Sweet Paris by Michael Paul

Michael Paul fell in love with Paris before he’d sniffed the Parisian air. He fell for the city of light and love in a suburban Australian dance class. Cole Porter’s I Love Paris played on loop as Michael first clasped the hands of spotty girls and danced the Waltz, Fox Trot, Strip the Willow and Gay Gordon.

On his first trip to Paris, many years later, Michael plunged into the city’s delights hands first, grabbing at anything the city had to offer - ticking off its guidebook attractions one by one. As his love affair grew, and his visits increased, he needed to delve deeper, to get to know the city more intimately.  Discover the ‘forgotten places, the covert cracks, that are unknown to visitors and often to citizens too’. He became a dedicated flâneur and traversed the backstreets, the parks, the alleys and the boulevards, discovering the hidden jewels and the romantic nooks that make Paris the great city of love.

Sweet Paris is Michael’s letter of love to the sweet side of Paris. His stunning photography captures the ambience and joie de vivre of this remarkable city - traditional pâtisseries, chocolat chaud in Montmartre and the delights of the local chocolatier. He reveals where to get the most mouth-watering macarons, jewel like confections and sinful éclairs. With over 30 classic and modern recipes, from comforting ains au chocolat to traditional Tarte Tatin, Sweet Paris is more than a cook book: it’s a sweet-toothed flâneur’s guide to Paris; a city where even the desserts are chic.

Author Details

Michael Paul is an internationally renowned lifestyle photographer based in London and is a respected photographer in the field of food, interiors and still life. His work appears regularly in prestigious magazines such as Gourmet, Martha Stewart Living, Delicious, Vogue Living and The Sunday Times Style.And not only did he write this book but also took the photographs. A real talent!

Hardie Grant Books

RRP$39.99

The publishers have kindly agreed to allow me to reproduce the following extract from the book:

Pain au Chocolat and Pain aux Raisins

The delicious pain au chocolat is a close cousin of the croissant. Known as the chocolatine in southwestern France and Canada, in some countries they are even called chocolate croissants. Usually sold warm from the oven alongside croissants, the pain au chocolat is made using the same puff pastry method – a laminated piece of yeast-leavened dough, but with a slab of chocolate in the centre. These chubby, crunchy rectangles blend the sweetness of the flaky, airy buttery pastry with the bitter sweetness of the smooth chocolate. It’s a marriage made in chocolate heaven.

My much-loved mid-morning treat probably didn’t get a look in until the mid-nineteenth century when the chocolate bar was invented. History doesn’t record who actually made the first pain au chocolat but like the brioche its origins are more likely to be French than Viennese. Whoever it was started something big. These days they’re one of the most popular after-school treats in France. Who knows how many are wolfed down each day in Paris, let alone the big wide world.

Who does the best pain au chocolat in Paris? It’s a close-run thing between Des Gateaux et du Pain and Du Pain et des Idees, who I think get it by a short straw. This award-winning neighbourhood boulangerie near the canal St Martin in the 10th, run by the intrepid Christophe

Vasseur, is indeed filled with ‘bread and ideas’. Try his delectable banana pain au chocolat too – but do get there early.

I have to confess that the pain aux raisins is my all-time favourite viennoiserie. What could be better than a warm, crisp, sweet brioche dough pastry generously filled with oozing, eggy crème pâtissière and stuffed with succulent, rum-soaked juicy raisins, all finished off with a sticky, jammy glaze that when baked completely caramelises the entire pastry? I would swim across the Seine even if it was shark-infested for just one bite of the best pain aux raisins in Paris.

Sadly, its spiral shape earns the pain aux raisins such inopportune aliases as raisin roll, escargot, snail and, I’m sure, other nicknames.

The calorie-loaded pastry base, which uses butter as its leavening agent, makes the pain aux raisins an intricate one to make as the butter must be kept at a precise temperature for the flaky pastry to become light and airy. It’s also important not to overbake the exterior so it becomes dry and the raisins shrivel up. Happily, there are those pâtissiers in Paris that excel at this spiraled indulgence. Ble Sucre gets it spot on as does the historic boulangerie Moulin de la Vierge in the 7th and at other locations around Paris. And, of course, I can’t leave out my other two favourites, Des Gateaux et du Pain in the 15th and Du Pain et des Idees in the 10th.

The above extract is from Sweet Paris by Michael Paul, Hardie Grant Books, distributed in NZ by Random House. Hardback - $39.99

Magical city, gorgeous food, fabulous book !