Photos Le Favart de LeNôtre © Stefan Brion
We're in the heart of the opera house where gold is mixed with dust and steel pipes with rubber cables coiled around them on the old creaking parquetry. The place smells of uninhabited manor where stage sets from some past performance are still around. Next to tables on which the domes of Favart cakes are sitting imposingly, Jean-Christophe Jeanson, pastry chef for the Maison Lenôtre, is telling us the peculiar story of the new cake.
The Favart can be found in Lenôtre stores from February 13th onward
Making this cake has been a teamwork. The team was composed of the Maison Lenôtre, the Opéra Comique jury and the participants of the pastry creation contest. The freedom with which the recipe came into existence suggests that all ideas are good: square, a fruit, round, monochrome. The shape is voluptuous, perfect: the Pompadour's bosom with a vanilla and raspberry flavor topped by a gold leaf.
Reading a cake means that its shape, aspect, clarity, color help us anticipate what we're about to savor. Being red, it naturally calls to mind a red fruit whose lightness and acidity result in a not too sweet delicacy that make us return to it frequently. Lastly, there's the play of textures – crisp, moist, soft, runny – stirring up our taste buds to bliss.
A raspberry croustillant,
A biscuit de Reims-like biscuit,
A slightly gelled raspberry coulis,
Fresh raspberries,
A very light mousseline cream with vanille bourbon from Madagascar,
Topped with the velvet of raspberry marzipan,
To be savored with a Val de Loire rosé champagne selected by world top sommelier Olivier Poussier.
