COOKBOOKS GALORE

A Happy New Year! Bonne Année!  I can't let Epiphany pass without a Galette, and I think we all need something sweet to keep us going in these difficult times.  I asked my French friend for ideas for something different and she sent me this recipe. I found the ground hazelnuts in Waitrose, or you could grind your own. So you need: 2 sheets of butter puff pastry, 125g ground hazelnuts, 100g dark chocolate, 100ml single cream, 1 egg, 75g caster sugar, 50g melted butter, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 1 egg yolk Preheat oven 200C/gas6                       Baking sheet Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Beat the egg with the sugar till fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and mix well. Add the hazelnuts and vanilla extract and stir together. Roll out the first sheet of puff pastry and cut out a circle using a large dinner plate or something similar. Place on the baking she...

These came about because I found a jar of my favourite Biscoff spread in Sainsbury's. I've since noticed that Lidl sell the same kind of spread called Spiced Biscuit spread. I expect most of the supermarkets now have their own versions. I bought a new tartlet tin so wanted to try it out, and chocolate and spice seemed to go well together. I was very lazy and bought a pack of shortcrust pastry, but of course you can make your own from your favourite recipe, or even buy ready made tartlet shells, so then you'd have no cooking at all! You need; 1 pack ready shortcrust pastry, 100g dark chocolate, 3 tbspn spiced biscuit spread, 100ml single cream, 60g butter and a few crumbled Biscoff biscuits [or supermarket equivalent] to sprinkle on top. Preheat oven 200C                    Grease a tartlet tin. Roll pastry out on a floured surface and cut out discs using a 71/2 cm /3" cutter. Line the tin with these then bake for 20 mins. Take ou...

Thought I'd post something sumptuous for Valentine's Day. I'm cheating a bit because my daughter made this, with a little help from me. It's a lovely dessert with a meringue base, delicious chocolate cream layer, more meringue, then topped with a good layer of grated chocolate. You could buy 2 large meringue discs to save making them. This is a recipe from my French friend, and she says it originates in the North of France. Meringues:  2 egg whites, 60g caster sugar and 60g icing sugar Ganache:     150g dark chocolate, 150ml single cream Topping:      100g grated dark chocolate It's best to make the meringues the day before, but it's up to you! Heat oven 160C/gas3              Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone sheets Beat egg whites till stiff and add half of the 2 sugars. Whisk again then add the other half and whisk till shiny. Put into a piping bag and pipe into 2 large discs onto ...

I've been inspired by Suelle on her blog  Mainly Baking  to make something savoury to go with a salad. I decided on a savoury loaf, and as I was going away to my daughter, decided to use up the peppers in the fridge. Thought tuna would go well with them. I used: 150g flour, 3 eggs, 1/2 green and 1/2 red pepper, tin tuna [used one in water and drained liquid off] 1 tspn baking powder, pinch salt, 70g grated cheese [used strong Cheddar to give it a good flavour], 100ml olive oil and 100ml single cream. Preheat oven 180C/gas4                Grease a 900g loaf tin Beat the eggs. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix together. Next add the oil, cream, flaked tuna, peppers cut into dice and the grated cheese. Give everything a good mix together. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 35mins till golden. I was very happy with the result. It had a nice crumb and a soft texture, and the tuna and peppers went really well together...

This is one of our favourite apple desserts. Traditionally a clafoutis is made with cherries, but my friend also makes this one with apples, and kindly gave me her recipe. Using cornflour isn't traditional either, but it works well. You need: 4 large or 6 small apples [I used Gala], 2 eggs, 100g caster sugar, 40g cornflour, 250ml single cream, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 1/2 tspn cinnamon Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Grease and flour a deep dish - the one I used was 23cm in diameter and 8 cn deep. Peel the apples and cut into slices. Layer into the base of the dish. In a bowl beat the eggs and sugar together till white and fluffy. Add the sieved cornflour, cream, vanilla and cinnamon and mix well. Pour over the apples and bake for 30-40 mins. It can be eaten warm or cold. I sprinkled some sultanas onto my clafoutis before baking, and sieved some icing sugar over the top when baked. I love the original version, but I also love this one, because the apple adds another layer o...

A couple of years ago my lovely Dutch friend sent me some goodies, including some of my favourite speculoos [ or speculaas?] biscuits. I used them in a recipe I found in a French magazine, and decided to make the cake again. It doesn't need any cooking. 125g speculoos biscuits [or any spicy biscuit - the ones they sell in Lidl are good] 4 dried figs, finely chopped 4 dates, finely chopped 2 tbspns sultanas 60g melted butter 200g milk or plain chocolate - broken into small pieces 15cl single cream 2 packets of Werther's originals or other butterscotch sweets 22cm cake tin - preferably a silicone mould Crush the biscuits and mix them with the dried fruit and melted butter. Press the mixture into the bottom of the tin/mould and put it in the fridge to harden. Break the chocolate up into a bowl. Put the cream in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, then pour it over the chocolate. Stir well till the mixture is nice and smooth. Cool. Take the ...

Thought I'd make a pudding instead of a cake, and this French one is a family favourite. It has my favourite spice, cinnamon in it, but you could change the spice to ginger, or maybe cardamon, both of which go well with chocolate,  or even add a bit of chilli powder.  It's made in individual portions in ramekins. You need: 200g dark chocolate, 4 tspn cinnamon, 50g plain flour, 100g butter, 50g caster sugar, 40g single cream and 4 eggs. Preheat oven 200C/gas6                Grease 6 ramekin dishes well. Break the chocolate into chunks, then add to a pan with the cream and butter over a bowl of simmering water. Beat the eggs with the sugar then add the melted chocolate mixture, cinnamon and flour and mix together well. Spoon into the ramekins and bake for 9 mins. Leave to cool then turn out onto a plate. It turns out like the infamous molten chocolate pudding, which has been the bane of contestants lives on Masterchef! The ...

A Reine de Saba [or Queen of Sheba] cake was one of Julia Child's favourites. There are lots of recipes of her version on blogs and websites, but this version is my French neighbour's family recipe. It always appears for birthdays and special occasions, which is how I got to try it. Persuading them to give me their recipe involved some making of English cakes on my part! I don't know why it's named after the Queen of Sheba; one suggestion I found online said  ' it shares many of the Bible Queen's qualities - exotic, rich, irresistible and the stuff legends are made of'. Hmmm! If you want to try JC's version here's a link to her  Reine de Saba Cake . There's also a clip on You Tube of JC making this cake on her French Chef programme - here's the  You Tube Clip . What an annoying voice she has! It's a chocolate and almond cake, but a lot of the recipes online don't have any almonds! Preheat oven 180C/gas4                Grease...

My turn to host Book Group, so thought I'd make tartlets rather than a cake. Found a small tin of pears in the cupboard that needed using, hence the idea for these tartlets. I love any chocolate and pear combo, so this would be the base. So, a pastry shell filled with an almond cream, slices of pear, then a creamy chocolate topping. I used 2 pears from a tin of pears in juice, but you could use fresh pears which have been poached in a sugar syrup. I made a sweet sc pastry with 150g flour, 50g caster sugar, 75g butter, 1 egg yolk and 1-2tbsp water, but you could make the pastry without the sugar if you prefer. You don't need to be told how to make this pastry, but put it in the fridge for about an hour before you use it. Roll this out to about 2mm thick then cut out circles with a cutter to fit your tart tin. It makes 12; prick bases with a fork then put in the fridge. For the almond cream , in a bowl mix  together 50g ground almonds with 50g icing sugar, 40g soft butt...

We had a good holiday in Brittany, and enjoyed lots of excellent food and wine. We ate in several creperies, enjoying the galettes made with buckwheat flour and filled with great things like prawns, cheese, ham and veg. We enjoyed some of the regions specialities such as Le Far Breton [ which is similar to the French Flan I posted about a while ago, but it has prunes and rum in it] and Kouign-amann, a butter cake made with yeast - very rich. We visited  couple of biscuit factories and sampled different flavoured palets and the galettes breton. My favourite flavour was the caramel and sea salt one. We also ate some gateau Breton, which is very similar in texture and flavour to the special cake from the Deux Sevres. I find them rather dry, but ok with a glass of cider! I thought I'd post a French recipe to keep our holiday memories alive. It was given to me by my friend's neighbour; we were invited to her house for a meal, and this was the dessert. She also made a fantastic ...

Off on holiday to France tomorrow, so thought I'd post a French recipe. Will be back posting in 2 weeks. At the weekend I picked just enough rhubarb to make some kind of dessert. Wanted something different, and browsing through some old French cookery magazines, I found a recipe for a meringue tart with a difference, as it has a custard layer on the rhubarb before you add the meringue topping. Sounded like a great idea. I love rhubarb, but we haven't a very big garden so I have to make good use of what we can grow! It uses a 27cm tart tin, which is quite big. So, you need: 350g of shortcrust pastry 1 kg rhubarb 1 egg and 2 yolks 20cl of cream 1 tbspn vanilla sugar 150 g of caster sugar (50g for marinating the rhubarb and about 100g or a bit less in the custard] 1 tbspn cornflour For the  meringue :  2 egg whites 50g caster sugar per egg Preheat oven 220C/gas 8 Make the pastry and chill. Cut the rhubarb stems into 2cm pieces, taking the strin...

And now for something completely different! I don't usually post anything savoury on here, but this was so tasty that I wanted to share it. I posted a recipe not long ago for a clafoutis, which we love. Looking through some old French cookery magazines of recipes for summer [making the most of the sun!] I found this recipe for a savoury version. Local asparagus will soon be gone, so this is a different way of making the most of it. 100g asparagus 10 cherry tomatoes 20cl of whole milk 25cl of single cream 2 eggs 4 tbspn plain flour salt and pepper Preheat oven 180C/gas4 4 ramekins or an oven-proof dish about 20cm. If you're using ramekins, cut the asparagus into 2 or 3 pieces, then wash and dry the tomatoes. In a bowl mix the eggs, milk and cream, season, then fold in the flour and beat with a whisk till it's all combined. Put the asparagus and tomatoes in the bottom of a greased ovenproof dish, or if using ramekins, as I did, put a couple of pieces...

A very easy, quick dessert. My younger daughter came yesterday. She is a chocaholic, so dessert had to be something chocolate. Recently I was given a bar of pistachio nougat so decided to use this with the tart, but any nougat would work as it's only the topping. I made a sweet pastry using 200g of flour, 120g butter and 70g of caster sugar, binding it together with a beaten egg. Put in the fridge for 30 mins. Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease a tart tin or flan dish. Roll the pastry out to fit the tin/dish and bake blind in the oven for 20 mins. leave to cool. Grate 200g of dark chocolate finely. Bring 20cl of single cream to the boil, take off the heat and add the chocolate. Carefully mix together and leave to cool. Spread it over the pastry case and smooth it out. Put in the fridge for about 20 mins.  Chop up 100g of nougat and use it to sprinkle over the chocolate tart. Sorry, am still having problems with my camera, so photo is a bit blurred! It's an ...

My lovely Dutch friend sent me some goodies recently, including some of my favourite speculoos biscuits. I wanted to use them in a cake of some sort, and found this recipe in a French magazine. No cooking is needed for the cake. 125g speculoos biscuits [or any spicy biscuit] 4 dried figs, finely chopped 4 dates, finely chopped 2 tbspns sultanas 60g melted butter 200g milk or plain chocolate - broken into small pieces 15cl single cream 2 packets of Werther's originals or other butterscotch sweets 22cm cake tin - preferably a silicone mould Crush the biscuits and mix them with the dried fruit. Press the mixture into the bottom of the tin/mould and put it in the fridge to harden. Break the chocolate up into a bowl. Put the cream in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, then pour it over the chocolate. Stir well till the mixture is nice and smooth. Cool. Take the base mixture out of the fridge and pour the chocolate over, then put it back in the fridge again to...