My Sunday in Paris

Rainy Sunday morning. You've visited the national monuments. You've spent hours at some of the world's best museums. You've walked  up and down the stretch of Champs Elysees (and wondered why you were once so captivated by an over-hyped shopping area crowded with tourists), taken long strolls along the Seine, explored popular neighborhoods like the Marais, St. Germain des Pres, Latin Quarters and also got lost in some not-so-familiar places in the city - in and of itself, a delightful experience, I must add - you've taken day trips to visit  modest little homes of former Kings, short trips to neighboring country and hit the beach for some fun and sun, you've hung out with friends - watched movies, visited the  open markets that are always in abundance of fresh local produce, cooked and had lunch-dinner parties together, took loads of silly pictures in front of Eiffel Tower, hopped on the metro - any train and just pick a station to hop off, wander, explore, then hop back on to the next train, and during your alone time, you've spent hours in cafés, sipping your usual beverage of café crème, trying not to choke at the thick second-hand cigarette smoke blowing your way, doing some serious people-watching and taking mental notes of fashion faux-pas, and sometimes, when you've just had enough of peculiar behaviors, you chose to just stay back in the apartment to savor the magnificent view of the city in quiet contemplation.

So then, what else can you do on a rainy Sunday morning in Paris?



You do what you love to do most - the reason for being in Paris in the first place. You bake!

There's almost a week of break between the last demo session and our final exams. During this week, I plan to practice 9 out of the 10 recipes listed; I've done 3 bakes so far - there were some misses as it's been quite a while since the practical sessions, but I'm glad to have the opportunity for refresher dry-runs.

I made Gateau Basque for the 4th practice bake today.

Gateau Basque originated from the Basque region of France, the French region bordering Spain. This is a Basque traditional dessert filled with crème pâtissière and black cherry preserves (which I didn't have today so I substituted with dried fruits) with a dough that's a cross between a tart crust and a cake. In fact, we learnt to make this right after the lessons on pâte sucrée and tea cakes since the recipe combines a little bit of both.

My practice run went well, with sufficient time for the dough to chill and also time for the cake to color and bake thoroughly, despite the non-industrial oven in the apartment. I didn't have the deeper molds for my cake, so had to make do with the ring mold that I have, so the cake lacked height compared to  the one I made in school. I've also had time to work on the technical portion of the exam, which is making pâte brisée and lining a ring mold with the pâte. Perhaps it's the comfort of working at home instead of the intense and often-stressed environment at the school's kitchen, or perhaps it's due to the cool rainy weather and that I didn't have to be in my Chef's whites, but baking at the apartment brought me back to the "zone" and reminded me again why I love baking, a point that I may have failed to connect with in the midst of living ma vie à Paris.

The only question now is, what am I going to do with all these pastries?!