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Jacques Génin Caramels are Like No Other Caramel

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Back in 2011, I became friends with the author of a phenomenal Paris pastry blog called Paris Patisseries, a site that reviews pastries from all the best pastry shops in Paris.  Obviously right up my alley.

When the blog author, Adam, was living in Paris, he ate pastries every day.  Every. Day.  All day every day.  Clearly this is my kind of people.  He made my pastry eating patterns look miniscule and insignificant, which I greatly appreciated.  He is indeed a human wonder of pastry consumption, and he was obsessed with the Jacques Genin pastries. And Jacques Genin chocolates.

And of course, Jacques Genin caramels.

Jacques Genin caramels

Adam refers to Jacques simply as “The Master”.

On occasion, Adam the pastry guru and I would meet up for lunch. And by lunch, I mean pastry lunch. It was supreme pastry overindulgence at a lunchtime hour.

Before we met for the first time, I tried to make it clear that I was not a lightweight and would be getting multiple pastries, if not the entire pastry case, just to let him know that I was in his eating league and not one of these “Oh I couldn’t possibly! I’m watching my figure” kind of girl.  Oh, I’m watching my figure.  Watching it get larger and larger by the day.  Nay, by the hour.

Our first pastry lunch took place at Jacques Genin’s beautiful Marais boutique.

jacques genin pastries

The server’s eyes got bigger and bigger as Adam continued our pastry order: This…and this…one of these…and this-and-this-and-this…6 of these, and 8 of those.  Do people normally only get one or two?

I feel sorry for those people.  With their tiny tables and their one pastry.  I tried not to cheer and roll around on the floor in a fit of blissful excitement as he kept listing what we would be having.

We started off with a teapot full of thick and creamy hot chocolate, followed by the 6 pastries: chocolate éclair, caramel éclair, lemon tart, raspberry tart, vanilla flan, and St. Honoré, as well as 6 caramels and 6 pâte de fruits.

Jacques Genin pates de fruits
Soft pureed fruit in candy form. To describe it as a jellied candied would be blasphemy because they are above such a term.
We ended with what Jacques Genin is famous for, his melt-in-your-mouth, holy-cow-how-is-this-possible, I-can-hardly-even-call-it-a-caramel-without-being-insulting-to-the-greatness-in-my-mouth caramels.
Jacques Genin Caramels
The first time you have a Jacques Genin caramel goes a little something like this: Cherubs start fluttering around the room playing flutes & harps, flowers bloom out of the floor, a symphony fills the air as a rainbow comes through the window, and a unicorn gallops down it to ask if you’ve ever had something so delightful, to which you respond, “No, of course I haven’t”.
We each had a macadamia nut caramel, a ginger caramel, and a mango passion fruit caramel.
You cannot – I repeat – you cannot miss having a Jacques Genin caramel while in Paris. I recommend getting the “nature” and the mango passion fruit at a bare minimum.
There was a point in the pastry lunch where the sugar high really kicked in, and I just felt kind of dizzy and like I just wanted to start giggling for no reason.  Weeeee.
Jacques Genin chocolates

After consuming about 70 euros worth of master pastry creations, we walked a good 45 minutes to the 6th (which I’m sure worked off the table of pastries, liquid chocolate, caramels & candy).  Where does one go after consuming a massive pastry lunch?

Gym? Weight Watchers? Park? Water store?

We stopped at yet another pastry shop, Un Dimanche à Paris (for dessert, duh). We had two thick pudding-like hot chocolates, a strawberry tart, and two espressos.

Cleary Adam became my favorite person that year.  Anyone who suggests following a massive pastry lunch with more hot chocolate & pastry was bound to be a friend for life.

Do not miss the caramels. They are worth flying to Paris for. And get one to six pastries while you’re there, too.

Jacques Genin
Address: 133 Rue de Turenne, 75003 Paris, France
Phone:+33 1 45 77 29 01
http://www.jacquesgenin.fr/fr/

Hours:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday-Sunday: 11am-7pm
Open until 8pm on Saturday.

Second boutique in the 7th:
27 rue de varenne – 7ème
+33 (0)1 53 71 72 21

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Comments

  3. Ariana Lightningstorm says

    I also recommend the chocolate bars that he does – try the ones that are using “in season” ingredients and also he works amazingly well with peanuts. Since I can’t get those caramels unless I’m in France, I had to try to make them at home. I got a recipe that is pretty close. It isn’t the heavens opening up but I did have a friend tell me after giving him one of my versions of that caramel that he had just had an orgasm (we were at a restaurant). I also have a recommendation for you on chocolate chaud, should you be going to Leon, France. Go to La Bernachon and get their hot chocolate. As far as I know they only sell it in the colder months – they have ice cream in the warmer months. It’s, literally, the best chocolate chaud that I’ve ever had in my life. Not even Angelina’s is as awesome.

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