nature – Page 8 – Myfrenchkitchen

..biscuit de Savoie..

My hens, tiny as they are, provide us with a plenitude of eggs. As if that is not enough, the two geese, Sidonie et Aglaé, add their daily quota as well. I donate eggs left and right and we still end up with a surplus! I don’t complain..an old Paysanne told me that laying hens are happy hens. So how can I deprive a happy poule from laying a happy egg?

The goose eggs are perfect for baking. They are far too rich for eating on their own, too rich even for an omelette or mixed with chicken eggs. Seeing that I have these basket fulls of goose eggs, I found this delicious Biscuit de Savoie that asks for 14 eggs. Yes, you read right – FOURTEEN eggs. It may seem expensive to you, but the cake is worth it. To me of course, it is a bargain, because I only dig into my basket for 7 goose eggs and I have a perfect cake. Mon chéri, who is not a cake lover, now asks for the 14- eggs-cake, as he calls it. I hope you try it…you will like it!

La recette:

Preheat the oven to 170 °C.
Separate the yolks and whites of 14 eggs into 2 bowls.
Add 500g castor sugar and the seeds of 1 scraped vanilla pod to the egg yolks. Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and whisk/beat until stiff peak stage.
Sift together 185 g Flour and 185 G Maizena(cornflour/cornstarch).
Add 1/3 of the stiff egg whites to the creamed yolk and sugar mixture and mix well. Gently fold in the rest of the egg whites into the mixture, alternating with the sifted dry ingredients. Don’t over mix! Always stir/fold in by going in the same direction.
Pour the batter into 2 buttered and flour dusted cake tins of 26cm in diam. each. Fill the cake tins only 2/3 with batter, as the cake rises high while baking.
Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer is removed clean when piercing the cake.
Leave to cool and dust with sifted icing sugar or top with a vanilla butter icing.
Serves about 8 people or more.

Une pincée de sel:

Remember that 2 large chicken eggs = 1 goose egg.
The lightness of the cake is due to the 14 beaten egg whites.
Fill the cake tins only 2/3 with the cake mixture..the cake rises high in the oven.
The cake is baked when a knife blade is retracted clean when piercing the cake.
From this recipe I get 2 cakes (26cm diam. and 24 diam.). Half the recipe to get only 1 cake of about 26 diam.
Use eggs at room temperature.
Flavour with almond essence instead of vanilla.
Dust only with sifted icing sugar, or top with a butter icing, or drizzle with a runny milk icing.
Replace the vanilla pod with a packet of vanilla sugar (7.5g) or a tsp of vanilla essence.
Serve (without the topping of butter icing) as dessert with strawberries, whipped cream and a strawberry coulis.

I am still old school. I love my metal cake tins. I have succumbed to the silicone stuff, but now I’m handing them all out as gifts and I am reverting back to my old tins, some of which still come from my mother. Maybe it is what happens when one gets older..you revert back to the things that once gave you joy, in spite of new trends and “fashionability”. By oiling my tins with butter and giving it a dusting of flour, sticking to the pan is not a problem. But of course..freedom of choice is what makes the world go round, so by all means use whatever you fancy!

The biscuit de Savoie was adapted from the book Pâtissier, Petit Larousse.

…a handful of spring lilacs..

Spring is awakening very slowly this year, causing the garden to be in a slow rising too. but nonetheless, colour is everywhere. The glycine (wisteria) is absolutely gorgeous in the gardens and of course, we all have lilas..of all colours. I only have the light lilac, of which the colour fades beautifully as it ages. And they fit into all pots and vases and tittles and cups. For tables and bathrooms and shelves and corners to enjoy to the full. They don’t last too long once picked, but for the day or two they provide me with such satisfaction and my barn house smells like spring, even on a cool rainy day! It is true. The biggest happiness comes in small doses.

*Our little poulain (faul) is a week old today and getting just more cute by the day. If you would like to see some pics of her and her equally adorable maman, make a stop at A spring poulain! on my blog Coin Perdu, to read and see how things went last Friday night with the birth! Very exciting, it was!

*Have a great Sunday tomorrow..I will be off to a brocante, make a stop at the jardinerie for some tomato plants and do some weeding at home…

So, as always..

à la prochaine!..

Ronelle

“Un rideau de flocons blancs ininterrompu miroitait sans cesse en descendant vers la terre; il effaçait les formes, poudrait les choses d’une mousse de glace; et l’on n’entendait plus, dans le grand silence de la ville calme et ensevelie sous l’hiver, que ce froissement vague, innommable et flottant de la neige qui tombe, plutôt sensation que bruit , entremêlement d’atomes légers qui semblaient emplir l’espace, couvrir le monde.” Guy de Maupassant, boule de suif.

“It was early autumn, then, before the snow began to fly. –(There’s an expression for you, born in the country, born from the imaginations of men and their feeling for the right word, the only word, to mirror clearly what they see! Those with few words must know how to use them.) Men who have seen it, who have watched it day by day outside their cabin window coming down from the sky, like the visible remorse of an aging year; who have watched it bead upon the ears of the horses they rode, muffle the sound of hoofs on the trail, lie upon spruce boughs and over grass – cover, as if forever, the landscape in which they moved, round off the mountains, blanket the ice in the rivers – for them the snow flies. The snow doesn’t fall. It may ride the wind. It may descend slowly, in utter quiet, from the grey and laden clouds, so that you can hear the flakes touching lightly on the wide white waste, as they come to rest at the end of their flight. Flight – that’s the word. They beat in the air like wings, as if reluctant ever to touch the ground. I have observed them coming down, on a very cold day, near its end when the sky above me was still blue, in flakes great and wide as the palm of my hand. They were like immense moths winging down in the twilight, making the silence about me visible.” – Howard O’Hagan Tay John

…Voilà coin Perdu in January! Quiet and silent behind its curtain of white…

..Our barn, where we are living until the house is finished..

..A view on the bench, where I dream and plan, except in winter. Then I dream and plan by the fire..

..Forgotten socks …

..and terracotta pots waiting to be cleaned..

..Two adorable faces, waiting for fresh hay..

..The Eiffle tower, a bit askew in the potager..

..Old barrel rims, waiting to become arches in the potager..

..The wine bottle rack, serving some different purpose every so often..

..The road to la toilette requires snow boots..

..”La toilette” in snow attire..

..Velouté de butternut..

Recipe:

Clean and chop and onion and fry in some olive oil.
Add some cleaned Butternut, cut into chunks.
Cover with vegetable or chicken stock until vegetables are completely covered. simmer until very tender.
Mix to a puree and put back on gentle heat.
Add coconut milk to the soup according to your preference.. Season and leave to simmer gently on low heat for about 10 minutes.
Add the juice of 1 orange, season with salt and pepper.
Serve warm with freshly grated nutmeg and crusty bread.

So, on this quiet, hushed snow note, I leave you..

à bientôt!

Ronelle