Monday, June 13, 2005

Pierre Herme's Riviera


Posted by Hello
The first recipe I ever attempted from the Desserts by Pierre Herme book was his lemon tart. Seductively simple in construction - comprising merely of a pastry crust and lemon cream filling - its taste is anything but. The lemon cream was a true revelation, sublimely silky and unlike your everyday lemon curd texture although exactly the same ingredients are used. The genius, as always, lies in Herme's departure from conventional wisdom and technique - butter is added only after the lemon cream has cooled significantly to ensure smoothness, and the whole is then energetically aerated in a blender to produce a melt-in-your-mouth delicacy.

I wanted to try another recipe featuring the luscious lemon cream and decided on the Riviera. Here, the tart lemon cream is sandwiched between alternating layers of flourless chocolate cake and bittersweet chocolate mousse. I down-sized the recipe to make individual portions, and fiddled with the presentation - instead of decorating the surface with spokes of mousse and a cut lemon, I applied a dark chocolate glaze and scattered on some finely grated lemon zest.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a fantastic blog! The pictures are fabulous, the musings have a nigella-lawson-esqe quality to them - you inspire me to run to the stove to cook! I was surfing around looking for Singapore based food blogs and despairing at the quality of writing in most of them - thanks for restoring my faith ;)

2:04 am, June 14, 2005  
Blogger Joycelyn said...

hi

thanks for your very kind comments; am very new to blogging and your feedback is much appreciated! ;)

2:42 pm, June 14, 2005  
Blogger the baker said...

you attempted pierre hermes! excellent... do they sell his cookbook here by the way? heard alot about his creations but never got to try or master them... good job on that riviera, i can taste it simply by gaping at it. =p

4:48 pm, June 14, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOW...Hand us the recipe please,

5:41 pm, June 14, 2005  
Blogger Joycelyn said...

hi

the recipe for the riviera can be found in "desserts by pierre herme", written by dorie greenspan. it should be available at borders and kinokuniya in singapore. if not, can be ordered from amazon.

cheers
j

10:03 pm, June 19, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Joycelyn - this looks sooo delicious, not just that you are a great cook, your gorgeous photos make me crave! I really liked his lemon cream when I made the tart, but this one looks even better!

3:10 am, June 21, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, I mean your cake looks better than 'his lemon tart' (of course your cake is better than my tart)!

3:15 am, June 21, 2005  
Blogger Joycelyn said...

hi keiko, you are so very kind! not to mention exceedingly modest -that exquisite citrus tart you made ranks amongst one of my most favourite (and there are many...) of your ultra fabulous pictures!

9:16 pm, June 21, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

J,
I made this cake awhile back as well. Discovering the lemon cream was the highlight, and I've made it numerous times since to eat with fresh raspberries.

12:55 am, July 18, 2005  
Blogger Joycelyn said...

hi liz, must remember to try that combination sometime. thanks!

1:27 am, July 18, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey i tried this recipe tonight and found that there was not enough flourless chocolate cake. did you change ratios at all?

Jake

1:55 pm, November 25, 2005  

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