Patisserie week has been the one I have most feared, you only have to look at my profiterole blog post a few years ago to understand. My Achilles heel if you must. So I decided I must go and do my research before attempting this bake, yes, you guessed it... I went to Paris. (purely for research purposes! The fact that I have a couple of friends living there was a plus.) Anything that would help me with the perfect patisserie, you have to learn from the French! However, I do not think my Paris endeavors helped, mainly because I didn't even have a Les Miserables! Hopeless.
The Prep
you only have to look at the very long list of ingredients and the thirty-step recipe to know that this will take some time. Time which I didn't have, so I actually made the sponges separate from the rest, as strangely this week I just didn't have four solid hours to dedicate.
The Bake
This one was hard. It had so many elements to it which made it very confusing: a lemon and almond sponge, a pistachio and almond sponge, lemon syrup, raspberry french buttercream, vanilla French buttercream, a thin chocolate base layer and tempered chocolate to decorate. I guess what did I expect for a semi-final technical.
The Result
Apart from being tedious, it was relatively straightforward. However, my thermometer broke so, unfortunately, the tempered chocolate was a fail. The result, even if they were very mixed on how neat they were and completely different sizes, they tasted brilliant (well, this is what my drunk friends told me when I bought them for dessert for a dinner party).
Glad I tried them, however, don't think I will be making these anytime soon.
