Cucina Testa Rossa: I Second that Emotion, Mahogany Emotion that is

Tuesday, 04 October 2005

I Second that Emotion, Mahogany Emotion that is

Even Smokey Robinson would second this emotion, this Mahogany Emotion! When I read that darling Flo was packing her bilingual blissful kitchen and heading south to Lyon, I invited her to meet before she hit the proverbial road. She suggested coffee at Café de la Mairie in the 6th, across from St Sulpice church which has been shrouded in scaffolding for at least 5 years. I guess they figure the church is hundreds and hundreds of years old, what’s a few years here and there.

They filmed part of The DaVinci Code at the church this past summer. The church refused to allow them to film in the church due to the blasphemous nature of the book, namely Jesus and Mary Magdalene shagging, but it’s fiction people, fiction! Sorry, where was I? Oh yes…

Florence suggesting meeting at Pierre Hermé Patisserie, indulging in one or two (or ten!) of his delights, then savoring them at the café that graciously allows patrons to bring in their own food. Good thing cuz half the people there had little Pierre Hermé boxes on their bistro table. I was thrilled as his Autumn Winter 2005 Haute Couture patisserie collection named désirs (desires) had just been released a few days before. So off I went and as usual, at any given time of day, the line was literally out the door and down rue Bonaparte.

It was comme toujours (as always) worth the wait. Florence had never had an Ispahan so she selected a perfect pink one and I decided to try to Émotion Mahogany since I love mangos and litchis. I also purchased one of every mini-macaron flavor and a bar of Azur chocolate as I was headed to Burgundy the next day to visit my friends Emma & Don on their barge and thought these would make a wonderful treat. I took the wrong train to the wrong train station so we ended up eating most of them on the long ride back to their barge but managed to sit on our hands long enough to save a few for dessert that night.

With our precious boxes in hand, Flo and I headed over to Café de la Mairie and opened them as if it were Christmas morning. I ordered 2 glasses of champagne and we toasted to the wonders of the internet and this crazy blogging phenomenon. Pierre Hermé patisseries, champagne, sunshine, St Sulpice church, sitting at a café with a new friend.....Life is good!

Here is the official description of the Émotion Mahogany from the pamphlet:
compote de letchis, compote de mangues, bisquit dacquoise à la noix de coco, crème mascarpone au caramel. A la fois exotique et rassurant, ce dessert aux saveurs bien distinct joue le caramel en sourdine et donne libre cours aux notes fruitées, avec la mangue et le letchi en majeur. Dessert individuel présenté dans un verre transparent. €6,90

translation: incredible!

real translation: compote of litchis topped with compote of mangos, then a thin disk of coconut dacquoise cake, layered with caramel mascarpone. (editors note: and finally a heaping of chewy marshmallows). At the same time exotic and reassuring, this quite distinctive dessert of flavors plays caramel subtly and allows the fruity notes to come out, with mango and the letchi the major flavors. Individual dessert presented in a transparent glass. $8.25

...and my description of the infamous and ubiquitous Ispahan from what I can remember of making hundreds of these bloodshot and bleary-eyed at 6am: 2 perfect, vibrant pink macaron cookies made of meringue. Piped rose flavored butter cream on the inside of one of the macarons. carefully place a ring of perfect raspberries along the edge and one in the center. delicately place chopped litchi fruit inside the ring of raspberries. top with a blob of rose pastry cream and gingerly place the other macaron cookie on top. with a tiny pastry bag of glucose, make 3 dots in a triangle. to one dot, adhere one perfect rose petal removed from perfect rose that morning. on a second dot place a perfect raspberry and on the 3rd dot, precisely place a small circular tag with the PH logo. et voila, you have an Ispahan. Make a few hundred of these every day and you'll be lucky if you can ever look at one again.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I won’t list all the new fall patisseries. I’ll just link you to Luisa as she did a thorough job of it here. But check back for more updates as I will no doubt return to taste more of the Fall line, including the Macaron Églantine et Marron and the Confiture de Noel coming in December. Sugar coma, here I come!

Tuesday, 04 October 2005 | Permalink