Category: Bread’N Butter Kids Blog Posts

Weekly posts from Bread’N Butter Kids. Those posts can contain a range of information on a chosen ingredient technique or relate to a piece of actuality.

La bûche de Noël

La bûche de Noël, a French dessert of the Christmas period

A very merry Christmas to you dear readers.  Christmas is associated to many different food specialties, I am not telling you anything new there.  What is worth looking at is the diversity of the dishes regionally and/or between countries.  I love that variety of approaches (although I can tell you, I do not love all of the dishes!).   La buche de Noël is a typical French dessert at Christmas time.  It is only served on Christmas day but in that period of the year.

Bavarois Christmas log

The idea of that “bûche de Noël”

A bûche de Noël is a “log”, it represents a section of a tree log.  In France it is often based on a rolled biscuit (think jam roly-poly here) and a chocolate or mocha, or chestnut filling and a butter cream icing. There is a myriad of options.

Being in Australia, in the middle of summer, I wanted to make a log dessert but something fruity (for a change). Initially, I had ideas around a mango pavlova rolls, pavlova being the Australian Christmas dessert by excellence! I decided otherwise, though I may do it in the coming weeks.

This log is simply a raspberry bavarois (or bavaroise in French) covered with a blanket of mascarpone & lime icing.  it is light in texture, low in sugar and very fruity!

Read the full recipe HERE.

What is a bavarois?

A bavarois is based on a “creme anglaise”, a flavour (I used frozen raspberries here) and some whipped cream and gelatine.  The amount of gelatine is just enough to make it hold without being a jelly!  it does need at least overnight in the fridge to hold.

I have made the bavarois before as a single dessert, dressed with berries and as little individual potions for a stand up party.  It always has that “Waho!” effect, so give it a try, it is well worth it.

To make a log shape I used a flexible cardboard cut to the size of my log cake tin. It does slightly collapse but not too much.

bavarois christmas log
Raspberry Bavarois centre for the Christmas log

Mascarpone & lime icing

When I say icing, do not imagine tons of sugar, there is only 1/2 cup for 500 g of mascarpone, 100 ml of thickened cream and some lime juice and lots of rind.

Everything goes in the food processor, whizzzzzzzz. This is it, cover the log and decorate.  I used more lime rind, some cocoa nibs, mint leaves and a couple of mango flesh jellied stars.

I also added a nut crumble to give that little extra texture.

bavarois christmas log

Gift from the heart

The joy of offering a little something, a gift from the heart

Today, I am going back to one thing cooking and this time of the year is about: the family.   I love involving the children in the cooking activities, I enjoy seeing them exploring and taking initiatives, not just my children, all children!

Welcome into the “Silly Season”

In Australia, this time of the year is called the “silly season”.  It may be called the same elsewhere.  In the Southern hemisphere, not only is it Christmas and New Year Eve, it is also the start of the summer holidays and the end of the school year!

A lot to celebrate, gifts to exchange and opportunities to indulge!  The great thing on that aspect is that being summer, there are lots of opportunities for swims or water activities to stay away of the treats or use the calories brought by those extra treats (assuming some get guilty).

Chocolate truffles, the plain, the salted caramel ones and the kids party ones!

This week my daughters have wanted to make little presents for their teachers.  They decided to make something with chocolate, it quickly became truffles.  Not the classic plain chocolate truffles  I normally do, but a salted caramel chocolate truffle.

 

They were having lots of fun getting their hands really messy and once we were done licking every finger, of course.  As they make me notice when I sent them washing themselves in the bathroom, we all ended up like “Rudolf, the red nose reindeer” if not for the wrong colour! That was not the end of the truffle season here, a few days after that first episode, Ambrine had to bring something for her class party.  Guess what? Truffles! Yes, but this time she decided to adapt it to children’s tastes (RECIPE HERE). She did well!

Kids chocolate truffles. Replacing the cocoa coating with 100s&1000s

Now, rapidly before loosing you, truffles are simply a chocolate ganache, cooled down, rolled in small balls and coated in dutch cocoa powder.  From there, there are many variations possible.  So, go for it, it is EASY and YUMMY!!!

Truffles anyone?

 

 

 

 

 

The Tip Week!

This tip week is about baking tips, some of them hot from the press for me at least!

FabienneIf you follow my blog, you will remember that last weekend was the local school fete, the Halloween School fete.  The set up put in place was amaaaaazing and the fete was pretty cool.  Not that I saw a lot of it by any means, I spent most of the time at the food stall which name was  ” The Yummy Mummies Cafe”. 🙂

By the way, I did not bake everything, though a lot of it, and I had a great team of helpers for preparation and service.

Anyway, this Tip Week is bringing to you 5 key tips for your baking.  I will not overdo it because you would not remember all of them (I wouldn’t!).

Tip 1 : Getting a bright yellow lemon Curd

Lemon curd colour
Lemon curd with pale egg yolks on the right and bright egg yolks on the left

We had lemon curd tiramisu pots on our school fete menu. Yum! I get my eggs, some beautiful lemon supplied by the local grocer, sugar aHalloween fetend butter and I start cooking.  My first batch was pale yellow, it would have scared the crowds away! What to do?

I discovered that the egg yolks is the key element which provides the colour! I changed eggs and got a beautiful bright yellow lemon curd.  This is the reason why some recipes remove part of the egg white: it keep the yellow colour more intense.

Tip 2: Use corn flour when rolling fondant

This tip is so useful!  Seriously, make your life easy when rolling fondant. You only need a little bit of corn flour, no mess really and so much easier. For the 40 or so ghosts I manage to roll the fondant quite thin (2mm), from there it was just a matter of placing it on top of the lollypop balls.

Also, to attach two pieces of fondant together, use a drop of water!

Tip 3: Some items don’t bake well together

I could have prevented this one, my focus was unfortunately elsewhere.

Baking a cake at the same time as brioches does not work! Simply because the brioche asks for a humid environment, when the cake doesn’t.  Our cake ended up looking somewhat like the face of the moon. We ate it here, it was still beautiful, but not presentable.

Tip 4: Line or butter and flour your tin?

Lately, I had been lining with baking paper a lot of my tins, at least the base.  I always used not to do so but to generously butter all sides and flour over it.  I have had a few catastrophes, I guess, this is why I lined the tin.  Some recipes will clearly ask you to line the tin, do it!

Otherwise, it depends on your tin.  By the way, we are speaking metal cake tins here. If you tin is old with uneven surface, lining is definitely safer! New tins, feel free to butter and flour, it works perfectly well.

I had 2 set of muffin trays for my brioches, the old one kept sticking while brioches in the new one would just pop out on their own! However, it is not easy to line muffin trays, so I just made sure there was a serious butter&flour coating and I managed.

Tip 5: Testing your cake for doneness

There are a few ways here.  The safest way is to use a cake tester.  It is a thick and long needle tool which can be inserted in the middle of the cake and should come out dry.  Insert through a crack if there are any, it won’t leave a trace. Don’t have a cake tester? Use a kebab stick? Use the thinner one in the pack if possible.

Another way to check, is to place your hand over the middle of the cake and gently wobble the top.  If the cake wobbles, it needs more cooking. If the cake does not move, it is likely to be done.  Now, for bigger cakes, there is a risk that the very middle may still need more time, for those, I recommend the cake tester.

The Yummy Mummies Cafe
Chocolate mousses with raspberry topping, apple tart, lemon curd tiramisu, ghosts, friands…
The Yummy Mummies Cafe
Chocolate cake (gateau de Suzy), fairy wands, …

Halloween Menu

Halloween is a couple of weeks away. I have been preparing a Halloween menu for the local school fete and doing some trials.  I know some of you may be curious to get a few ideas to get the children involved in the kitchen or to be able to bring something topical for a party.

I will now share with you some of the Halloween specific menu items.

The witch’s hat

The concept:

A large cupcake, preferably
in a shiny casing,
a strongly coloured icing and a chocolate glaze painted ice cream cone!

Tips for the making:
  • Use a chocolate cupcake. As a recipe take any good moist chocolate cake.  I Halloweenlike to use the reine de Saba but there would be other nice options.
  • The ice cream cone is painted, using a kitchen brush, with a mix of dutch cocoa (darker than the normal one), icing sugar and a little hot water.  It dries out and remains stable for a while.  As a base mix 2 tbsp of cocoa, 1 cup icing sugar and 2 tbsp of hot water.  Make it darker adding more cocoa if required.  Some recipes add 2 tbsp of butter or margarine.
  • For the hat buckle, use for rolling icing.  Add a few drops of food colouring to change the colour and if it becomes to wet, add corn flour.  Similarly, use corn flour to prevent it to stick to the surface and rolling-pin, you can later brush off the excess corn flour.  Use a drop of water to attach together pieces of fondant.

The ghosts

halloween

The concept:

I used individual brioches drapped with white fondant, just add then the eyes!

Tips for the making
  • Use the brioche recipe in here.  This will make 20 individual brioches. Bake them in a muffin tray.   Make sure you butter and flour well your tray.
  • To drape the ghost esthetically, it is best to rise the height of the draping.  Use a lollipop, place fondant around the ball then plant the stick in the brioche.  Place the ghost draping over the lollipop.
  • For the eyes, you can use melted chocolate or some of the decorative pens sold in food sections of supermarkets.

The not so creepy bugs

halloween

The concept:

This one is easy.  I love it, it is very cute. Just a madeleine covered in coloured white chocolate partly on one side.  Eyes are made using chocolate cupcake decoration balls and the antennas are pieces of pretzels.

Halloween

Tips for the making

The white chocolate must be coloured using powder food colours, those are found in specialty stores.  The liquid food colours will make the white chocolate seize.  You may manage to get it again nice and smooth (by warming it again) but it may not fully dry out (like on the photos here, my prototypes).

The fairy wands

The concept:

Very easy again. Buy some grissini (those long narrow bread sticks).  Melt some white chocolate. Brush it on one end and roll the grissini in hundreds and thousands! My 4 y.o had a great time making them!

halloween
rolling hundreds and thousands
Tips for the making

Just be careful not to burn the white chocolate. Melting it in a bain marie is safer.

HAVE FUN!

Thermomix or no thermomix?

I am about to create some controversy ! Ahh!  My kitchen is reasonably well equipped. I have no thermomix and have not investigated it much really. Until now.  A friend left me his thermomix to try for a few weeks.

thermomix

What to do with this thermomix sitting here in my kitchen?

My first approach was to browse through the thermomix dedicated cookbooks my friend left with me.  Maybe I should have started by downloading the user guide….(if you read that, thermomix owner, don’t worry, your Vortex is safe!).

To be fair, at first I was not impressed, the food looks like mashy boring food.  For many people, it can be fine, mmmm, there must be something behind this success.  I decided to push on into the investigation.

This is when I texted my sister in France who has one of these machines.  I know she swears by it. Guess what? I received an avalanche of recipes to try.  Well, thanks for internet I could consult them, see, her Fremch “Vortex” books and the ones I had access to in Australia do not display the same recipes.

Who are the thermomix lovers?

Progressing through my investigation, my next questions were:

  • Why do people love it? (assuming they do)
  • Who are the users?
  • What does it bring to the advance home cook ?
  • Why do some professional use it?

Here are my findings: people love the thermomix for a range of reasons, the reasons are associated with the use and the level of cooking skills of the users. As a result, the range of reasons is quite broad.

The near beginner

For the near beginner or someone who does not like spending much time in the kitchen, it is a perfect tool which dictates them exactly what to do, one step at the time.  Even better, these people can do recipes with no technical skills.  Never made a creme anglaise before? No worries, Your “vortex”  will make it for you perfectly, just put all ingredients in the bowl, press a few buttons (sounds like a science fiction movies from the 80s!) and this is it.  And truly this is it!

The busy family

For the busy Mum, this is all about having dinner ready early.  The meal can be ready to cook and it can be switched on by the first person arriving at home.

The cramped space

For the people living in a small place, the Thermomix replaces many kitchen appliances, great job there! Gone is the ice cream maker, gone is the food processor, gone is the steamer, gone is the blender, gone is the dough mixer, gone is the rice cooker.  I am sure there are more of those! All is still required is a fry pan and an oven (unfortunately the thermomix does not brown food).

The professional kitchen

For the professional kitchens, there is definitely a use for defined activities. Not only does it save manpower, the machine gets it right every time.  I am thinking of some sauces, custards, creams, etc. Each professional kitchen which chooses to use the Thermomix will have a valid reason for it.

The anti

There are also people who do not like the thermomix, but their voice is weak as they go against a cult and their comments are usually not well received.  I am not speaking about the safety concern that one of the model had issue with, but more about the feel that it is yet another machine not required in some people’s kitchen. Fair enough!

And then finally: what is it good at?

This is where the practical part of the investigation comes in play.  Now, I will speak as an advance cook, keep that in mind!

First, you need to become familiar with the vocabulary. Not only has each part of the machine its own little name, there are also a number of symbols introduced to recipes.  I have to say that those are quite self-explanatory. In doubt? The user guide can be downloaded for free! (do that before you get started, my avice)

I tried the following recipes:

  • Profiteroles. Why this recipe: if you have ever made pate a choux, you will remember that this is a physically hard one to do. it required a lot of elbow oil. If a machine can do it for me, great!
  • Ice-cream – I wanted to try the custard making capability
  • Chocolate spread – finally something that could potentially grind hazelnuts and make a great paste (Yum!)
  • Couscous semolina – to try the multi level steam baskets
  • Steamed soy-honey salmon with vegetables – we had t have dinner, so why not?
Profiteroles

SUCCESS. I was initially taken aback because the thermomix recipe cuts down a lot of the water volumes from t
he traditional recipe. I fought my desire to change the recipe.  In the end, the result is great.

Ice-cream

SUCCESS.  Making a custard like preparation is a strength of the Vanilla ice creamThermomix.  On the recipes provided, I would not hesitate to decrease the sugar quantity if it appears a bit high.  Advise: you do need quite a bit of time to freeze the ice cream, do not leave it at the last minute!

The recipe for the one above is on the thermomix website.  I used a real vanilla bean plus some ground vanilla powder.

Hazelnut chocolate spread

SUCCESS for the technique,  The hazelnuts came out so fine! So did the cooking chocolate.  nd of course the sugar in icing sugar!thermomix chocolate spread

DISASTER for the recipe itself (too strong, I will need to compensate it now, can’t be used as such).

 

Steamed fish and couscous

SUCCESS (technique).

I did not follow a recipe. I only read how to use the steamer part (what is its name again?). No surprise here.  Only minus, I find the baskets a little small. It will feed a family of 4 just right, but no more. The food was good (but no surprise there).

 

My verdict

This piece of equipment is very well designed, I came to appreciate some of the details in the shapes and uses while trying it.  For example, the lid of the bowl will gather all spills and make sure any addition makes it to the “Vortex”.

I was very impressed with the thermomix mixing power, the temperature control and of course the pulverisation power!

Until I read the user guide, I found the cleaning painful, but I only have myself to blame here!  One thing I had enough at the end of the test is the noise.  The thermomix is noisy, but I guess most people will not use it non stop for three hours!

The volume is limited, for larger families/groups, this would be a limitation.

All the recipes on the book are not a success and it would be fair to say, the pictures are not always very attractive. However, there are a number of dedicated websites with great content.

I do understand very well the attraction for owing one of those.  Now is it on my shopping list? Not really, or maybe right at the bottom for now. Remember it costs around AU$2,000!  If I am using one, it would be to save my time minding a saucepan and use it doing another element of a meal!

 

 

Mustard, a summer pantry essential!

With the warmer days around the corner, the menu is also changing.  Mustard can be your ally here. I declare mustard a summer pantry esential! Let me give you a couple examples.

Mustard tomato tart

This tart is in essence, a shortcrust pastry, some mustard, cut tomatoes.  Depending on what you may have at hand in the kitchen or the garden, you can obtain various declinaison of it.  On its own, it is quite light. So, a side salad is required.

This recipe jumps back to mind from time to time, I am always pleased with the result!

If you are in a hurry, feel free to use ready-made pastry, puff pastry works well with it to.  Otherwise, make a shortcrust pastry, let it rest for half an hour at least, and you are good to go.

For the mustard I use the plain dijon mustard. Roll your pastry, spread the mustard on the base, place sliced tomatoes over.  The one I made recently has some grana padano cheese, enoki mushrooms, thyme and rosemary, salt, pepper, olive oil. That simple!

mustard tomato tart

 

 

 Mustard Chicken casserole

Another recipe highlighting mustard as a pantry essential is the mustard chicken casserole.

You may think a casserole is for the colder months.  This one works all year round really.  It can be done for a large number of people or just a small number.   It is simple to make. Serve with couscous semolina in summer or a little potatoe mash and green salad. Find the recipe HERE.

chicken mustard

Foraging for mulberries

Today, when we went back to our car after a few hours spent at the beach, we saw three young girls rushing away from a front yard with something that appeared to be very precious in the hands.  They were mulberries. The careful attitude had a lot to do with avoiding having blackened hands and squashing the fruits! This did it for us, it was time to go and check our neighbourhood trees and go foraging for mulberries!

Mulberry Trees

Mulberry trees are not an Australian native tree species and because of that, many councils have simply cut the mulberry trees over the last five to ten years.  In our area, this has not yet been the case.  The tree we went to is quite large, the season is just starting.  The fruits this year do not appear to be very big but there are plenty.

mulberry tree

 

A child’s adventure

This foraging expedition is best shared with children.  The children love it!  They get really excited, so I got them to gather our “kit” and we were ready.  We took boxes and a stool and off we went.

The first berries are easy to get to…

Then, a bit more strategy and skills are required…

20161003_152516

The other solution? Shake gently one branch and gather the fallen fruits, it is quite effective.

Now, our rule is to gather just what we need and no more.   It is a lot of fun and a great adventure!

After that, when we got home, we washed the fruits and removed the stalk. As a result, we did end up with fingers very purple, most of it has not washed off.

Mulberry Pie

The end purpose of collecting mulberries was to make a mulberry pie.  It is after dinner now and the left over of our pie is standing on the dinning table not far from me, I can smell its distinctive fruit and buttery aroma!

The full recipe can be found on its page HERE.

mulberry pie

mulberry pie

mulberry pie

 

 

Baking aplenty!

These last couple weeks, there has been intense activity in the kitchen, I mean more than usual.  There has been renovation works, still are actually.  Now, I have, after 18 month of cooking on an outdoor stove, a good oven and cooktop and, ceiling lights and power plugs there and there! You can imagine I was pretty excited to get this new oven to the test! In addition to that, I will be managing the food stall at my daughter’s school Halloween Fete and I am trialing a few recipes! A great adventure.  Hence, cooking aplenty at the moment!

Last pears of the year

Pears are nearing the end of their season in Australia and I came across a bunch of them just begging to be used on the seconds trolley of my grocery store.  Of course I could not resist!  I have been willing to do an almond pear tarte for a while.

tarte poire et amande

I ended by using a Donna Hay recipe .  The recipe is easy.  There is no tart shell. The tart consists simply in a cake dough placed in a tarte tin with pears pushed in it. Cool it down it its tin and serve on a long platter.  I would advise to place some baking paper at the bottom, this would make the removal of the bottom part of the tin easy.  Click HERE for the recipe.

Tarte amande et poireLook how we recycled an old laundry wash board!

tarte poire et amande

Bread renewal!

With my new oven which keeps the steam (and the heat), I have made a try at semi-sourdough baguettes.  Mines were quite short, just to make sure they could fit in the oven.  Success!!!

mini baguettes

 

These below is the preshape stage.

mini baguette preshape

And another beauty, this one baked Friday night. A semi-rhye sourdough

semi rhye sourdough

Halloween pre-taste

For the school fete food menu, I have decided to expand a bit into some creative pieces that the children will beg their parents to get them.   I will speak more about it in a coming post, here is a little pre-taste!

madeleine bugs halloween

These creatures are madeleines covered in coloured white chocolate. The antennas are pretzels.

 

Old French recipes, trial 1

What did recipes in the 1800s looked like? Going through a number of old handwritten books, I realised that most of old French recipes were savoury and not exactly very precise.  Many titles didn’t speak much to me, so I decided to have a closer look.  I am sharing my first trial at following one of the recipes of those books “old recipe 1” !

 My first cookbook

My first cookbook is very special.  Years ago, still a child, maybe 14 years old, my grandmother, who was having an extended stay at our place called me in her room.  That day, my grandmother gave me her cooking book.  She trusted I would develop strong cooking skills.  My grandmother was an amazing cook. At the time she gave me the book, she was no longer able to cook.  As a child (but no longer now), it impressed me that she could tell by smell when a cake was ready or other food.

What is amazing is that cookbooks from people in the first 1920s were fully handwritten! Such is the case for that one.   As years went pass, there are also recipes extracted from magazines or newspapers and marks to identify key recipes.

A few years back, I discovered plenty other handwritten old french recipes in archives of the family house.  From there was born the idea of selecting some of these old French recipes and making them.  This week was the first trial.

old recipe books

Creme blanche, the recipe

Of course, I started with a dessert.  One of the primary reason was that the ingredients required were easy to source, the other one is probably that desserts making are my strong area.

This recipe is sourced from a cooking book which had belonged to a long time departed aunt (late 1800s if I am right).

The recipe is in French, in old French and potentially with a number of spelling mistakes.

old recipe creme blanche
The recipe of the creme blanche, bottom right

original recipe

A quick english translation would be:

“White cream

Four egg whites, well beaten to stiff peaks, add to it a pint of cream, [???] lemon rind and two spoon of caster sugar.  Place the mix in a saucepan on the fire and continuously mix until it has reached second boil. Pour into a serving dish. It is served cold and should not deflate.  When you will beat the egg white on their own, use two forks, it is easier this way”

As you will understand there are a few words I could not make out. Strangely enough, the spelling in this text is quite different to modern French spelling.  I tried many internet searches but did not find anything like this recipe anywhere.

The modern “Creme Blanche”

For a start, I am not going to beat the egg whites with a fork, I have done it in the past when baking in places with little cooking equipment, it is quite a bit of work!

Then came the issue of measurement units.  The recipe calls for a pint of cream. The internet has various volumes.  I used my gut feeling and cloudy memory of old discussions and based it on half a litre.

In the recipe itself, the main challenge is not to overheat the mix or the cream will split.  Here we go:

The result

creme blanche as per recipe
Creme blanche, just after pouring out of the saucepan

The result was a light fluffy cream.  I may have slightly overcooked it but not to the point of splitting.  It tastes good.  It is a very simple dessert as would have been desserts in those time, working with the ingredients which would have been easily accessible.

oldrecipe1-creme-blanche-1
Creme blanche, after a few hours in the fridge

My Tiramisu Mission

I was on a mission, or a conquest.  I wanted to make and eat a delicious tiramisu.  But what do you do when you don’t like or drink coffee and cannot enjoy this world renown italian dessert in its original version?

I was well decided to give it a try and bought half a kilo of mascarpone from my Italian grocer.  The previous times I had bought mascarpone, I went nowhere close to a tiramisu.  I just kept using that mascarpone for other things, often  radically different.  That way I discovered that mascarpone makes a great cake icing: the taste is light (much lighter than butter cream), a bit tangy, and in terms of practicality, it is super easy to spread.  If you want to know more, follow this link.

Back to my tiramisu tale (yes, we are getting there).  Since I was not going to convert to coffee overnight (I did try a couple times without much success), I browsed through a number of recipes to get a bit of background to the dessert and made up my mind: it was going to be a lemon curd tiramisu!

Here it is!

tiramisu mission, lemon curd tiramisu

The execution is super simple, no need to be a great cook, so get some mascarpone and some savoiardi (sponge fingers) and get going!

There is room for changes to adapt to taste. Tiramisu recipes, even the coffee version, are very versatile.  I ended up also doing a small coffee tiramisu for my husband who loooooves that dessert and his coffee!

coffee tiramisu

A few tips:

  1. Tiramisu recipes also contain cream, the ratio can be adapted if you don’t have exactly the right amount;
  2. You may use alcohol or not.  If not, you will need a sugar syrup to soak your biscuits in.  I make 1/2 L to a litre at the time and keep it in a glass bottle. Alternatively you can find some ready made versions in some deli or specialised shops.
  3. Do not forget the almonds, they make the tiramisu by bringing this added crunch and taste.

My lemon curd tiramisu, the concept:

The recipe can  be found on its own page (lemon curd tiramisu).  Here below is the concept:

lemon curd tiramisu montage

 

The launch of MY POT SHOP!

Today is not about food, it is the launch of MY POT SHOP!

Pottery is another passion which started some years ago.  A few years ago when we lived in Brisbane I bought my pottery wheel.  I can just thrown bowl just to relax or for a mission I set myself on! I also do a little hand building.

I make essentially functional tableware: bowls, plate, serving dishes, souffle dish, and more bowls. At times, a teapot and a few cups.

I recently picked up a large batch of my pots from the person who does my pots firing.   I have been making these bowls over the last months.  Now the question is what to do with 40 new bowls !  I have replaced some broken and chipped ones and kept a few.  Some early birds bought some directly.

You got the idea.  Hence MY POT SHOP.   Check out the below gallery!

 I can not keep everything unfortunately, so the sale page is now open.

PLEASE SHARE THIS POST 🙂 

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Use Specs:

The bowls are microwave safe, dishwasher safe. For the larger earthenware bowls, it is better to handwash and not soak those whose base is not glazed.  You can use them in the oven is you wish, if so, small cracks may appear overtime in the glazing.

 

Strawberry crazy!

This week has been strawberry crazy at home! With 4 boxes of 500 g for less than 5 dollars, no wonder I bought quite a few boxes! Do you want to know how many? 16!  Yes, indeed! But they are now all gone, we had the last ones at diner (and everyone is not bored with eating strawberries).

In my strawberry crazy week, I did some jam, we had strawberry tarts, roasted, strawberry for breakfast, for dinner and for lunch boxes. Guess what, we finished the strawberries tonight!

Two recipes were a great success. I will share those with you now.

Again some madeleines, but these ones are strawberry and rosemary madeleines

strawberry and rosemarry madeleines

This madeleines were really a trial, I was trying to find something to go with poached pears and that could be done relatively quickly. These strawberry and rosemary madeleines turned out quite good. They were not as crunchy as the plain ones but the rosemary and strawberry do bring another dimension to that biscuit. Quite good with poached pears indeed!  Click here for the recipe.

Strawberry and rosemarry madeleines pile

And of course a strawberry tart

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I made the base with my younger daughter, the older one (7 y.o) did the rest of the tart with a bit of instructions. I use a few versions of strawberry tarts.  You can find more on the dedicated page for strawberry tart recipes. Basically, the tarts all have a sweet short crust pastry, you then choose or not to have a layer over the pastry before placing the strawberries.  The added layer can be roasted strawberries pureed or a creme patissiere (custard). On top of the strawberries, we use a bit of jam diluted and brush it on, it adds taste and shine.

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A few more  recipes already on this blog

cookies aux fraises et chocolat blanc

Stawberry and white chocolate cookies

 

 

 

roasted strawberries

Roasted strawberries

 

 

 

 

And if you keep looking , I will soon add the recipe I used for my strawberry jam.