La Pâtisserie des Rêves comes to London

Remember when I told you about La Pâtisserie des Rêves, almost exactly a year ago? Well here I am again, but this time I come with exciting news for my Londoner readers: the little dream cakes have crossed the Channel! The shop opened a couple weeks ago on Marylebone High Street, so I headed there on its second day to get my hands on some tasty things... 

It was my first time on Marylebone High Street and, oh my, I recommend you all go because it is truly the closest you'll come to being in Paris on this side of the Channel! It was quite incredible, so many shops were French ones, there was even a French pharmacie and a very Marais vibe to it.

The shop was exactly like the Parisian ones, which I loved. It is such an important part of the experience! Buying a cake is so much more intense when it's staring at you from the inside of a glass bubble.

I had been lucky to win a free small cake in a competition organised on the Pâtisserie's Twitter account but bought three other small ones to give the man a taster of real, fabulous, dreamy French pâtisserie. Needless to say, he was impressed.

From bottom left, clockwise: Lemon Tart, Paris-Brest, Saint-Honoré and Grand Cru Vanille.

They were obviously all incredible, but I ended up being particularly impressed by the Grand Cru Vanille (which I had initially completely left out of my selection but the salesperson highly recommended it) which was incredibly flavoursome. I had never tasted such strong vanilla in a cake, but not in an overpowering way, it was just a brilliant ode to vanilla. My other favourite was the Saint-Honoré. I have to admit it's not the easiest cake to eat (especially when you have to cut it in half first) but it was incredible, such a delicious mix of textures and the choux were to die for.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day being tomorrow, I am posting this tonight for all significant others of a sugar-loving foodie: you'll win their hearts (yet again) with these cakes. Promise!

SC#36 | Layered lemon and chocolate fudge cake

Mmmh, just typing up the title makes my mouth water. "Chocolate fudge" — there aren't many lovelier words than that. And look at this:



It was my friend Gamel's birthday the weekend before last, so I made him a cake. We used to work together, and Gamel's thing was stealing food. You would not be able to leave food unattended without it disappearing. I once brought in biscotti to prove the office I could actually bake (these were early days.) He devoured them all in about ten minutes. Long story short: he likes food.

This was also a sort of personal challenge. I've been on a massive cooking kick recently (more posts to come!) and wanted to get out of what I know. And I'd never made an iced layered cake before! So here goes.

I pretty much used this recipe from Love and Olive Oil, only cutting the icing by about half as (a) I only made two layers and (b) I had next to no butter and icing sugar left. Oopsie! I'd recommend keeping with the original proportions if you like a thick filling and icing, but half does nicely for thinner layers.

The cake was super moist and really nicely flavoured, and the icing was just the right amount of chocolate. I've always been big on chocolate + lemon (one of my favourite chocolate bar flavours) but Britain is used to orange being chocolate's citrus pairing. Well, friends, lemon is the way forward.

I unfortunately have no photos of the inside or my friends enjoying it, but the man did say it's the second best thing I've ever made (should I share no.1 soon...?), even topping my ultimate favourite cake recipe. That's one for the books... x