At Home with Pierre Herme: Time for Dessert!

If you were having dinner chez Pierre Herme, the world-famous pastry chef, what would you expect to get for dessert?

Bet that whatever you guessed, you guessed wrong. 

When we finished our dinner, the table was re-set for dessert with brightly colored glass plates and adorable little sporks (spoons with one forkish side).  Then the chef brought out a big tray stacked high with:

Boxes of his ice cream!

Just seeing the boxes made us feel like kids at the best birthday party ever.  We all grabbed containers, opened them lickety-split, took scoops and politely put them on our plates.  But a couple of spoonfuls later, the plates were forgotten and we were passing the boxes up, down and across the table and double-dipping like mad.  It was great fun, but it was only the beginning. 

When all the ice cream was gone, out came dozens of macarons!

In addition to knowing everything there is to know about pastry, Pierre knows a lot about how to make his friends happy – really happy.

PS: Just in case you were wondering, among the ice-cream flavors we had were:

• Ispahan: Litchi and rose sorbet with raspberries
• Caramel au Beurre Sale: Caramel ice cream made with salted butter
• Plentitude: Chocolate ice cream with flecks of chocolate and fleur-de-sel
• Satine: Orange, passion fruit and cream cheese
• Montebello: Pistachio ice cream with strawberry sorbet

Comments

[Laura at Blame It on Paris]

How fun!! What a wonderful way to end the meal. I hope you had left plenty of room for dessert!

[ParisBreakfasts]

What a perfect finish!
I hope those ice creams aren't just a summer thing at PH...
Something to look forward to in the Fall.
Thanks Dorie!

[Tanya]

Hi Dorie,

First, let me thank you for your guidance on baking pans which i intend to buy in Paris

http://www.doriegreenspan.com/dorie_greenspan/2007/06/greenskeeping.html#comments

initially i was thinking to buy pans fr. Mora, but can say conincidently , ( yup! becoz of rain, we were standing for shelter next to Dehillerin.) we purchased lovely baking pans along with copper utensils fr. DDehillerin.

As for PH, every afternoon( we were in Paris only :( for 6 days) we were queing up for macarons. my fav. offcourse Isapahan and next wld be Carrement Chocolate.

thanks Dorie for lovely advise ( not only thru UR books but thru UR webby oso!)

Keep it Up!!!

[Tartelette]

I can leave this world happy now...Pierre totally rocks...as if I did not laready know that...What a incredible time you must have had!

[eva]

ISPAHAN est mon parfum préféré ! Il a également préparé un dessert glacé Ispahan que j'ai goûté au nouveau Café Very dans le Jardin des Tuileries ... un délice !

[michelle]

Ha! After visiting his boutique, that is exactly what I would have predicted for dessert! Wonderful on both counts...

[brilynn]

Your adventures always sound so surreal. Who actually has dinner with Pierre Herme and has him serve his own ice cream and macaroons?? It's like a fairytale...

[Martha]

Dorie, that sounds fantastic! I just had my breakfast but now I'm ready to get on a plane and have some (okay, a lot!) of Pierre Herme ice cream and macarons! Thanks for posting this!

[peabody]

Oh, I would be all over the salted caramel ice cream. I have been eating Fran's smoked salted caramels this whole week.

[Dorie]

Good catch Mmm -- Mosaic is pistachio ice cream with griotte (tart cherry)sorbet and bits of griottes. Another amazing flavor combo.

[Mmm]

Hey -- you didn't mention "mosaic." Until I enlarged the photo and saw a box so labelled, I thought mosaic must be the same as the assorted-color leftover paper we used to sell in my print shop as "tutti frutti." So -- it's not tutti frutti and it's certainly not Neapolitan, so what is it?

[Maria]

Sounds like the perfect dessert! I hope you got to taste all the flavors! And he topped it off with macarons??? What a great night!!

[jo jo]

what an awesome dessert ... ALL his ice cream flavors ....followed by his macarons .... drool ....

[fanny]

Hmmmm. Yesterday I couldn't help and had to dip my spoon into the only box of icecream that was left in my freezer - mosaic. One of my favourites I think.

Love xxx
- fanny

ps. nice crop of the picture ;)

[RuthWells]

Words fail me!!! Sounds like my idea of heaven.

[Robyn]

Wow...

I am all kinds of jealous! Those boxes of ice cream are like the extreme grown-up version of those little round single-serving vanilla and chocolate ice cream containers you'd eat at parties as a kid. ;)

I'm glad Pierre Herme is adept at making his friends super happy; that happiness-inducing power is in all his pastries, methinks.

[sam]

Double dipping never sounded better