Pierre Herme Desires - 2005 Autumn/Winter Collection

Pierre Herme launched the Autumn/Winter Collection of his 2005 Desires line this past Thursday. In an unprecedented move since he started the revolutionary cake-/cat-walk in 1999, PH previewed his coveted sweets to the worldwide press not in Paris but Tokyo the preceding Monday.

On opening day, Clotilde and I diligently tasted four of the latest creations: the Dune, an Emotion Mahogany, the Instant, and a Plenitude macaron. On Saturday I went back with friends Liz and Leah and we had one other new item: the Emotion Orientale. Lest you fear we were deprived, we also had the classic Ispahan, Plenitude, a macaron with milk chocolate and passionfruit - which Leah declares as "the perfect fruit", the olive oil and vanilla macaron, and Jeffrey Steingarten's favourite white truffle and hazelnut macaron - just back in season.

Both days we set up our precision mobile pastry-tasting unit at the sidewalk tables of Cafe de la Mairie - the legendary low-key Left Bank literary cafe - which you may also remember as an Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations location. A drink buys you a prime patch of Paris real-estate for as long as you like.

Below is a snapshot tour of the new pieces available last week in the flagship boutique on rue Bonaparte - handily flagged with the season's signature blue. As always you can click on each photo to enlarge.

Above is the Surprise Yu. The official description says it's "crisp meringue, stewed and raw apples with yuzu, mousseline cream with yuzu."
And the official Pierre Herme tasting notes say it's "a cake like bonbon that contrasts tartness and sweetness. The acid taste of the apples is reinforced by yuzu juice with bitter mandarin orange and lime. The slightly buttery taste of the cream competes elegantly with the crispy texture of the meringue."

Following, I'll list each new item by name, the official description, PH's tasting notes, and my own notes as applicable.

Enjoy.

Millefeuille Caramel: caramelised puff pastry, marscapone cream with caramel
PH: "A pastry chef's dream?...An exercise in provocation?...the crunchy quality of the puff pastry and the creaminess of the caramel cream unite in this outrageously delectable caramel treat."

Emotion Orientale: creme brulee with gingerbread, tender fruits and dates simmered in tea, lemon gelee
PH: "A colorful palette of tastes: dried or candied fruits, oranges, apricots, dates simmered in tea awakened by a touch of lemon gelee, followed by the final spicy note of creme brulee to prolong the pleasure of the taste experience."
LC: The top cover looks like foam but it's actually a thin, crispy wafer. Nice trick of the eye.. Spoon down deep and come up with tart, clean wobbly gelee - beautiful contrast to the warm tones and textures beneath. I loved that Leah loved this - because she adamantly said she's "not a pastry person"! Another convert...;)

Emotion Mahogany: stewed litchis, stewed mangoes, coconut dacquoise biscuit, marscapone cream with caramel
PH: "Exotic yet reassuring, this dessert composed of very distinctive flavors features caramel as a minor theme while giving free rein to fruit notes dominated by mango and litchi."
LC: Very reassuring with deep caramel flavour in soft marscapone. But sorry - I beg to differ - caramel is the major not minor player here. Enjoyable but the dacquoise and even fruit flavours not distinguishable, And those marshmallows - perfect consistency and coated in coconut powder for even more textural interest - fun but not cohesive - they keep tumbling off. How are you supposed to get your spoon through those roadblocks? Nice but is it the dessert that was intended?

Dune: pistachio dacquoise biscuit, light pistachio cream, praline with roasted corn kernels
PH: "A great cake with the powerful aromas of dried fruit and roasted, torrified corn. The spotlight is on bitter almond, pistachio, praline and corn. A cake that generates sensations, at once moist, tender and crisp."
LC: The one I wanted to try the most. Corn might sound off-putting but from its taste it could be one of the most successful for Americans. The corn comes in the form of crispy bits of puffed caramelised corn - Corn Pops crossed with Sugar Smacks! With its stark appearance and minimalist meringue shards, it's like a sophisticated adult with a secret inner child. I want this one again soon.

Tarte Mogador: shortcrust pastry, milk chocolate and passionfruit ganache, roasted pineapple, flourless chocolate biscuit
PH: "An elegant, sophisticated tart with complex, acidulated fruit tastes. While chocolate predominates, a concentrated pineapple note is heightened by a veil of spices, while the passion fruit is softened by the smooth fullness of the caramel."

Instant:  Earl Grey tea gelee, ganache flavoured with tea, chocolate mousse and tender chocolate biscuit
PH: "The powerful dark chocolate ganache is 'refreshed' with Earl Grey tea (steeped when cold to prevent tannins from forming) and its gelee an acidulated note. The intense, fleeting notes of a pleasure that is all lightness."
LC: Second most desired Desire item. Looks so aggressively modern but the flavours are so mild and texture too familiar. The gelee's on the top interior layer and just gets lost under the chocolate shell. I told Clotilde that it was like getting into a Ferrari and discovering that it drives like a Volvo - sedan. Good, reliable but tricked me with that flashy look. I do really want to know how it's constructed though...

Macaron Plenitude: chocolate macaron biscuit, chocolate ganache, caramel and chocolate chips with fleur de sel
PH: "Heads or tails...Is it chocolate with caramel or caramel with chocolate? A macaron for contrast and simplicity."
LC: I'm so utterly disappointed. The Plenitude - which debuted with 2003's Kawaii line - is my very favourite PH item. It's dense, rich, chocolatey, creamy, and crispy - with those beautiful dark chocolate shards - offset by the single piece of white chocolate. This had none of that restrained complex elegance. It's again, quite good as it is but if you're calling it a Plenitude, I don't get it. Perhaps if the ganache were thicker and more elastic?

Also released but unavailable opening day:

Mr. H Mogador: lemon biscuit, passionfruit gelee, milk chocolate ganache and passionfruit
PH: "This taste experience starts when you bite into the milk chocolate shell, with its sweet flavors and brittle texture. Next comes the soft texture and fruity acidity of the passionfruit gelee inside the cake. The contrast between flavors and textures makes this Mr. H not only delicious but fun to eat."

Cake Sarah: green tea biscuit, candied chestnuts, passionfruit gelee
PH: "The biscuit flavoured with green tea contributes a dominant bitter note balanced by the sweetness of the candied chestnut. The powerful acidity of the passion fruit gelee is projected on to a background of chlorophyll notes."

Truffes Nature (Plain Truffles): bitter chocolate ganache coated with cocoa
PH: "A powerful dark chocolate aroma enhanced by the bitterness of cacoa powder. A truffle made for true connoisseurs."

Truffes au Praline (Pralineed Truffles): praline ganache coated with cocoa
PH: "A dark chocolate full of character with, inside, tender praline ganache."

Garance: candied fig paste, chocolate raspberry ganache with cinnamon, coated with dark chocolate
PH: "When the fig's tenderness and texture blend with the snap of acidity contributed by the raspberry, the intensity of the dark chocolate reaches its peak."

Glace Plenitude (Plenitide Ice Cream): chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips with pure unrefined salt, caramel ice cream made with lightly salted butter and caramel bits.
PH: "An ice cream with the powerful flavors of chocolate with caramel...or perhaps we should say caramel with chocolate?"

For release early October: Truffes au Chocolat au Lait et The Vert Matcha (Milk Chocolate and Matcha Green Tea Truffles)

For release December 10th: Wild Rose & Chestnut Macaron, Buche Dune, Buche Azur, Buche Sarah, Buche Ispahan, Buche Plenitude, Buche Envie. PH is already accepting orders for all of the buches.

Pro PCs, you can learn how to make your own through Pierre Herme's professional classes at the Ferrandi school in Paris. There are still places available for the this year's "Noel et Fetes de fin d'Annee" (October 3-5) "Macarons, Fours Secs et Gateaux de Voyage" (October 6-7), and November's "Best Of" (November 16-18).

Even more new items are coming for the New Year - but for those you'll have to wait. What's desire without a tease?

Pierre Herme
72 rue Bonaparte
Paris 6th
01 43 54 47 77

185 rue Vaugirard
Paris 15th
01 47 83 89 96
(Both Paris locations open Tuesday to Sunday 10AM to 7PM, Saturday to 7:30PM)

The New Otani
4-1 Kioi-Cho, Chitoda-Ku
Tokyo
03-3221-7252

319 Ikspiari 1-4 Maihama
Uraysu-shi, Chiba-Ken

La Porte Aoyama
1F-2F
5-51-8 Jingumae, Shibuya-Ku
Tokyo
03-5485-7766

Atelier de Formation a la Haute Patisserie Pierre Herme
Ecole Ferrandi
28 rue de l'Abbe Gregoire
Paris 6th
Contact: Karine Rousseau
01 49 54 28 96
krousseau@ccip.fr

Previous Pierre Herme posts:
Pierre Herme & Hot Live Girls
Pierre Herme Classics
Pierre Herme Buches de Noel 2004 - the Photos
Pierre Herme Buches de Noel 2004 - and East Does Not Meet West

Comments

[susan]

Oh my god, Louisa!!! I wanna taste it all! Gotta plan a trip to Tokyo - easier to get to than Paris.

[Louisa]

Susan - I know, isn't it crazy? And yes, I want them all too. I want to hear what you think about the pastries in Tokyo when you try them. I've seen pictures of them and they look so foreign to me - so Japanese. They're the same pastries, but the have this cool perfection that I find disturbing in comparison. And here I thought the ones in Paris looked precise.

[susan]

But the ones in Paris are perfect - how can the ones in Tokyo be even more perfect? It's not possible.
Okay, I will make the trip to Tokyo and give you a report on PH. It would be easier if he just opened a shop here.

[Louisa]

Susan - that's what I thought, but the pix of the ones from Tokyo are more perfect - in that distinct Japanese pastry chef kind of way. OK - great - please do go. And I was just talking to some cook-friends about why there is not a similar kind of appreciation of gastronomic dining by the Chinese as there is by the Japanese. Why do you think PH doesn't have a place in HK?

[Luisa]

Oh goodness - between your post and Clotilde's, my head is swimming! I'll be in Paris for 3 days in October, and am already looking forward to the agonizing choices I'll be making at Pierre Herme - can't possibly try everything, of course...or could I?

[Louisa]

Luisa - so there are 9 things you should try - 1 of them being a macaron. That's 3 items per day - at lunch, tea, and dinner. I think you can do it! :)

[shuna]

Jealousy is a word that could not nearly descibe how I feel.

thank you for the explanations and the perfect photographs. I feel honored to be in a profession whose major genius is still alive.

[farmgirl]

Hi Louisa,
Well, it's a rough life, but I guess somebody has to eat it. Fabulous photos. Absolutely love the "precision mobile pastry-tasting unit." Oh, you are a girl after my own tummy!

P.S. Wasn't sure if you'd heard that the food blog dogs are getting their due. Weekend Dog Blogging was officially created last week (we missed it but are participating today). The round-up will be available Sunday evening at http://sweetnicks.com. Woof!

[Louisa]

shuna - oh no - this was meant to inspire good feelings! But you're so welcome. I know these are works that can be appreciated by everyone, but I especially wanted to do this for professional pastry chefs who may not be able to see the entire collection as its presented in the boutique right now. It's quite unbelievable and very humbling.

farmgirl - OK, so it's not farming hard, but I don't have my dog here to comfort me! ;) And thanks so much for letting me know about the Weekend Dog Blogging! I love it! I cannot wait to participate! Thanks so much as always.

[ted niceley]

Louisa, you've done it again!
Gorgeous pictures, wonderful words, the only thing that could be better would be to taste them.
Thanks for being there to do that for me!

[susan]

Chinese people in Hong Kong DO apprciate food - as long as it's Chinese. For some of the other stuff they're stuck back in the 1950s. When I first came here as a PC, the bakery I was working at was making stuff like black forest cake with S&W canned cherries - and that was considered good quality! Lesser bakeries used blobs of cherry jelly. And a lot of people thought Pizza Hut was good pizza (it's still very popular).
It's getting better, though. But not to the point of obsessiveness (I mean that in a good way) with the Japanese.

[john]

sweet shots, louisa. no pun intended. :) i think i'd be in a insulin-induced coma if i were to partake in all that decadent goodness.

ummm... as a person living in paris can you provide a solution that maybe only the french know about? i am trying to open a jar of pate i purchased on a recent trip to paris. the jar has a locking metal clasp and a rubber o-ring. pierre champion is the brand. the lid feels like its glued in there! any advice from you or your readers? love to hear about any techniques that will allow me to open the jar safely without spoiling the jar or the innards.

cheers!

[Louisa]

Ted - thanks so much - and you're so welcome. But when are you getting over here to try these with me??

Susan - so I wonder if and when Chinese people in China will get into gastronomic food as a status symbol too?

John - is there a tab on the rubber o-ring? If there is, pull on it - that will release the seal. You may need to use a kitchen towel to get a better grip. Let me know how it goes - and good luck!

[ted niceley]

Speaking of Pierre, in the October Food Arts magazine, there's a rather huge article on the chef penned by none other then Dorie Greenspan.
Just a heads up for any interested parties.
Have to say, I dig the above pix more though!!!

[Louisa]

Ted - OMG - thanks so much for letting me know! That is a triple whammy for me - to read Dorie on Pierre Herme in Food Arts! I cannot wait. And the pix above are all about PH - Himself!

[Fabienne]

Pierre Hermé is definitly one of my favorite pastry shop in Paris, also I think that since he opened, his collections tend to become less inventive, I guess because everybody is not ready to eat parmesan raspberry tart or olive oil macaroons ...
Anyway, one of the other problem is that he makes huge boxes of truffles, rochers, tuiles, pates de fruits, etc. So would anyone be interested in sharing the content and price of any of these, to be able to taste but not to eat them during weeks ???

[Louisa]

Fabienne - I never tasted the Tango - sesame seed biscuit, Parmesan cream, red bell pepper and raspberry puree - nor the ketchup macaron, but you know I would have loved to. And I suppose huge is in the eye of the beholder - the truffles are 300g - for 36 euros - rochers 290g/27.40. But come on - pate de fruits are 250g/13.50 - and tuiles start at 75g for only 5.20! Weeks?? How about minutes??

[john]

thanks L. finally got it open. pulled the tab, but it looked like it was gonna tear cuz i had it stretched out so much. managed to jam in the dull edge of a butter knife and wiggle it in b/n the seal and the glass. the rest was a satisfyingly tiny amount of leverage and voila! onto the spoils...

[Louisa]

John - you're so welcome! I'm so happy you got that sucker open - I've felt your pain. Bon appetit!

[Un gourmet]

I come from google: Louisa you are the only one to talk about the Suprise Yu on internet! I come second, and first to tell how wonderfully acid it is! Like the Ispahan, the taste is very rich, complex, surprising: like a little savoury fireworks! A new star is born!
John, you could also have tried to cut the tab: if the brand of pate is owned by intelligent people, they use the modern tab, in which a hole is hidden, which goes inside the glass; once the tab is cut, air enters through the hole, and the pressure inside the glass goes down to 1 bar, and then the opening is effortless. Yes, I am French! :D

[Anita]

Hello,
I stumbled upon your website while looking up Pierre Herme and the pics are wonderful! (I also like your last name:) )I just went to Paris for the first time a few weeks ago and the PH shop was my first stop!
I have a question which I wonder you can help me with? I know his new PH 10 book came out, but it is only in French? I adored his other books and I really would love to get this one! Thank you! Wonderful site:)

[Un gourmet (bis)]

Hello! I tried the Tarte Mogador today: what a disappointment! After the wonderful Surprise Yu, I was full of hope, but this funny looking tart tasted of chocolate, yes, but my palate did not manage to find the flavors of the fruits! Overall, a very dull cake for me. Maybe I would need Pierre Hermé's palate to be cloned into my mouth to love it?

[Louisa]

Un gourmet - thanks so much for your tasting notes on both the Surprise Yu and the Tarte Mogador. Good to hear the Surprise Yu has a shot at becoming a classic - at the level of the Ispahan for you no less! And thanks too for the added bonus with your information about the new sealed jars! And if we could clone Pierre Herme's palate then I would want all of his senses cloned too. :)

Anita - thanks so much - and likewise on your beautiful pix and cool last name too. ;) At this point the PH10 is available only in French. Please let me know if you get it! And thanks again.

[ParisBreakfasts]

Just 2 years too late but never too later really. Wonderful pictures adn wonderful words that describe the the here-to-fore indescribable.
Your notes are ike nosing wine or perfume...better.

[Bob Wheat]

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