La Patisserie des Reves

La Patisserie des Reves is the most recent patisserie that I hunted down. The little pink swirly toothpick is their logo. It is actually a cartoon representation of a religiouse, a particularly renown French speciality made from three balls of choux pastry, with lots of cream and icing also involved. Most patisseries do a fairly basic version, but this comes from La Patisserie des Reves, where only one of each pastry is on display (and I do mean, "on display". As if they are exhibits in an art gallery that displays the sculptures under glass domes.) You tell the madames your choices, and she tells the bakery out the back who arranges them delicately on a foam sheet, inside a watermelon-pink box. These toothpicks are used to help keep each pastry in place. When there the assitant who was folding our box shut noticed that the cream from a religiouse (which, ironically enough, had been deconstructed in the artistic sense of the word and reimagined as a rectangle...) was at risk of being touched by the lid as it tucked in down the side. So instead of just shimming the pastry over a few millimetres, the box was sent back to the baker for rearrangement. I shared a religiouse, a Paris-Brest, and an enormous madeleine with my lunch partner. The religious was marvellous, with the top balls of choux pastry filled with a coffee-cream and topped with crunchy, shiney toffee. Like creme-brulee balls. But the Paris-Brest was definitely my hero. I'll write about her in another post, and I promise to include pictures....