Home cooking for family and friends
Madeleines are very versatile biscuits. First, they taste great. Then they are kind of cute. The other advantage is that they take no time to make and that you generally will ave the ingredients at home!
Madeleines can be served on their own for the afternoon snack, or with coffee or tea. I love them, and I am not the only one (tested for you!). They are also perfect for children who come back again and again for a spare one!
The recipe can be found HERE.
Again a french classic, yoghurt cakes are called gateaux au yahourt in the french cuisine! The reason yogurt cakes are so well loved is these crusty edges and top and the moist inside with that yoghurt taste cake that we recognise closed eyes.
In France, the recipe is based on the volume of a little pot of yoghurt (about 1/2 cup), so it is fun to measure the other ingredients with that container. Elsewhere in the word, yoghurt may not be sold so much in individual portions by default and also the use of measuring cups is not a novelty!
Anyway, for you here, I have added two recipes to this blog and provided the quantities in grams as well.
The cake is generally baked in a round tin, but feel free to use muffin trays like I did.
If you use it for afternoon tea, the cake is great on its own. If you want to serve it for dessert, poach some fruits and serve it with the reduced poaching syrup!
If you are French or have lived in France, the answer would be yes. For others, you probably have not eaten any Palets Bretons.
I could not resist this recipe. I am not being patriotic just now (no! 🙂 ), this is just that I LOVE those little biscuits and you can’t find them in Australia.
They are very easy to make. The only limitation is that they cannot be placed to cook on a flat sheet as they need support. Turned out that I had a silicone mould for mini-muffin (which I never use normally) just perfect for it!
You can keep them in a cookie box for a couple weeks easily (please not in the fridge, just in an airtight container or cookie box). They are perfect with a cup of tea, with desserts like yogurt or fruit compotes and can even be used for lunch boxes snack.
There are only few ingredients, same as in most cookies: flour, butter (of course, we are speaking Brittany), eggs, sugar and baking powder.
Now I am sure you feel like making them!
Makes the quantity you can see on the above photo.
In a first time, you need to make the dough:
The second part is the cutting and cooking:
This strawberry white chocolate cookie was a happy find on PInterest. The recipe is from Vera (from Oh my god chocolate desserts blog). I have adapted a few things, and added some comments. They are beautiful and chewy, especially when still warm. I froze most of the second batch and use them for lunch boxes or afternoon snack.
The recipe is VERY easy to make.
Cooking for kids! What a controversial topic and how charged with emotions and strong beliefs. This page also provides the recipe to cook with kids (not just for them).
This section of Bread’N Butter Kids will provide you with some recipes which are really children’s favourite! Now, it is not to say that they are not for adults, not at all actually, more like you are sure to get the thumbs up from the children with those!
Now, before you get started, I will just highlight my main beliefs on kids food:
Have fun! And if you need some help, contact me. I am in Sydney (Australia), happy to answer your questions and provide some services to support you through your needs.
The list below is missing (yet) key recipes like homemade chicken nuggets, homemade fish fingers, crepes and more, this will come! Some quite soon actually!
This salted chocolate and walnut caramel slice is adapted...
This roasted almond and chocolate slice is very easy to make...
This is a recipe you should feel free to adapt with what you...
This poached deep seabream with carrots dish is simply easy...
Walnut, Honey, Orange and Ricotta Muffins, or maybe in short...
Yum, yum ! And for bonus: this lunch box chocolate fondant...
This chocolate version of the galette des rois works a...
This version of the french traditional yoghurt cake contains...
This strawberry white chocolate cookie was a happy find on...
The recipe for this cherry tomatoes and mozzarella risotto...
This pork belly roast in apple cider is almost a whole dish...
A real chocolate mousse is light and airy. The chocolate mousse is made only from eggs and good quality cooking chocolate. There is no sugar, no cream! Chocolate mousses for cakes are different and would include whipped cream. You will find this recipe with small variations on pretty much every French chef website.
Make it at least 4 hours before serving as it needs to set in the fridge. You can make it the day before if you want. You can put the mousse in individual ramequins or serve it as one dish to share.
For 8 people. Preparation- 10 minutes. Resting – 4 hours minimum.
This recipe is what I would call an everyday apple tart. It suits perfectly a simple family dinner, it is light and brings a nice finish to dinner. It is pretty simple to make, once you got the shortcrust pastry right. If you want to know more about pastries and their uses, I wrote a post some time ago on tartes.
For 6 people. Preparation, 15 min. Baking time 30 min.
For the pastry:
For the filling:
Free range eggs have now a formal definition in Australia. The controversy was not new, and a definition has been a long time coming. A number of brands claim to be “free range”, alas, for the poor customer, there was (until now) no way to know the veracity of the claim, especially when you pay a premium for “free range eggs”, for some brands, that premium can mean over $10 a dozen.
One of the not so free range eggs brands apparently
Of course, the hens are free range,…not the eggs!
The new definition of what free range eggs imply is well received by some, not so well by others. I am not going to go into the controversy of what should be done when breeding hens and which brands are better than others, it is a personal issue on what is acceptable to you. I find that this definition is a starting point, for those who think it is not good enough, well, marketing and imagination can be used wisely.
Lets get into the new definition of free range eggs and look over the oceans at what is done elsewhere.
In Australia, free range eggs must come from hens that have meaningful and regular access to an outdoor range, with a stocking density of up to 10,000 birds per hectare. One hectare being 100 m x 100 m, this means 1 square metre per hen outside. Interestingly, it seems the density indoors is unknown.
And in Europe? Europe has a European standard which defines the different categories of eggs. A free range eggs requires:
You got it, free range eggs in Europe are definitely more free range than in Australia!
And in the US? In the US, there is no regulatory standard for eggs. “Free range” is used when the hens are free to roam inside and have access to an outdoor area.
These recipes are quite timely, I did not prepare them on purpose for this post, they are life example from this week in my family.
I like a quiche from time to time, it is light to digest and comes under many sorts. When I was a child I only liked the cheese quiche, I did not like at all the quiche Lorraine! Now, things are different. Quiche can incorporate vegetables, either in the main mix, for example grated zucchinis (finely grated) or grated carrots either on top where it can also serve as decoration. Make it look like a landscape! Try asian mushrooms on top, I really like the enoki mushrooms. Use a combination of them, it will be great, guaranteed! This week, Ambrine was helping me make the quiche, I had green asparagus and the remaining of a large basket of cherry tomatoes from my mother in law’s garden in the NSW Southern Highlands. The recipe is here.
Before Baking:
Just BAKED
To make the quiche process a bit more rapid ahead of the meal, you can make the quiche in stages and prepare the pastry earlier the same day or the day before. You can even blind bake it earlier.
I serve the with a green salad. And dessert was a fruit salad.
This is another child friendly recipe. This is all about the fun of little vessel called “coddlers” used to cook eggs. Coddlers are, traditionally, English porcelain egg cups with a metal lead. Very British! Egg coddlers have been used in England since the 1800s. The original name for an egg coddler was pipkin. My sister sent me a microwave version of them for a recent Christmas, what a great find! The advantage of the microwave version is the cooking time, it cooks in 30 seconds whereas the ceramics ones are cooked in a bain marie, this takes for ages!
All you need to do is:
