{"id":56,"date":"2011-06-15T23:51:45","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T21:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2013-08-21T01:03:35","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T23:03:35","slug":"why-this-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/why-this-blog","title":{"rendered":"Why this blog?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started with macarons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These small colourful pastries that come in hundreds of flavours<\/strong>, halfway between a meringue and a biscuit, changed my life.
\nSince I moved to France last February, I had noticed that every single pastry shop or boulangerie was selling them<\/strong>. I had never seen them before in Italy nor anywhere else, and I was reluctant, “They are just coloured meringues, what’s the big deal?”, I said.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t have been more wrong.<\/em> As soon as I tasted them last month, I started to love them<\/strong>. Crunchy on the outside and stunningly soft on the inside<\/strong>, they soon became a favourite of mine, but all good things come at a cost.<\/p>\n

Macarons<\/strong> are relatively very expensive<\/strong> compared to their size, about 1.30\u20ac each (at least here in the south of France… in Paris their price can easily reach 2\u20ac): this price forbids me to eat as many macarons as I want<\/strong>, and I simply cannot accept this fact! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

That is why I decided to take a pastry course<\/strong> for amateurs in Cannes at Lenotre<\/strong>, one the best pastry shops in France, so that I could learn how to make macarons myself at a cheap price!
\nI had never done pastry before<\/strong> (except for some muffins with a powder mix in a box) but I loved the experience<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The chef taught us at once the most important thing of all<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Pastry is chemistry. Everything must be weighed carefully and recipes must be followed step by step. If ingredients are added in a certain order and at a specific temperature, there is always a reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was like a revelation to me: if all I need to do is weigh and follow a recipe, pff, I can do that, and well too!<\/p>\n

Actually, macarons are not the easiest thing to make<\/strong>, but I was so impressed with my beginner’s results that I felt encouraged and wanted to learn more about pastry.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried recipes taken from the Internet<\/strong> or from cheap pastry books for grannies: they just don’t work<\/strong>. I felt I needed something different with a more structured and methodical approach<\/strong>. That is why a few days ago I decided to buy on Amazon “On baking”<\/strong><\/a>, which is the textbook used in American pastry schools<\/strong> (I am not fluent in French yet to buy a real book of p\u00e2tisserie).<\/p>\n

This book is amazing, it is very complete and explains everything step by step<\/strong>. I really feel galvanized and I am eager to start experimenting<\/strong> with all sorts of pastry stuff (following the chapter order of course), from muffins<\/strong>, to cookies<\/strong> and tarts<\/strong>, cakes<\/strong> and so on.<\/p>\n

So, long story short: this blog is to keep track of my progress<\/strong> from complete beginner as I experiment pastry recipes and techniques, since I’ve decided that I want to learn<\/strong> on my own as much as I can<\/strong> about pastry.<\/p>\n

I will try to share on this blog everything I learn<\/strong>, so that anyone can benefit and maybe become passionate of pastry like me! Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all started with macarons. These small colourful pastries that come in hundreds of flavours, halfway between a meringue and a biscuit, changed my life. Since I moved to France last February, I had noticed that every single pastry shop or boulangerie was selling them. I had never seen them before in Italy nor anywhere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roadtopastry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}