The order, and why
French pâtisserie has a reputation for requiring machinery this school does not believe in. Almost none of that reputation is deserved — a whisk, a bowl and a patient wrist replace nearly everything, and the results are, if anything, better judged by hand than by a machine that cannot feel the moment a mixture changes.
The twelve desserts below are ordered easiest first, and the order teaches as much as the recipes do. Crème Chantilly is whipped cream and nothing else — it teaches you what "soft peaks" and "stiff peaks" actually look like by eye, a judgement every custard and every mousse on this page depends on. Mousse au chocolat teaches folding, the single most important hand motion in pâtisserie: how to combine a light, airy mixture with a heavy one without losing the air that makes it light. The custard family — crème caramel, crème brûlée, îles flottantes — teaches you to read doneness in an egg-and-milk mixture by sight and touch rather than a thermometer's number, because a thermometer cannot tell you when a custard has set, only when it has reached a temperature that usually correlates with setting.
From there, pastry: clafoutis is a thick, forgiving batter baked in fruit; tarte Tatin and tarte aux pommes teach two different relationships between fruit, sugar and pastry; profiteroles teach choux pastry piped from nothing more exotic than a freezer bag with a corner snipped off; madeleines teach the rested batter that gives them their hump. The page closes on soufflé au chocolat, which asks you to combine almost everything learned above — a stable base, a properly whipped meringue, and confident folding — under real time pressure. It is the hardest recipe here and it is genuinely achievable once you have cooked your way up to it.
Pâtisserie has a reputation for exactness that machines are supposed to guarantee. In fact almost all of it can be judged by eye, if you have been taught what to look for.
On dessert and disciplineCrème Chantilly
Sweetened whipped cream, and the single most useful thing a home cook can learn to do with a balloon whisk. Once you can read the stages of whipped cream by eye, every custard and mousse that follows becomes far easier to judge.
Cold double cream whipped by hand with a balloon whisk until it holds its shape, sweetened lightly and scented with vanilla. The base note under half the desserts on this page.
- 250 mldouble cream, well chilled
- 2 tbspicing sugar, sifted
- 1/2 tspvanilla extract, or the scraped seeds of half a pod
Chill the bowl and whisk in the freezer for ten minutes if the kitchen is warm — cold cream and cold tools whip faster and hold better.
Pour the cream into the bowl and whisk briskly in a circular motion, keeping the whisk moving through the whole volume rather than just the surface.
At two minutes it will thicken and the whisk will start to leave trails. This is soft peak: lift the whisk and the cream forms a peak that folds gently over at the tip.
Cue, soft peakThe peak droops like a wave breaking — right for folding into a mousse.Add the icing sugar and vanilla and continue whisking, checking every ten seconds now, until the peak stands upright with only the very tip curling.
Cue, stiff peakThe cream holds its shape on the whisk and does not slump when the bowl is tilted. Stop here.
Serve with
Any fruit tart, clafoutis, îles flottantes, or on its own with berries.
Do not overwhip
Thirty seconds past stiff peak, cream turns grainy and starts to split into butter and buttermilk. If that happens, keep whisking deliberately and you have a rough butter — drain it and use it, rather than throwing it away.
A balloon whisk beats more air into cream than most people expect, and a chilled bowl set at an angle on a folded cloth (so it does not slide) lets you work fast with one hand steadying it. Five minutes of brisk whisking, not effort, is what a machine actually saves you — and by hand you feel the exact moment it turns from soft to stiff, which a machine's timer cannot tell you.
Mousse au Chocolat
Dark chocolate, egg yolks for richness, whipped egg whites for lift — no cream needed, though a spoonful improves texture. The fold from Figure 1 above is the entire technique.
Melted dark chocolate loosened with yolks, lightened with whisked egg whites folded in gently in three additions. Set in the fridge, needing no gelatine and no oven.
- 200 gdark chocolate (65–70% cocoa), chopped
- 50 gunsalted butter
- 4large eggs, separated
- 50 gcaster sugar
- –a small pinch of salt
Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely-simmering water, base clear of the water. Melt the chocolate and butter together, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Take off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes so it will not cook the yolks.
Whisk the yolks into the warm chocolate one at a time, mixing each in fully before the next. The mixture will thicken and turn glossy.
In a clean, dry bowl, whisk the egg whites with the pinch of salt until they hold a soft peak, then add the sugar in three additions, whisking well between each, until the whites are glossy and hold a stiff peak that stands upright on the whisk.
CueTip the bowl: the whites should not move at all if they are properly stiff.Fold a third of the whites into the chocolate base to loosen it — beat this one in properly, it is meant to sacrifice some air to make the rest easier. Then fold in the remaining whites in two more additions, using the down-through-the-middle, round-the-base, up-and-over motion of Figure 1, turning the bowl a quarter turn with each fold.
CueStop folding the moment no streaks of white remain — a few seconds more than that and you lose the lift you worked for.Divide between six small bowls or glasses and chill at least four hours, ideally overnight, until fully set.
Serve with
Crème Chantilly and a few raspberries, or plain with a langue de chat biscuit.
Raw egg note
This mousse contains raw egg white and yolk warmed only gently. Use the freshest eggs you can and serve to those comfortable eating them lightly cooked.
Chocolate ganache is far denser than whipped egg white. Folding the whole lightened mixture into it at once means most of the air collapses before it is distributed. Beating in a third first — losing that portion's air deliberately — brings the base close enough in density to the remaining whites that the final two folds can be gentle and still succeed.
Crème Caramel
An egg custard baked over a layer of dry caramel, then turned out so the caramel becomes a glossy sauce running down the sides. The first of the three custards on this page, and the one with the least room for error, because it bakes rather than sets in a bowl.
A plain vanilla custard baked in a bain-marie over a hard, dark caramel that turns to sauce as the dessert cools and is unmoulded. Four ingredients, no thermometer, entirely judged by eye and touch.
- 150 gcaster sugar, for the caramel
- 3 tbspwater
- 500 mlwhole milk
- 4large eggs, plus 2 yolks
- 70 gcaster sugar, for the custard
- 1 tspvanilla extract
Heat the oven to 160°C (140°C fan). Put a kettle on to boil for the bain-marie.
Make the caramel: put the 150 g sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Do not stir once it starts to bubble — swirl the pan gently instead, or the sugar will crystallise. Cook until it turns a deep amber, the colour of strong tea.
CueThe colour is the only test that matters. A shade past deep amber, the smell turns from sweet to bitter — take it off the instant it reaches deep amber, since it keeps darkening in the residual heat.Immediately and carefully divide the hot caramel between six small ramekins, tilting each to coat the base. It will harden within a minute — do not touch it.
Warm the milk in a saucepan until steaming but not boiling. Meanwhile whisk the eggs, yolks, sugar and vanilla together in a bowl just until combined — do not whisk in extra air, which causes bubbles in the finished custard.
Pour the warm milk slowly into the eggs, whisking gently and constantly. Strain through a sieve into a jug to remove any threads of cooked egg, then pour over the hardened caramel in each ramekin.
Set the ramekins in a deep roasting tin, put the tin in the oven, then pour boiling water from the kettle into the tin to come halfway up the ramekins' sides — this bain-marie shields the custard from the oven's direct heat.
Bake 30–35 minutes, until set at the edges and still showing a gentle wobble across the whole surface when the tin is nudged — see Figure 2. Lift out and let the ramekins cool in the water, then chill at least four hours.
To unmould, run a thin knife round the edge, invert a plate over the top, and turn both over together with a firm, confident motion. The caramel, now liquid, runs down as a sauce.
Serve with
Nothing needed, though a few berries are welcome.
No thermometer needed
Both the caramel's colour and the custard's set are judged more reliably by eye and touch than by a number — see Figure 2.
Stirring sugar syrup once crystals have begun to form invites more crystallisation, turning the whole batch grainy and unusable. Swirl the pan by its handle instead. If sugar crystals do form on the side of the pan, brush them down with a wet pastry brush rather than a spoon.
Crème Brûlée
A denser, cream-based custard, baked soft and served with a shattering sugar crust made under a hot grill rather than a blowtorch — proof that the torch is a convenience, not a requirement.
A rich cream-and-yolk custard baked to a very soft set, chilled, then topped with sugar and finished under a grill until it caramelises into a crackable crust.
- 500 mldouble cream
- 1vanilla pod, split, or 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 5large egg yolks
- 50 gcaster sugar, plus extra for the tops
Heat the oven to 150°C (130°C fan). Warm the cream with the split vanilla pod (scrape the seeds in first) in a saucepan until steaming, not boiling. Remove from the heat and let it infuse ten minutes, then remove the pod.
Whisk the yolks and sugar together in a bowl until just combined, without whisking in air. Pour the warm cream in slowly, whisking gently throughout.
Strain through a sieve into a jug, then divide between four shallow ramekins. Skim any surface bubbles with a spoon.
Set in a roasting tin, place in the oven, and pour boiling water into the tin to come halfway up the sides, as for crème caramel.
Bake 30–35 minutes, until the custard is set at the edges but still trembles as one piece at the centre when the tin is nudged — softer than crème caramel's set. Cool in the water bath, then chill at least three hours, ideally overnight.
To serve, heat the grill to its highest setting. Pat the custard surface completely dry with kitchen paper, then sprinkle an even, thin layer of sugar over each — about a teaspoon per ramekin, tilting to coat.
Set the ramekins on a tray as close to the grill element as the oven allows and watch constantly: the sugar will bubble and then darken to a deep amber in one to two minutes.
CueAn even, dark amber all across, not black in patches — rotate the tray if the grill heats unevenly. Let it sit thirty seconds off the heat to harden into a crisp sheet before serving.
Serve with
Nothing — the crust is the whole point, eaten within minutes of grilling before it softens.
No blowtorch needed
A domestic grill run at full heat and watched closely does the same job as a torch; it is slightly less even, which is why constant attention and a possible rotation of the tray matter more than they would with a torch.
A blowtorch caramelises from above in seconds and lets you work one ramekin at a time; a grill does the whole tray together but takes longer and needs watching, since the sugar nearest the element goes first. Dry the custard surface thoroughly before sugaring either way — any moisture stops the sugar from caramelising cleanly and gives a wet, uneven crust.
Îles Flottantes
"Floating islands": poached meringue clouds served on a pool of crème anglaise, the thin pouring custard that crème caramel's baked version is built from. This is the dessert that most rewards having practised whisking whites for the mousse above.
Whisked egg whites poached gently in barely-simmering milk, then set afloat on a pool of vanilla crème anglaise made from the yolks that whites left behind. Nothing is wasted between the two halves of one dish.
- 600 mlwhole milk
- 1vanilla pod, split, or 1 tsp extract
- 4large eggs, separated
- 90 gcaster sugar, divided
- –a pinch of salt
- 2 tbspcaster sugar, for a dry caramel drizzle, optional
Warm the milk with the vanilla pod and seeds in a wide, shallow pan until steaming, not boiling. Reduce to the lowest setting so the surface barely trembles.
Whisk the whites with the salt until they hold a soft peak, then add 40 g of the sugar gradually, whisking to stiff, glossy peaks — as for the mousse above.
Using two large spoons, shape an oval of meringue between them and slide it gently into the barely-simmering milk. Poach three or four islands at a time, without crowding, 90 seconds a side, turning once with a slotted spoon.
CueThe meringue puffs and turns matte white right through; it should feel springy, not wet, when pressed lightly.Lift the poached islands onto a clean tea towel to drain. Strain the poaching milk through a sieve and set aside — it is now vanilla-infused and ready for the custard.
Make the crème anglaise: whisk the yolks with the remaining 50 g sugar in a bowl until pale. Pour the warm milk in slowly, whisking. Return to the pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon in a figure of eight, until it thickens enough to coat the spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn across the back.
CueNever let it boil — the moment it thickens to nappe, take it straight off the heat. A minute past that and it curdles.Strain the custard into a jug or bowl and chill, or serve just warm. Pour into shallow bowls and float the islands on top. For the optional caramel, melt the 2 tbsp sugar dry in a small pan until deep amber and drizzle thin threads over the islands at once, before it hardens.
Serve with
Nothing further — the custard and meringue are the whole dessert.
Nothing wasted
The vanilla pod, once scraped and poached, can be rinsed, dried and buried in a jar of caster sugar to make vanilla sugar over the following weeks.
Clafoutis aux Cerises
A thick, eggy batter poured over whole cherries and baked until puffed and set — closer to a baked custard than a cake, and the easiest hot dessert on this page to get right on the first attempt.
A pouring batter of eggs, milk, sugar and a little flour, baked around whole cherries in a buttered dish until it puffs at the oven's heat and sets to a texture between custard and cake.
- 500 gcherries, stalks removed, stoned or not — classically not, for flavour
- 20 gbutter, softened, for the dish
- 3large eggs
- 80 gcaster sugar, plus 1 tbsp for the dish
- 60 gplain flour
- –a pinch of salt
- 250 mlwhole milk
- 1 tspvanilla extract, or 1 tbsp kirsch
- –icing sugar, to finish
Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Butter a shallow baking dish generously and dust with the tablespoon of sugar, tipping out the excess. Scatter the cherries evenly over the base.
Whisk the eggs and 80 g sugar together in a bowl until pale and a little thickened, about a minute by hand.
Whisk in the flour and salt until just smooth — do not overwork it, or the clafoutis toughens. Whisk in the milk gradually, then the vanilla or kirsch, to make a thin, pourable batter.
Pour the batter over the cherries and bake 30–35 minutes, until puffed, golden at the edges, and just set in the centre — a skewer inserted should come out clean, or with only a few moist crumbs.
CueIt will have risen visibly like a soufflé; it sinks a little as it cools, which is normal and not a fault.Dust with icing sugar and serve warm, ideally within thirty minutes of leaving the oven.
Serve with
Crème Chantilly, or nothing at all.
On the stones
Classical clafoutis leaves the stones in — they release a faint bitter-almond note into the batter as it bakes. Warn guests, or stone the cherries if serving children.
Tarte Tatin
Apples cooked in butter and sugar until deeply caramelised, then covered with pastry and baked, and finally turned out so the caramelised fruit sits on top. It is an upside-down tart born, famously, of an accident, and the assembly is the entire technique.
Apple halves caramelised whole in a heavy pan on the hob, topped with a disc of pastry and finished in the oven, then boldly inverted onto a plate. A single heavy ovenproof frying pan does the whole job.
- 8–9firm eating apples (Braeburn or similar), peeled, halved and cored
- 120 gcaster sugar
- 80 gunsalted butter, cubed
- 300 gshortcrust pastry (see tarte aux pommes, below, or bought)
Heat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan). In a heavy, ovenproof frying pan (around 24 cm), scatter the sugar evenly over the base and set over medium heat. Do not stir; let it melt and turn deep amber, swirling the pan gently if it colours unevenly.
CueDeep amber, like strong tea — the same cue as the caramel for crème caramel.Off the heat, dot the butter over the caramel — it will bubble and hiss. Swirl to combine into a smooth, glossy caramel.
Pack the apple halves into the pan, cut side up, tightly in a circular pattern, standing the last few on their sides to fill any gaps — they shrink as they cook. Return to medium heat and cook 15–20 minutes, until the apples have softened at the edges and the caramel has thickened and turned a shade darker around them.
Take off the heat and let cool for ten minutes — this matters, because pastry laid over hot fruit will slump and not crisp.
Roll the pastry into a circle about 2 cm wider than the pan. Lay it over the apples and tuck the excess down inside the edge of the pan, around the fruit, like tucking in a sheet.
Bake 25–30 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden and firm. Rest in the pan five minutes.
Invert: place a plate larger than the pan over the top, hold both firmly together with oven gloves, and turn the whole thing over in one confident motion. Lift the pan away — any apples that stuck to the pan can simply be lifted off and pressed back into place.
Serve with
Crème Chantilly, or a spoonful of crème fraîche, while still warm.
The resting pause
Letting the caramel cool slightly before the pastry goes on, and letting the finished tart rest five minutes before inverting, are the two steps most often skipped and most responsible for a tart that falls apart on turning out.
Tarte aux Pommes
The other apple tart: thin pastry, hand-made, blind-baked, then layered with fanned apple slices the right way up and glazed. Where Tatin hides its technique in the pan, this one displays it on the plate.
Hand-made pâte brisée, blind-baked, then fanned with thin apple slices and finished with an apricot glaze under the oven's heat. No food processor — the fat is rubbed in by hand.
- 200 gplain flour
- 100 gcold unsalted butter, cubed
- 1pinch salt; 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 3–4 tbspice-cold water
- 5–6eating apples, peeled, halved, cored and thinly sliced
- 30 gcaster sugar, for the apples
- 20 gbutter, melted
- 3 tbspapricot jam, for glazing
Make the pâte brisée: put the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Add the cold butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips, lifting and letting it fall to keep it cool, until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs with a few pea-sized lumps left.
Add the ice water a tablespoon at a time, cutting it in with a knife and then bringing it together with your hands, just until it forms a dough — do not knead. Flatten into a disc, wrap, and chill 30 minutes.
CueThe dough should look slightly streaky with butter, not smooth — that streakiness is what makes it flake.Heat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan). Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface to fit a 23 cm tart tin, easing it into the corners without stretching it. Trim the top edge, prick the base all over with a fork, and chill 15 minutes.
Line the pastry with baking paper and dried beans or rice as a weight, and blind-bake 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and bake a further 8–10 minutes, until pale gold and dry to the touch.
Arrange the apple slices in overlapping circles from the outside in, fanning each slice slightly. Sprinkle with the sugar and drizzle with the melted butter.
Bake 30–35 minutes, until the apples are tender and touched with colour at the tips and the pastry is deep golden.
Warm the apricot jam with a teaspoon of water in a small pan until loose, then sieve to remove lumps and brush over the warm tart to glaze.
Serve with
Crème anglaise (see îles flottantes, above) or nothing at all.
No food processor needed
Rubbing butter into flour by hand takes about ninety seconds and gives you direct control over how far it goes — stop at coarse breadcrumbs with visible flecks of butter, which is exactly what gives the baked pastry its flake.
Poires Belle-Hélène
Poached pears, vanilla ice cream (bought, in this school's honest kitchen, since a churn is a specialist gadget) and hot chocolate sauce poured at the table — one of the simplest classical desserts to assemble and one of the most reliably loved.
Whole pears poached gently in vanilla sugar syrup, served cold or warm over ice cream with a hot dark chocolate sauce poured over at the last moment.
- 4firm ripe pears, peeled, stalks left on
- 700 mlwater
- 150 gcaster sugar
- 1vanilla pod, split, or 1 tsp extract
- 1strip lemon peel
- 150 gdark chocolate, chopped
- 100 mldouble cream
- 1 tbspgolden syrup or honey
- –good vanilla ice cream, to serve
Put the water, sugar, vanilla pod and lemon peel in a pot large enough to hold the pears standing up. Bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Stand the pears in the syrup, cover with a piece of baking paper pressed onto the surface to keep them submerged, and poach at a gentle simmer 15–20 minutes, until a knife slides into the base with no resistance.
CueTest at the base, near the core, which is the last part to soften — the flesh near the skin softens well before the centre does.Lift the pears out and let cool. They can be served warm, at room temperature, or chilled.
For the sauce, put the chocolate, cream and syrup in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely-simmering water and melt gently, stirring until glossy and smooth. Keep warm, or reheat gently later, stirring, before serving.
To serve, put a scoop of ice cream in each bowl, stand a pear alongside or on top, and pour the hot sauce over at the table so it meets the cold ice cream.
Serve with
Nothing more — the pear, ice cream and hot sauce are the whole architecture of the dish.
No churn needed
A domestic ice cream churn is one of the very few genuinely specialist machines this school allows buying good ice cream instead of, since hand-churning without one gives an icy, poor result.
Profiteroles
Choux pastry, which sounds difficult and is in fact one of the most forgiving doughs in French cooking, piped from a corner of a plain freezer bag rather than a proper piping bag, and filled with cream once baked and cooled.
Pâte à choux — a cooked paste of butter, water and flour beaten with eggs — piped into small mounds and baked until they puff hollow, then filled with Chantilly cream and topped with chocolate sauce.
- 125 mlwater
- 125 mlwhole milk
- 100 gunsalted butter, cubed
- 1/2 tspsalt; 1 tsp caster sugar
- 140 gplain flour, sifted
- 4large eggs, beaten, added gradually
- 1quantity crème Chantilly (above), to fill
- 1quantity chocolate sauce (as for poires Belle-Hélène, above)
Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan) and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Put the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil, making sure the butter has fully melted before it boils.
Take off the heat and tip in all the flour at once. Beat hard and immediately with a wooden spoon until it comes together into a smooth ball that pulls cleanly away from the sides of the pan.
Return the pan to low heat for one minute, beating constantly, to dry the paste slightly — it should film the base of the pan.
Tip the paste into a bowl and let it cool for five minutes, stirring occasionally, until only warm — hot paste will scramble the eggs. Beat in the beaten eggs a splash at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition, until the paste is smooth, glossy, and drops reluctantly from the spoon in a soft peak — you may not need every drop of egg.
CueLift the spoon: the paste should fall in a slow, thick ribbon, not pour and not sit stiffly. That is the right consistency to pipe.Spoon the choux paste into a heavy freezer bag, push it down into one corner, and snip about 1.5 cm off that corner with scissors. Pipe small mounds, about 3 cm across, onto the tray, spaced well apart, twisting the bag as you finish each one to release cleanly.
Dampen a fingertip and smooth down any peaks so they do not scorch. Bake 20–25 minutes without opening the door, until deep golden and firm — opening the door early lets the steam escape and the buns collapse.
Take out, pierce a small hole in the base of each with a skewer to let steam escape, and return to the switched-off oven for five minutes to dry out inside. Cool completely on a rack.
To fill, split each bun and spoon or pipe in the Chantilly cream, or pierce the base and pipe cream in directly. Pile onto a plate and pour the warm chocolate sauce over just before serving.
Serve with
Nothing further needed; this is the full croquembouche flavour in its simplest, everyday form.
No piping bag needed
A sturdy freezer bag with a corner snipped off pipes just as accurately as a proper bag for mounds this size, and costs nothing extra.
Choux relies entirely on steam for its rise — there is no raising agent. Beating the flour into the boiling liquid hard and fast gelatinises the starch fully, which is what lets the paste later trap the steam generated in the oven as a strong, elastic wall rather than tearing open.
Madeleines
Small shell-shaped sponge cakes famous for the hump that rises on top — a hump that depends almost entirely on one step nobody expects: chilling the batter before it meets the oven's heat.
A simple whisked batter of eggs, sugar, flour and melted butter, rested cold, then baked in a hot oven so the shock of heat pushes up the characteristic hump.
- 2large eggs
- 100 gcaster sugar
- 1 tspvanilla extract or the zest of 1 lemon
- 100 gplain flour
- 1 tspbaking powder
- –a pinch of salt
- 100 gunsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for the tin
Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla or zest together in a bowl for two to three minutes, until pale, thick and roughly doubled in volume — the mixture should fall from the whisk in a slow ribbon that sits briefly on the surface before sinking in.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt over the top and fold in gently with a spatula or spoon, using the down-through-the-middle motion from Figure 1, until just combined.
Fold in the melted butter in two additions, again gently, until the batter is smooth, glossy and streak-free.
Cover and chill at least two hours, ideally overnight. This rest is what produces the hump: cold batter meeting a hot oven rises fast in the centre before the edges set.
Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan). Butter a madeleine tin thoroughly, including the ridges, and dust with a little flour, tapping out the excess.
Fill each mould two-thirds full with the cold batter — a teaspoon dipped in cold water helps release it cleanly. Bake 8–10 minutes, until well risen with a distinct hump and golden at the edges.
CueThe hump appears within the first four minutes if the oven is hot enough and the batter cold enough — watch through the door rather than opening it.Unmould immediately onto a rack by tapping the tin firmly — they stick fast once cooled in the mould.
Serve with
Tea or coffee, still faintly warm, on the day of baking.
The hump is temperature, not a trick
Cold batter into a hot oven, always — never let the batter come to room temperature before baking, and never bake at a lower temperature to be gentler with them. Both remove the shock that makes the hump.
Soufflé au Chocolat
The closing recipe, and deliberately the hardest: a chocolate custard base lightened with whipped egg whites and baked so it rises dramatically above the dish. Everything from the fold of Figure 1 to the whites of the mousse and the custard judgement of crème caramel comes together here, under real time pressure at the table.
A thick chocolate béchamel-like base, folded with stiffly whisked egg whites and baked hot and fast so the trapped air and steam push the mixture well above the rim. Served the instant it leaves the oven.
- 15 gbutter, softened, for the dishes
- 50 gcaster sugar, plus extra for the dishes
- 150 gdark chocolate (65–70%), chopped
- 30 gunsalted butter
- 200 mlwhole milk
- 20 gplain flour
- 3large egg yolks
- 5large egg whites
- –a pinch of salt; 1 tbsp caster sugar for the whites
Butter four individual soufflé dishes thoroughly with upward strokes (this helps the soufflé climb rather than stick), then coat with sugar, tipping out the excess. Chill while you make the base. Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan) with a heavy baking tray inside to heat up.
Melt the chocolate and 30 g butter together in a bowl over barely-simmering water, as for the mousse. Set aside, still warm.
Warm the milk in a saucepan until steaming. In a separate small saucepan, melt a knob of butter, stir in the flour and cook one minute over low heat, then whisk in the warm milk gradually off the heat, exactly as for béchamel — see Sauces. Return to low heat and stir until thick, two to three minutes.
Whisk the thickened milk mixture into the melted chocolate until smooth, then whisk in the egg yolks one at a time. This is the base, and it can sit, covered, at room temperature for up to an hour if needed.
Whisk the egg whites and salt to a soft peak, then add the tablespoon of sugar and continue to a stiff, glossy peak, as for the mousse above.
Warm the chocolate base gently if it has cooled and firmed — it should be loose and only just warm, not hot. Beat a third of the whites into it firmly to loosen, then fold in the rest in two more additions, using the fold from Figure 1, stopping the moment no streaks remain.
Divide the mixture between the prepared dishes, filling to just below the rim, and run a thumb around the inside edge of each rim to clean it — a clean rim helps the soufflé rise straight rather than catching and tilting.
Set the dishes on the hot baking tray (this gives them an immediate blast of heat from below) and bake 12–14 minutes, without opening the door, until well risen, cracked slightly on top, and still visibly soft-set when nudged.
CueA good soufflé wobbles like a small, confident jelly at the centre when the tray is nudged — that softness is the point, not a fault.Carry straight to the table and serve at once; a soufflé begins to sink within two or three minutes of leaving the oven.
Serve with
A jug of crème anglaise (see îles flottantes) poured in at the table through a hole broken in the top, or nothing at all.
The whole page, in one dish
A soufflé asks for the whisking judgement of Chantilly, the fold of the mousse, the roux discipline of the base, and the custard-adjacent reading of doneness from the crèmes — cook the rest of this page first.
A soufflé rises on trapped steam and air; a draught of cooler air across the top before it has set enough structure will collapse it on the spot. Resist checking before the minimum time given, and when you do check, open the door only a crack and close it again quickly.
When it goes wrong
Whipped cream turns grainy or splits
Whisked past stiff peak into the early stages of butter.
FixStop checking every ten seconds once soft peak arrives, and next time whisk less vigorously as it approaches stiff. A split batch can be pushed further into rough butter and used differently, but cannot go back to cream.
Mousse or soufflé base sets lumpy or streaky after folding
Whites folded in with a stirring motion instead of the fold, or over-mixed until they collapsed.
FixUse the down-through-the-middle, round-the-base, up-and-over motion of Figure 1, and stop folding the instant no streaks remain — a few strokes too many is worse than a few too few.
Custard curdles — grainy, watery, split
Cooked past the set window in Figure 2, usually because it was left on direct heat too long or the oven ran hot.
FixFor a stovetop custard, take it off the heat the instant it coats a spoon and keep whisking off the heat to arrest it. For a baked one, use a bain-marie faithfully and check early — better underdone by a minute than over by one.
Choux buns collapse after baking
Oven door opened during baking, or the buns taken out before they were properly dry and firm.
FixDo not open the door until the minimum time is up. Pierce a hole in the base and leave them in the switched-off, still-warm oven a further five minutes to dry the inside fully.
Tarte Tatin sticks to the pan on turning out
The caramel was not fully melted around every apple, or the tart was inverted while still very hot and the caramel had re-hardened as it cooled unevenly.
FixRest the tart five minutes off the heat before turning it out — long enough to firm slightly but not to seize — and simply lift and replace any apple that sticks to the pan.
Madeleines bake flat with no hump
The batter was not properly chilled, or the oven was not hot enough when they went in.
FixChill the batter at least two hours and make sure the oven has fully reached 220°C before baking — an oven thermometer-free check is simply to let it preheat a further five minutes past when the indicator light goes off.
The custard family, by ratio
Four of the desserts on this page — crème anglaise (the pouring custard under îles flottantes), crème pâtissière (the thick pastry cream that fills choux and tarts, not made separately above but worth knowing), crème caramel, and crème Chantilly — are variations on one relationship between eggs, dairy and sugar. Seeing them side by side makes the family visible.
| Custard | Dairy | Eggs, per 500 ml dairy | Sugar | Cooked how |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crème anglaise | Milk | 4 yolks | 50 g | Stovetop, stirred to nappe, never boiled |
| Crème pâtissière | Milk | 2 whole eggs + 2 yolks | 90 g + 40 g flour | Stovetop, whisked hard, boiled briefly to cook the starch |
| Crème caramel | Milk | 4 whole eggs + 2 yolks | 70 g | Baked in a bain-marie, no stirring once combined |
| Crème brûlée | Cream | 5 yolks only | 50 g | Baked in a bain-marie, softer set than caramel |
| Crème Chantilly | Cream | No egg | To taste | Whipped raw, no heat at all |
More whole eggs and less yolk-only richness gives a custard that can be sliced, like crème caramel; more yolk and less white gives one that is meant to stay soft and spoonable, like crème brûlée or crème anglaise. Flour turns a custard into one that can be boiled without curdling — the starch protects the egg proteins — which is exactly why crème pâtissière, and only crème pâtissière among this table, can be brought fully to the boil.
Everything in this family is one question, asked with different proportions: how much egg does it take to hold this much liquid together, and how gently must you ask it to do so.
On the custard family