Recipes: 383 results
Crème brulée
(Found inTextsStages)Crème brûlée (burned cream) is quite easy to prepare: it's a simple egg-cream dessert. The only difficulty is in making the delicious crunchy caramel layer on top. The perfect crème brulée (for me) is a cold and soft cream, with on top a nice hot caramel crust. This is a completely new version...
December 31th 20111.66 M 74.3 4 hours 40 min.
Macarons (the original French macaroons)
(Found inTextsStagesComments)This recipe really is "of the moment": the success of these small, highly-coloured cakes, in an infinite variety of flavours, is impressive. It's a recipe which needs some care, in order to produce a result worthy of a professional pastrychef. No problem, I will guide you through the recipe,...
October 3rd 20191.58 M 714.6 2 hours 40 min.
Traditional nutty choc-chip cookies
(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)A traditional American recipe for homely biscuits, which can be made in different flavours or with additions (seeds, dried fruit, nuts, chocolate, etc.).
January 5th 2020372 K4 1 hour 50 min.
Kugelhof for Nanou
(Found inTexts)This recipe is emblematic of Alsatian baking, but a more personal version (and a bit richer).
August 2nd 2019279 K4.4 3 hours 15 min.
Leavened bread
(Found inTextsStages)It might be harder to achieve good results than with traditional yeast bread, but what a flavour! It also keeps better. This recipe is designed for baking bread in a wood-fired oven but, of course, you can use the conventional oven in your kitchen.
May 23th 20171.19 M 23.8 6 hours 30 min.
How to prevent a sheet of paper sliding
(Found inTexts)If you put cooking parchment on a baking sheet, you will find it slides all over the place, which is annoying.
February 21th 201167 K4.5 3 min.
French baguettes
(Found inTexts)This classic of French baking is rather different from the recipe for leavened bread, it's a question of making a good crust and light crumb along the whole length. To succeed, you should know that there are two secrets: water first of all (much more than for normal bread), and the working of the...
October 24th 20171.07 M 364.7 5 hours 6 min.
Almond dacquoise
(Found inTexts)A dacquoise is a sort of almond meringue that can be eaten like a biscuit or can be used as the base of more sophisticated desserts.
June 28th 2011199 K5 45 min.
Lumberjack turnovers
(Found inTextsStages)These are small stuffed bread turnovers (similar to calzone), made with fougasse dough and filled with bacon, mushrooms, onions, cheese and tomato sauce. Lovely and golden-brown after baking, they are best eaten hot or while still warm.
May 10th 2023113 K5 3 hours 45 min.
Classic French white bread
(Found inTextsStages)This is the recipe for classic, everyday French bread raised with yeast. French bakers call this "pain courant". It is quicker and easier to make than leavened bread or new leavened bread, so ideal for a beginner.
June 6th 2017294 K4.1 3 hours 50 min.
Seafood feuillantines
(Found inTextsStages)Little savoury "millefeuilles" with a very Breton taste of the sea: a mix of crab and salmon in a herb mayonnaise, piled up between crisp circles of buckwheat pancake.
April 28th 2013101 K5 50 min.
Pretzels
(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)Pretzels are bread sticks looped into a knot, probably with origins in southern Germany. The tops are sprinkled with poppy seeds or grains of coarse salt. Here is a fairly straightforward recipe that is simple to prepare.
October 24th 2017134 K4.9 5 hours 25 min.
Cheese Soufflé
(Found inTexts)A soufflé sounds difficult to make, but it's really not. The important thing is to break down the steps carefully: you start by making a béchamel sauce, then add cheese, then egg yolks (and it becomes a Mornay sauce), and finally the beaten egg whites. All that's left to do is place in a...
June 13th 2024127 K 14.4 1 hour 35 min.
Endive and walnut salad
(Found inTexts)This salad has a double dose of walnut flavour: walnut oil in the vinaigrette and crunchy walnut kernels.
May 11th 201476 K4.9 25 min.
Chocolate mug cake
(Found inTexts)A mug cake is fun to make and only takes a few minutes. It cooks in just one and a half minutes in the microwave.
June 4th 2014113 K5 15 min.
Breton Pie
(Found inTexts)This unusual pie from Brittany is made with piled-up layers of buckwheat pancakes (galettes), sandwiched with a filling of onion and bacon mixed with a little cream. The whole thing, assembled in a baking tin, is then browned in the oven.
October 25th 201563 K4.1 1 hour 9 min.
Chocolate and vanilla crème brûlée
(Found inTexts)This crème brûlée recipe is a sophisticated combination in three layers: chocolate ganache, vanilla custard, and, of course, a delicious thin crust of caramel. It is more complicated than a simple chocolate crème brûlée, but well worth the effort when you see your guests' reactions.
December 30th 201957 K5 1 hour 60 min.
Toffee apple upside-down cake
(Found inTexts)With a flavour reminiscent of the French classic tart tatin, this cake is made with a ring of tart apples arranged on a layer of caramel, then covered with the batter. After baking, the cake is turned out while still hot so that the caramelized apples are on the top with the moist cake underneath.
December 4th 201650 K5 1 hour 50 min.
Rolled chestnut and apple brioche
(Found inTexts)This rolled brioche is made with a special dough, using a mixture of two flours: ordinary plain flour and chestnut flour. The prepared dough is then rolled up around a filling of apples sautéed with brown sugar.
September 12th 201850 K 24 15 hours 55 min.
Pages: 13 results
Advice on heating oven
For good results with a wood-fired oven, it's very important to manage the heating process well. Here is some advice to help you succeed in this delicate operation.August 24th 2024177 K4.0
Slashing loaves
When it's time to put them in the oven, the dough pieces for future breads or viennoiseries need to be "lamés", i.e. made with a very sharp blade, by making quick incisions at the top, known as "grignes". Let's see how it's done.August 29th 2023282 K 43.6
Films and papers in the kitchen
It's now fairly easy to find a range of papers and plastic films that are invaluable, and sometimes indispensable, kitchen aids. Here's a quick overview of the main products available, and what you can and can't do with them.August 29th 2023575 K 93.6
Making your own bread
You'll find a whole range of bread and pastry recipes on this site, but before you get started, perhaps you'd like to know more about the subject, get some tips and tricks, and find out what the main mistakes beginners make? If so, this page is for you.August 22th 2024566 K 63.9
Bread oven
Building a bread oven was until a few years ago a job for the professionals. But now you can buy a kind of kit which allows you to build your own bred oven without professional masonry know-how. You should know that the kits only provide the main part of oven, the hearth, where you light the fire...October 15th 20241.17 M3.6
Recipes
A recipe is really quite a simple thing (or should be): a list of ingredients, a method, and that's all there is to it. Unfortunately its not always the case. Sometimes you might get the impression that a recipe, found in a magazine or on a web site, has been concocted especially to make you fail:...June 3rd 2024171 K3.6
Some hints for a pizza-party
A pizza party is always a very pleasant and convivial occasion. Good people (friends and family) get together to enjoy delicious pizzas, baked right in the oven. Here are a few tips to help you make yours a success.August 30th 2024187 K3.7
My best addresses...
Quite a few of you often ask me where I can find this or that? or is such and such a thing a good buy? or which brand is best for this or that? On this page, I'm going to group together my good addresses for suppliers of this or that product or utensil, and good books on the subjects that interest...August 29th 2023301 K3.9
Finishing touches
Is an oven really ever finished? Well there are always ideas for improvements. Here are af few...August 30th 202472 K4.4
Closed fire cooking
For this method, the oven is emptied of embers, cleaned, and door closed until it drops to the cooking temperature of 250°C or 482°F. It's the method used for breads, pies and tarts, cakes, etc.August 24th 202452 K4.4
Soured dough
Underneath this strange name lies a baking secret: when you want to give a bread or pastry dough (without leaven, but with yeast) a certain percentage of fermented dough must be added, i.e. the same dough made the day before, and left to ferment overnight in the refrigerator.August 25th 2024146 K 24.1
The amateur baker
You may have noticed over the pages of this site, I am passionate about everything that is related to the bakery: I love making bread, pastries, maintain my leaven, etc.. This page contains links to all the different parts of the site where we talk about bread: recipes, special pages, etc.October 15th 2024171 K 44.1
Flours
At the most basic level, wheat grain is put through a mill, which produces a white-ish powder flour... Well, actually it's not quite that simple. First of all we need to distinguish between the different grains that can be made into flour: wheat of course, but also rye, barley, buckwheat, etc. So we...June 3rd 2024728 K 413.6
Blog articles: 34 results
Steam for baking bread
What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...June 16th 2021138 K4.5
What can I use for blind baking a pastry case?
When it comes to home-made desserts, tarts are always popular. They can be divided into two basic types: those cooked with their filling, such as an apricot and almond cream tart, and those where the filling is added after baking the pastry case, such as a strawberry tart or chocolate tart. For...May 2nd 2017106 K4.5
Baking cakes
Where we see that to put a cake in the oven, once the dough is finished and in its mould, there is no hurry and that the cold is your friend.June 28th 201940 K4.1
Baking a cake at the right time
When you make a cake, which most likely contains butter, a cake for example, chances are that as soon as the batter is finished, you put it in the pan and bake it immediately. Classic, everyone does it like that, and then if, on top of that, you have a few kids around you who are getting...April 18th 202016 K4.5
Raising (or leavening) agents
When we want to make a dough or batter rise when baking, either in patisserie or bread-making, we need to use a raising agent or leavening agent, one of which is called leaven. In the context of baking, a raising agent is simply what "makes something rise". It is a substance which, when added to...June 16th 202152 K4.8
The window-pane test in bread-making
The home bread-makers often ask themselves “Have I kneaded my dough long enough?” . A good question, as dough that is insufficiently kneaded will not rise properly or will fall flat when the top is slashed, which is very frustrating. To know when the dough is ready, one can rely on the length...June 16th 202189 K 23.9
Making the most of seeds: Dry roasting
In cooking, and particularly in baking, there are a lot of seeds we can use, such as linseed, sesame, poppy, etc. Usually, recipes simply say to add them just as they are to the mixture or dough. To make a seeded loaf, for example, prepare a plain bread dough as usual, then, towards the end of...January 30th 201557 K4.0
A few tips for effective kneading at home
When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.June 23th 2021272 K 23.7
There is vanilla and vanilla
The vanilla is a delicious taste that can be found in many many dessert recipes, creams (the cream and the cream for example), ice creams, but also cakes and entremets. Whenever you need to add this vanilla note, you have several possible choices because vanilla is commercially available in...December 14th 20179,2615
The golden-brown finish on puff pastry
Let's take a look at the tricky matter of producing puff pastry with an attractive, golden-brown finish. French pastry chefs call this "dorure" (literally, "gilding"). Behind this quirky term there lurks a real problem (and the solution): when using puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) for a pie, or...February 8th 201842 K 24.6
The Holy Grail of French bakers
While browsing through the recipes on this site, you may have noticed that while I adore cooking (everything, in fact, to do with eating and drinking), I am particularly drawn to bakery: bread, viennoiseries and all that goes with them – it’s a real passion of mine; I love making them and I...March 24th 201815 K 34.7
The mock CAP baker's certificate exam
The next instalment in my life as an apprentice baker at the French INBP professional school. I’m now halfway through training and it’s still as exciting as ever, and exhausting – but maybe I’m just getting old, or both… Anyway, a few days ago we had to go through the mock CAP exam. A sort...May 1st 201817 K4.4
The 3 essential knives
You must have heard a chef or cook say: "There’s no good cooking without good ingredients". This is very true, of course, but for any amateur or beginner it is equipment that really counts to start with. What I mean is that you should not skimp on kitchen equipment, good utensils, a food...May 30th 201821 K5
For well opened (puffed) cakes
It's always nice to have a well puffed up cake after baking, not only will it taste good but it looks great too. Let's see how to get this beautiful shape almost every time.January 23th 201928 K4.2
The first breads of humanity?
I have already told you in a previous article the beautiful story of the croissants, but do you know what it is about the bread, who "invented" it, where and when? Well, you can imagine that recent discoveries, in 2018, have profoundly changed the history of bread.February 16th 20199,8805
Drawing a pattern in pastry
Often in the kitchen, in pastry-making, or in baking, we need to trace a pattern on a pastry. It's just a question of aesthetics but it has its effect after baking on a galette, pithiviers, pâté en croute (terrine in a pie crust), etc.May 23th 201928 K4.1
The cake and the raisins
When you bake a cake, like a cake or pound cake, you may have already encountered this thorny problem: How to make sure that the raisins, or the candied fruits, or any other small filling, do not fall to the bottom of the pan during the baking process?May 31th 201911 K4.7
The baker always gild twice
I've already told you about gilding, the beaten whole egg that is spread with a brush on anything that needs to brown in the oven: puff pastry, pastries, etc. and that professionals use a lot, I'm going to come back to this to clarify a bit how to do it, and give you a professional tip.June 9th 201930 K4.2
Stand mixer tools
Whether we call it a stand mixer, food processor, or simply refer to it by brand (Kenwood, KitchenAid, etc.), this machine is a valuable tool for amateur cooks, bakers or pastry chefs like ourselves. All these machines come supplied with 3 different tools. Let’s take a look at their names and...November 2nd 201933 K4.5
Kitchen ovens
You certainly have one in your kitchen, an oven, the essential tool for all kinds of cooking, whether in the kitchen of course, but also in pastry, bakery, pizza, and many others. Here is some information on its structure and operation.May 16th 202026 K4.4
Lexicon: 8 results
Dry roasting
(Found inTexts)Dry roasting (torréfication in French), usually seeds (sesame, linseed,...) or nuts (almonds, walnuts, ...), means to heat without water or fat, in the oven or a heavy pan, to drive off all water they contain.It make seeds crunchier, very pleasant in the mouth, with an improved flavour.
847 K 1
Poolish
(Found inTexts)Poolish is a fermented batter, generally a mixture of water, flour and yeast which acts as the leaven for certain kinds of bread dough.There are distinct bread types, depending on the rising agent: yeast-raised bread, poolish bread, and leavened bread.Although it doesn't have the full flavour of a...
847 K
To bake blind
(Found inTexts)To bake pastry "blind" means to cook it on its own or as an empty tart case, when it will be assembled with or have a filling that will not go in the oven. .
847 K 2
Utensil: 6 results
Tart rings, moulds or tins
(Found inTexts)For cooking tarts and tartlets, you can use classic moulds or tins (left photo), or rings (right photo) which are moulds with no base that are placed on a non-stick baking sheet for cooking. This is what pastry chefs use, because with no base, tart cook faster and more evenly, and it's easier to...
847 K
Bannetons (bread rising baskets)
(Found inTexts)Once dough is kneaded and worked, it needs to be left to rise in a warm place before baking. Turning the risen uncooked dough onto the peel for transfering to the oven can be a tricky moment, especially if the dough has stuck to the container. To avoid this, bread is traditionally left for its final...
847 K
Steam machine
(Found inTexts)It's essential to have a lot of steam in the oven during baking to get lovely golden crusty loaves.Bakers have a special steam control on their ovens which injects water at the start of baking. With a wood-fired bread oven a simpler system is needed.I've try several systems and ideas, here is the...
847 K
Baking sheet
(Found inTexts)This is a metal sheet or tray, covered with a non-stick coating, similar to the lining of an oven. It can be used for cooking a wide range of things, but mainly small items to be cooked together such as rock cakes or profiteroles. .
847 K
Silcon baking mat
(Found inTexts)Sometimes using a nonstick baking sheet is not enough when cooking items that stick well, such as macarons or coconut tuiles for example. In this case it's possible to line the sheet with cooking parchment,but one can also use a silicone baking mat which is a flexible sheet with a silicone coating,...
847 K
Ingredient, product: 3 results
yeast
(Found inTexts)Yeast (also called "brewer's yeast" or "baker's yeast") is a living product, made up of microscopic fungi which grow slowly when they are in a warm place.Baker's yeast is for use in breads and viennoiseries. It it is incorporated gently into the dough, then you need to wait for it to work.It should...
847 K
baking powder
(Found inTexts)Baking powder (also called "Alsatian yeast" or "chemical yeast" in France) is a chemical raising agent, mainly bicarbonate of soda (or sodium bicarbonate), which acts with heat to make cakes rise.It is used in most cakes, like for example chestnut cake, added to the mixture, and put in the oven...
847 K
icing sugar
(Found inTexts)Icing sugar is a very fine powder, it's caster sugar which is just ground very finely. It is widely used in baking and pastry to dust.
847 K