Des Gâteaux et des Saisons

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This delectable book offers a unique insight into the savoir-faire of Claire Damon – the French pastry chef renowned for her fresh, natural and colourful creations… A non-conformist pastry that aims, in the recipes revealed here, to highlight the taste of the essential ingredients!

Author: Claire Damon

Publishing House: Ducasse Edition

Publication Date: September 2021

Description : With this first book, Claire Damon opens her large herbarium of modern pastry with great sensitivity. Close to nature, which she venerates and defends, and closely linked to her Auvergne and Aveyron origins, Claire Damon has built a vegetal universe that we follow to the rhythm of her seasonal cakes and the evolution of vegetation. 72 recipes of pies, entremets, galettes and other cakes are based on an absolute requirement of the choice of products according to their exact maturity at the right season. For example, you have to listen to Claire Damon talk about apples, making a mockery of the stalls of the early fruit growers who would have us believe that apples can be eaten twelve months out of twelve. For this pastry chef, each variety of apple has its own taste, not all are suitable for cooking and none caramelize in the same way. From apples to wild verbena, each ingredient is the subject of reflection. Where does it come from, how is it grown, who produces it?  Discovering Claire Damon’s cakes is also understanding the play on chords and gustatory melodies. The Green absinthe tart is all the beauty of the early summer mornings in Aveyron. Fracas sur la banquise is a vanilla and chocolate cake for winter’s low point. Citrus cakes follow with a lot of poetry (calisson mandarine), then tender like rhubarb (rhubarb stick), then carmine red (I love strawberry and raspberry cheesecake), then brown like autumn (hazelnut cabbage and brown moellon). If nature is terribly inspiring for this pastry chef, it is not the only one to determine the construction of a dessert. An oriental fragrance, a slamming juice or the scent of cut hay also arouse her imagination. Claire Damon works like a perfumer, with a top note, a middle note and a bottom note. The tasting must be fluid, triggering obvious emotions. The Shahzadeh mellow, which uses the pistachio/pink accord, is marked by sweet and very oriental notes. Preserving the ingredient, restoring its taste as accurately as possible is a discipline that Claire Damon reveals here. Whether it is a question of taking the citrus peel or peeling the fruit, the hand is an irreplaceable ally. In order to respect the morphology of the fruit and not to crush the fibers, nothing beats the blade of a stainless steel knife sharpened to perfection. At the end of each recipe, the chef insists on the techniques that she considers essential. Often, it is a question of time. Time is also what gives value to the work of an accomplished pastry chef. The time of the puff pastry, the time of rest and the time of growth. A luxury that the reader learns here to afford. The time to see 72 recipes that reflect the passage of the seasons and their extraordinary pastry translation.