On J’s birthday, before feeding the towering ego that is Bob Dylan at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, we popped in Ryowa for steamy ramen.  (To ponder: why butter corn?  I tried to find out how such un-Japanese ingredients became a popular ramen broth, but all I learned is it’s a Kit Kat flavor too.)

I made a fall-ish fig tart to celebrate. Crème chibouste is pastry cream that has been lightened with meringue. This one’s amber-colored because I caramelized the sugar for the custard and steeped a cinnamon stick and a little nutmeg in it. It’s more common to see pastry cream mixed with whipping cream as a filler for tarts, eclairs, etc., but chibouste sets up more firmly. (Of course you can add gelatin to either.)  The texture is airier and spongier than the creamy kind—kind of like a soufflé—and it takes well to torching.

Chibouste is also called Crème St. Honoré, after a horrendous classic cake made of puff pastry piped with caramelized balls of cream puff dough, filled with a stupid amount of chibouste, and topped off with mounds of whipped cream. St. Honoré is the patron saint of pastry, and this monstrosity is still common to find in French bakeries. I saw it plenty in Italy too, and actually it went over well in East Memphis. (I worked with grads of Lenôtre, the grandpère of exquisitely formal, insanely complicated cake making.)

I like to think St. H would take a rustic fruit tart any day. Figs and raspberries are a killer combo, but you could give apples or pears the same treatment.