Hello and welcome to sweet pleasure – a blog devoted to baking, pastry and all things sweet. My name is Sam and I am just a regular guy who is interested in art and pastry. For me there are many commonalities and connections between these disiciplines: from concepts, forms and colours, through aesthetics/composition and materials/ingredients, to techiniques. I hope to create, examine, explore, document and write about food related topics that I would like to learn about. I welcome any feedback and suggestions you may have.
Life is uncertain.
Eat desserts first!
Plasir Sucré
“Pleasure is a
state…bliss…an action, and both of them, in our culture, are held to be
unspeakable, beyond words.” Richard Howard in the forward to Roland Barthes’ The
Pleasure of the Text
Pleasure is the literal
translation for the French word plaisir. Plaisir means, among other things,
amusement, delight, enjoyment, fun, indulgence, and joy. This constellation of
meaning embodies my excitement and love for art, food and pastry. Pleasure is
something we rarely talk about. We feel it, experience it, and embody it. This
blog is my modest attempt to share and document my experiences.
Plaisir Sucré was my
initial idea for the name of my blog. I changed to Sweet Pleasure, an English
translation, for practical reasons: English is my first language and is
currently the dominant language on the web in North America, where I live.
Plaisir Sucré is also the
name of a cake created by the famed French pastry chef Pierre Hermé. In 1993 Hermé constructed Cherry
on the Cake. This revolutionary cake was daring in its use of milk chocolate,
an ingredient looked down upon, especially in Hermé’s native France. It created
a major stir in French pastry circles and was widely discussed. Plaisir Sucré
is a revamp of Cherry on the Cake—a plated version of the mythical cake. It has
the cake’s components, minus the cherry, its flavours and its wonderful
textural interplay. The Plaisir Sucré has five elements: (1) hazel dacqouise,
(2) hazelnut praline, (3) milk chocolate ganache, (4) milk chocolate whipped
cream and (5) thin sheets of tempered milk chocolate.
The recipe for the Plaisir
Sucré is in Pierre Hermé’s book Chocolate
Desserts. Although it’s manageable for the experienced home
baker, this cake does require patience and time because of its many components.
If you are planning to make this dessert at home, I strongly suggest decreasing
the recipe’s portion size, as the Plaisir Sucré is rich, decadent and intense.
This dessert is definitely a showstopper!
8 comments:
Beautiful! Yummy!
Have ordered Pierre Hermé book...can't wait...
sam,
congrats on making the plaisir sucré! It looks gorgeous too - those chocolate sheets look perfectly flat! Somewhere in my flickr gallery is a picture of the plaisir sucré I did for my pastry school final project. It was one big 8"x8" square - let me tell you not a good idea! I made chocolate sheets for three nights in a row to get ones that big that weren't warped or cracked. Smaller is definitely better!
Great job!
Sam, your cake looks gorgeous!
rich, decadent and intense. what else do you need in life?!
it looks beautiful.
Sam,
What an interesting look at the name of this dessert and your blog.
I want to blow this picture up and hang it over my computer at work. But then I would stare at it all day and not do any work ...
Beautiful!
A showstopper is right! This looks amazing!
Hi Linda,
I like all of Hermés books. He is simply fantastic at what he does.
Hi Anita,
Thanks for the comments. In the book they suggest making the dessert 4" x 2". That is too large especially for a dessert as decadent as this. Anyways the next time I make this it will definately be smaller.
Hi Jen,
Thanks for the lovely comment.
Hi Pinknest,
I think your right: rich, decadent and intense is the way to go ith everything!
Hi Ivonne,
If you want I can email you the photo so you can blow it up with good resolution. Thanks Ivonne!
Hi Dianka,
Thanks. I enjoyed making this dessert.
Quelle merveille ce blog!
est-ce que le recettes en fr existent?
bonne année!!
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