Cakes and tarts – Page 16 – Myfrenchkitchen

A deliciously moist and quick cake to satisfy some desire for sweetness. Mix all together and put into the oven and by the time you’ve wiped the counter and made a fresh pot of coffee, your cake will be ready. Dust swaggeringly with icing sugar, put onto a fancy platter and voila…an appealing and flirtatious invitation on a plate… a Valentine one…

Suggestions:

Don’t overwork the batter! It is a light mixing of all the ingredients together…NO creaming of the sugar and butter etc beforehand.
The amount of flour is CORRECT! The amount IS enough to bind the cake…It doesn’t have much flour, therefore the moistness of the cake. It is not a light, fluffy cake.
See to it that your butter is very soft.
Be careful of too much lemon juice, for the passion fruit already has some sourness.
One medium passionfruit gives about 30 ml (1,015 fl ounces) of juice.
Any other exotic fruit can used instead of passion fruit…pineapple coulis, mango coulis…
Use about 180 ml (6.09 fl ounces)of mango(or pineapple) puree/coulis for the equivalent of 6 passionfruit.
Don’t skip the dusting of icing sugar, it rounds off the cake and adds a little zing to the taste.
The cake can be served as a dessert as well, along with some fresh strawberries or a glass of fruit salad.
It is even tastier the next day.
It can be served slightly warm with a dollop of whipped cream…if the hips allow!
If the hips are struggling, lock the rest of the cake away and go leave the keys with your strictest neighbour.

This is a recipe from Meilleurs desserts from Marabout chef.

In a previous post I talked about my love for fabric napkins. A while ago Madame Brocante held these beautiful napkin holders aside for me at our local Sunday brocante. They were used for everyday fabric napkins. Every member of the family gets a napkin and a holder/pocket which belongs to him/her. Usually each family member’s name was embroidered on the holder to distinguish it from the other napking holders. With each meal you would get your same napkin and you would use it again until it is dirty enough to be washed. In ancient times, washing was a difficult and tiresome, not to mention long and elbow grease process, so it didn’t happen daily or even weekly like we are so used to today.These poches are still very much in use for everyday family meals at home here in France. Unless you are really a pig, you don’t smear a napkin so dirty in one meal, so keeping your own napkin for a next meal is economic on washing and wear and tear and easier on the environment. So each napkin pocket stores its individual napkin, reused for a meal or two or three, before being filled with a clean one for the next few meals. The table is set with a napkin in its napkin holder beside each plate. Handy and beautiful at the same time.

To make these little napkin/holders/pockets, are SO easy and the decoration can be played around with to your heart’s content. Use colourful fabrics, embroider your family members’ name on each , use lace or ribbons or do some cross stitching to give each owner his/her own pocket/holder. Make a double set of holders…one on the table and one in the wash. They make for good gifts as well, along with a set of napkins, signed with your own little logo!

From the scribblings in my notebook you can get an idea of how they fold and stitch together. But go and sit and work it out yourself and make it according to your size napkins and your desires!

If you have a meal consisiting of food to be eaten with your hands, especially seafood, or maybe ribs, or chicken wings…then stay away from your lovely napkins! And definitely from paper napkins! Ususally your host or yourself will place a small bowl of water with a lemon slice or even a flower or mint next to each plate. But I have found that men with big hands tend to struggle with the little bowl of water and I am always afraid of splashing my water all over the table…. I prefer to serve a warm face cloth or dish cloth, wrapped in foil alongside each plate.

Wet your cloths with hot water, wring, place a lemon slice with mint or another fresh herb, or a flower decoration on the cloth , wrap them warm in foil and keep in a warm oven until the meal is on hand. Decorate each parcel with a sprig of herb or flower or slice of lemon, depending on your season. Place each warm parcel in little bowls by each plate and thus providing each guest his/her own warm foil parcel. By the time they use it, the foil will have cooled down, but the cloth inside will still be warm. Guests, usually enjoy the little attention and detail and especially the warm cloth/napkin.

For entertaining outdoors, a good and fun idea can be to provide a stand or table or even chair with a bowl or any other interesting container of fresh water, filled with lemon, mint, flowers. Make a tap/faucet from a small watering can…..hang small towels close by…, some hand cream for the ladies….be creative and make it inviting and fun to rinse those hands after digging into a good al fresco meal!

Trucs et astuces de nos grands-mères.

To get your hortensias/hydrangeas blue, bury some rusted nails close by the roots. Do it early in the spring season.

In France, as I suppose everywhere else in the North, January is a quiet month. Many businesses are closed up to take their annual congé, now that they have quiet days. The days are long and grey and cold. A highlight of January is la galette des rois(cake of the kings). Epiphany. On the twelfth day. 6 January. Although we start eating la galette already on 1 January and the boulangeries are happy to provide les galettes right through the month of January.

…a home baked galette des rois…

A recipe from the book Pâtisseries maison, by Florence Edelmann.

Traditionally a galette was shared around the table, with the youngest sitting under the table calling the name of each recipient of a slice. That would make the game fair in hoping for the féve(fava bean, but nowadays a trinket). The person finding the féve in his slice, would be king, wear the paper crown and provide the next galette on the table.

The boulangeries bake extraordinary galettes, much better than I could do. So I am happy to buy my galette at the corner up in Montlouis at Aux pains gourmands. The traditoinal galette was a filling of crème d’amande, which is a mixture of ground almonds , sugar, butter and egg. Modern day finds the galette with a variety of fillings, from frangipane(sort of crème pâtissière with creamed butter and sugar and added almonds, flour and eggs), raspberry to apple to chocolate and more.

Suggestions:

Work with cold pastry to have it rise high and flaky.
Be careful not to cover with egg on the sides or else the pastry won’t flake.
Add a traditinal fava bean instead of a trinket for a real traditional touch.
Warm in the oven and not the microwave, to get the pastry crispy.
Leave the galette in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to have it very cold, before putting in the oven.

♪..J’aime la galette

Savez vous comment

Quand elle est bien faite

avec du beurre dedans…

tra la la la la la la la lére…♪

Along with the galette des rois come the thoughts and reflections of what to do with this new year. Personal goals and dreams. As for myself, I always feel a bit lost in early January.

With December and family gone and the days cold and grey, I fiddle around, searching for the start-off to take on my goals . It takes me a while to really get going and start moving in a definite direction. But I know time will push me out of the starting blocks soon…hopefully…

So in the meantime, while trusting in patient old Mr. Time, let’s put on our boots and stroll the garden(and the Loire)to find some January greenery for the house. A dried branch. A twig. A branch of bayleaf .

Maybe some rearranging of paintings and prints…moving those upstairs, down and others upstairs. A change is good for inspiration.

The bookshelves can do with some organising too and don’t forget the cleaning closet. I pride myself on a neat and organized cleaning cupboard, but after a houseful of people, even the most tidiest corner can be turned upside down.

Let’s not forget the rearranging and sorting of clothes, linen and adding fresh sachets to the linen cupboards, cleaning out read and unused magazines, freshen up the pantry, oil the wooden cutboards, remove containers with left overs from the fridge and stock with fresh vegetables , clean out your desk, find a place for all those Christmas cards, reflect on the finances, put a lock on your purse….in short, a lot can be done whilst waiting for inspiration or rather, for Time to push you off the starting blocks.

Les trucs et astuce de nos grands- méres:

A branch of parsley added to deep frying oil, will soften the heavy smell of fried food.