As someone who is certifiably paste/dough challenged, I found that miraculous! Would sort of be sad to cut into it . . . but fun nonetheless. My French is rusty, but I think it is some kind of marzipan thing??

L, my French is probably rustier than yours, having only taken a single year of French in early high school, but I THINK it's a pastry crust, formed in a mold and then applied. Not because I understand the French, but because it looks more like pastry to me. Maybe.....

Annie

It's pastry...and once she got the idea she had a 3 D printer reproduce the rose window and then made a silicone mold and used a very soft pastry to make it. Actually a cigarette pastry is more like a filo dough....like those filo rolls that look like cigarettes.

Maybe she used one of those Cricut machines and a pattern she drew/downloaded/uploaded ? Very pretty and like LindaC said, it's pastry.

It's the traditional Galette des Rois, with almond cream filling on top of puff pastry. It's made for the Feast of the Three Kings, January 6. She flavored the almond cream with grilled cinnamon sticks and also added some pieces of roasted almonds. Cigarettes are those cookies in that shape, made from a thin batter that spreads on the baking sheet and rolled up before they harden.

As for "I vectorized the rosette" that's not clear to me in any language.

Convert a jpg image into a vectorized image so it can be printed.

Beautiful... I agree with lpinkmountain, I would find it hard to cut into it and destroy the artistry!

But what does "vectorized" mean? I know what "vector" means, but not in this context.

Quick search and I believe it means storing the image as equations/vectors so that it can be scaled without distortion, unlike pixels.

Thanks FOAS. I have to find out more about how that works, and how images are enlarged without vectoring. Anyway, the galette is amazing! How cool that pastry chefs can use tech to make such beautiful things.

For many years there have been two kinds of digital drawings, vector and raster. I've used both for graphic design work. Simplistically, raster is for pixel drawings which you draw with a "brush" or "pen" tool. A vector drawing is precise, like drafting, with lines, geometric shapes, inflection points, nodes, etc. Closed vector shapes can be filled to create a drawn look, but it's all math. Scaling--changing size--of a vector drawing just does the math and you get a perfect rendition. You can also adjust the line thickness, opacity, etc.

Scaling a raster image requires an editing algorithm (which is built into your program). It removes similar colored pixels to shrink it, and doubles and twins pixels to guess at enlarging it. That's how blowing up little drawings gets "pixelated". Similarly, shrinking removes a lot of detail and shading and can become blurry.

Using a vector drawing of the rose window the chef was able to get a very fine and accurate rendition on a small scale. Standard 3D printing uses precision jets to add dots of molten plastic precisely according to the design. As Linda said (thanks! My French was insufficient too), having printed the shape, she was able to make a mold around it. That is, the printed shape was what she wanted to reproduce in pastry, and the mold was made to be like the regular candy and baking molds you can buy.

I think this is a great meeting of art, artisanship and tech. :)

Thanks for posting, CC!

That can very easily be done. CNC machining is so common today.

Or laser cutting. You can find extremely intricate cut-out art work done on greeting cards.

dcarch

I love watching them cut rafters on CNC machines on TV!

I think making a mold off a 3D print pattern is the best and easiest choice for this. And cheapest. One cool thing that's been available for about a decade is a 3D pen. Same plastic threads as the printers, but you can draw in three dimensions one drop at a time, for the opposite of mathematically precise. :) (Actually, it's a lot like drawing with a very fine round icing tip, but without the squeezing).

My French is rusty

So is hers apparently, if she thought rois meant rose. ;)

(j/k)

LOL!! The article is about king cake (galette des rois) for those who didn't get FOAS's joke. I was intrigued, however, so looked up how to say rose window, and it's the same word as for rosette: rosace (according to Google).

It's a lovely tradition. The cake always comes with a gold cardboard crown and inside, is a little china character...it could ge a character from a film like Frozen, or something more traditional.

The youngest child has to get under the table. The cake is cut, and the child says who must get each slice,...he /she can't see the slices....the person who gets the china object wears the crown for the day.

Unfortunately, it's not only eaten on the 6th.....it's during the whole month of January.....not when most people want all those extra calories lol

Thanks for the explanation, Plllog. Cool stuff. I have to look up some videos.

A rose window king's cake? Hmmm.
There are many traditions associated with Epiphany /12th night.
In my town there is a group that meets for food and drink, traditionally onion soup and chili, ties wishes for the new year onto the now defunct Christmas tree and lights into a blaze. You always remove your shoes when attending and upon leaving there is a little candy in each shoe. There is a King's cake ( albeit not as lovely as this one) and a kitty, and the person who gets the kitty has to host next year's party.
I think we have mixed many traditions...LOL!

The Kings Cake is beautiful; and I've enjoyed reading about the Epiphany traditions.

now defunct Christmas tree

Off topic question - should Christmas decorations come down today or tomorrow. Today seems premature, tomorrow seems like I’d be missing three helpers.

Back on topic - looking to see if she reinvented the wheel, but the only molds I’m finding are Springerle. This one is pretty!

Tomorrow. January 6.

My Christmas decorations come down tomorrow too. 12th night needs to be pretty!!!

So I guess the almond paste was what made me think the topping was marzipan.

I can see how one could get a flat image of the window on paper, but to transfer that to a mold or pastry die cutter, one would have to have a machine that makes such things . . . at one's disposal. I've seen molds and dies already made, but I don't know anyone who has a machine to make them in their business. The only machine I ever saw like that was in the "makers lab" at the community college where I worked.

I’m wondering if it’s one layer or two. The overlapped intersections took too perfect to me, to be one. Could be wrong.

FOAS, there are definitely two layers of dough, but I think it could be one mold. If I remember right, the dough was rolled into canes. The large loops and center are one layer, and the bigger rosette outside of the center circle and all the radiating edging are the other layer.

L, this kind of 3D printer is actually pretty accessible. Someone near you probably has one. The question is whether you'd have to network to get access or if someone has one for public use. These printers can also be used with foodstuffs rather than plastic, with the correct bits. The author might have had one of those available, and might have even used a food product for the model. Making silicone molds is easy and doesn't require specialized equipment.

I thought I remembered and just checked - my public library has one. You can use their computers and software, which they’ll help you with, and then they’ll print for the cost of the printing filament. Pretty neat!

FOAS, my small town library also has one, and they have classes and you can make an appointment to use it. I haven't, because I haven't figured out anything I want to make with a 3D printer, but they have one. They also have a seed library, you can "check out" garden seeds, they only ask that you donate some back, and you can check out canning equipment like pressure canners. I think libraries are trying hard to keep people coming in, so many people don't pick up a book, they all use electronic devices....

Annie

Plllog, where do you see that it's "rolled into canes"?

I think it's one layer.

Looking again I’m gonna go with one layer. The bottoms of the major and minor details all seem to be on the same plane.

CC, it's definitely too layers. Look at the picture close up on a big (computer) screen. Maybe it's my art training that sees it, but if you look at the center circle and the loops radiating from it, you can clearly see that they're sitting on top of the rest of the rosette. As I said, it may be in one mold or two, but it's constructed in two layers. The "rolled into canes" was my interpretation of what was said, and might be wrong, but it also looks like what's there. It's more even than I'd guess would be from just pushing the soft dough into silicone would be, but I could be totally wrong there. It's also what I would think to do, which could be very misleading, but it is what I think happened.

I think it's one layer that looks like two. Beautifully producing the different depths of the stone tracery of the south rose.

To make it in two layers you'd take the image and digitally split it into its apparent different planes (I guess that could be done.) So you would make two silicone molds. You pour the batter into each mold. The "cigarette" batter is what's used for tuiles: very thin, will fill the mold, and dries very hard. Then you have the problem of assembling them and fusing the top layer to the bottom. It wouldn't make sense to do that.

CC, that's why I said I thought it was probably made in a single mold. I stand by the two layers, however. Also, the joins are all straight, which is so much easier in a single mold. There are two layers within it, however. Actually, the alignment of the top layer isn't 100% perfect, but that could be in the mold, and the original structure.

Yeah, the scientist in me wants to see the whole process! But the foodie in me just loves to oggle the finished project!

If you look at the second picture of the pie in side view, you can see the crust is very stiff and flat and cannot be pastry.

I think it may be almond flavored candy, digital CNC machine cut, in two layers.

dcarch

.

Translation courtesy of Google. Linda gave the same info up topic. The baker said what she did, so why do you think it was otherwise? "To achieve this result, Nina Métayer “had fun” reproducing the real rose window of Notre-Dame. “I used a 3D printer to prototype the lace. I vectorized the rosette and I printed it. I then made a mold with edible silicone. And it's a cigarette dough that gives the crispness, ”explains the pastry chef.

"There is also a AOC Charente-Poitou butter puff pastry and a slightly revisited frangipane. “I caramelized the sugar and roasted cinnamon sticks which gives a delicious taste of roasted cinnamon. And I also slipped pieces of roasted almonds, ”she says."

I did a little poking around and found out that the same dough is used for tile (kind of shaped like Pringles and stacked like roof tiles) cookies (tuiles) as for "cigarettes", and is often made into fancy shapes using silicone molds. Not usually nearly as fancy as this, however. :) These are said to be extremely stiff and hard (for cookies).

I mentioned in my last post that her "cigarette pastry" is made with a tuile batter.

Yes, I meant to say "as CC said", Christine. Sorry for the omission. I found it fascinating reading about stacking them to look like a roof, and making fancy shapes with silicone molds. Thank-you for posting the article! This has been such a fascinating discussion,

I used Google to translate too - if you're on its Chrome browser, it asks if you want the page translated.

I’m Cloudy Christine but Houzz is calling me something else.

It’s been so interesting to hear about aspects of 3D printing I never thought about, and to see it used to make such a beautiful representation of a great medieval work of art.

If I was career culinary on any level, but especially pastry, I would have to have all the toys. Freeze dryer, 3D food printer, etc. Good times for those at the beginning of their careers. The technology has come a long way in such a short time.

This is what it's made from

https://www.google.com/search?q=cigarette+russe+recette&oq=cigarette+russe+re&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.8001j0j8&client=tablet-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

It's very liquid before baking, and very crisp on cooking.