One of my colleagues brought to work some patisseries from Fleur D'oranger, an online business that a French Pastry Chef recently started. These pastries are miniature size so it was perfect for a little tasting...
First of all, there were madeleines.
Madeleines are specialty cookies from the North-East of France. They can be found in many bakeries or supermarket in New York City (not all of good quality though!) and are recognizable by their shell like shape. The batter is made of genoise batter and has a delicious buttery taste. The ones presented to me were of different kind: plain, nutella and lemon cream. My first was the nutella one: I could not resist to try as I love nutella! The madeleine seemed to have been stuffed with that scrumptious chocolate hazelnut cream after been cooked. The buttery taste of the madeleine paired extremely well with the sweetness of the nutella. It was definitely a hit!
Then, I tried the one with lemon cream filling: very good! You could really taste the fact that it was freshly made!
Next were the Financiers. It is an almond pastry typically made with almond flour, brown butter, egg whites and sugar.
There were two types: almond and blueberry. I tasted the almond one: loved it! It was very buttery, soft and tender.
The last pastry I tried was a Saint Tropez: a vanilla cream in between a brioche topped with sugar.
This was awesome! The vanilla cream was very light and the brioche tasted great too! I loved the bit of crunchiness that the sugar gave to the pastry. I could have eaten more!
So I really liked Fleur d'Oranger: serving miniature pastries is very smart as it is not only easy to eat, but also allows people to try different ones. The taste was amazing, similar to a pastry shop in France, with a delicious buttery taste (yes, use butter in your pastries people!). The freshness of the pastries was definitely perceptible.
At the present time, Fleur d'Oranger can only be found on the internet. Hopefully, they will expand and open stores!!! Good luck!
Enjoy (I did)!
