Ahhhh… You feel better on your pages when everything is in its place, right? I have the impression of being in a well-organized house again! To celebrate that, I wanted to stray a bit from what I usually publish here to talk about food waste. It's a subject that I care deeply about because I HATE throwing away food. To the point that I sometimes eat meat that has been expired for 4-5 days (so far so good, probably after a good food poisoning I'll be more careful ^^).

I think it's super funny to recycle leftovers, I feel like a Top Chef contestant in the middle of a last chance test! Like everyone who cooks a lot, I often struggle with leftovers. So I thought it would be nice to share my tips and collect yours! This recipe for example, is a vanilla-chocolate custard tart, recycled from unused pastry cream. And honestly it was delicious!

But to start, what are we really talking about when we talk about food waste? Well, it's 10 million tons of food thrown away each year, or 18 billion meals. In the world, it is estimated that a third of the food produced will not ultimately be consumed. That hurts, doesn't it?

So of course, waste spreads throughout the production chain and it's not by avoiding throwing away at home that it will revolutionize the world. But already being careful at home, with regulated quantities of purchases, expiration dates and reusing leftovers, is already a non-negligible step!

I think that in pastry making, it's even more complicated than elsewhere to use leftovers. It's not easy to recycle the leftovers of a recipe when you don't have much knowledge about it.

For my part, I've adopted the following habits:

when choosing between equivalent recipes, I always choose the one that uses whole eggs rather than just the yolks or just the whites (in pastry cream for example).
I always wait until the recipe is finished before throwing anything away, you never know what you can associate with everything that's left.
I blind-bake my pie dough scraps in individual molds, which I freeze for next time. It's super easy to recycle fruit or cream when the pie crust is already made (sometimes, I simply pour beaten chocolate yogurt on a blind-baked crust. It's super good, quick and practical!).
puff pastry recipes are always for gigantic quantities (it's complicated to make small), plan a savory pie for dinner. You can also freeze the rest (I'd say that with 500 g of flour, you can easily make 4 different pies). Small tip too: you can use puff pastry scraps, but by stacking them and definitely not rolling them into a ball (which would make the butter layers disappear). A pastry chef friend told me that he recycled his puff pastry scraps by brushing them with butter and sugar. Then he rolls them on themselves: apparently it's a quick kougn-amann and quite acceptable!
for biscuit scraps (sponge, ladyfinger…), I pair them with spread or jam. Rolled on a stick, it immediately looks elegant. Otherwise, you can try the pudding option by brushing with egg and milk.
For eggs, you of course have meringues for egg whites, macarons or a good mousse (chocolate or fruit). If you don't feel like bothering, snow eggs in the microwave are absolutely magical (beat the eggs with a little sugar and put in the microwave for 30 seconds). The yolks will be very useful in cream-type recipes or crème brûlée. I often recycle them in my scrambled eggs (by mixing a whole egg with the yolks I have left).
for fruit, think of compotes or coulis that will allow you to use slightly overripe fruit. Very ripe bananas will work wonders in muffins or banana bread (seriously, it's much better!).
also think about deconstructing: slightly old choux paste will make a super topping for a glass once blended.
for pastries, you can recycle croissants into almond croissants (by brushing them with sugar syrup and sprinkling with sliced almonds). Brioche and other milk breads will be delicious as "French toast".

For the recipe in the photo, it's a pastry cream that I had flavored with chocolate to fill eclairs. And then, not having had time to do it in time, my eclairs had become dry. So I had to change course.

So I did what I always do to recycle my leftover pastry cream: a custard tart. I used the remaining chocolate cream in the bottom and then added the vanilla cream. Honestly I wasn't expecting much from this recipe and in the end it was a very pleasant surprise (to the point that I regretted not having leftover sweet or puff pastry to recycle!).

That's what I love about recycling too, sometimes you discover beautiful things! And you, what are your tips for using leftovers?