New Pastries at La Bonne Vie: Royaltines & Big Macs

One criteria for being a good manager/supervisor is his/her proficiency in the field.  

A good supervisor should be able to give technical guidance, as well as train employees in new skills and expand their knowledge.  Having a supervisor/boss who has several decades of training and experience in the field makes the job exponentially more enjoyable and worthwhile.  I definitely learn something new everyday (pretty much).

One of the pastries that my boss showed me how to make is Royaltine.  Simply put, it's a pastry that has crispy feuilletine in some form or another as one of its components.

Dark Royaltine: crispy praline feuilletine bottom with chocolate cremeux top layer.  Finished with mascarpone cream.  There's also the White Royaltine, where white chocolate mousse is used instead of the cremeux.  It's a very decadent dessert.

  

La Bonne Vie pastry lineup (from the back): Brest, Dark Royaltine, Caramel Mousse Bars, and Flourless Chocolate Pave.

The Chocolate Pave is also one of the pastries my boss introduced to the menu as a gluten-free option.  Flourless chocolate cake is layered with chocolate mousse for a not-too-sweet but decadent dessert.

Ispahan Macaron: Lychee ganache, raspberry confit, and fresh raspberries in macaron shells.  I refer to these types of pastries as "Big Macs" because...well, the main component is a pair of large (about 3" in diameter) macaron shells.  My boss tends to do "copycat" items from various pastry chefs in France.  This particular one is by Chef Pierre Herme.

Spring-Fling Macs: My own creation.  Lemon curd, blueberry confit, fresh blackberries.  The shells were leftovers from a banquet tasting.  We like to use random extra pastry components, which cuts down waste and allows us to experiment.

New Pastries at La Bonne Vie: Tarts

I love tarts.  To be exact, I love making tarts/tartlets.  Just throwing that out there.

Not gonna lie, I've never liked pies as much as I do tarts, both in making them and eating them.

There's just something about tarts that I adore.  Maybe it's their sophisticated, sharp lines.  Maybe it's the vastness of their possible designs, shapes, and flavor combos that are limited only by one's imagination.  Or maybe it's just because they're so darn cute and pretty.

So not surprisingly, when Chef told me to come up with new pastries for La Bonne Vie, I ended up making tarts.

There are a few more, but these are our most popular ones so far.

Nutella Pyramid: Nutella mousse with salted caramel cremeux insert, on chocolate tart shell filled with crispy praline feuilletine.  This is actually a tart version of the Whiskey Hazelnut Dome I made in school and for my Chef de Partie tasting.  Nutella fans, rejoice.

Blueberry Tart: Tart shell filled with vanilla pastry cream, topped with generous mound of blueberries. Finishing with apricot glaze and edible blue luster powder gave it a metallic sheen, making them look like a mound of black pearls.  So pretty!

Hazelnut-Raspberry Tart: Chocolate tart shell filled with Nutella cream, topped with fresh raspberries and hazelnuts.  I thought that the Nutella and raspberries seem like an odd pairing;  until I worked the crepe station at a banquet one day.  While there, I've noticed that more than half the guests asked to have their crepes filled with Nutella and raspberries, a combination which I found weird.  Turns out that it's actually quite tasty.

Tiramisu Tart (on the left): This is our most popular tart.  Tiramisu mousse (mascarpone mousse spiked with Kahlua and rum), with a thin sponge soaked in coffee syrup inside, on tart shell filled with chocolate cremeux.  One of the sales girls commented that this one is her favorite, because she LOVES anything coffee.

Culinary field is an extremely demanding career, both physically and mentally.  The hours are mercilessly long, all of which, for the most part, is spent standing up, while doing rigorous tasks that can potentially cause joint damage.  We are under the constant scrutiny of health inspectors, food critics, and guests/customers, who are more than happy to criticize the smallest mistakes or flaws in our product.  But it's positive comments like these that gives those working in the culinary the strength to keep going, that make working in such conditions worth it.

New Pastries at La Bonne Vie: Eclair

Spring is here!!

...Well, it WAS here.  The months flew by (again) and before I knew it, the spring had sprung and gone, and now it's like the summer just showed up at my door on a very short notice.

Sometime around early March, my boss had ordered a !@#$ ton of spring-themed chocolate decorations for me and my partner to use  at (pretty much) our disposal.  Some of these decors include white chocolate daisies, ladybugs, honey bees, sticks with flower designs, etc.

We needed to replace the outdated winter dessert items--because by the time March rolls around, most people are pretty sick of pumpkin-flavored items (although there are a few exceptions).  So I came up with a few spring-themed eclairs and tarts. 

I did eclairs because my boss wanted to expand our line of eclairs.  Which, to be honest, I think is due to his own infatuation with L'eclair de Genie, a famous and very popular eclair boutique in Paris.

Unfortunately, while the eclairs may be the rave right now in Paris, Utah tends to be pretty behind (approx. five years is what I've heard) when it comes to the hottest food trends. Since the majority of the customers who come to shop at La Bonne Vie are after the macarons, other pastries tend to get ignored.  It may take a few more years before the eclair rage sets in.

But I digress.  Here are the new spring line of eclairs at La Bonne Vie.

 Cherry Eclairs: Chopped Amarena cherries in rich syrup on the bottom of the eclair shell, topped with a tornado of creamy cherry mousse.  The plum and cherry blossom decors I made myself, using cookie cutter.

Raspberry-Nutella Eclairs: Raspberry confit on the bottom, topped with uber rich Nutella cream.  Surprisingly, the raspberry goes well with the nutty, chocolatey goodness of the cream.

Bienenstich Eclair (or more commonly known as Stinger Bee Eclair): Honey drizzled on the bottom, topped with almond diplomat cream, finished with mascarpone cream and almond florentine wafer.  The minimally sweetened mascarpone cream tones down the intense almond florentine.

 Raspberry Mousse Eclair: Raspberry confit on the bottom, topped with luscious raspberry mousse.

In my next post, I shall introduce the new tarts available at La Bonne Vie...