A Tale of 3 puds!

Food and drink is about as important as it gets in France! Summertime is for al fresco eating, followed by a game of boules or just lounging around with a glass or two of wine....but summer is taking its time to get here this year!
A phonecall from friends on holiday in the south of France (it was raining there, too!) asked that we meet up and have lunch. No amount of persuasion that 'France is a huge country and the journey will take hours' would stop them from arranging that we all meet up at 'Chez Paul' in Angouleme! This meant a 11/4 hour drive for us, and nearly 3 hours for them!
Making the most of the outing we set off early in order to do some shopping. Angouleme has some beautiful stylish shops in the town centre...but we headed for that cheap & cheerful DIY extravaganza....Bricodepot! We had a list as long as your arm, and fully expected to have to move on to Castorama, Leroy Merlin or Mr. Bricolage, but  we were in luck and managed to get it all at the first stop!
I hadn't given Kim particularly good instructions to get to the restaurant...'follow city centre' signs and keep driving uphill, past the Mairie and 'Palais de Justice' and park in the 'Place'..but keep texting to keep in touch!
The first message said...running late by about 30 minutes...and so we had plenty of time to peruse the area for ourselves. We did a lap of the city centre before looking for a parking space. At 1pm there was no spare space outside the  restaurant...but plenty in the multi-story car park. We window-shopped (I love looking in 'chocolatierie') our way from the car to '8,Place Francis Louvel' and started to text the address to Kim so that she could put it in her sat-nav. It was a grey day..but no rain, and not too cold...and we sat outside for about 15 minutes, trying to work out which direction our friends would be coming from. We were looking for a green car, so were taken by surprised when we saw 3 ladies rushing up from the opposite corner of the square. Shouts & hugs and kisses and we went inside the restaurant.
1.40pm is quite late for people to arrive for lunch in France, but fortunately Chez Paul serves lunches until 2.15. Usually one orders from the 'Menu du jour', but  we decided to go 'a la carte'...Geoff went for rump steak & chips, Kim for ox cheek in red wine with mash, and  Sue, Helen & I chose the chicken escalopes  with lemon risotto.  On previous visits I've always drunk Perrier water and refused a dessert. The slimming diet is not going so well at the moment...and I had a glass of red wine and 'cafe liegeois'. This proved to be 2 balls of coffee ice-cream and 1 of vanilla, covered with squirty cream and coffee syrup, and served in a smart boat-shaped dish. The others had similar puds! In fact, a tad dissappointing!
 Two nights later Geoff & I were invited to dinner with our English neighbours at Beauregard farm. Dinner parties are a popular form of winter entertainment amongst the English and the French. The wine, and other forms of alcohol, flows and the food...often plain, but frequently quite lavish is plentiful (..and always ruins my diet!) Friday was no exception....Jacki had done us proud!
There were 7 of us around the table.We started with a 'bubbly' aperitif...the starter was a seafood dish. 'Canard aux cerises', with roast winter veg and red cabbage was the yummy main course. This was served with a Bordeaux wine... a Pomerol from....Chateau Beauregard!!...which Keith, Jacki's Dad had picked up during a trip to Bordeaux vineyards and contributed to the night's meal! Classy or what?
A rather splendid cheeseboard followed. In France the cheese is served before the pud.
And then...la piece de la resistance!
Pud was a mixture of assorted pots of strawberry and/or chocolate. On top of a large square plate was a shot-glass containing strawberry sorbet, with a dash of pineau, a small dish of chocolate mousse, a vanilla tuille, a tiny chocolate gateau and a tiny fluted dish of creme anglais. In the middle of all this was a large strawberry lightly dusted with icing sugar!
It was a work of art... and a triumph of watching umpteen rounds of ' Masterchef'... and I'm pretty sure the afore-mentionned restaurant would have been proud to have served the dish themselves!
So, this got me thinking! I am a rustic cook...certainly not a Masterchef contestant! I watch cookery programmes with interest and browse through recipe books and, as the ingredients required were already in the cupboard, decided to attempt an  apple & toffee pud.
We'd invited Alan & Sue for Sunday roast supper. They have just got back to their French holiday cottage, where they'll stay for the summer and were bringing us some English shopping. Just the 4 of us...and nothing too grand!
The only thing growing in the garden at the moment is the asparagus, so we started with  a rose wine  and smoked salmon & asparagus quiche. Roast lamb followed...with a fitou wine (under 3 euros from Lidl,or possibly Netto...but it had been awarded a goldmedal!).
We gave the cheese a miss...but then there was my 'masterpiece'!!!
2 days of research into apple and toffee recipes & the pud was thus:-
On a wide-rimmed round bowl I placed a warm  mini apple sponge. This was a fairy cake with apple slices at the base...& turned out, upside-down on the plate. I poured a toffee sauce over it. To one side of this was a fan-shaped arrangement of translucent apple cooked in dark brown sugar syrup. On the other side was a mini cinnamon panatone. all was lightly dusted with icing sugar!
How did it compare with Jacki's pud? Not as posh! All the little pots & serving dishes really make the display. They control the portion size and dictate the number of components.
My cinnamon panattone was delicious...but making it in a small teacup & turning it out onto the serving dish....it was too big & took up too much space. The toffee apple gateaux was ok,but creme anglaise might have been preferable to toffee sauce. Perhaps then a toffee syrup 'cheffy' swirl across the plate would have tied the components together.
I might attempt to refine the pud...but first must acquire the relevant crockery!
Come & B&B with with us, dine 'table d'hote' with us.....and you may be able to see how I'm getting on with it!
Meanwhile I have to face the scales at 'Slimmercise' in 2 days time! Help!