Monday, March 26, 2012

Pierre Hermé Pastries (and a bunny!)

I'm not a big fan of the phrase "food porn." Like so many other superlatives, it's thrown around a little too freely.

There are a lot of nice food photos. But not that many of them rise above great - or even good - and reach that level where your mouth waters and your tummy rumbles.

The photos in Pierre Hermé Pastries by Pierre Hermé are definitely food porn. Not only that, but the words are beautiful. Take this quote about Chou Infiniment Citron (Infinitely Lemon Choux):

"I put all my efforts working on various flavors and textures into this lemon choux, each mouthful of which should resonate like a game of Ping-Pong: from creamy to bitter, from acid to sugar."

It's not a thousand words, but it paints a picture, doesn't it? It makes you want to actually make the recipe ... or hope that someone makes it for you.

While that particular recipe looks a little complicated with different components that combine at the end, the individual parts of the recipe are clearly written and seem a lot simpler when you look at them one at a time.

I'm not saying all the recipes are multi-part (and seriously, I'm considering making this particular choux with fewer components the first time) or that they're all complicated. The cheesecake is no more complicated than some others I've made. Simpler than some, really. And the blueberry muffin recipe is dead-simple.

Meanwhile the two-page photo of the croissants is making it difficult for me to concentrate. They are spectacular.

It's not all baking. Ice cream, anyone? No ice cream maker? How about a frozen coffee parfait?

Sigh ... it all looks so good. It looks so good that even desserts that I normally wouldn't be excited about look appealing. And of course I want to make everything in the book. Everything.

More on that later.

But in the meantime, I've got a little something to give away. A bunny!

No, I'm not going to be shipping live animals. This kind of bunny:


It's a 3D cake pan. Cute, huh?

I picked this up a while back when the local kitchenware store was going out of business. With Easter just around the corner, I thought it would make sense to do a quick giveaway, and get this guy a new home in time for the holiday.

To win the bunny pan: Contest is CLOSED
and the winner is ... DEB

Leave a comment telling me what your favorite cake flavor is.

For a bonus entry, tweet a link to this contest and mention @dbcurrie in the tweet. Come back here and leave a comment telling me that you tweeted.

And that's it. Two methods of entry. The contest starts when this post goes live and ends on Wednesday, March 28 at midnight, mountain time. Valid for US mailing addresses only.

I received a review copy of the book at no cost. I purchased the bunny pan. There is no relationship between the book and the bunny.
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