Confections Quotes

“Rich people tend to have shit taste in sweets, and French macarons aren’t half as tasty as the coconut type, the other one with the extra ‘o.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Sweets, always there, ever faithful, never disappoint.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Pierre Hermé.
Variously coined "The Picasso of Pastry," "The King of Modern Pâtisserie," "The Pastry Provocateur," and "The Magician with Tastes," he's the rock star of the French pastry world.”
― Amy Thomas, Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light

“The waiter talks us through the selection of confectionery. There's a white chocolate mousse cake infused with fresh mint and topped with raspberry purée, organic truffles made with my favorite Madagascar beans flavored with jasmine tea, passion fruit and limes sundried on trees in Iran.”
― Carole Matthews, The Chocolate Lovers' Club

“The four-tiered cake with brilliant Italian meringue buttercream frosting offset with champagne-dusted icing pearls and freshly cut Stargazer lilies from the florist would be the centerpiece of centerpieces.”
― Kate Young, Southern Sass and a Battered Bride

“SOME PASTRY TERMS

Chef de pâtissier: pastry chef
Gâteau: rich, elaborate sponge cake that can be molded into shapes, typically containing layers of crème, fruit, or nuts
Pâtisserie(s): pastry/pastries
Brioche(s): a soft, rich bread with a high egg and butter content
Pain aux raisins: a flaky pastry filled with raisins and custard
Chaussons aux pommes: French apple turnovers
Pâte à choux: a light, buttery puff pastry dough
Éclair: oblong desserts made of choux pastry filled with cream and topped with icing (often chocolate)
Tarte au citron: lemon tart
Macaron: a meringue-based confectionary sandwich filled with various flavored ganache, creams, or jams
Croquembouche: a cone-shaped tower of confection created out of caramel-dipped, cream-filled pastry puffs and swathed in spun sugar threads, often served at French weddings or on special occasions
Saint-Honoré: a dessert named for the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs
Pâte feuilletée: a light, flaky puff pastry
Vanilla crème pâtissière: vanilla pastry cream
Hazelnut crème chiboust: a pastry cream lightened with Italian meringue
Paris-brest: a wheel-shaped dessert made of pâte à choux and filled with praline cream. Created in 1910 by chef Louis Durand to commemorate the Paris-Brest, a bicycle race.”
― Kristen Callihan, Make It Sweet

“There was a bustle of people in the street as I made my way to La Bonbonnière, which is, quite simply, the most beautiful candy store in the world.
The best thing about La Bonbonnière is that it's all windows. Before I even walk through the door I am greeted by a fuzzy three-foot-high statue of a polar bear trying to dip his paws into a copper cauldron filled with marrons glacés--- whole candied chestnuts. Each one was meticulously wrapped in gold foil, a miniature gift in and of itself. If nothing else, Christmas in Provence reminds you of a time when sugar was a luxury as fine and rare as silk.
Back to my assignment: I needed two kinds of nougat: white soft nougat made with honey, almonds, and fluffy egg whites (the angel's part) and hard dark nougat--- more like honey almond brittle--- for the devil.
Where are the calissons d'Aix? There they are, hiding behind the cash register, small ovals of almond paste covered with fondant icing. Traditional calissons are flavored with essence of bitter almond, but I couldn't resist some of the more exotic variations: rose, lemon verbena, and génépi, an astringent mountain herb.
Though I love the tender chew of nougat and the pliant sweetness of marzipan, my favorite of the Provençal Christmas treats is the mendiant--- a small disk of dark or milk chocolate topped with dried fruit and nuts representing four religious orders: raisins for the Dominicans, hazelnuts for the Augustinians, dried figs for the Franciscans, and almonds for the Carmelites. When Alexandre is a bit older, I think we'll make these together. They seem like an ideal family project--- essentially puddles of melted chocolate with fruit and nut toppings. See, as soon as you say "puddles of melted chocolate," everyone's on board.
Though fruits confits--- candied fruit--- are not, strictly speaking, part of les trieze desserts, I can't resist. I think of them as the crown jewels of French confiserie, and Apt is the world capital of production. Dipped in sugar syrup, the fruits become almost translucent; whole pears, apricots, and strawberries glow from within like the gems in a pirate's treasure chest. Slices of kiwi, melon, and angelica catch the light like the panes of a stained-glass window. All the dazzling tastes of a Provençal summer, frozen in time.”
― Elizabeth Bard, Picnic in Provence: A Memoir with Recipes

“Betty returns in a couple of minutes, setting down our pots of tea and two towers of treats. There are small tea cakes dressed as mini presents, tarts in the shape of flowers, chocolate-covered strawberries sprinkled with edible pearls, macarons decorated with pressed violets, and a tray of scones accompanied by tiny finger sandwiches. She explains each tea before leaving us to indulge.
Aphrodite's Ambrosia--- a blend of caramel, rose hips, white chocolate, and raspberry.
Midsummer Moondrop--- a confection of violets, butterfly pea flower, and sugar plums.
I lift the porcelain cup to my lips, hand painted with tiny cornflowers and gold leaf. The sweet, dark blend relaxes my muscles like a dreamspell.”
― Kiana Krystle, Dance of the Starlit Sea

“Nine times out of ten, when a customer walks into the Punchbowl and Pineapple, I can guess what will tempt them. It is the confectioner's principal art, anticipating wants and needs--- and people betray their desires in countless small ways. For a young lady taut with nerves, dressed to make a house call, I suggest a pretty basket of French macaroons to impress her friends. For a young buck in the first flush of love, seeking a gift for his mistress, I propose a petits puits d'amour (the name and oval shape might make him smile, though I act oblivious to any indelicate connotations). For an older gentleman--- picture one crimson from hunting and port--- a rich plum cake spiced with cinnamon and mace. For a widow in mittens, a box of scented violet wafers--- or if she is bent with the rheumatism, bergamot chips. For a little boy with a cough, I prescribe a guimauve: a soft cake of honey whipped with the sap of the marsh mallow plant. And for his governess, a sweet syllabub, to be eaten at one of my tables, while she ponders how life's misfortunes brought her here.”
― Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Art of a Lie

“It is the simplest of recipes, after pralines and chocolate ganache. He calls them mendiants, those chocolate discs studded with raisins, and almonds and candied lemon peel. He tells me they're named after the mendicant orders of monks, who used to sell them door-to-door during the Middle Ages. It's a word I have heard before, though never in this context; instead, I remember it flung like stones in our wake as we passed through some long-ago village. It's a surprise to find this word-- this slur-- thus sweetened by circumstance, harmlessly translated into the language of chocolate.
First, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie. Strange, how the Virgin seems to bless even this most secular of baptisms. Then, on greaseproof paper, place tablespoons of the chocolate to make round discs, the size of the Host. On this still-cooling chocolate, add the traditional dried fruits and nuts that symbolize the Orders. Fat raisins; yellow sultanas; cherries; toasted almonds; pistachios and hazelnuts, like jewels on a medallion.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Rose fondants, made with Turkish rosewater; coated in 70 per cent couverture chocolate from hand-sorted Porcelana beans. I remove the embryo myself in order to limit the bitterness. Eighty-five hours conching; then tempered on marble, my favorite way, then dip the fondant, leave to set and add a crystallized rose petal on top. The result smells like roses; chocolate-red; full-throated; the petals like the bloom of a grape.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I pack the chocolates into boxes and sachets as well as making my own new creations: mendiants, painted with gold leaf and jeweled with Malaga raisins and Seville orange peel; strawberry violet fondant, caramel, with pink peppercorns; green tea truffles, with sea salt.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“But when I reached Xocolatl, my heart beating ferociously, I found the display window brightly lit, with fairy lights on the window-ledge and along the shelves of chocolates. Cellophane-wrapped and gleaming like a pirate's buried treasure, they seemed to glow with a precious light, those gilded piles of mendiants, and truffles, rose creams and santons de Margot, while above them rose the centerpiece; a statuette of the Bonne Mère, much larger than the ones in the shop, one hand raised in benediction, the other holding the infant Christ, and robed in darkest chocolate. And all around the dishes and jars were origami animals; little angular butterflies and cranes and fish and rabbits in multicolored paper. I detected the hand of Grandmother Li: imagined those clever old hands at work, folding the pretty papers.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne