Plum Pithiviers

PROJECT PATISSERIE: Adventure #6

I read somewhere that there is a particular species of fly that only lives for 24 hours- the poster child for the old adage “life is short.” However brief their existence is, those flies have about 23 hours and 50 minutes on the Plum Pithiviers that I made for this week’s project.  The pastries would have had an even shorter lifespan if I hadn’t kept my family at bay with a wooden mixing spoon until I captured an acceptable photograph of them.

Pithiviers are simple French pastries. A “simple French pastry” sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, I know, but there’s not much to them at all. A layer of puff pastry dough, topped with a bit of frangipane, then a dollop of plum compote, then more frangipane, and sealed with another round of dough. That’s it.

The discerning reader probably caught the “puff pastry dough” part. Yes, I did sneak that in there. The Pithivier recipe I used, courtesy of British pastry chef Will Torrent, gives the option of using store bought puff pastry dough if you really don’t feel up to the challenge of making it homemade.  It’s totally up to the chef- no judgment here.

While the process of making the Pithivier is fairly straightforward, I made some basic mistakes that turned the whole thing into a bit of a circus. It started out well. I cheerfully rolled out the puff pastry dough, cut out the dough rounds with my brand new biscuit cutters, set out the chilled frangipane and plum compote; everything was ready to assemble. I was optimistic- I had this under control. Things were rolling right along until it came time to seal the filling in the dough and throw the pastries in the oven. Because puff pastry dough is essentially just butter with a little bit of flour holding it together, it gets soft and runny if handled too much. In addition, my kitchen was quite warm on account of two ovens running. Long story short, the dough didn’t seal well and the filling began to spill out of the Pithiviers onto my baking sheet.

Will Torrent’s ears must have been burning at that point. I had some choice words for him, his recipe, and my own stupidity for trusting a chef from the land of offal and blood puddings to make a French dessert- all of this while trying desperately to save these pastries. Luckily the kids were in bed.

I finally realized that handling them anymore was hurting rather than helping the situation and exasperated, I threw them in the oven.  After thinking that there’s no possible way it could get any worse- it got worse. I checked on them about ten minutes into their baking time and to my horror the Pithiviers looked like they had been run over by a truck- and then backed over again. Although the dough was rising, the filling had oozed everywhere and the poor things looked lopsided and absolutely disemboweled- it was like something out of a pastry horror movie. What did Alexandre Dumas say? Something about waiting and hoping? I waited for the timer to ring, took a deep breath, and assessed the situation.

In the end I decided that the best course of action was to allow the Pithiviers to cool slightly and then cut around the carnage. This cleaned up the pastries and gave them back some semblance of their intended biscuit-like shapes.

Alas, this story has a happy ending. While they were perhaps not the beauty queens I had hoped they would be, the Pithiviers were amazingly delicious- so much so that the thought of how much butter I was consuming didn’t even faze me. That’s what a good dessert is- so divine that one doesn’t even give a thought to its dietary consequences. As much as anybody hates to admit fault, it turns out that my trouble with the recipe was more operator error than the recipe itself. I owe Mr. Torrent an apology, and maybe a nice thank you note for sharing the recipe for such a blissful dessert.

Pithivier Recipe

Pre-heat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

For the frangipane: Beat 6 ½ tbsp. of softened unsalted butter and ½ cup of sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer on high speed until creamy (up to 4 minutes.) Add 3 eggs- one at a time, beating until well mixed. Fold in 1 cup of ground almonds- also known as almond flour- with a large spoon until well incorporated.  Put the frangipane in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it. It will keep in the refrigerator for a few days if stored in an airtight container.

For the filling: Pit and chop two fresh plums into bite-sized pieces.  Place the plums and ½ cup of plum jam into a small saucepan. Over medium heat, warm them until the plums begin to break down a bit. Don’t cook them too much though, as the texture of the plums adds a lot to the finished pastry. Allow the mixture to cool completely before using it- remember that the puff pastry dough is essentially butter and the consistency of the dough will start doing funny things if warm compote is added to it.

A note on the plums: I suppose that it would be conceivable to use canned plums if there aren’t any fresh ones on hand. I did find, however, that the tartness of fresh plums when mixed with the sweetness of the plum jam was worth the effort of trying to find fresh plums in April.

The dough: roll out 13 ounces of thawed puff pastry dough (store bought is fine) to about 1/3 inch thick. Stamp out 4-6 rounds of dough using a 4 inch biscuit or cookie cutter. Stamp out the same amount of dough using a 5 inch cutter.

I know that the rounds look funny right now and the chef may be wondering why on earth one needs to be so much bigger than the other- I will share what I learned by not following Mr. Torrent’s directions. It turns out that the 5” dough round is so much larger because it will be used to top off the pastry. As the filling is quite tall, the top dough portion needs to be large enough to cover the filling AND comfortably touch the dough on the bottom in order to seal everything in properly- all the while not compressing the filling too much. While pure speculation, if someone were to disregard that piece of advice and make the top piece of dough too small, the filling may well ooze out of the center of the pastry and make a mess all over the baking sheet.

On the 4 inch rounds, spoon or pipe a bit frangipane in the center, leaving a ½ border around the edge. Make sure to reserve half of the frangipane for later.  Add a teaspoon-sized dollop of cooled plum compote on top of the frangipane, and top with another bit of frangipane. Then, place the large 5”in pastry round on top. Seal the whole kitten-caboodle by pressing the dough edges together with the tines of a fork dipped in flour. If at any point the dough starts to become a bit runny, put it back in the refrigerator for a few minutes- this will help the dough regain its composure.

If moved by the fancy-pants inclination, take a very sharp paring knife and score curved lines on the top of the Pithivier.  Start from the middle and extend the lines out to the edge like the rays of the sun - you know, that bright thing in the sky that the North Country hasn’t hair or hide of since October!

Beat one egg slightly and add a splash of milk. Brush the egg wash on the tops of the Pithiviers and bake them in the oven for 20 minutes. When they’ve baked allow them to cool slightly on the pan. If necessary, the edges can be cleaned up a bit by using a biscuit cutter to cut off any excess- a nice tip that helped to revive my Pithiviers.  Carefully lift them off of the baking sheet with a spatula and place them on a cooling rack to cool completely.

These pastries are delicious fresh but they’re also very good after they’ve been refrigerated as the dough becomes a bit more dense and slightly less yielding. The consensus at my house was that the Pithiviers would also be great served with a little dollop of whipped cream and/or topped with any remaining plum compote.

 

 

Although not a beauty queen, this pastry definitely delivers

on flavor!