 1 night.

Then :