I’m very fortunate to have shared numerous teatime treats with Jill Colonna – author of the just-published Teatime in Paris! A walk through easy French pâtisserie recipes.
We’ve shared petits fours and hot chocolate at Un Dimanche à Paris…
… Mini “kouglof” at Lenôtre…
… a Saint Honoré and a Tarte au citron at Pâtisserie des Rêves.
… Afternoon tea at Carette – we shared an Opéra, a St Honoré some macarons and some bubbly!
Jill’s written a guest post for me (featuring this delicious fig tart…)
and I popped over to Jill’s site to share these delicious chocolate raspberry tarts…
I think it’s safe to say both Jill and I are huge fans of teatime and the treats it brings so I was so excited to learn her new book is ALL ABOUT teatime. And treats! In Teatime in Paris! Jill walks us through French patisserie classics such as éclairs, macarons, millefeuille, tartlets and Saint-Honoré. Far from making making French treats seem intimidating, Jill guides us effortlessly through even the most tricky sounding treats – with step by step instructions and a good dose of Scottish humour that anyone who has met Jill in real life will recognize. As she walks us through recipes for the easiest of treats right through to to the crème de la crème, Jill points out some of the streets famous for the best patisseries in Paris, adding bits of of history and plenty of baking tips, making this a recipe tour that’s both fun and accessible. This sweet tour around the City of Light incorporating interesting historical facts as well as recommendations for where to find the best pastries in Paris. The only type of guide book you’ll need!
The book is organised in chapters which group similar treats together – choux pastry, millefeuille, macarons and tartlets all get their own chapter with many iterations and flavour variations. Far from being as intimidating as their names imply, these treats are made accessible for the home baker through Jill’s straightforward explanations and step-by-step photos for many of the recipes. The Crème de la Crème chapter groups some classic pastries and puts a neat modern and very “Jill” spin on them – the Paris-Brest-Edinburgh-Choux-Nut being just one example (it has a chocolate whiskey ganache!)
The book also includes a helpful chapter on baking equipment (the essential and the “little luxuries”) along with a list of stockists for ingredients and equipment in various countries. There’s also a useful “quick reference guide for egg whites” – because as Jill reminds us, “you can’t always predict the amount of egg whites you have saved up in making egg yolk recipes or saved for macarons” – she provides a conversion table for the rest of the ingredients in a few of her recipe (macarons, financiers, tuiles and coconut macaroons) depending on how many egg whites you find yourself with.
But more than a cookbook filled with recipes for delicious teatime treats, Jill also takes us on a treasure hunt all over Paris – providing clues to some of the city’s best pâtisseries. Jill’s Favourite Sweet Walks in Paris provides the traveller with a sweet tooth with endless hours of walks which take in some of the most well-known pastries and desserts in Paris. No stores are named by name but Jill guides us via street names and monuments to exactly where we need to go to satisfy our sweet tooth in the City of Light. With 11 areas of the city covered in this chapter you could seriously travel to Paris with no other guidebook and be entertained (and well-fed!) for many days!
Two of my favourite tea-time treats are macarons and cannelés and I’ve made Jill’s recipes from the book for both. Jill’s method even inspired my own recipe for cannelés which you can read about here. When it comes to macarons, I simply can not go past salted caramel and so I was delighted to find an interesting twist (with mascarpone) on a salted caramel ganache in Teatime in Paris! Jill and her publisher are generously allowing me to share the recipe for the ganache here today. Warning – it is so good it might not make it into those macaron shells 😉
Use your preferred macaron recipe.
- 2g gelatin powder (or a 2g gelatine sheet)
- 100g granulated sugar
- 100g cream, warmed
- 60g unsalted butter (cut into small pieces)
- ½ tsp fleur de sel (or sea salt)
- 150g mascarpone
- Soak the gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes.
- Heat the sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until a golden, syrupy caramel forms. This should take about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile heat the cream in a separate pan or in the microwave.
- Turn down the heat on your sugar and add the warmed cream gradually (ensure it’s warm, otherwise you’ll have the boiling caramel spitting at you!)
- Take off the heat and melt in the butter, stirring the caramel with a wooden spoon.
- Add the gelatine. Leave to cool on the counter for 15 minutes.
- Add the salt and gradually whisk in the mascarpone until you have a smooth texture.
- Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. (I chilled this in the fridge overnight for a much firmer texture - easier to fill the macarons).
If you can’t make it to Paris for tea-time anytime soon, this book is a must buy!
Buy Teatime in Paris! on Amazon, Amazon Canada or for free worldwide shipping, purchase on The Book Depository.
US/Canada – Win a copy of Teatime in Paris! Details here.
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Please note: The product links from Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of Teatime in Paris! for review purposes. I was not required to write about the book or host a giveaway, nor am I being compensated for doing do. All opinions 100% my own. And FULL disclosure – Jill is a good friend. I only share books and products I really love on this site.
Wow, Mardi. What a review! And I love how you’ve been so thorough, going through it from start to finish. Thank you, my friend.
I also love how you’ve made your macarons flashy yellow for salted caramel – I forgot to mention that it’s fun choosing different colours than the fillings – and they are “spot on” your polka dotty plate!
Did we really eat all of these pastries together? Yes we did – looking forward to another sweet afternoon very soon in Paris!
Cheers, Mardi x
Here salted caramel is almost always yellow – I love how bright it is!
Oh boy… what a post. Lovely book, lovely treats.
It’s also a lovely treat to be here on Mardi’s site. Thanks, Geoff!
You would enjoy!
Salted Caramel Ganache… That sounds divine.
I can’t think about anything else now!
Hi Coco in the Kitchen – that salted caramel filling is excellent used in cream puffs and éclairs too!
I’d love to try that St. Honore (plus I could use the saint’s blessing on my own baked goods)! Thank you for posting the recipe for salted caramel ganache–I will be making it at the first opportunity. I look forward to reading “Teatime in Paris” as the author’s excellent book “Mad about Macaron” is already in my macaron collection.
That’s lovely to hear, Desiree. Thank you! I do hope you’ll enjoy the St Honoré – and, who knows, even topping it with extra macarons?
I am drooling at ypur photos – what a great book.
Thank you, Cakelaw. Yes, Mardi’s photos are so temptingly delicious!
Apart from the mouth watering recipes I love the suggested walks at the end of the book.
Yes it’s a great addition to an already wonderful read!
DO NOT SWAP MASCARPONE WITH CREAM CHEESE!!
I’ve made this ganache twice for icing cupcakes. I couldn’t get mascarpone this time and have just had to add nearly 300g of white chocolate to enable it to set! Wonderful flavour to both, but I have learnt my lesson!
Indeed, cream cheese and mascarpone are not interchangeable! glad you made it work!