Chateau de France breads

Macarons

As I was doing my baking demos for Dan Vil Commercial, one of the more innovative introductions to the Philippine baking scene (It is now bringing quality Turkish flour to smaller producers and has opened up the rather closed or exclusive market it has maintained), I suddenly was excited at the recently held Bakery Fair Philippines where aside from the usual exhibitors, I found an innovative concept spearheaded by none other than Chaine Des Rotisseurs President Michel Lhuillier. Michel’s new outfit is called Chateau Des France. This concept puts freshly baked imported bread from France right on your table. It took a team of three French entrepreneurs, Louis Thevenin, Loius Ghesquiere and the beauteous Florinne Bonati to get this wide variety of authentic French baguettes, country loaves croissants, brioche, quiches and even the Laduree macarons par baked to a firmness and blast frozen for freshness. These breads, made in a completely sterile environment, are popped into the oven at varying temperatures where they are baked golden brown and put on your table fresh from the oven. What gives one the utmost pleasure is the type of flour the French use to make their authentic baguettes and the butter style flavor they use for their croissants and puff style pastries.

For three days, I went through a whole slew of breads bringing me back on a nostalgia trip when I was an apprentice in Paris and I had learned to appreciate the textures of their different breads especially when you wake up in the morning. The Frenchmen were rather surprised at how I knew the old-fashioned way of judging a loaf of bread – where one knocks on the bread like knocking on a solid door and you get a solid or firm sharp sound on the exterior, followed by a hollow low thud showing an evenly cooked interior.

The basic baguettes were of course those that every soul would have in France every morning with their butter, jams, coffee and chocolate. The regular baguette has flour that seems to be a little more bleached than the two other styles which I prefer. These are the old-fashioned baguettes with tapered rounded ends and the squarish flatter flute that would be easier to make a sandwich of. All these baguettes have beautifully blistered skin that is a hallmark of a good French bread. I like those with tapered ends because of the toasty, malty, almost mocca-like edges and the even round outer crusts that are short and crumbly. The flute, because of its shape, has a more crackling skin with a slightly chewier interior. Both have developed dough flavours that seem to have a very faint sour-dough-like hint.

There are smaller individual triangle loaves. The exteriors are thin and had chewy crusts. My favorite is the poppy seed. The seeds give off minute little crunches that complement the chewy texture and amplify the nuttiness of the developed and fermented dough.

I tried what looked like a square fougasse type with a delicately gossamer but thin crispy crust with lots of holes in the interior. Its neutral taste and texture lends itself well to mini sandwiches such as salted or preserved meats.

Pain complet is the dark whole wheat bread with a moist interior. The nutty almost cornflake flavored exterior is fresh and takes the “tolerance” out of eating whole wheat that sometimes tastes old, corky or too earthy. “Seven grains” has a thicker darker crust but has a lighter interior and studded with grains rich in antioxidants and fiber. I also remember on the first day to have sampled the brioche. It was unfortunate that I did not have the two favorite items I love pairing these breads with, which are foie gras or even a cup of hot chocolate with aerated milk.

Anyway, my tasting would always end with a couple of macarons. These come in various flavors and I did not have a flavor that I did not really like though my limit would really be just two at a time.

Perhaps everyone is wondering why I never put croissants as part of my tasting, and yet they are a part of these selections of authentic breads from France. I didn’t taste them. I took them home and had them for breakfast for three straight days….

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chefgenegonzalez@yahoo.com.