Strawberries and Cream Gateau Concorde

Yes it was named after the plane

Hello Friends!

This will surely be the only time I write a recipe where aeronautics and baking coincide. This classic French recipe, named in honour of the supersonic plane that used to speed passengers from Paris and London, across the Atlantic, to New York in just 4 hours, was created by one of the godfathers of patisserie Gaston Lenôtre. You may recognise that name for the many Lenôtre pastry cookbooks, the Paris-based pastry shops that bear his name, the Lenôtre pastry school or even as the man who created the original Opera cake, he’s the real deal.

This specific Lenôtre creation was created whilst the chef was working for Concorde, developing menus for inflight catering. This cake was created to celebrate the inaugural flight and whilst it isn’t one of the most well-known French cakes its influence can be found in patisseries all across France. The original recipe was a chocolate meringue mousse cake, incredibly simple to make but with a look that shouts intricacy and skill, it's a great dessert to impress that is actually much easier to make than it looks. Quite likely inspired by classic dacquoise cakes, nutty meringue discs layered with cream, this was made with cocoa meringues layered with chocolate mousse. To decorate the cake thin strips of meringue were cut into short pieces and laid across the outside of the cake. Unusually the cake is then refrigerated for a number of hours, slightly softening the meringue. This not only makes the meringue easier to cut but also helps the two elements meld together to create a cake that is both soft and crisp. You can serve it immediately after assembling it if you prefer, but I think the texture after resting is so much better.

This version is made in the same manner but made with distinctly British flavours of strawberries and cream (Wimbledon is just around the corner after all). When strawberries come into season there is nothing better, so simple desserts, where strawberries are allowed to shine, have my heart, nothing too complicated is needed.

Traditionally the meringue was made by whisking the egg whites with half of the sugar, this portion being caster sugar, and once a stiff meringue is formed the second half of the sugar, in this case icing sugar (and cocoa powder in the original) are folded into the meringue to combine. This helps give the meringue a melt-in-the-mouth texture but it's not strictly necessary, so I skip that step and make a more simple meringue using a slightly unusual but easier technique.

When you think of French meringue I'm sure you would immediately think of the classic method of whisking the egg whites and then slowly raining in the sugar, whisking until stiff peaks form and the sugar is dissolved. If you’ve ever made meringues that weep sugar syrup after they’re baked, you’ll know sometimes it can be slightly tricky dissolving the sugar before the whites have become stiff. To prevent this you can make a cooked meringue, like Swiss or Italian meringue, but this dessert is meant to be simple. So instead, I tried out a technique that is new to me, an all-in-one method I first heard about from La Meringaie bakery in Paris. They add the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar and a little cornstarch and whisk it all together until the meringue holds stiff peaks. Yes you read that right, you simply dump everything together in a bowl and whisk it, for about 8-10 minutes, until a stiff meringue is formed. It breaks all the rules we are taught about making meringue but you know what, it makes excellent meringues. The one addition that might seem strange at first is the cornstarch. Normally added to meringue at the end of mixing, when making a pavlova, it is used here for the same reason as in the Aussie meringue dish. Sugar is hydroscopic, which basically means it is a magnet for water. Cornflour (called cornstarch if you're in North America) added to the meringue helps to absorb any excess water in the meringue helping prevent any weeping in the meringue. This is especially useful in humid environments when weeping is more likely. Because the sugar is also added at the start of the process, this also means that the sugar is guaranteed to be dissolved by the time the meringue forms stiff peaks.

For the filling, I am still keeping things simple and instead of a white chocolate mousse or some elaborate cream filling, I opted for a simple whipped white chocolate vanilla cream. For the second filling, our strawberry element, you can do one of two things, use diced strawberries and keep it super simple or make the strawberry filling I have used below. A thickened strawberry goop is mixed with fresh strawberries to make something that really packs a strong strawberry punch. I will leave the choice up to you but I think the strawberry goop is well worth the little bit of extra effort.