Afternoon Tea: Jacques Genin and my caramel-making story

This post is one of many documenting my week in Paris, a present to myself for graduating pastry school in the fall of 2012. Every moment was spent eating and one post wasn’t enough. It’s now a short novel. Kidding. I hope.

Time for my first of three afternoon tea posts. Sadly I heard this past week (1/14/13) that Jacques Genin will no longer be carrying pastries. Yes his fortés are his chocolates and caramels but I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon tea I had there. Hopefully it will continue in some form.

Tea for two at Jacques Genin in the Marais (3rd arrondissement)

The interior has lush chocolate brown leather seating, brick  and texture white walls. Pink flowers sit at each table.

My favorite part is the spiraling staircase which reminds me of NY. It leads up to the kitchen. Would love to see it one day. The counter for purchasing chocolate is in front of a long window with maze-like pieces that are actually Jacques’ logo designs. They are backward but on the left it is a “J” and to the right a “G”.

The tallest of all Paris-Brest. Aside from the confections, Jacques is known for this piece and it will be sad to see it go. The choux top has chopped hazelnuts and is dusted with powdered sugar. In the middle, spiraling towers of rich praline pastry cream. I believe the dessert was 3″ in height. Truly impressive.

Here is the citron tart. It was very tangy. Lemon curd with flecks of lime zest on top in a super-thin tart crust. That is one thing Paris pastry chefs do really well, getting the perfect crust.

A treat for us, complimentary chocolates. I wish there was a guide with the photos and flavors. I remember one was called Jamaica which was pepper-flavored. I really liked it. After having tea I purchased a box of assorted flavors. The associates were really helpful. They recommended I purchase a certain number of milk and dark chocolates so they would look visually pretty in the square box. Love that. Apparently basilic instinct (basil) is well-loved so I got that along with thé toi (tea), caravelle (spice), hesperides (grapefruit), orient express (coffee & cardamom) and menthe amante (mint). They were gifts so I can’t say how these tasted but based on how much I enjoyed the pepper, I’m sure just as good.

Then onto the pate de fruits or fruit jellies. I’ve made these before and they are really sweet so are made very tiny. Jacques’ pate de fruits are nicely balanced and when you bite into them you feel like you’re having the actual fruits. I got passion fruit, pineapple and banana. My favorite was the banana.

The famous caramels. These really are my absolute favorite. The first reason being the caramel is soft. The texture is just firm enough that it holds somewhat of a cylinder shape in the cello wrap but once you pop the caramel in your mouth it melts. I cannot handle ones that I need to chew at for fear of loosening the cavities in my molars and also for the displeasure of constantly chewing till my jaw hurts. Second, the FLAVOR.

Using a recipe I found at a Paris newsstand I attempted to make these caramels twice and hopefully will nail it the third time. My version in the photo is in the wax paper on the left. In my first attempt, I used kosher salt and probably didn’t use the right amount in substitution for the fleur de sel I didn’t have at the time. The second go, I did use the correct salt and WOW the flavor miles better and I have to admit very close to Jacque’s caramels. How did I know? It’s going to sound gross but if you’ve ever seen the episode of Friends where Monica attempts to re-create Phoebe’s grandmother’s famous chocolate chip cookies with just one zip loc bag cookie to test from, that’s pretty much what I did. I had one Jacques Genin caramel and I only took one bite of it after each test batch to see how close I’ve come. I still have half a caramel left. I will post once I finally nail down the recipe.

For more, David Lebovitz has a lovely post with gorgeous photos of his visit to Jacques Genin’s kitchen.

Jacques Genin
133 rue de Turenne
75003 Paris