“La Chandeleur without a lot of pancakes, it’s not La Chandeleur”, launches Jeffrey Cagnes with malice. And that’s good because it takes three to compose his ” thousand holes crepe “.
Prepared from a mixture of flour and fine semolina, yeast and just a hint of sugar and salt, the pastry chef garnishes them with praline and crushed hazelnuts before inviting his customers to come and taste them. “à la minute”, that is to say all hot, between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. from today Wednesday until Sunday, in its brand new Parisian boutique at 73, rue de Montorgueil (2nd).
Two yeasts rather than one
Former pastry chef of Thoumieux and StohrerJeffrey Cagnes summoned his Moroccan origins to hand over the baghrir, this specialty of up-to-date Berber pancakes. These are the two yeasts used, chemical and bakery, which give it its soft consistency and its appearance full of small holes indeed.
The two yeasts, which make the dough swell, are in fact responsible for the small bubbles in the preparation which will become holes in the dough deposited in the pan. Hence the popular name of “thousand-hole pancakes”. But how does he, this pastry genius, make us salivate so much? You can just watch him do it (the video is made for that), but you can also rush into the kitchen…
The preparation of the thousand holes pastry
In a first container: Mix 90 g flour with 225 g fine wheat semolina. Add 1 sachet of baking powder, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
In another container, mix 5 g baker’s yeast in 10 cl of lukewarm water. Leave to stand for 7 to 10 minutes, the yeast will begin to “foam”.
Mix the two preparations and add 45 cl of water while beating. Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until the consistency of thick pancake batter. Pour the mixture into a bowl, cover and let stand for about 30 minutes. The dough is ready. Take out your spread and your roasted hazelnuts.
Two pancakes and a donut to enclose the praline
To cook the pancakes, butter (barely) a small pancake pan, cook a ladle of batter over low heat without turning the pancake, small holes will form as it cooks. Repeat the process until there is no more dough.
For the assembly, take a pancake and detail its interior with a cookie cutter in order to empty it of its heart and keep only the edge in the shape of a ring or “donut”.
On the skillet over low heat, place a whole pancake and run raw dough over the edges to stick the “donut” pancake. Add praline spread and a few hazelnuts, raw dough again on the edges then cover with a second whole pancake. Leave to cook for a few seconds until the dough sticks well and the praline melts a little, remove it from the heat, slice your assembly in half and enjoy. A delight !