♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, we're off to Paris to explore what's happening in the new world of Paris bakeries.

We stop by the famous Rose Bakery near Place Pigalle for a lemon almond pound cake.

We interviewed Lindsey Tramuta, who guides us through the new world of Paris food and cooking.

And then we visit a very un-French bakery, Le Petit Grain, where they make a salted peanut and caramel tart to die for.

So stay right here with Milk Street as we learn how to bake the new Paris way.

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- So you'll have to make a speech.

- You're going to be on a TV show.

- Really nice to meet you, because I love Paris, and I love American people, and this is the Passerelle of la Grange aux Belles.

So it's really nice.

I mean, welcome to Paris and have a good, good glass of red wine.

- Une année?

Six mois?

- Non, non.

♪ ♪ - Welcome to the new Paris.

- Bonjour.

- Bonjour.

- Now, you probably have heard that Paris has been called the City of Lights, not because it's well-lit, but because it was, in fact, the birthplace of the Age of Enlightenment.

All throughout Europe, it was the center of education and ideas.

Now, that was also true for a long time of the culinary arts.

But recently, other cities, such as New York, Hong Kong, and London, have really started to move forward and innovate.

But in the last ten years or so, the new Paris is back.

- It's always interesting to me when I hear people say, like, "Well, I don't want to eat a burger or, you know, Korean barbecue in Paris."

It's like, okay, but Paris is full of locals, and Parisians don't want to eat just French food.

♪ ♪ - Young chefs are reinventing classic bistro fare, they're mixing in Italian and Australian dishes.

They even look to South Korea, North Africa, and the Middle East for inspiration.

Oh, man.

I wouldn't say it's French, but I would say it's fabulous.

Many years ago, I met one of these chefs.

Her name is Rose Carrarini.

She opened the Rose Bakery in 2002 on Rue des Martyrs.

The neighborhood is booming with cafés and cheese shops and chocolate shops, even takeout sushi.

Now, the reason I like to go to Rose Bakery, especially for lunch, is because it's a classic tea shop.

They serve simple soups, vegetable platters, even quiche.

But the real reason to go is their extensive dessert menu.

♪ ♪ So we've gone back to Paris to meet up with Rose and ask her for something I hope she gives us, which is the secrets to her lemon almond pound cake.

You're English.

You're in Paris.

- Mm-hmm.

- So you've been here... How long have you been here?

And why did you come to Paris to open a bakery?

- So, we've been here about 15 years now.

We decided to leave London because we'd come to the sort of end of our... the cycle of things we were doing there.

And the children had left.

And my husband's French, and we came to Paris one day, and there was nothing of what we were doing.

So we decided just to up and come.

♪ ♪ - Let's talk about the bakery for a moment.

So some of your things are just spectacular.

And you bake in those long... - Yeah, the long... - Tins.

- The long tins, yes, for slicing.

- It's not, like, big cake.

- But we do a lot of the long cakes.

We have about, you know, eight or ten a day.

- Pistachio cake, you have coconuts.

- Lemon almond cake.

- It's one of my favorites.

So what's in it?

- It's butter and sugar with lemon and rice flour.

- Hmm.

- And the eggs.

There are some eggs in the middle of that.

It's one of our popular cakes, for sure, so.

- So if you substitute rice flour for all-purpose flour... - Mm-hmm.

- Do you have to do some... make some other changes in the recipe?

- We didn't, you know.

It makes it slightly more mouillé, moist inside.

- Moist.

- It, it didn't alter the, the final result, 'cause it was always a very tiny bit of flour in there anyway.

It was mostly ground almonds.

♪ ♪ We've always tried to make them kind of healthy.

So for me, it kind of fits together somehow.

But, you know, you can't be 100% perfectly healthy all the time.

You know, you need to treat yourself.

You have nice things.

Otherwise, it's very sad.

(laughs) ♪ ♪ - You know, I've been going to Rose Bakery for many years, for lunch, because you get a, a simple piece of quiche, or a soup and... a couple of glasses of wine.

But the reason I go there is because the desserts are so terrific.

And they have tarts and other things.

But their cakes, which they bake in those long baking pans, they're all one layer.

There's usually some kind of a soaking syrup on top.

But that notion of a one-layer cake, sort of a pound cake, is so appealing 'cause they're easy to do, and it's so different than our tradition of cake.

- It is very similar in style to a pound cake.

Our method is a little bit easier, but you get the same great results.

So we're going to start with a cup and two tablespoons of white sugar.

We're going to zest right into the bowl, which is a great tip that we learned from Claire Ptak, so that we don't lose any of the essential oils that you're getting from the outer yellow part of the lemon.

So what we want is two tablespoons of zest, and you get about a tablespoon of zest from a large lemon.

Okay, now we're actually going to mix this on low for about one minute.

(mixer whirring) You can see it's moistened and the sugar is sort of all yellow-colored now.

So next, we're going to add all the rest of our dry ingredients.

First, we're going to add a cup and a half of all-purpose flour, and then we have a whole cup of blanched almond flour.

It adds so much moisture and tenderness, 'cause, you know, it doesn't have any gluten.

It's guaranteed to be really, really moist and tender.

A teaspoon and a half of baking powder and a teaspoon of kosher salt.

I'm just going to mix this together on low again for about ten seconds.

(mixer whirring) Okay, now we're going to go ahead and add our butter.

So we have 14 tablespoons cut into 14 pieces, and we're going to add it one piece at a time.

And this butter is room temperature.

Now, we're going to just mix this one to two minutes.

Okay, that looks great.

You can tell, it's nice and crumbly.

There's no dry, floury parts remaining.

So we have four whole eggs.

And two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

I'm just going to beat these together a little bit first, and then we're going to add this slowly, again on low speed, until the eggs are all combined.

That takes about ten seconds.

We're going to let it keep mixing till it's incorporated.

- And now for the exciting part?

Like, let it go!

- We're going to turn it up to medium-high speed for about a minute, a minute and a half, till gets real light and fluffy.

♪ ♪ All right, this looks great.

It's a thick batter, for sure.

We have our loaf pan that's prepared.

Definitely have to kind of scoop it, it's not really pourable.

So we get all that in there...

I'm going to just use a spatula to even it out, get it down into the corners.

And then the last thing we're going to do here is three tablespoons of sliced almonds.

You don't have to toast them, because they're going to toast when they're in the oven, baking.

I'm just going to sprinkle these evenly on top.

And this not only lets people know that there are almonds inside the cake, but it adds a nice crunch.

And that's it.

It's going to go into a 325-degree oven for 45 minutes.

And then actually we're going to turn the oven down to 300, and it's going to continue baking for another 30 to 35 minutes.

Okay, Chris, so while the cake is baking in the oven, we're going to go ahead and make a sugar syrup that's going to go on top of the cake.

So that's one quarter-cup white sugar, and we're going to add two tablespoons of juice from our lemons.

And we're going to cook this on medium-low just till it comes to a simmer.

And this should take, like, one to three minutes.

Okay, Chris, you can see now, it's come to a full simmer, and the sugar is all dissolved.

We're going to turn off the heat, and then we're going to add the last tablespoon of lemon juice.

And what this does, this gives us a nice bright hit of lemon juice that, you know, doesn't get cooked off.

And that's it.

We're just going to set this aside to cool and wait for that cake to finish baking.

- It's a long wait.

- It is a long wait-- it's worth it.

♪ ♪ So it's finally out of the oven.

I have let it cool for ten minutes before I popped it out of the pan, and now we're going to soak the cake.

And before we do that, we're going to poke little holes so that the syrup can go more deeply inside the cake.

Just going to use a toothpick and poke about one inch apart.

And now we're just going to brush the syrup over the top.

And you can see the syrup has thickened up.

And just keep going until all the syrup is used up.

- In this technique, with a sugar syrup, it's usually sugar and then lemon juice or lime juice or orange juice cooked briefly till the sugar dissolves and cooled.

This works for any kind of a dense, pound-style cake.

- Mm-hmm.

- So instead of putting a frosting on it, as you said.

It also adds some moisture and a lot of flavor to it, as well.

- It does.

- So it's just a good all-purpose technique.

- Yeah, it's a great technique.

Now, I hate to tell you this, after we've done that... - No, I knew what you're going to say.

- I know, we have to let it cool for two hours, so it comes... - What?!

- ...before we can eat it.

- You're just making this up.

- I'm not making it up.

♪ ♪ Cake is ready, we are ready.

This cake is good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

- Mm-hmm.

- Good center pieces here.

Here you go.

This is very formal.

- I mean, is this, is this low tea or high tea?

Mmm.

When you look at it, it doesn't look moist.

- Mm-hmm.

- But when you taste it, it's got tons of lemon flavor.

And it's very moist.

- It is.

You get a nice, bright hit of lemon when you eat the top part, a nice crunch of nuts.

And you didn't even have to go all the way to Paris.

- Oh, well, is that... That's a benefit?

- Yeah, I know, right?

- It's, like...

So we went to Rose's bakery on Rue des Martyrs, and this is her lemon almond pound cake.

You could make this at home very quickly.

Takes a while to bake in the oven.

But that syrup at the end gives it a nice, bright flavor and also moistens the cake.

Just a great sort of all-time classic recipe.

Lemon almond pound cake.

I interview Lindsey Tramuta-- she's author of The New Paris-- about new trends in restaurants and bakeries.

And then she took us to see a few of her favorite places.

You found some American chefs here doing interesting things, English chefs, Japanese chefs, et cetera.

But in the last ten years, I'd say, Paris really has changed and now is back on the forefront.

- I mean, I think it all really began with, with a couple of things.

One was, we can't deny the impact of social media, because even if you were a chef who didn't have the opportunity to travel or, you know, apprentice abroad, like some chefs had.

But those who haven't at least now have a tool to see what's happening elsewhere.

And I think that really started to happen around 2007, 2008, You know, these, these chefs, or food entrepreneurs are saying to themselves, like, "Well, why can't we have this in Paris?"

And Paris is a big international city with people of all different walks of life and, and tastes and preferences.

So, you know, the, the number-two foods, when newspapers have asked the French, you know, they want pizza and burgers.

Those are, like, their favorite dishes, So that's not what people are expecting.

- Right.

- You know, this is a place that is far more diverse than we've been led to believe.

- What about the basic bistro or brasserie?

Now, you mention in your book, younger chefs, cooks, are coming in and rethinking that.

So, so when you rethink a bistro, are you going back to the classics and doing them authentically, or are you rethinking them entirely?

- So I think there are two things.

You can either riff on them entirely, or you can go back to sort of an authentic version, but do them better.

And so here you have people who are trying to revive this tradition, because no one really wants it to go away.

And in fact, now that we've swung in one direction and now have a lot of different styles, there's even more desire for that, like hearty, classic French meal.

And so you do have chefs who have gone more modern and experimental, and are now coming back to this and saying, "There is still a place for it, "it still needs to be protect, protected, and I'm going to do it better."

- So... - And so that's now coming... That's sort of, like, the next wave is, "Let's protect these traditions and do them better."

- Well, Paris is back, evidently.

- Paris is back; I mean, some would say it never left, but I would say at least in terms of food and, and beverage, it's, it's definitely come into its own and realized that it needed to do more.

It couldn't just rest on its laurels.

- I think it's time to stop talking and start eating.

- Let's do it.

- Lindsey, thank you.

When you go to Paris, here's some advice.

You should skip the Eiffel Tower and look for the unexpected.

Picnic on the Canal Saint-Martin on a warm summer evening, or maybe stop by one of the new Paris bakeries, such as Le Petit Grain.

It's not very French-- they don't open until 10:00 a.m.-- but they do sell jelly doughnuts and cookies and a peanut-marshmallow tart that is to die for.

- The idea behind a lot of our pastries was, we were excited about not doing typical pastries you, you find in a traditional bakery.

Diana, who is our lovely, lovely pastry chef-- the best pastry chef in Paris, in my opinion-- we let her run with her ideas, with her recipes.

So it's definitely quite far... - American.

- ...from France.

- When I came here this morning, I said hello in French, and you said, "I speak English."

So I felt like a complete idiot.

So, so you're from Bangor, Maine, right?

- Yes.

- And you've been in Paris, like, what, two-and-a-half years?

- Yeah.

- Where did you get the idea for the fluff-peanut butter tart?

- It was just something I had in the back of my mind as, like, a staff meal dessert for a long time.

And then I tried it.

And it was delicious.

- People liked it.

- Homemade fluff, and then we do the homemade peanut butter and swirl them together.

- I notice in Europe, they bake, very often, individual tarts or desserts.

- Yes.

- In the United States, we don't do that.

So why that tradition here, where things are baked more individual sizes, instead of doing a big tart, for example?

- So you can have dessert for one?

- So no one can mess with your piece, is that why?

- Or you can try lots of things.

- Ooh.

- There you go.

- Oh, man.

Mmm.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So when we were exploring the new Paris, the thing I did not expect at all was to go to a bakery, and first of all, the head baker was from Bangor, Maine, Diana.

Secondly, it doesn't open till 10:00 in the morning.

I mean, who ever heard of a French bakery not opening till 10:00 in the morning?

And they do a lot of cookies and Lamingtons, which is those little cakes with coconut and chocolate.

And then she also had this peanut butter-fluff tart, which are absolutely delicious.

We loved them.

So we thought, in honor of Diana and the new Paris, Le Petit Grain, we'd do it here.

- Now, this is comprised of three basic elements: we have the crust, which is a buttery, crispy, cookie-like crust; then we have the filling, which is this ethereal Fluffernutter-type thing; and then we have a salted-peanut-caramel topping that gets drizzled on top.

We'll start with the crust first.

One cup of all-purpose flour.

Then we have half a cup of almond flour, one-third cup of granulated sugar, and a teaspoon salt.

We'll mix this on low for about five seconds, until it's blended.

Okay.

Then we have six tablespoons of salted butter where it's been sitting out a little bit to get soft.

Then we're going to add those very gradually, also on low.

(mixer whirring) We're going to let this go about two minutes, until the butter is fully incorporated and it's a loose, sandy texture.

Okay, that looks good.

You can see that it hasn't started coming together yet, but there are no big pieces of butter left.

So now we have one yolk from a large egg and one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Turn it on low, until it's fully incorporated, about two to three minutes.

(mixer whirring) (mixer stops) All right.

So we have a prepared tart pan here, nine-inch, just lightly spritzed with some baking oil.

And then we're going to use a flat-sided measuring cup.

Start in the center, work your way out.

And then, as you get closer to the edges, let it build up, a little bit evenly, without pressing yet.

I like to use the top of my thumb to prevent it from, you know, going over the edge, and it also sort of flattens out the top a little bit.

- It looks very professional.

- Does it?

They we're going to prick this with a fork about every half-inch, which lets steam escape.

It prevents a bubble from getting under there and lifting the bottom crust.

And then after we do the bottom, we're going to do a little bit along the sides.

Now we need to let this firm up in the freezer for about 15 minutes up to one hour, and then we will preheat the oven to 300 degrees before we bake it.

♪ ♪ So Chris, this is the lovely crust.

After it was in the freezer, we baked it a 300 degrees for one hour.

- That long?

- Yes.

It's a low temperature, 300, and that allows all the sugar within the crust to caramelize, and it gets evenly crispy.

It's a delicious crust.

So now we're going to make the filling, which incorporates peanut butter.

The type of peanut butter is important here.

You want standard creamy peanut butter, not an all-natural peanut butter, which can have fat separating and a gritty texture.

The base of this feeling is a meringue.

Every meringue starts with egg whites and sugar.

In this case, we're making a sugar syrup, and we're whipping egg whites with a little bit of salt and vanilla till they reach a soft-peak stage.

We want those two things to happen at approximately the same time.

- You're scaring me, I mean... - (laughs): "You're scaring me."

- So the sugar syrup doesn't have to be exactly the right temperature, and the eggs don't have to be exactly the right texture.

Anybody can make this.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- Oh, absolutely.

- So how do we get started?

- Well, adding the two egg whites to the mixer bowl along with a teaspoon of vanilla and an eighth-teaspoon of salt.

That's just sort of to get them ready to whip, but we're not going to turn it on yet.

Now we're going to start the sugar syrup.

We're going to add a quarter-cup of water.

Then we're using half a cup of light corn syrup for stabilizing, and half a cup of granulated sugar.

You want to mix this until it's blended.

Okay.

We're going to turn this to medium-high and let it come to a boil.

So we're at a good full simmer now.

This has been almost two minutes, so we want to get the egg whites started.

On a medium speed.

I'm going to give a quick check of this.

Okay, we're at temperature.

We're at 235, 236.

We're going to remove this and let it sit until the bubbles dissipate.

Okay, so we've got this on a low speed, and we're aiming to pour this right between the beater and the bowl.

And just a slow, steady stream.

So let's go ahead and turn that up to medium and let it whip for about three minutes, to cool it down a little bit, let the full aeration happen.

And we need to soften the peanut butter, so we can fold it in.

Would you mind microwaving the peanut butter?

30 to 60 seconds, please.

- Okay.

- Thank you-- we just want it pourable.

(mixer stops) Oh, that's lovely.

- Mm-hmm.

- Look at that.

We've established the peak is there, and we're going to add the peanut butter on low.

(mixer whirring) We are marrying the two.

(mixer stops) And then we'll finish folding this in by hand.

So when all the white streaks are done, we are ready to put this into the tart.

- Mmm.

- And then we want to spread this level.

And then we're going to let this sit for about 15 minutes while we make the caramel-peanut topping.

Two tablespoons of water and a quarter-cup of granulated sugar.

And then we're just going to give it a very gentle stir to get it evenly hydrated.

Okay, good.

Then we will turn it on, a medium heat, and we'll just barely swirl the pan a little bit as the sugar starts heating up, so we can melt evenly.

Our syrup has reached a full boil now.

As you can see, the sugar is almost melted.

We're just going to swirl the pan very gently, and then we're just going to let it sit.

It may take five minutes, it may take six minutes, but we want to achieve a deep amber color.

You'll see it start to color first around the edges, but you want an evenly deep amber all over.

Chris, can you see the amber color around the edge?

- I can.

- Okay, good.

- Now, when this starts to color... - Mm-hmm.

- It can go fast, right?

- Yes, it can, yes, so don't walk away at this point.

All right, do you see the smoke?

- Yeah.

- Now we're ready, take it off the burner, and we will add three tablespoons of heavy cream.

(liquid hissing) Stir that.

And we're going to follow that with two tablespoons of salted butter.

There goes the last of the butter, all melted in, blended beautifully.

And now we're going to very quickly add a half a cup of chopped, salted peanuts.

As soon as those are fully incorporated and coated, we're going to pour this over the top of the tart, spread it and then sort of encourage it to go to the edges very gently.

If you press too hard, the peanuts are going to sink into the filling, because the filling is that light.

- Mmm.

Now we unfortunately have to wait ten minutes?

- 15.

- 15 minutes, okay.

- Sorry.

- I'll be back here in ten.

- (laughs) This is cool enough now.

We are ready to slice it.

We're going to remove it from the tart pan first.

Just lift it gently like that.

Slide it right off like that.

- Nicely done.

- Okay-- thank you.

- Yeah.

- We're going to sprinkle a little bit of a flaky sea salt over the caramel.

And you want to do that right before you serve it.

Okay, and you do the honors.

- I'm a little nervous about cutting this.

- Really?

After what we went through, you're nervous about cutting it?

- Well, a little bit.

Mmm.

- Thank you.

I love the way this filling looks.

You can see the air in it.

- Ah, this just looks so good.

- Yeah.

- Mmm.

- (chuckles) - Oh.

- Enough to make the angels sing.

- Well, a good caramel has a little bitterness to it, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- That's why you get to sort of a deep amber.

So it balances the sweetness, yeah.

- Yeah.

- So we went to the new Paris, and this is one of their recipes we brought back, a salted peanut and caramel tart, which is absolutely fabulous.

A shortcrust which is pat-in-the-pan, a nice, fluffy Italian meringue inside with a little peanut butter in it, and then a caramel with salted peanuts on top.

It takes a little time to make, but it's not that hard, but it is absolutely terrific.

You can get this recipe, all the recipes from this season of Milk Street, at MilkStreetTV.com.

All episodes and recipes from this season of Milk Street Television are available for free at our website, MilkStreetTV.com.

Please access our content, including our step-by-step recipe videos, from your smart phone, your tablet, or your computer.

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The Milk Street cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street cookbook for $23.95, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Ferguson's proud to support Milk Street and culinary crusaders everywhere.

For more information on our extensive collection of kitchen products, we're on the web at fergusonshowrooms.com.

- For 25 years, Consumer Cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like.

Our U.S.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- Since 1899, my family has shared our passion for everything that goes into our Mutti 100% Italian tomatoes.

Only tomatoes.

Only Mutti.

- Designed by cooks for cooks for over 100 years.

Cookware collection by Regal Ware.

Handcrafted in Wisconsin.

- The AccuSharp knife and tool sharpener, designed to safely sharpen knives in seconds.

AccuSharp: Keep your edge.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪