Some people have very stopped ideas that nuclear will save France from the energy crisis or a French team amputated from Karim Benzema could not win the World Cup. Others have equally strong convictions in terms of blank.
What is a good blank? Schools compete on this burning subject: supporters of a soft and creamy device, a crème brûlée, on one side; defenders of a more solid, almost gelatinous texture, on the other. Should the dough be broken or puff pastry? Some heretics do without the sides, approaching the tenuous limit with the FAR. And if we ever agree on the structure, we can always quarrely on tastes: blue vanilla from Reunion, Tahiti or Madagascar? A flan that would contain praline, coffee or orange blossom still deserves its name?
In France, holy country of the blank, where you can find specimens to your taste everywhere, there is still a way to come across very good surprises. That day, in front of the minimalist storefront of the new pastry Pages Blanches, boulevard de Courcelles, near Parc Monceau in Paris, it is first a tart in the shape of a Marguerite which attracts our attention through the large bay windows. But once inside the boutique with immaculate whiteness, the eye stops on a plate of identical and monochrome cakes, a powerful green evoking a spring grass.
The object of lust turns out to be a matcha flan, this very fine powder of ground green from Asia. The name of this pastry open in early 2022, white pages, did not suggest anything, but the head of the establishment, Kaori Akazawa, is Japanese. Abandoning the pie-flower, we give in to the curiosity to taste this flan with perfect proportions, plump but not too much, where matcha forms a promising velvet coat on the upper part.
installed at one of the wooden tables of the establishment, we give a first fork, which sinks without resistance. The cake is to be stored on the side of the creamy devices, and its shortcrust pastry is remarkable. On the palate, the bitterness of the Matcha powder shakes as we hoped. But the sweetness of the interior creamy immediately calms down the game, and bring the promised comfort. The shortcrust pastry comes to reinforce. The tension between the confusing flavor of Kyoto’s matcha and the familiarity of French pastry creates an osmosis, so perfect that we have soon finished the part.
If we are still so ambivalent on the need for Karim Benzema in the French team, we come out with a certainty: this flan is one of the best that we have ever tasted.