Jean-Michel Perruchon, Plaisirs gourmands, chocolats et cakes (book)

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Jean-Michel Perruchon, Plaisirs gourmands, chocolats et cakes (book) by Perruchon and Collective. Bellouet Conseil Éditions, 2011. New hardcover book in blister. Languages: French and English.

Fruit of the work of Jean-Michel Perruchon and his team at the Bellouet school (Guillaume Mabilleau, Johann Martin, Laurent Moreno, Olivier Lejanti and Julien Alvarez), this ambitious bilingual work addresses two essential themes for today’s pastry chefs.

First of all, the work of chocolate, through a first chapter dealing with the history of cocoa, the transformation of the bean into chocolate, tempering, molding, without forgetting the questions of storage and conservation. The book then addresses the techniques themselves (moulding, cutting, working on fabric support, personalized supports or even spraying and plastic chocolate). Modern Easter montages follow, with copyrighted characters that will ensure success with children and their parents. The montages of Eve from Wall-E, Diddl, Sam Sam and Hello Kitty are thus revealed, as well as other characters (small plane, cowboy, fish, chick…). The decorated eggs then arrive, with explosive eggs (Gallic in the colors of two well-known comic book characters, Mac’Egg allowing you to combine the Easter egg with macaroons…), then the table centers (bonzai, fir trees or other amazing realistic candles). Finally, the artistic pieces complete this first part devoted to chocolate (Ratatouille, Poupée…).

The second part of the book concerns cakes and travel cakes. The flavors are more or less classic (black sesame cake and yuzu jam, salted butter caramel pecan cake), tradition is not forgotten (Breton prune cake, Genoa bread, gingerbread).