Madeleines

Madeleine is a small sponge cake from the north east of France. It normally has a distinctive shell-like shape. (there are special baking trays to make them). At home, we eat them with a coffee, after lunch or for an afternoon snack, le "quatre-heures" (4pm-snack), and this is exactly what I am gonna do today. I had a small lunch to indulge myself a treat this afternoon :-)
Madeleines can either have a lemony or vanilla taste. I made this batch vanilla ones.

Ingredients for approx 18 madeleines:
190gr sugar
3 eggs
240gr plain flour
6g baking powder
90gr melted butter
75gr milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 200 to 220°C.
In a bowl, mix the sugar, vanilla, eggs, and half the milk until getting a frothy mix. Add in the flour, little by little. whisking well. Add the remaining of the milk, then finish by pouring in the melted butter. Mix well. Fill the trays using a pipping bag or a spoon. Leave to rest for a few minutes. Bake in the lower half of the oven for around 15 min (I baked mine 18 min). Remove the madeleines from the tray and leave to cool down. Try dipping them in your coffee or hot chocolate.. mmmm sooo yummy!

Mum's Gaufrettes (Small waffles)

I can't make waffles for the simple reason that I don't own a waffle iron. We used to make them so many times at home, the normal waffles and the small, thicker ones, called Gaufrettes.
My Mum made some the other day and sent me the recipes and the pictures for the blog :-)
So here is the very easy recipe small waffles:

Ingredients:

500grplain flour

250gr butter

250gr caster sugar

11gr of baking powder (this is levure chimique in french)

1 pinch of salt

1/2 glass of milk

4 eggs

 

Melt the butter and the sugar togather, add the milk, and leave it to cool. Mix in a bowl the flour, salt, baking powder, the 4 egg yolks and add it to the butter-sugar-milk mix.Then beat the eggswhites until stiff, and add them to the mixture. Leave it to rest for about 1hr. 

Bake the waffles in a waffle iron (1 waffle= 1 tablespoon of the mix)

 

Et voila :-)

 

Biscotti for you, biscotti for me

Whenever I go to Cafe Nero with my friend to meet up for a coffee, I take a biscotti. I just love them. They are my favourite biscuits to accompany a coffee or tea. So I thought I'd try to make them at home and this way have my tea with a pistachio, almond and orange biscotti, in this rainy day.

The following recipe should make about 30 biscottis. You can basically replace the pistachio and almonds by hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, or have them with no nuts at all.

Ingredients:
200g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
zest of 1 orange
200gr plain flour, sifted + extra for dusting
1 teaspoon Baking powder
50grs almongs, 50grs pistachios

Preheat the oven to 180°C.Mix sugar, eggs and orange zest together. Stir in sifted flour and baking powder and nuts then mix to get a sticky dough. You then knead the dough on a lightly floured surface.Divide into 2 portions and roll each into a 30cm log. Bake on a baking tray for about 25-30min, until lightly browned. Cool on the tray for 10 min. Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C.Cut the logs into 1cm slices diagonally and place them back on the baking tray.Bake for 10 min until golden on top. Turn over and bake for another 5-10 min; Cool down before eating them. Then soak them in a lovely yummy capuccino :-))

Aperitif Time

There won't be a lot of baking this weekend for me ... I am home (in France) and my mum is doing most the cooking, but I am around to help prepare the snack for the aperitifs..First done are the salmon croissants. 2 ingredients: puff pastry and salmon, nothing could be simpler..

Next on the list was making some sausage rolls(using puff pastry as well); cheese and ham rolls, and some olive cake. There's no leftovers so I guess they were good!

A one-bite snack – Chouquettes!

So today, I came back home feeling a bit "gourmande".. but I didn’t fancy anything heavy or naughty, so I decided to make some chouquettes! They are small “choux”, like the profiteroles, with pearl sugar on top. They are delicious, light and eaten in one bite (that makes me eat more!!). They are perfect for a snack in the afternoon, or evening. I made them once before going to the cinema- my friend was really surprised to see I had made us bags of chouquettes to eat during the movie :-)
Normally people prefer to eat them still a bit warm, but I like them cold, even if they get a bit soggy.

Because there's only my flatmate and I at home tonight and we won't eat them all, I will take what’s left to work tomorrow, and I’m sure no one will mind their sogginess….

Here are the ingredients – that will make 28/30 medium size chouquettes

125 ml milk
125 ml water
100gr butter
150 gr plain flour
pinch of salt
2 tea spoon caster sugar
4 eggs
50gr pearl sugar (I buy it in france but you can find it  easily on the internet)

Preheat the oven 185/ 190 C.
In a saucepan, bring the milk, water, salt and butter to a boil. Then take it out of the heat and add in the flour. Stir well until it all comes from the pan (if it helps, put it a few seconds over the heat to make it all come off the bottom of the pan (it should NOT stick to the bottom). Then add in 2 eggs, whisk well (a good 2 minutes – the texture will get weird at this point, but it’s normal). Add the 2 other eggs and again, whisk until you get a smooth sticky blondie texture – at this point, you’ve got pain in the arm). You can then add some of the pearl sugar or only put it on top of the chouquettes – I like to add some to the mix.
On a tray covered with baking parchment, drop dollops of the mix (this should make 2 trays of 15 chouquettes), sprinlme the sugar pearls on top of them and bake them for 25 minutes until golden brown

Now quick, quick, eat ‘em all before they get cold!