On needing sweetness

So I went to the bakery yesterday to get some bread. I started off something like this, "Eh, I'll have a loaf of spelt bread, sliced, don't close the bag please." Because they always use these little tapey, plasticy, wrapy things that I can't ever get off without ripping the bag. And since the boys and I never finish a loaf in one sitting, I like for the bag to remain intact. And since the boys are gone for the week, who knows how long that loaf of bread will last me. I'll end up using most of it to make garlic croutons, I suspect. Or maybe I'll stuff something for Easter dinner.

Back to the bakery, while she (baker's wife) is slicing and not closing bags, I'm looking around, and there's a guy behind me looking at me looking around, probably thinking, I'd really like to get my bread today lady. And she asks the question, "Anything else?" Well, maybe it's being without the boys for a week or maybe it's something else absent from my life but all I could think was YES! many things else.

So, that one loaf of bread was followed by an, "Um, maybe 100 grams of assorted chocolates? Dark only, please."

Observing man shifted to the other foot. "Anything else?"

Why did she keep asking me that? It just seemed rude to stop. "Well, maybe 50 grams of nougat - almonds and dried cherries."

Observing man shifts again. I look back at him and say, "Why don't you go ahead and get your bread, I may be here for a while."

He smiled and said, "No, no, please, take your time." I thought about telling him that his body language disagreed heartily with his spoken language, but you know, this is France and the men like to be gallant.

"And maybe that mini tarte tatin."

"And actually, I'll take that last mini kougaloff too."

"Are those chocolate covered almonds made here? Oh, well then, 100 grams of those too."

Polite, observing, foot-shifting man said, "Bon appétit," as I walked out the door.

Under construction

Phase one - We had some roofing issues. I don't know what to say. This is also where we see that prisons aren't always of our own making. Sometimes the strings are being pulled tight and tied from the outside.







Phase two - Who knew that buttercream icing was a food group? Or that chocolate covered almonds could replace shingles?

Believe it or not, they say they're not finished decorating it.

And speaking of working on a building

It's school vacation again. The boys don't have school this week or next. They're with me this week - I don't have classes either so we're sleeping late and reading a lot and have finally undertaken to complete (and start) the gingerbread house.

We baked off the four walls and the roof pieces yesterday. Today will be dedicated to assembly and decoration. Think buttercream icing and candies.

And then think about what my house smells like.

Sugar and spice. Exactly that. Molasses and ginger.

Boy2 was concerned that we weren't doing this at the right time of year - Christmas being past. I told him it's still winter and gingerbread houses are a winter thing, not necessarily a Christmas thing. Which he readily accepted as a good rationale. Especially considering that the only other option was to wait until next Christmas. When I offered that as an (unlikely) alternative, he said, "Are you kidding me? No way."

Cake anyone?

So, while I was in the States, I bought a Martha Stewart cake decorating kit at K-Mart.
In an effort to nip any bickering in the bud, I also made small cakes for the boys to have fun with.

This one is Boy2's. He was going for a maximum amount of frosting in a minimum amount of space.



And this one is Boy1's. He was going for art. As usual.

The cake's actually a vegan recipe, thanks to Boy2's really fun egg allergy. Oh gosh, I've come full circle and I didn't even want to. And the frosting is the recipe from the Magnolia Bakery. Very tasty. And not vegan, it's buttercream. Buttercream should never be vegan. Although I did have to search for hours to find one without eggs. Did you know most buttercream recipes have eggs, or meringue powder. Like I can get that here. And even if I could, I bet it has eggs in it too.

Who woudda thought?

A.k.a. more allergy news.

I looked at two back (and favorite) special issues of Martha with a pad of pink mini post-its in my hand.

Each time I found a recipe without eggs in it, I put a post it on the edge of page.

Voilà! Lots of pink.

I now have 15 eggless Martha cookie recipes.

Things are looking up.

And I'll be blogging from the fine state of Illinois tomorrow.

Voluntary Damnation

aka - I like Martha Stewart.

I really do. Maybe not her personally since I don't know her. But I like her magazines a lot. And her recipes. Thanks to Martha, I always save the leftover olive bread and chorizo baguette from fondue to use for croutons. And I never arrive at a dinner party without a delicious hostess gift to offer.

Anyway.

It was the Boys' school fair yesterday. They danced and sang and played games and won rinky-dink prizes and ate too much sugar. It was as it should be. I'm a pta member so I was supposed to have helped with a lot of things but I didn't have time for anything but work last week so I didn't do anything. To make up for it, I spend 8 hours in the kitchen on saturday making cookies. I made Martha's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies, Lemon Bars, Chocolate Meringues, and Chocolate Drizzled Spice Cookies.

They were all wonderful, as is usually the case with Martha's recipes. Although the meringues were not crispy enough - it was really humid on saturday and I should have left them in the oven longer. But that's not Martha's fault.

Anyway. Everyone loved the cookies. People tend to love the things I make in general. Not because they're amazing, but because they're different from what most people here make. A dozen people came up to me yesterday to gush about the lemon bars. "Just perfect." "Sublime." "Not too sweet and not too sour." "A se damner!" Which I'm translating as 'worth voluntary damnation'.

I'm thinking no lemon bar, even mine and Martha's is worth a trip to hell so next time I'll go heavy on the lemon or light on the sugar.

I'll post the recipes only if you take full responsibility for the souls of those you make them for.

Chocolate Crème Brulée that wasn't

Brulée.

Because I don't have a kitchen blowtorch or any blowtorch acutally and I was too chicken to try it under the broiler and Husband's lighters didn't work.

But it was still delicious. I topped them with chopped strawberries. People actually moaned at the table while eating it. And everyone's hands were visible and feet were on the floor so I'm sure the moaning was about the dessert.

Here's the recipe.

1 3/4 cups half and half (crème liquide légère - 15%)
1 3/4 cups whipping cream (crème liquide entière - don't ask)
12 tablespoons sugar, divided
4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped

8 large egg yolks
pinch of salt

8 teaspoons golden brown sugar (but only if you're going to do the brulée part)

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Stir half and half, 3/4 cup cream and 6 tablespoons of sugar in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-high heat until mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Let stand for 5 minutes then whisk until smooth.

3. Whisk yolks, salt and remaining 6 tablespoons sugar in medium bowl. Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture. Then whisk in remaining 1 cup cream. Divide among eight 3/4 cup ramekins. Place in a large roasting pan. Fill pan with enough water to come halfway up sides of ramekins to make a bain-marie. Cover loosely with foil.

4. Bake until creams are set around the edges but centers still move slightly when gently shaken - about 1 hour 10 minutes. Remove ramekins from water. Transfer to refrigerator. Child uncovered until cold, then cover and chill overnight.

5. To make them brulées, sprinkle each custard with 1 teaspoon brown sugar. Caramelize with a kitchen blowtorch until melted and brown.

So, in my version, I left out the last step and topped with fresh chopped berries. You could use raspberries too.

In my version part 2, I made these at about 9:30. And they were served for lunch so they only chilled for about 2 hours, which didn't seem to have an impact on taste or texture.

In my version part 3, I halved the recipe and used six ramekins. So they were slightly less full than in the above recipe, but that left room for the berries. And the portion size was perfect.

With the 4 egg whites leftover, I made these. Which were consumed without any attempt, by all members of the family, at moderation.

No sneering allowed.

Black Forest Cookies With Raisins Instead of Cherries

(adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe from Everyday Food)

Makes 36

1 cup flour
2T unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
8 oz chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
8 T (1 stick) butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
12 oz semisweet chocolate cut into chunks
1 1/2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 350°C. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together.

2. Place chopped chocolate and butter in a large bowl and heat over simmering water (or in the microwave but be careful - not too long) until melted. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat, whisk in sugars, then eggs. Whisk unitl smooth.

3. Whisk in dry ingredients unitl just combined. Fold in chocolate chunks and raisins. I SAID NO SNEERING. Cover with plastic and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

4. Drop mounds of 2T dough per cookie onto baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake unitl edges are firm, 11-13 minutes. Cool and consume to be happy.

And since we're on the subject of great recipes, check this one out at Chitlins & Camembert. Certain to please even the sneerers. That means you, Lorraine and Spouse.

Frenzy

Of the baking variety.

It started with chocolate shortbread with white chocolate icing on monday. My first experience with a pastry bag. What a joke. We ended up using a spoon and made pretty zig-zags over the cookies. They were gone within 2 days.

During which time I made pain d'épice because I was out.

So wednesday we made Black Forest Cookies. Which were supposed to be double chocolate chunk cookies with dried cherries. But I didn't have any on hand that day so I used raisins. Which everyone loved, except Husband. Who doesn't like fruit in general and certainly not in his chocolate cookies. I believe his exact words were, "Why would you ruin a perfectly good chocolate cookie with a raisin?" He actually sneered when he said raisin.

Thursday afternoon I made vanilla cupcakes with milk chocolate frosting for the bake sale at school that afternoon.

And then. At some point, either drunk or delirious, I promised the boys we would make Easter sugar cookies to bring to school on the last day before Easter break. Which was friday.

So thursday evening we made 65 bells, fish, chicks, and rabbits. And then we iced them. Because I apparently promised that too.

Husband pouted because there were only 10 leftover for home.

My favorites? The Black Forest Cookies with raisins not cherries. They were amazing. And every mouthful tasted like Raisinets. Which are, along with ginger chews, my favorite candy. I think they deserve their own special food group. Happy food.

My first fraisier

The fraisier is one of my favorite cakes. Maybe even my favorite cake ever. It's what I had for my wedding cake. Sunday, we spent the day in Rennes with V and R. V is one of Husband's cousins, B is her husband, and their oldest child, A, is my godson. Anyway, they just had their third child so we went for champagne and lunch. I offered to bring the dessert.

Strawberries are out, at the grocery store at least. Mostly from Spain. I had spotted some lovely fraisiers at the pastry shops around town. There were 8 of us eating cake. A fraisier for 8 is 15€. At least. Which I think is just ridiculous. So I decided to make one myself.

I looked on French food blogs and recipe sites. I found something that looked perfect. A fraisier is not really hard to make, it's just a lot of steps and cooling and slicing and assembly.

First the biscuit. It should be light but not too light. Moist but firm enough to withstand the weight of the cream.

Second the crème. Which I thought was just a lighter crème patissière. Lighter in texture maybe, but certainly not lighter. After making a standard crème patissière and letting it cool, you process it with over a stick (!) of butter and a cup (!) of unsweetened freshly whipped cream. Excellent.

Third the strawberries and the assembly (one disk of biscuit smothered in crème and topped with strawberries, repeated twice).

Result? Not bad. But I won't use that recipe again. First of all, the cake part was defintely firm but way too dense. There recipe called for ground almonds which I would not use again. Second, I used a springform pan which was too big, so the layers of cake were a smidge too thin. And finally, I think I didn't let it cool long enough after putting the layers together because when I cut it, it looked kind of like a red, white, and yellow landslide.

With the 4 leftover eggwhites, I made chocolate meringues. Yum. The chocolate stays on the inside so when you take a bite, you're just expecting meringues and you get a mouthful of chocolate.

They taste like mischief. Which shall be their name.

Mischief Meringues

4 eggs whites
1 cup sugar
some salt
some cream of tartar
10 oz of chopped dark chocolate

Beat first 4 ingredients until soft peaks form. Slowly add sugar and beat until stiff and glossy. Fold in chocolate. Bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours at 200°F.

That's just plain mean

Why would anyone mess with perfection? And don't go telling me that perfection is relative or personal or whatever. Some things are perfect and there's no denying it.

Take the escargot au chocolat that could be bought at Jacques and Véronique Duguet's bakery in downtown Laval, across the street from the cathedral. It was not a piece of chocolate, but a pastry. Croissant dough formed into a snail shape, like a pain aux raisins, but with dark chocolate morsels instead of raisins. And a light, faint caress of pastry cream the chocolate clung to. So wonderful.

When we first moved to Laval, we lived a block away from that bakery. I've never been a baguette-a-day kind of girl, preferring rye or sourdough or spelt varieties, and even those not every day. But I quickly became a chocolate snail every day kind of girl. Until I realized my metabolism couldn't keep up. So I cut down to once a week, on sunday morning. My special sunday treat.

Well, Jacques and Véronique got tired of their situation. A baker's hours are, to be fair, difficult. The bakery opened at 7:00 every morning except wednesdays, but Jacques started work at 3 and Véronique not much later.

So they sold their bakery to M et Mme Moise-Derval, who have a pastry shop on the other side of town. That's life, right?

Well, it would be if they had not changed the chocolate snail.

They have replaced the croissant dough with pain au lait dough (which is a bit like brioche dough but denser). Which has RUINED the snail.

I have nothing against pain au lait. It's good for some things. Spreading with jam or nutella or caramel. It does not, however, have a place in a chocolate snail.

The strange thing is, I've been to their pastry shop across town. It's quite good. Their chocolates are excellent, made only with cacao butter (no soy lecthicin or other such nastiness that doesn't belong in chocolate), they make excellent cakes and pies, and they sell the only ciabatta to be had in Laval.

So I cannot even imagine what possessed them to change the chocolate snail. If they wanted to differentiate themselves, they could've found a much more positive way to do it.

Ah, la pièce montée

I visited a blog yesterday, jintrinsique, and saw some pictures of wedding cakes. Which got me thinking about my wedding cake, which was just about the ugliest wedding cake EVER.

The traditional French wedding cake is a pièce montée. Cream puffs are piled together in a cone shape, about 2 ft. high at least. The puff mass is then decorated with pieces of nougatine and candied almonds and then the whole thing is coated with a sugar glaze that hardens, holding everything in place and adding crunch.

I like cream puffs as much as anybody. And I never say no to nougatine, who could? But I did not want a pièce montée. I was getting married in France but I didn't want it to be too French - I am American. I, probably like many little girls, have adored wedding cakes for as long as I can remember. I loved the big white kind they made when I was growing up, with lots of white frosting (no doubt made from hydrogenated fat and sugar) and those big frosting roses. Then people started to get creative and wedding cakes got better. I loved the pretty lemon curd filled ones, and the coconut groom's cakes, and the avant-garde chocolate ones. I tried to talk to bakers here about it. They were all stuck in the white cake phase, having seen too many episodes of bad American daytime television. None of them had ever made anything particular for a wedding other than a pièce montée.

The woman organizing the meal for the reception tried to understand. She consulted with the chef, they suggested a fraisier. Perfect! It's one of my all time favorite cakes. It's a vanilla genoise with strawberries and pastry cream in the cake or baked into the edges. I tried to describe how I wanted it to look. Apparently not very well.

When they brought it out, I could only laugh. Had I been a little more on edge, I would've cried. But I had already had my freakout crying session at the hair salon that morning, so laughing was the only option. Besides, I had just gotten married, my friends and family were with us, life was good.

There were four fraisiers, of various sizes, on a large aluminum foil covered board. A small plastic newlywed couple was stuck on top of one of the cakes. The organizer woman looked at me and said, "We tried to do just like you said." Yeah.

It was, without a doubt, the ugliest wedding cake I had ever seen. But, it was also the most delicious. Really amazing. The cake was not soggy, a risk with that kind of cake. It was a perfect balance between moist and firm. The strawberries were sweet and juicy. The pastry cream was light and vanilla-y. Even though it didn't look like it, it was the wedding cake of my dreams. I had two slices.