The Porky Gourmand

Pithiviers are a speciality from the town of Pithiviers in the south of France. They are usually served as coffee cakes. The traditional filling is an almond cream mixture with a hint of rum.

This recipe is adapted from Liam Tomlin’s book “Season to Taste”. Liam Tomlin is current executive chef at Cape Grace,Cape Town and former head chef of famed but now closed sydney restaurant Banc. His proteges at Banc have become prominent Australian restauranteurs; Chui Lee Luke at Claude’s, Justin North at Becasse, Peter Sheppard at Caveau, Warren Turnbull at Assiette , Matthew Kemp at Restaurant Balzac.

To make this pithiviers you need the following.

Puff Pastry

I took the easy way out & bought frozen puff pastry from the supermarket.

2. Roll out the puff pastry
3. Use a 8 cm pastry cutter to cut round bases and tops for the pithiviers.
4. Place tops and bases in the fridge for 30 minutes for pastry to rest before assembling the pithiviers

Creme patissiere (Pastry Cream)

• 1 Egg yolk
• 125 mls milk
• 2 1/2 tbsps plain flour
• 35 grams caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence

2. Combine milk and vanilla essence in sauce pan bring to boil, then set aside.
3. In a bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar then whisk it silly. It will take a while. What you want is a mixture very pale, double in volume, thick consistency. Mixture should come down like a ribbon off the whisk(hard to explain)
4. Fold flour into egg yolks sugar mixture.
5. Take 1/3 of milk mixture, combine into egg sugar mixture in bowl.
6. Add egg sugar mixture from bowl, add to saucepan contain milk mixture.
7. Place saucepan on medium heat, whisk slowly until it thickens to shiny thick custard. This takes about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Chocolate almond filling

• 100 grams dark chocolate
• 55 grams caster sugar
• 55 grams almond meal
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 egg

2. Melt chocolate over a bain-marie(bowl over simmering water)
3. Cream together butter & sugar. Then stir in the egg, almond meal and cocoa powder. Add the melted chocolate and mix until the chocolate is fully incorporated.
4. Refrigerate for 1 hour until reasonably firm to mold into patties that about 6 cm in diameter. Freeze patties until ready to use.

Chocolate sauce

• 50 grams dark chocolate
• 75 mls cream
• 25 grams unsalted butter

2. Bring cream to boil.
3. Add chunks of chocolate into hot cream & incorporate it.
4. Finish it off with the butter & set aside

Assembly

• Place pastry base on floured surface, put a chocolate almond patty into the centre of the pastry bases. Brush the edge of base with egg wash.
• Place a pastry top over the chocolate patty and mould it around the patty removing any air pockets between patty & filling.
• Mark a pattern on pithivier with the tip of a knife
• Brush with egg wash then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Mark border with back of knife. Preheat oven to 220 degrees centigrade. Refrigerate again for 30 minutes.
• Bake pithiviers for about 15 minutes until crisp & golden

Serve with chocolate sauce & vanilla ice cream

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