Category: Pastry

What’s the relationship between bombes and pâte à bombe?

VERY perceptive question, reader Camille. Pâte à bombe is of course the delicious base of whipped egg yolks and sugar syrup that’s often used to make chocolate mousse. “Pâte” is variously translated as “dough”, “paste” or “mix.” And “bombe” as we’ve established pretty much just means bomb. I think the only possible explanation is that pâte à bombe is/was a base that’s employed in the making of dessert bombes.

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On the History of Chocolate Mousse

Reader Cora wants to know when chocolate mousse first showed up on the culinary stage. I’m not sure to be honest. However I do know that mousses have been with us since the eighteenth century (or the Century of Foams, as I like to think of it). That was the period when court chefs around Europe, especially in France, discovered the frothing power of eggs — and went wild with it. Those people made foams out of everything: vegetables, meats, fish, you name it.

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What’s a “bomb thrower”?

Reader Carlo, are you trying to get this blog investigated by the DHS? People use the word “bomb thrower” to describe anyone who’s style of political discourse is crude, demagogic or, er…”explosive.” But the term was originally coined in the 1880’s to describe anyone who was an anarchist, most especially an eastern European anarchist. In 1881 a group of Russian anarchists killed Czar Alexander II with a bomb. Just a few years later, in my old hometown of Chicago, the so-called Haymarket Affair occurred, in which anarchists threw a bomb at a group of police who were

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Bombin’ Bernie

Reader Carlo writes:

Here’s something I’ve wondered and I’ll bet you can tell me: why are bombs in cartoons always those round, black things with the fuse sticking out? If an ice cream bombe is supposed to look like one, somebody must have thrown those around at some point in history. Can you tell us when or where? This seems like your sort of question.

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MCA, R.I.P.

Considering how important music is and always has been to me, I don’t comment on it much here on joepastry.com. Today I will because MCA from the Beastie Boys died of cancer over the weekend.

I can’t say the Beastie Boys made a great first impression on me when I heard them in college back in 1986. The whole “Fight for Your Right to Party” thing irritated me. I considered myself both an intellectual and an artist then, an elevated sort of person. All that crass frat-kegger nonsense was beneath me. It wasn’t too many months after I’d graduated that I found myself wishing I’d spent a little more time enjoying my college experience and a little less time cultivating my own personal gravitas.

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Making a Flourless Chocolate Bombe Base

This is actually very much like a sponge cake, though it has no flour whatsoever. It’s just the type of nifty and versatile invention Rose Levy Beranbaum is famous for. Yes it has some steps, but if you’ve made spongecake before it’ll be second nature. Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then prepare your pan. Using two sheets of parchment lay one down on a sheet pan sprayed with cooking spray, but let several inches hang over the edge. Spray the top.

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On Chocolate Glazes

Chris from down under writes:

Can you elaborate on the “standard” recipe that requires precrystallized chocolate?

I certainly can, Chris! Most people who bake and/or make pastry have had the experience of looking into a glass case and seeing lustrous chocolate glazes on tortes, bombes, truffles and the like. Those coatings are nothing more than layers of poured tempered chocolate.

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