Because the week I made these fell toward the end of Wisconsin strawberry season, I wanted to celebrate this short but oh-so-flavorful season with strawberry-themed pastries: strawberry mille-feuilles with basil-infused mascarpone cream, strawberry Nutella turnovers and chocolate pecan palmier "butterflies" with strawberry hearts.
Its name means “nun” in French, and this popular pastry is found in patisseries and boulangeries all over France. Made of pâte à choux and filled with pastry cream, two buns, like little cream puffs, are stacked on top of each other and decorated to look like nuns dressed in their habits.
Roly-poly puddings are rolled up like a Swiss roll and filled with jam, dried fruits, or treacle and breadcrumbs. At one time, because roly-poly was often steamed in an old shirt sleeve, it was also called shirt-sleeve pudding, dead man’s arm or dead man’s leg. My roly-poly is filled with an apricot-walnut filling and decorated with candied walnuts.
Two different types of sweet European buns. That was the brief for this technical challenge. I chose saffron-infused St. Lucia buns and poppy seed snails, known as Mohnschnecken.
The couronne is similar to the king cake, or Roscón de Reyes, which was traditionally served on Epiphany to celebrate the coming of the Magi to meet the infant Jesus. This version uses an enriched dough with a sweet, fruity filling that is shaped into a circle like a crown, or, in French, couronne. A warm apricot glaze gives it a golden sheen, followed by a thick drizzle of rich, white icing and a generous sprinkle of sliced almonds for a rich, royal teatime treat!
This challenge was for a sweet yeasted bread, traditionally served at teatime, often flavored with fruits and spices. My loaf is a cherry and chocolate chip bread. I used glacé cherries to try and recreate the flavors of one of my mom's favorite confections, chocolate-covered cherries, in a tea bread.
I really wanted to capture the essence of a treasure box with this biscuit (i.e., cookie) tower, or the delight a young child gets upon opening her mother’s jewelry box — all those glittering beads and sparkly jewels! And now that it’s done, I just can’t get enough of it!
Tuile is the French word for tile, and these thin, delicate cookies are often curved in the shape of a French roof tile. They can be either sweet or savory and are usually served as a garnish, or tuiles can be molded into serving dishes for ice cream or other desserts.
The challenge for this episode was to produce a traybake with layers of complementary flavors and good textures, each element made from scratch, and cut into identically sized squares or rectangles. I chose a pastry-based recipe, a rhubarb frangipane tart.
This showstopper challenge was for a filo pie, either freeform or baked in a tin, and could be either sweet or savory. My pie is based on the flavors in an Indian samosa.
