Madeleines, macarons and crepes. Oh my! These French pastries are characteristically hard to make, but one Planoite has a solution.
When Isabel Mota moved from Paris to Plano, she found that French pastries in the States didn’t live up to what she was used to eating in France.
“[In the U.S.] madeleines are very underrated, because what I have been eating here when I got to Starbucks, they’re very hard and not like the sponge cake that we have in France,” Mota says.
“I realized that French food was seen as very good but also very complicated. I thought maybe I could help people here realize that food can be very technical, but it can also be very simple if you work with simple recipes and simple ingredients.”
After moving to Plano for her husband’s job, Mota started making treats for neighbors, coworkers and friends. She found that people really loved them and wanted to learn to make them themselves.
Mota started teaching macarons to people in her house, and after seeing people’s excitement in finishing the pastry, started teaching classes at a French-American school in Dallas, at cooking camps and schools.
“I was really excited to show people how to make French food but in a less stressful ambiance,” Mota says. “That was really my goal, and it’s still my goal.”
Mota opened her store at 3033 W. Parker Road in 2019. After six months of classes, COVID-19 hit and the store had to close.
“In the meantime, I’ve been working on products and baking mixes,” Mota says.
Mota’s products and baking mixes came to be My French Recipe, a brand characterized by “quick and easy” recipes with QR video tutorials of Mota cooking the pastries herself.
The My French Recipe website also provides soon-to-be French pastry chefs with recipes to customize their macarons, tools to up their pastry game and other cooking-related goodies.
Mota’s signature macaron mix, French pound cake mix, madeleine mix, chocolate lava cake mix and gingerbread chocolate chip cookie mix are about $8 each and make 8-16 servings.
Now that the shop has been able to open again, Mota still does classes every weekend on different pastries and French dishes.
In May, Mota is hosting a spring pop-up shop and classes themed after petite pastries class, a French countryside dinner, macarons, profiteroles, eclairs and croissants.
“The goal is to touch a lot of people who like French food or Francophiles or [those who] have been to France, and they want to recreate something they’ve eaten in France,” Mota says.
My French Recipe baking mixes are available at World Market locations nationwide, as well as Whole Foods locations in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
My French Recipe, 3033 W. Parker Road, 469.605.4151
