Dec. 2025
Helaine Ortmann
“What is your love language?” my friend asked, a seemingly random question in our conversation. Or, maybe it was because I was sharing, at great length, the details of the desserts I had made in honour of a visit from my husband’s family, eager to pull out all the stops and prepare something special for them: Chocolat Marquise and Gâteau Basque.
I thought for a moment. In my working life, my love language had been time. Being fully present, listening deeply, offering up my expertise to meet needs or respond to requests. Time was my gift and I was humbled to share it, in abundance and without reserve. Now?
“Hospitality,” I answered; remembering what it was like to grow up with parents who shared generously with family and friends. Where more meant more; where it would have been a shanda for someone to leave the table hungry; where, after a sumptuous supper of gefilte fish, chicken soup with lokshen or rice, challah, stuffed peppers, breaded chicken and brisket, vegetables, and a number of desserts, my mother might end the meal with the shriek that she forgot to put out the corn on the cob, still simmering in the pot on the stove.
Of the many genes I inherited from my parents, hospitality is surely one of the most dominant. When I invite family and friends to our house, I search out recipes, weeks in advance, that in terms of taste, presentation and effort, let my guests know they are important to me.
I’ve come to rely on a diverse group of cooks and bakers like Bonnie, Ina, Sally, Sivan, Ruhama, Rose, Noreen, and Audrey; reading and rereading their cookbooks, or watching and rewatching their videos on Instagram; paying close attention to their instructions, notes, tips, and reviews. I thrill to recipes that challenge me, and perhaps foolhardily, that I try for the first time then serve to my company.
Which brings me back to the Chocolat Marquise: a “mousse-meets-fudge” dessert (her words not mine) refrigerated or frozen in the shape of a loaf. Who would dare say no to Audrey, a French-born-and-bred cookbook author who purports to make French cooking easy and stipulates a list of ingredients that includes the best quality 70 per cent dark bittersweet chocolate, eggs at least three to four days old, and, good-quality European butter, noch?
All well and good, until she made it clear that la Marquise would not be amused or successful if you mixed even a hint of egg yolk into the egg white. Six eggs later, I was beside myself with separation anxiety. Cupping my palm to cradle the yolks and let the whites ooze out of my fingers did not work. I returned to my decades-old practice of cracking the shells then transferring the yolks back and forth, letting the whites fall between the shell halves. Not perfect, but it did the trick. Bashert it was, a week after re-enacting my “I Love Lucy-like” episode to my friend Michele, that she surprised me with a stainless steel egg separator. “Who knew?” I said, as she rolled her eyes.
On to the Gâteau Basque, “halfway between a cake and a pie;” I rolled out the crusts, using yet more European butter with two organic eggs plus two egg yolks (sans separator). I made the cream filling, continuously hand whisking the butter and whole milk over medium heat, followed by a splash of rum. Petrified I would burn the filling, I stopped stirring when I thought it reached the “thin” pudding consistency Audrey had described in word and image.
I flipped the bottom crust into the prepared pan, poured the pastry cream over, then lowered in the top crust. It was then that Vesuvius erupted, a much too loose and liquidy cream overflowing the shallow tart pan, cascading in rivulets down three sets of kitchen drawers to pool on the floor. Mitten drinnen, the top crust sank and disappeared into the filling. Merde!
Somewhat daunted, I baked and served the Gâteau Basque as it was: delicious but without its golden egg wash and elegant crosshatch pattern on top. Not one to shy away from comedy or drama, I regaled my husband’s family with the backstories to these two desserts.
Anyway, in the end, all you really need is love, non?
