Tag: French cooking

You will never fail your tarte Tatin again

Tarte Tatin or the upside down tarte.

Tarte Tatin is a French dessert,  with lots of butter, caramel and a beautiful pastry.  It is cooked with the pastry on top, not underneath like a usual tarte.  After cooling down a little, it is turned upside down on a serving plate.

Until now, mine resembled a gooey gathering of fruits and caramel.  I must say, since I tried this tip maybe three-month ago, I have found a new “Waho” dessert that is simple to make.  I know, some will say, I always say so (which is not true!)… Try, this will become your dinner party dessert. And you know what:  it is not a chocolate – even though we love it – recipe!

So, what results do you get?

I made the same recipe with apple and with pears.  For the later, make sure they are not too soft. By now at least two to three-time each. The last one was a large size one on Monday. Yes a week day! I have taken a few photos. I realise the best apple tarte Tatin were not photographed.  Check out the fruits sitting!  I can’t believe it every time I unmold one these days.

Tatin poires tatin pommes

And what is that tip?

A classic tarte Tatin recipe will call for you to either cook the fruits with butter and sugar in a thick based frypan and somehow avoid a puree or place the uncooked fruits directly in the baking tin and pray that they be cooked by the time the pastry is ready. I never fancied either techniques (I guess you got that by now).

The tip comes from Christophe Michalak, a French pastry chef very followed at the moment.  To be frank, he is a Master Patissier. I made some of his recipes (I made this amazing strawberry tarte of his a couple weeks ago for a birthday, delicious!!) and they are pretty good and very practical. All are not necessarily that easy.

Ok, the tip! Let us come back to our topic.  All right, swap the frypan for a good size saucepan. Butter, sugar, vanilla and peeled quartered fruits all get in and relax in there for a bit in their little jacuzzi until they are soft. That is the tip! No pureed fruits! Plenty space for them to move and cook slowly without coming to pieces. You are left with an interesting juice, which can be used for another Tatin or something else.  I have one on the corner of the stove right now and am getting ideas…

Back to our tarte Tatin again.  Then, you place the fruits over a caramel (you didn’t think you are going to stay idle all that time, did you?) you have previously  covered the base and side of the metal tin with.  Your job there is to ensure the pieces are fruits are cosy side by side.  Then the pastry comes on top, and all is sent for a little bit more warmth in Mr Oven for a little bit.

Conclusion: You will never fail your tarte Tatin again!

If you want the recipe, click HERE.

tatin pomme

Cherry Clafoutis

This is my recipe of the cherry clafoutis. I tried a few recipes to get there: too sweet, too thin, too bland, too much juice lost…The “traditional” clafoutis recipe contains milk, egg, sugar and flour and critically cherries with pits ON!!!

My version is slightly different to the “traditional recipe” in that I have added a little tanginess (yoghurt) to pair with the taste of the cherry.  I also choose to keep the pits (this is subject to many discussions in the cooking world.  Check my post if you want to know more!

Before we start, a few tips:

Tip: Plan a dish in which your batter will be 4 to 5 cm thick  when pouring the preparation over the fruits (or you don’t get that moist middle)

Tip:  the clafoutis rises during baking, so have a couple of centimetres of free board (it will deflate when taken out of the oven).

clafoutis with pits and stem

Serves 4

For info, my dish was 17 x 17 cm

Ingredients:
  • 300 g of fresh cherries,with pits and stems (remove the stems if you do not fancy them)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 40 g white sugar
  • 50 g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/4 cup of milk (50 cl)
  • 1/4 cup of cream (60 g)
  • 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt (120 g)
  • a nut of butter (for the dish)
Method:
  1. Butter and flour your dish
  2. Preheat the oven on 170°C.
  3. Place the fruits (with pits and stems) at the bottom of the dish.
  4. Mix the eggs and sugar together, ass the milk, cream, vanilla and yogurt. Combine
  5. Add the flour
  6.  Poiur the batter over the fruits trying to keep the stems going upwards
  7. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
  8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool until serving wrm or cold.

It keeps well at room temperature or in the fridge for a couple days.

clafoutis with pits and stem

clafoutis with pits and stem clafoutis with pits and stem

 

 

 

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