My Adventure With Pat...

That's Crème Pat [not Postman Pat] I have decided that in retirement I want to improve my cooking skills - making classier desserts, and cooking less familiar vegetables etc. One area which fascinates me is French Patisserie. My MIL was Belgian, and extremely gifted in the kitchen - fortunately [like Bob] my daughters have some of her genes and produce fabulous meals. 

Earlier forays into this part of the kitchen have not been altogether successful - my crème patissiere, and crème anglaise have had lumps, caught on the bottom of the pan, or tasted more like the scrambled egg served at breakfast in a seedy Blackpool B&B. This is entirely due to the way I approach the kitchen. I'm an Essex girl, with Jamie's Bish! Bash! Bosh! style of cooking. I'm usually multitasking, with a boiling saucepan, something burning under the grill, a tap running, and I'm listening the the news, and shouting at the radio, and typing a WhatsApp message.  Slow, steady stirring is not my style.

But I am very determined, so I fished out my Rachel Khoo cookbook [she is less bossy than Julia Childs] and set to, with the egg yolks and milk etc. Bob called to me from the lounge. "No, I cannot be disturbed, I am making crème pat" 

Bob actually left the lounge and came through to be amazed at this vision of loveliness- a woman in her best apron standing still in front of the hob, gentle wielding a wooden spoon, and concentrating on one thing alone - a pan of silky primrose-coloured cream.

I did not have the energy to make pâté sucrée - I put the crème pat into little dishes and decorated it with fresh strawberries.

Bob said it definitely did not taste of scrambled egg, and was very positive. I think I need to work on it a little more - but I am getting there. 

Not so much crème pâtissière so much as crème patience, I think!

Rachel Khoo is married now, and has two young sons. She lives in Scandinavia. Her husband [how cool is this?] is Robert Wiktorin, the celebrated Swedish Chef