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Simple
French Desserts
by
Jill O'Connor (Chronicle)
Jill O'Connor could have coined the term à
la ménagère. As O'Connor writes in "Simple
French Desserts," the term means "housewife style"
and refers to simple dishes prepared with ingredients
accessible to any housewife. O'Connor is married to
a Navy commander and has moved 10 times in the last
13 years. Many times, she's proved her housewife style
by preparing meals like a crown roast of pork in a
minuscule microwave oven in their shoebox of a kitchen
which sported nothing else other than two gas burners.
That's
just part of what makes O'Connor qualified to write Simple French
Desserts, a color photograph–filled paperback in which
she dissects and translates famous examples into easily emulated
gems. Her other credentials: She studied classic French cuisine
at Cordon Bleu's London campus and the International Pastry Arts
Center in New York. Later, she put those skills to work as the pastry
chef at the exclusive Golden Door Spa in California.
Many
people are intimidated by the thought of preparing chichi French
desserts at home, admits O'Connor. But often, she notes, it's simply
a sophisticated presentation masking a deceptively easy-to-prepare
item. Cream puffs are a case in point. It takes just a few ingredients
to bring the puffs to life and a few more to make the creme chantilly
that fills them. Napoleons look and taste delicious but aren't difficult,
even with preparation of the pastry cream and raspberry coulis.
That's part of O'Connor's magic: she breaks everything down and
shows how simple each step is. Many of those steps (such as the
ease with which you can make coffee fondant icing or praline) are
covered in her "Building Blocks" chapter and used within a number
of recipes. Want to take baby steps to get started? Try that praline.
It's a breeze. If you can't wait, eat a bit of the candy as is and
then pulverize the rest and add it to your favorite cookie and cake
recipes.
RECIPES
—Praline
—Lemon-Almond Madeleines
(Updated: 12/23/08 SB) |
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