Text & recipe by MFCH contributor Trish Deseine
An obligatory Parisian rite of passage is a visit to Angelina, on rue de Rivoli โ Franceโs most famous salon-de-thรฉ and pรขtisserie. Founded in 1903 by the Austrian confectioner, Anton Pumpelmayer, it is named after his daughter-in-law, decorated in dreamy Belle-รpoque style and quickly became a favourite with the Parisian fashion and cultural elite. Even Coco Chanel was a regular, and you can still sit at what was her favourite table!
Angelinaโs most famous creations are its remarkable “Africain” chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) and its Mont Blanc cake โ a dome of chantilly cream perched on meringue and draped with soft noodles of sweet chestnut cream (I would not recommend ordering these together, such is the sugar hit of the pairing!). Angelina is credited with making the Mont Blanc famous, selling seven hundred a day out of the Rivoli salon.
Thankfully, with the great pรขtisserie revival of the past ten years, many Parisian star pastry chefs, from Pierre Hermรฉ and Sebastien Gaudard to Claire Heitzler, have joined Angelina in revisiting the Mont Blanc. Theyโve reduced the sugar content, played with its textures and proportions, introduced new flavours (such as green tea, blackcurrant and passionfruit in Hermรฉ’s “Fetish” collection and generally refined its presentation. The noodles are the trickiest part of a Mont Blanc to master, and there are plenty of slightly messy yet very decent examples in less renowned pรขtisseries around France. They are made by mixing sweet crรจme de marron (chestnut cream) with the thicker, plain purรฉe, pรขte de marron, which helps them keep their shape when piped and also brings down the sugar content. These days, the chantilly cream has no or very little sugar either; however, chunks of candied chestnuts are often included to give a soft bite alongside the crisp meringue.ย
My own experiments with Mont Blanc concept have led me to create mousses, trifles and various sizes of pavlovas alongside individual desserts. Iโm less a fan of the rather pasty noodles than the pure crรจme de marron, which cannot be piped, and love its vanilla flavour as much as the presentation of Clรฉment Faugierโs retro style tins. I like to offset the sweetness by using crรจme frรขiche rather than classic chantilly or by mixing plain cream it with a little Greek yoghurt and adding the intense flavour of a really good, bitter chocolate.ย
Hereโs my latest version, which plays with the natural cavities created in a soft-centered meringue. It might not be up to professional pรขtissierโs standards, and it may not even qualify as a real Mont Blanc at all. But I think it looks more like the famous, snow-covered, craggy French mountain of Mont Blanc than any others Iโve seen, and with its sweet chestnut heart, touch of bitter chocolate and slightly tart whipped cream, I promise it makes for the most delicious mouthful!
Photos ยฉ Angelina