“Work at school, otherwise you’ll end up being a pastry chef”. On Merouan’s cap, the message is clear and the appeal obvious. The cake he will concoct for the 20th anniversary of 20 minutes will be called… 20/20. “I have never had such a note in my life, even by cheating” admits the former Top chef (2019 season), since then regularly invited to take part in juries for pastry or bakery shows. A cake made up of a layer of gianduja ganache between two shortbread biscuits from Nantes, all round… to really look like a birthday cake?
“It’s a product that we already make with another visual, nuance Merouan. We do it in the form of smileys, with a happy smiley, not happy, surprised, in love… It depends on the occasion. And there, to mark the 20th anniversary of 20 minutes, we didn’t need to think very long to get into this idea of 20/20. “A recipe to taste when leaving the Panade Bakery, which Merouan opened on October 19, 2021 in Paris in the 15th arrondissement. But that you can also do at home. “What’s good about this recipe are the salt crystals that crunch under the tooth and which contrast the praline of the gianduja,” says the young pastry chef. And the good softened butter which serves as a base for the shortbread and which Merouan is not stingy with. “It’s a birthday, we can have fun: more butter than harm!” “, spear the expert in food pairings and valves who already dreams of the future. “Well yeah I have lots of dreams. Afterwards, between dreams and realities, there are many kilometers. It’s not easy, but yeah, I would like to open my restaurant. And then another shop, another Panade, the little sister… In Corsica perhaps or another in Paris. But hey, you already have to do this one and prove yourself here before you want to look elsewhere…”
The ingredients for a score of 20/20:
For the shortbread: 500 g soft butter, 160 g icing sugar, 8 g fleur de sel, 1 egg yolk, 455 g flour, 25 g cornstarch
For the ganache: 20 cl of full liquid cream, 225 g of gianduja.
Preparation of the shortbread: Place the butter in a bowl. Add the icing sugar. Mix until you obtain a creamy and homogeneous consistency. Then add the flour, cornstarch and fleur de sel. Remix to obtain a sandy consistency. Pour an egg yolk and mix to bind together. Work the dough quickly with the palm of your hand without sweating the butter. Reserve the dough for an hour and a half in the fridge to harden before rolling it out with a rolling pin. Cut out discs of dough with a cookie cutter and bake them at 160°C for 15-20 minutes.
Preparation of the ganache: Heat the cream on one side and melt the gianduja on the other. Pour the hot cream over the gianduja in batches and whisk until you obtain an emulsion like mayonnaise. Leave to cool for a few hours in the fridge. Pour into a piping bag. Take two shortbread cookies, pipe the ganache on one of them and assemble.