Paris Patisseries: Pierre Herme - Round Two.

This Pierre Herme patisserie is in a slightly swankier part of town than the first one I went to and looks very different. While the front of the other one is all glass and the inside is bright and colourful, the window of this one serves as a display case, which is filled with pitihivers.

The interior of this one is much darker, all the fittings and fixtures in a dark brown wood. Another difference - the first store was happy to let me take pictures, this one, not so much. I managed to snap a couple of photos as I walked in the door before someone asked me to stop. Booooo!

I want one of everything, but neither my wallet nor my stomach could handle that, so I settle on three individual sized pieces:

~ Ispahan: rose macaron, rose cream, raspberry and lychee

~ Infiniment vanille: pate sablee, vanilla white chocolate ganache, vanilla mascarpone cream

~ Infiniment citron: pate sablee, lemon cream, candied lemon zest, lemon jelly

It's cold and rainy back on the street, so I jump on the Metro and head for the hostel so I can get stuck into these little beauties.

Being that in the past year or so I had become more-than-normal obsessed with the wonderfulness that is lemon, I go for the lemon tart first (Infiniment citron). Pierre Herme's lemon cream is the stuff dreams are made of. It's smooth and tangy and I want more. Actually, I want to dive into a sea of the stuff. Come to think of it, that is how I want to go out - drowning in a sea of PH's lemon cream. How big does a body of liquid need to be to be considered a sea?

Next up, is the Infiniment vanille.

I love this one. I know plenty of people say vanilla is, well so vanilla, but not so. Vanilla, when done right, rocks. This is done right. A short pastry, creamy filling and a beautiful vanilla perfume throughout. Hellooooooo lover.

And finally, the Ispahan.

This one is the prettiest of the bunch. It comes in a little gold fluted case and it looks just lovely. The flavours and textures of this one just go so well together. The raspberries are tart and juicy which is good alongside the sweet lychee (I'm still in awe of how good all the produce that I came across was in France, don't even get me started on the mandarins I had over there). You get the smooth from the rose cream and the crunchy from the macaron shell.

Happiness is....

Paris Patisseries: Pierre Herme - The Maiden Voyage.

Pierre Herme - Le Roi de Macaron. A fourth generation baker who began his apprenticeship at the age of 14. Legend in the world of pastry.

I've spent countless hours reading about him and his creations on the internet and in books. I searched for months for his out of print 'Macaron' book and jumped for joy when I finally found one that I could afford (and it is still probably the most expensive cookbook I own, and using it requires translating first, since it is entirely in French).

There are two Pierre Herme patisseries and for my first trip I head to the one on rue de Vaugirard in the 15th arrondissement.

The store is gorgeous. The display cases are modern and colourful and hold the beautiful works of pastry art that Herme is famous for. The back wall is is covered in the names of the creations and the ceiling is wallpapered with the logo. It's spectacular.

I see some difficult choices in my future.

The pastry case

The chocolate case

The macaron case

I'm not entirely sure I'll get one of these through customs.

Decisions, decisions. My head hurts. I think the cure for that might be a box of 12 macarons. I get one of every flavour and double up on a few that I know will be winners. They are:

~ Milk chocolate & passionfruit

~ Salted caramel

~ Rose

~ Chocolate

~ White truffle and hazelnut

~ Chestnut and matcha green tea

~ Coffee

I already know that I'm going to be visiting the other Pierre Herme patisserie so I decided that this enough for today - I don't want to overwhelm myself.

Now for the verdict. The trip to the patisserie itself was fantastic. It's so pretty and my little bag of goodies from there just felt so precious to me. Too precious to just crack them out on the Paris sidewalk. I waited until we were back at the hostel later that day before I try my first macaron. I've heard so many good things about the milk chocolate and passionfruit one, so it was always going to be my first. Can I just say for a combo that I had never thought of together - holy crap it was good. The shell was so light and crisp and the ganache was so smooth and packed some serious flavour punch. It was so good that I had to let someone know about it, so instead of selfishly keeping the other for myself, I made Libby eat the other (she loved it).

The other clear favourites are the salted caramel and the rose.

It took me a while to get through them all (since a couple of days later I added to the pile with some from Laduree) and I'm still munching on macarons when I get back to Toronto!