Thursday 18 February 2010

81 candles on the cake...

Today, 18 February, is the birthday of Len Deighton, inspiration for the Deighton Dossier blog on all things spy fiction.

I'm sure the many readers of his fiction around the world wish him 'Many Happy Returns'.

In his 1989 book The ABC of French Food Deighton has this to say on the subject of how a gourmet should celebrate a birthday:

"Pate a choux is hot-water pastry that is piped into shape while still warm, like icing on to a cake. Best known as the éclair or the profiterole, or cheese-filled appetizers. Such pastry filled puffballs are stuck together with caramel and assembled to become a tall pyramid (the croquembouche) or the St Honoré that was at one time the Frenchman's traditional birthday cake. Now my local patissiere tells me birthdays are celebrated with 'American style' layer cakes."

What's the betting Mrs Deighton's whipping up a St Honoré today?

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