Sweet Eats :: The one & only...Bernachon

If this display of chocolate confections makes you go "Whooaaaa!", then you should have seen my face when I saw it for real! Look at the ruffles on those cakes...how do they do that?! This amazing display is at Bernachon in Lyon, where the hubbie & I visited while in France last year. Bernachon is a world-famous family-run chocolate house, started by Maurice Bernachon in the 1950's. They make their chocolate from scratch, from roasting and grinding the raw cocoa beans to the final goodies you see above. It was a must-stop for us because their Lyon store is the only one in the world. Their stuff is so special they only stock their chocolate in one store in Paris...the amazing A L'Etoile D'Or run by the eccentric Denise Acabo, a lady in her fifties who dresses like a schoolgirl!

We thought we'd splurge and have afternoon tea in the adjacent tea salon first, appropriately named Bernachon Passion. Along with some tea, we chose a plate of 4 petit-fours, where a man came around with a tray and we picked the ones we wanted. Oh, to have to choose! We eventually decided on a mini coffee eclair, lemon tart, almond tart and a pistachio macaroony thing. They were divine, especially the eclair! I'm a sucker for those...

Afterwards, we headed next door to the store where there was a vast array of chocolates and pastries on display. Bernachon is most well known for some chocolates called palet d'ors, made with fresh cream, dark chocolate and topped with flecks of gold leaf. Well, since we had indulged already, we bought a couple of chocolates to take away (some delicious nutty toffee numbers) along with a bag of cocoa powder...a steal at around 5 euros for a 250g bag...especially when I later saw it in the above-mentioned Parisian store for 11 euros!!

I decided long ago not to be too precious about the goodies I buy from overseas. Now that I am the recipient of Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts book, there's no shortage of things to make with my Bernachon cocoa. So with it I made this Italian panforte, a rich and chewy cake made with spices, honey, cocoa, fruit and nuts that is sliced thinly and served with coffee. For this particular one, I used glace figs, pears and apricots and roasted hazelnuts and almonds. It was my first time making this & it tasted dense, chewy and sweet...great in small doses, so you don't feel bad having more!

I made it for the Christmas in July dinner my mum recently had. For those not in the know, this is an excuse by some of us Aussies to do Christmas again, cos we're usually sweltering in the summer heat at Christmas....far too hot to stomach all that rich and heavy food typical of a wintry Christmas! So there we were gorging on roast pork, glazed ham, duck...followed by a line up of desserts including my sliced up panforte, Christmas pudding and mum's fruit mince pies:

Something tells me I don't need to work on my winter fat stores anymore...thank goodness the warmer months are on their way! N

Bernachon
42, cours Franklin-Roosevelt
69006 Lyon
T: 04 78 24 37 98
Open: Tues-Sat 8.30am-7pm, Sun 8am-5pm
Tues-Sat 9am-6.15pm (Bernachon Passion)

A L'Etoile D'Or
30 rue Fontaine
75009 Paris
T: 01 48 74 59 55