As you saw in the last couple of blog posts in my Free Inquiry, I wanted to improve my baking skills but I didn’t really have a question that guided me throughout my research and experimentation. As I became more and more unhappy with my inquiry project and how it didn’t really made sense in my daily life because it forced me to bake recipes that I didn’t necessarily wanted to bake. I also find that most of these French techniques require less trial and error, and more to follow a recipe. So, back at the drawing board.
I am obsessed with Gourmet Makes from Bon Appétit. I absolutely LOVE Claire Saffitz and since she is a gourmet pastry chef, I find her so knowledgeable that she simply inspires me to become my best baker. As I was watching her Youtube series of Gourmet Makes, I had an idea! I could do the same!
Gourmet Makes explained
In Gourmet Makes, Claire Saffitz is given a well-known product from the grocery store and she has to reverse-engineer it and recreate it. She doesn’t have a recipe and she has to create it through testing phases. Since she has a strong baking and cooking background, she knows a lot of techniques and she seems to be able to guess the recipe just by tasting the products.
Her process is always the same: she taste different versions of the product, she reads the ingredient list, she makes a little research on the product, then she forms her hypothesis. She will then try to validate her hypothesis through testing. The testing phase varies from 8 recipes to 40. It can take her from one day to a couple of weeks to successfully replicate a product. It is fascinating how she can achieve such similar products in an artisanal way. I saw her create Sour Patch Kids, Pop Rocks, Twinkies, etc. It is fascinating and it gave me an idea!
I am not a Gourmet Chef, but I am going to make something
I have decided to recreate one of my childhood’s favorite: Ah Caramel! It is a type of tiny cake from Vachon and it is sold in a box in individual portion. It is a classic of every home in Quebec and it is inexpensive fun treat. I grew up eating those and it was the best. After moving out of my parent’s home, I never bought those. But since I moved in British Columbia, I have been craving them like crazy.
The thing is, not every grocery stores here carry them. They can be found at some Thrifty Foods and Walmart, but they are a bit old and quite frankly, they don’t taste as good as I remember them.
So, I have decided to create my own Ah Caramel and try to replicate my childhood favorite! I will research it, reverse-engineer it and try to be as close as possible to the real product.
Ah Caramel! The best Vachon Cake
This idea popped into my head when I saw that Vachon created a contest to find the most favorite cake amongst their products. I obviously voted for the Ah Caramel and I found out that it is the NUMBER 1 cake so far! It is the most voted! So I am definitely not the only one who loves the Ah Caramel!
And for the little anecdote, I heard that this summer there was a shortage of Vachon cakes across Quebec since the factory was in the middle of a flood! So if I can crack their recipes, I will never have a shortage of my favorite Vachon cake!
Let’s see how it goes!
