Edit: I’ve included an addendum at the end if you’re interested in putting fondant and feathered chocolate on top.
The original recipe for this is 4 times the amount below, and makes almost 20 pieces. I thought that I should adjust it to make it more realistic for home bakers, so I’ve changed the amounts and assembly method just a little. This recipe below should make 4 individual square napoleons with three layers of puff pastry; this is adapted from Jacques Torres’s method.

The instructions given to us are very barebones, but the chefs talk pretty extensively about each recipe so I’ve included as many notes as possible. The recipe may look long, but most of it is explanatory detail because I don’t have pictures of the process. I also use mostly weight for ingredients, but you can use my volume and weight conversion page to convert it, if needed. Um, meanwhile, let me know if my calculatations are off for anything….

Napoleons should be eaten a few hours after assembling… but the pastry cream, puff pastry dough, and caramelized apples can all be made days before the actual assembly. Napoleons are also often made with just pastry cream and maybe fruit, so feel free to enjoy that version rather than going on to make the diplomat cream; just make sure to make more pastry cream to compensate for the lost volume from the lost diplomat. But if you do make the diplomat cream and flame the apples with calvados, then you’re pure superstar.

Quick Puff Pastry

Yield: two 12″ x 16″ sheet pans of dough rolled to 1/8″

This should give you twice the amount of dough that you’ll need to make napoleons from a puff pastry baked on a 12″x16″ sheetpan; but if you try to halve the recipe, I feel like it wouldn’t fold and come to together properly. This dough ideally comes together in as little as an hour, because it needs 20 mins to rest and chill between three bouts of folding. But, if you become busy with other things, realize that it really needs “at least” 20 mins of chilling. You could do the folds hours apart if you have to; we’ve had people do the last folds the next day.

Once it is made, the dough can be refrigerated for several days, or frozen for 3 months. I find that I roll out dough best when it starts out in the shape I want it to be, so, before you store it, always try to make it into slab that’s an appropriate shape. Also, this dough can be rolled out twice, if you need to, so you can save the scraps, but try not to overwork the dough or it will be tough.

• 10 oz All Purpose Flour
• 1/4 oz Salt
• 8 oz Butter, cut into 1/2″ cubes and chilled cold
• 5.5 oz Ice Water (do this by putting ice in a cup and filling it with water; right before adding the water, pour the water into a measuring cup and while straining back the ice)

With your hands, mix together the salt and AP Flour in a large bowl.

With your hands, toss cold butter cubes into flour and salt to coat. Make sure that each cube is separate and coated with flour.

Pour 1/3 of ice water into bowl. Combine briefly with hands until evenly combined. Repeat with remaining water. By the end, it will be very loose and ragged, but should be mostly hydrated.

Dust your worktable with flour. Roll your rolling pin in flour and brush with hand to lightly coat it.

Turn dough out onto a floured worktable. Gently pat into a rectangle with the short side parallel to the edge of table, probably about 6″x10″ and an inch thick.

Roll dough out to 1/2″ thickness, making sure that it remains a rectangle with sharp corners and straight sides (you can use your hands to push and pinch it into shape if it gets mis-shapen). If flattened butter cubes stick to the rolling pin, just scrape them off and fit them back into the dough.

Fold dough into thirds, like a tri-fold wallet (this is called a threefold or a single turn). The best way to do this is to run a plastic bowl scraper under the dough to separate it from the table before attempting to lift up a part of the dough; alternatively, a long metal spatula should be fine. Make sure that the first third folded on top of the dough fits snugly into the fold of the second so that it turns out like a solid rectangle of dough. If ragged pieces fall off the dough, push them lightly back into the whole.

Turn the dough 90 degrees, so that the short side is again parallel to the side of the table.

Roll out to 1/2″ rectangle again. Fold dough in threefold again.

Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 20 minutes.

Again conduct two consecutive threefolds.

Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 20 minutes.

Again conduct two consecutive threefolds. You will have now folded the dough 6 times total, and the dough should be uniform.

Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 20 minutes before using.

To Bake Puff Pastry for Napoleon:

Cut the dough in half, and store one half for future use. On a work surface, roll dough out to 1/8″ rectangle to fit a 12″x16″ sheet pan as exactly as possible (if you have a larger or smaller sheet pan — or a small or a large appetite — just use as much dough as you want so that it’s 1/8″ thick).

If you have a large enough rolling pin, roll the dough around the pin, lift it up, and unroll it over the sheet pan (otherwise, carefully slip a piece of parchment btw the table and dough, and shimmy the parchment completely under the dough and carefully transfer it to the sheet pan).

Dock dough thoroughly with a fork or rolling dough docker. Chill 20 mins, covered with plastic or parchment.

Preheat oven to 425.

When ready to bake, place a piece of parchment on top of the dough and top with a sheet pan the same size as the bottom one so that the dough is sandwiched between the two. (If you don’t have another baking sheet that’s the same size — I don’t at home — just keep an eye on the dough while its baking, and if it rises unevenly in sections, gently pierce the bubbles with a paring knife).

Bake dough at 425 for about 15 mins, until the dough is light golden brown. Remove the top parchment and top pan, and bake until evenly brown and flaky, at least 5-10 mins more, rotating as necessary (optional: after you remove the top pan, evenly brush light corn syrup onto the puff pastry; this will keep moisture out of the pastry and make it crispier and more caramelized). It should be baked all the way through so that it’s completely flaky, without any opaque layers in the middle.
Cool completely.

Calvados Pastry Cream

• 3/4 oz cornstarch
• 1 oz sugar
• 3 oz eggs
• 1 oz Calvados Brandy

• 1 cup milk
• 1 oz sugar
• 1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

• 1 oz butter

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 oz sugar with cornstarch to combine. Whisk in eggs and Calvados until smooth.

In a small saucepot, bring milk, sugar, and vanilla pod and seeds to boil over medium heat. While you’re waiting for it to boil, continue to whisk the egg mixture to get rid of absolutely all lumps.

Place a kitchen towel under the egg mixture bowl (this will prevent the bowl from sliding as you whisk in the milk). When milk mixture boils, pour 1/2 of it into the egg mixture while whisking the egg mixture to incorporate.

Return the pan of milk to burner, and whisk as you pour the tempered egg mixture into the milk.

Whisk briskly (scraping the sides, corners, and bottom of pot), and when the mixture comes to a boil, continue to whisk briskly for 2 minutes. It may get a little chunky early on, but it will smooth out. If you feel like it’s going to burn on the bottom, lower the heat a little.

Remove from heat. Stir in butter.

Strain into a clean bowl or airtight container. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of it so that it doesn’t form a skin. Let cool to room temp, and then chill up to three days.

Caramelized Apples

• 2 apples, peeled and sliced thin (we used granny smith)
• 1 oz sugar
• 1 oz Calvados
• Juice from 1/4 lemon
• 1 oz Butter

Over medium heat, mix apples with butter and sugar in saute pan to evenly distribute. Don’t touch it again until the apples start showing some caramelized color on the bottom. Stir to re-distribute.

When apples are nicely caramelized, add Calvados, and take off the heat to flame with torch or other lighting implement (I didn’t do this part, but I saw that the flame goes pretty high; you could probably omit the flaming, too, and live with the stronger alcohol taste). When the flame goes out, add lemon juice and stir to incorporate.

Remove from heat and cool completely.

Calvadoes Diplomat Cream

• 8 oz heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized; Clover Stornetta is a great brand to use)
• 1.5 oz sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp powdered gelatin
• 3/4 oz cold water
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 recipe Calvados Pastry Cream, above, chilled

Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in wide, shallow bowl. Let bloom for 5 minutes. Do not stir.

Meanwhile, whip cream with sugar and cinnamon to medium peaks. Chill in fridge.

Whisk pastry cream well in large bowl so that it is smooth and loose (if it’s difficult to do by hand, whisk in a standing mixer).

Melt gelatin with 1/4 of pastry cream over double boiler with simmering water. Fold back into remaining pastry cream.

Gently fold whipped cream into chilled pastry cream.

Chill 20-60 minutes.

Napoleon Assembly

With a serrated knife, trim the edges so that they’re straight (if necessary) and cut the puff into twelve 4″ squares (or if you prefer the traditional Napoleon engineering, cut the puff into three 4″ strips that you will later stack and cut into rectangles). Set aside the four most evenly risen squares for the top layers (they will probably be placed upside-down for the flattest top).

Divide caramelized apples btw four squares. Spread some diplomat cream evenly onto the apples; use half of the diplomat cream in all (you could also pipe the cream to make it a little less unwieldy).

Top each square with a second layer of puff pastry. Divide the remaining diplomat cream between the squares. Top each square with a third layer of puff pastry.

Sift powdered sugar over the tops of each napoleon.

Enjoy!

A Note on Fondant: We use a poured fondant from a big blue tub from Village Imports that’s labeled as “White Icing.” Its ingredients are sugar, glucose syrup, and water. We heat it to btw 100-110, thinning it a little with simple syrup to get it to the right consistency.

It’s hard to find that fondant in stores, and one chef told us that it’s a real pain to make yourself, but I found a couple recipes online that use sugar (or conf sugar), corn syrup, and water for any really intrepid souls….

This one involves heating it to the soft ball stage and probably produces something close to what we use
http://www.ochef.com/744.htm

This one just gently heats up the ingredients and might be acceptable in a pinch (personally I don’t think the clear vanilla flavoring called for is necessary)
http://www.baking911.com/recipes/cakes/fondant_poured.htm

To assemble the napoleon with fondant: Omit sifting powdered sugar on top. Have prepared fondant, melted dark chocolate in a parchment cone, and a wooden skewer ready. Pour the fondant over the top layer of puff pastry in one pass and quickly smooth with spatula. Immediately pipe thin lines of chocolate on the length of the pastry. Run the skewer up and down the width of the pastry (perpendicular through the lines) for a feathered effect, wiping the tip of the skewer clean as needed. Let set, and then trim fondant from sides of pastry.

For Day Two, we had to make 12 French Tartlettes, 12 Napoleon Slices, 8 oz of Ganache made with a 1:1.5 ratio of cream to chocolate and 10% butter, and 4-4 oz molds of Bavarian Cream. It was a pretty stress-free day, even if I did have to go at breakneck speed to just finish everything.

The Chef wanted even streusel coverage on these Tartlettes, and to have complete coverage of the dried fruit compote underneath. I prefer streusel a little uneven and with patches to see what kind of fruit is underneath, so I practiced a little resistance by doing so just for the fleeting satisfaction of seeing something close to what I like; I really try to think of the Chef Instructors as my bosses who tell me what I must make for customers, but sometimes, that doesn’t convince me. Another problem was that my dough had cracked a little under a couple tartlettes while I was pressing it into the molds, and I hadn’t patched them well. Usually, I’m pretty good at lining molds (and I really like the shape of these molds), but I was having problems with the temp of the dough — it was either too warm or too cold. Chef recommended just lightly rubbing it btw your hands out of the fridge to get it to the right temp. That’s a good tip.

I just finished cutting these Napoleons 1 minute before the end of the practical, so the fondant wasn’t completely set yet. The puff was baked just to edge of acceptability, so it tasted almost like caramel — woohoo! I liked that added depth. The Chef tests each Napoleon by hacking through the center with the side of a fork to see how it breaks — mine broke easily like a flaky champ. The Chef liked that my pastry cream was very smooth and rather soft — he said he’d rather have that pastry cream and the resulting uneven tops/oozing sides than a perfectly stiff and dry Napoleon; I agree. I’d made it the day before and whipped it in a mixer that day until it was very smooth; I don’t think I would have been able to whip it that smooth by hand.

The base ingredients of a ganache are cream, chocolate, and butter, and there are certain ratios that are used for what type of ganache you want — like pipe-able or cut-able. We had to make a 1:1.5 ratio with 10% butter that resulted in about 8 oz, so I boiled 3 oz cream and poured it over 4.5 oz dark chocolate in a food processor, let it sit 30 seconds, and the processed it. When that was smooth, I added .75 oz butter, and processed that. Then into a bowl, and covered with plastic wrap until the Chef had a look. He deemed it just right, without any troublesome chunks of unmelted chocolate.

We also had to make Bavarian Creams out of creme anglaise, gelatin, and whipped cream, which was odd, b/c we didn’t really make that this block. So, I adapted a recipe out of the book on faith, and it turned out fine. The Chef dipped it in hot water to unmold it, and it sliced fine and had a nice consistency and didn’t have any swirls of unfolded creams. They were promptly thrown out, so I didn’t get a pic of them, but it was simply a white cream in aluminum molds.

For this block, we had a two day practical — on Day One we made Mignardise plus prep items for Day Two, which was focused on Individual Pastries. I liked this format. It made me feel more like I was at work — getting stuff out and preparing things for the next day. Of course, the peril was that if you didn’t get something done on the first day, you had to scramble to fit it in early the second day, if at all. Luckily, I fit everything in, and aside from the requisite bizarre mishap (see the pastry cream part below), everything went pretty smoothly. I even finished about 15 minutes early the first day, but with only 1 minute on the second day. I can’t figure out why I didn’t finished earlier on the second day; I didn’t get stuck on anything and even used the microwave to heat a couple things that I’d usually heat on a burner (we have a microwave that allows for metal bowls)… I guess I just need to generally work more efficiently and faster. I got a 91% in all, so that was nice.

You’ll notice that a few treats required rolling out large amounts of dough in their preparation. We have a machine called a sheeter at the school, so I used that for all of them.

So, the mission for Day One was to finish 24 Harlequin Cookies and 24 Rochers, and to make Pastry Cream, Creme Anglaise, and Quick Puff for the next day. We were given three hours for production, and half an hour for clean up and plating. Nothing was made in advance for day one.

Harlequin Cookies. These aren’t hard to make, especially since we really only make the dough (for better or for worse) — they just require time and attention. I made the vanilla bean flavored short dough first thing that day so that it could rest before rolling it out and cutting it, letting it rest, and then baking them. When cool, they get a dome of jam piped onto half of them, and the other half is brushed entirely with apricoture (an apricot glaze from a tub) before the remaining apricoture is doused with red food coloring and brushed onto half the cookie. They are then sandwiched together, and dipping upside down into fondant to glaze. We usually make them with apricot jam, but we were out, so we used raspberry instead. I liked the taste better, but it was a pretty stiff jam, so I broke three cookies on top (they’re extremely fragile); for the last broken one, I just pressed together on top of the jam and glazed it… and it looked fine.

So, the real challenges for detail here are: to make the red half even, to not get red apricoture or fondant on the sides of the top cookies, and to get the fondant to the right consistency. The fondant comes out of a tub, and it needs to be heated to 100-105 degrees and thinned with simple syrup for use. We always have to eyeball this, though I imagine it could be easily codified. Anyway, mine was a little too thin and didn’t quite go far enough to the edges of the cookie.

Rochers. These are quite tasty, and simple as far as chocolate confections go. First, slivered blanched almonds were mixed with egg whites and confectioners sugar, then and toasted and divided into three bowls. Then, we used the seeding method to temper the chocolate (plus added cocoa butter to make it a looser coating). Tempering this was tricky b/c it was only 6 oz of chocolate, so its temperature was much more volatile than a larger amount of chocolate; it has to stay within the working temp of 86-90. We then poured 1/3 of the chocolate into a bowl at a time, and scrambled to combine and shape them on sheet pans before they start to set. When we’d made them before in class, I barely had enough chocolate, and they’d turned out extremely tacky b/c the chocolate had begun to set. These turned out nicely, though my last third had too much chocolate… or so some say. They’re supposed to be just coated in chocolate, and shaped into domed mounds that are neither too tight nor too loose. Some of mine were a little small. I was just thrilled that my laser thermometer made this a lot easier, and more fun.

I also made Creme Anglaise with an amount that required a cup of milk; I’d make a Bavarian Cream with it on Day Two. Creme anglaise usually takes a long time to thicken once the milk/sugar and egg yolks/sugar are combined, but this small amount only took a minute and a half. After repeatedly practicing in vain to measure the temperature of my creme anglaise so that it cooks to 175 or 180 (it always curdled by 165 on my strategically placed thermometer), I’ve learned to just eyeball it. I like to have markers to look out for — the bubbles on the surface will dissipate as it gets closer, it will steam a little, and when it’s a little thicker than cream, it’s done, and goes into an ice bath. I try to resist thinking that it can still get thicker, b/c it’s just going to curdle; if pressed for time, I’d rather have thin creme anglaise than scrambled eggs, especially if it’s going to be used an element in a recipe, rather than a sauce on its own, as here.

I made Pastry Cream, too, for the Napoleon I would make the next day. Everything was fine until I was straining it directly into the bowl in an ice bath. The bowl tipped, and water seeped into the bowl. I stopped pouring and moved the strainer to the side to fix the bowl, but then the pastry cream in the strainer fell into the ice water and onto the table a bit. Anyway, I eventually got the rest of it into the bowl and soaked off some water with a paper towel. I cleaned off the table and pondered whether or not to make it again so that I would definitely have enough pastry cream. I decided to deal with that the next day, but later, when I was transferring the pastry cream into a plastic storage container, I noticed that the pastry cream that had fallen into the ice water had formed a kind of snake on the bottom. I drained the water out and poked the pastry cream. It felt normal — by that, I mean like milky jell-o — and I didn’t think it was unsanitary for it to be in the ice water… So, I saved it, or rather, its apparent impermeability saved itself; it just needed to be patted with a paper towel to dry off completely. It turned out to be a fine amount for the Napoleon.

And I also made Quick Puff for the Napoleons on Day Two. This was no problem. The only trick was that we were warned to clean up the flour on the table where we rolled it between chilling/folding it. I handled that just fine.

For this half block, we made pastries that were 2-3 the size of mignardise, but they were pretty similar to make, with the same attention to detail and delicacy for each.  Usually, though, these have more moisture, so they’ll only last 1-2 days, while mignardise can last up to a week.

Clockwise, White Chocolate Mousse Barquettes, Chocolate Meringues, French Tartlettes, Cashew Dacquoise.

I liked the White Chocolate Mousse Barquettes for their bold shape, which has an uncanny resemblance to a penguin for me, and they were as unwieldy to make as their shape suggests. A short dough is mold and baked in a small mold, and then filled with a white chocolate mousse to the top of the crust. Then, whipped cream is piled on top, and you run a small offset spatula at a severe angle on both sides to get that V-shape on top. Then, you’re supposed to dip one side into chocolate so that it doesn’t go on the crust at all. The neutral taste of this one doesn’t live up to the method, but one group made a passionfruit one that was great, and I think that this design has possibilities — I think that even just a fruit compote in the middle instead of the white choc mousse would be an improvement.

I used to love the way that meringue cookies sweetly dissolved on my tongue, but nowadays, straight up meringue is too hard and sweet for me. So the Chocolate Meringues — with two huge hard meringues — were a bit too much, and I think unwieldy to eat. If anything, they should be open-faced, the meringues should be partially baked so they’re creamy inside, or they should be the size of, say, mini-ritz crackers.

The French Tartlettes are very nice — they have a cooked, small dice dried fruit filling kicked up with brandy and lemon, and a streusel topping; they’d be perfect around the holidays. They only tricky thing is that they are fully baked in their metal molds, so it’s impossible to really know when the crust is really done on the bottom when they’re in the oven; they can be a bit dark on the sides and golden on top, but not necessarily golden on the bottom. We just used the suggested 18-19 minutes as our guide.

I like that the Cashew Dacquoise uses my favorite nut, but they were rolled in broken up hazelnuts at the end; if I’d had more time, I’d have toasted and ground up cashews to use instead. They have two cashew dacquoise discs surrounded by a coffee extract flavored whipped cream. The cream was at the edge of fine (whipping-wise) in the bowl, but once it was spread, it looked pretty curdled; the French tip used to pipe the rosette on top only made it worse. At least it still tastes fine. They are supposed to be dusted with cocoa through a polka dot mold, but that overall effect was too jester-style for me, so I just did did the more sedate half circle design, with a long ruler balanced over a line of pastries in the sheet pan as I sifted cocoa powder over.

A Caramelized Apple & Calvados Diplomat Cream Napoleon. This was great — creamy and crispy and fruity and and cinnamon-y. Diplomat Cream is made by incorporating gelatin and whipped cream into pastry cream (similarly, Bavarian Cream is made by incorporating gelatin and whipped cream into creme anglaise). Mine was nicely loose and luscious, and it was fun to eat this as it fell apart into something a delicious mess.

We made Quick Puff Pastry (aka Blitz Puff Pastry, aka Puff the Magic Pastry) for this, which has become something that seems convenient to just throw together. Unlike the traditional Puff Pastry method, in which a butterblock is rolled between dough, and then rolled out and folded numerous times over many hours, the Quick Puff is made at first more like a pie dough — butter is cubed and mixed with flour and salt before water is added to almost hold it together. Its raggedly self is then turned out onto a table, rolled to 1/2″, and then then folded into thirds twice about every 20 mins; by the end, it’s a smooth dough. Of course, at school, this is easy to do on the work tables; at home, perhaps more of a mess. But it tastes soooo much better than that frozen stuff they sell in supermarkets. And with Plugra butter, it’s even better.

Othello (left) and Coffee Bean (right). These are both filled with flavored with pastry cream and topped with flavored fondant. The dough is made with a separation foaming method (like ladyfingers) so it’s quite dry but very sweet from the topping and filling.

Chocolate Roulade with Vanilla Buttercream (top) and Lemon Roulade with Lemon Buttercream (bottom). What was cool about these was that they were glazed with melted buttercream; which is a lot faster and easier than spreading it with a spatula. We used Italian Meringue Buttercream for this, which is a bit too solid butter-y for me, but the lemon curd helped the brighten the flavor and loosen the buttercream a bit. Also, the chocolate roulade was made with a Flourless Chocolate Sponge, so it was gluten-free; it has egg whites, yolks, sugar, and cocoa powder. It’s very susceptible to over-mixing, though, so it could turn out chewy.

Chocolate Coconut Torte. We made the thin Jaconde Sponge the day before, which had ground blanched almonds in it and we used a thick chocolate tuile cookie batter for the design part. I just did random Jackson Pollock work, but one very cool one had stripes in the sponge and then the chocolate on top was piped into a spiral so that it sprung down when placed on the rosette. This was filled with chocolate mousse and then coconut mousse and then a coconut mirror glaze (just a gelatin coating flavored with Monin syrup); they were each assembled in a piece of PVC pipe and each component had to set before the next was added. And yes, we had to temper chocolate for the top garnish.

We also made regular Napoleons, which I’ll get to in my Practical post.

When I try to think of how to describe Angele, I can only come up with nice.  Yes, it’s nice.  As a French bistro perched on the Napa River in the town of Napa, it’s a bit brighter and more modern/angular than a traditional bistro. Apparently, it used to be a boathouse, which lives on in its bare beam A-frame ceiling; there is also outdoor terrace seating in appropriate weather. The food is rather traditional French bistro-like, but with some twists thrown in. We went there on a Friday night, and it seems like a convivial place for groups or friends to come together after work, but it’s also manages to be suitable for an intimate dinner for two.

Complimentary Chickpeas with Cumin were served at the very beginning, along with bread. They were either deep fried or roasted. They were ok, but they weren’t as crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle as they should have been; I think they’d been sitting out too long. I’ve roasted them before, and I know they go soft very fast.

But no matter — after I’d had three and Chad had had one, our appetizer arrived, and the server got flustered trying to find table space and ended up whisking away the chickpeas. Ah, well.

For our appetizer, we shared the “Pâté de Campagne” Country Style Pâté served with Toast, Celery Root Salad. This was two triangle of a delicious chunky pate, and the celery and cornichon were a good match. I took a picture after we’d started eating, and we’d already dug in too vigorously to produce a postable the pic.

The star of the meal was the Macaroni Gratin side dish. Made with Gruyere cheese, it was so tangy and nutty, but also perfectly textured. The top managed to be crusty and chewy, and the inside had macaroni noodles that were just coated enough with a type of bechamel dish. I liked how it contained a spectrum of strength of the gruyere flavor. And the smell was intoxicating. It was served in a burning hot ramekin that remained hot until the end of our main course.

I got the “Loup Sauvage” Wild Striped Bass, Artichokes, Mushrooms, Barigoule Sauce. It was nicely crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, and the vegetables were a pleasant earthy match.

Chad got the “Noisette D’Agneau” Colorado Lamb Sirloin with Fava Bean Ragoût “Panisse”, Lamb Jus. The lamb was cooked just right and was juicy, but the real star was the sauce; such a deep, just slightly sweet flavor. The only disappointment were the overly starchy large fava beans.

For dessert, we shared the Rhubarb Pain Perdu. If I hadn’t been so full, I would have wished that I’d had it all to myself. I liked how it was soft and creamy on the inside with just a slightly crisp phyllo exterior, and the rhubarb was a tart little punch. I think it was buttermilk ice cream with this, which just made it all the better.