Recipes: 211 results
Gingerbread
(Found inTextsIngredients)Maybe this recipe will bring back memories.
February 21th 2011280 K4.2 1 hour 4 min.
Montbenoit's canapés
(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)A recipe from Franche-comté (lovely region of eastern France): large slices of bread coated with melted shallot, grilled bacon dice, a big slice of Morbier (cheese from the same region) and a brief spell in the oven. It really is a winter dish.
October 13th 2010272 K4.6 1 hour 45 min.
Home-made terrine of foie gras
(Found inTexts)Preparing your own home-made foie gras from raw is immensively satisfying: good quality liver and a simply amazing flavour – much better than anything you can buy. This recipe is a bit tricky, but quite within everyone's grasp, as long as you follow the 3 most delicate stages carefully. These are,...
December 17th 20235.23 M 64.2 4 days 15 hours 50 min.
French croissants
(Found inTexts)In this famous and highly technical recipe from a piece of yeast-based flaky dough we are going to cut and shape ("roll") croissants.
June 26th 2019616 K 24.4 2 hours 35 min.
Fougasse with bacon and Comté
(Found inTexts)This is a richer version of the traditional Mediterranean recipe (originaly, it was a simple olive oil bread).
October 24th 2017332 K4.1 3 hours 9 min.
Natural leaven
(Found inTextsStagesComments)Leaven is a natural raising agent, a fermented mixture of water, flour and the microscopic yeasts which are present in the air. It's a delicate living substance, sensitive to the external environment. The recipe is around 4000 years old and dates back to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, via a beautiful...
April 3rd 20201.69 M 304.0 7 days 15 min.
Sandwich bread
(Found inTextsStages)Soft and moist, almost like brioche, it can be made in a tin or mould or as a classic long French-style loaf.
October 24th 2017346 K3.9 3 hours 30 min.
Surprise bread
(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)This recipe is for a large surprise bread so you can make six layers (48 small sandwiches if you divide each layer in 8), with three different flavours: smoked salmon/lime, smoked ham/butter, mayonnaise/chicken.
December 27th 2020697 K 84.5 6 hours 25 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.
Pitta bread
(Found inTextsStages)This Lebanese speciality is made as a flat round pocket, which can be filled with all manner of things.
February 21th 2011518 K 14.5 2 hours 55 min.
Chocolate rolls (petits pains)
(Found inTexts)Here is a recipe for "real" chocolate petits pains, i.e. with a milk bread dough (not croissants dough) and with a stick of chocolate inside.
October 30th 2021433 K4.6 5 hours 30 min.
Special small breads
(Found inTextsStages)When you are have mastered the basic leavened bread, you certainly ought to try special breads: with nuts, cheese, seeds, etc... Here is a series of recipes, based on traditional leavened bread.
October 13th 2010382 K4 6 hours 30 min.
Pizza dough
(Found inTexts)Pizza dough is a lind of bread dough with olive oil, which make it softer. This is the same dough that I use for pizzas and flammenkuches, this is no doubt incorrect, but it's very good nevertheless. At home we used to make pizza dough quite thick, and flammenkuche as thin as possible.
September 22th 2024502 K4.6 1 hour 60 min.
Hamburgers
(Found inTexts)Hamburgers don't have to be the greasy flabby things you find in fast-food outlets, well-made they can be excellent. It's a very convivial recipe as everything goes on the table, and everyone assembles their own burger according to personal taste.
December 6th 2015414 K4.8 35 min.
French baguettes
(Found inTextsStagesComments)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.
New leavened bread
(Found inTextsStagesComments)This new recipe for leavened bread is simple and delicious, but needs rather long resting times. If you'd like more more information about making your own bread, look at this dedicated page.
December 30th 2019903 K 34.3 7 hours
Quail egg canapés
(Found inTextsStagesIngredients)This starter is a small canapé consiting of a toasted and buttered bread slice covered with a slice of smoked ham topped with a fried quail egg.
February 21th 2011327 K5 55 min.
Mixed seed grissini
(Found inTexts)Little crusty bread sticks of Italian origin, these are delicious for aperitifs, plain or with dips like tuna rillettes, guacamole or houmous.
February 21th 2011263 K4.2 2 hours 30 min.
Potted meat (rillettes)
(Found inTextsStages)Potted meat (rillettes) is cooked long and slow in fat. Rillettes can be of pork or duck. Here is the pork version.
October 3rd 2019434 K 25 6 hours 50 min.
Hotpot my grandmother's way
(Found inTexts)If you like slow-cooked dishes prepared with loving care (mitonné), you will certainly love this hotpot recipe, with the taste of Franche-Comté, inspired by my grandmother. It's an old-fashioned dish full of flavours and aromas, cooked vegetables, stock, smoked sausages, all cooked long and slow.
February 21th 2011335 K5 4 hours 7 min.
Pages: 22 results
Leaven bread calculator
This short form will enable you to instantly calculate the weight of the other ingredients in your sourdough bread recipe, according to the weight you require. For example, you can recalculate the weight of flour, salt, sourdough and yeast, according to the weight of water you've decided on.August 29th 2023278 K4.1
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 2024565 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 20241.16 M3.6
Basic temperature in bread-making
When making bread, it's very important to keep to the correct temperature, as yeast and sourdough are very sensitive to temperature. The dough must be warm enough for the yeast to develop and make it rise, but not too warm, which would have the opposite effect. To express this ideal dough...August 22th 2024227 K3.7
Calculator for water temperature in bread-making
The temperature of the water, known as "process water" ("eau de coulage" in French), in a bakery recipe is very important, here is a small calculator allowing you to determine it quickly and simply.August 29th 202378 K4.4
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 2024170 K 44.1
The oven itself (hearth)
The main part of the oven (the hearth) as sold by the producer ("Fayol" company) consists of 9 slabs (to form the sole) and the curved sections which make up the domed oven, plus a keystone which fits in the top.August 30th 2024124 K3.8
Oven housing
Once the domed oven is finished and dry, we can start to construct the housing around it.August 30th 2024115 K3.9
Roof
Once oven housing is built, it needs protecting from the elements with a roof.August 30th 202479 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
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
Open fire cooking
In this method the fire is kept going in the oven, and we put in dishes that cook in a minute or two. It is, of course, the method for pizzas, pitta bread, etc...August 24th 202490 K3.9
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
What is this site, and who am I?
The important thing is the content of the site, the recipes and information you can find, but some of you want to know who is behind it all.August 29th 2023210 K 44.2
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
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
Information on weights and measures in the kitchen
The way ingredients are described in a recipe varies from country to country. This difference, which is quite profound, relates not only to units of measurement, but also to the way in which they are measured: weight or volume. Let's take a look.August 22th 2024822 K3.7
Foundations
A bread oven is very heavy (over a ton), so you should start by preparing a solid base on which it can be built.August 24th 2024118 K4.1
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
Blog articles: 42 results
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
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
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 20199,8005
What happens to the bread when you make it?
This bread that we eat every day, and that our baker makes for us, what happens during its manufacture so that it becomes bread? I will try to answer this question, and to summarize the complex alchemy that takes place.May 28th 20219,9984.9
The color of the bread crumb
When you go to buy bread, at your baker's, at the time of the choice, if you hesitate of course, you will undoubtedly be very sensitive to the color of the crust, and you will be right. The color of the crust, from golden, to sometimes very dark, deep brown almost black, depending on the maturity...April 30th 202215 K4.6
The preservation of bread
Eating fresh bread is always a delight, the crust crumbles deliciously, you take full advantage of the taste of your bread (80% of this taste is in the crust), it is a fleeting moment to enjoy. Who hasn't already eaten the crouton or croutons of his baguette, on the way back from the bakery? ...June 11th 202211 K4.7
The right bread knife
We almost all have a bread knife in our kitchen, that is to say the knife we use almost exclusively to cut bread. Is this knife efficient, is it really the one you need? Here is some information to guide you in your choice. .September 15th 20228,151
The long fermentation of bread
I had already told you in a previous article about the delicious little alchemy that happens when we make bread, let's try to go a little further this time, and try to discover what makes a good bread, in other words, which has taste. .April 13th 20235,7584.9
The softness of sandwich bread
You're probably familiar with what's known in France as "pain de mie", a very white, molded and rather soft bread, widely used in cooking, particularly for croque-monsieur. Let's find out what it's all about.September 5th 20238,6725
Properly cooked! (the taste)
Going out to a restaurant is getting harder at the moment. In France, at least, you have to try and find one that has agreed to pass on the new lower rate of VAT at anything other than a symbolic level, and there aren't many. And then, most importantly, you have to find a good one: one where you...February 6th 201114 K 14.6
Maillard reactions
This subject cropped up recently in a discussion with my three charming nieces; do you know what Maillard reactions are? With a name like that, they could well be some principle in mechanics, but in fact the term applies to something much closer to all of us: it's what gives food more flavour...January 28th 201533 K4
The ideal restaurant
Like all passionate cooks (I suppose), from time to time I dream of opening my own restaurant. I imagine loads of things: it will be like this or like that, we'll do this, I'll cook that, the room will have this or that – in short, I dream.October 15th 201213 K4.4
Different kinds of pastry and dough
When cooking in general, and particularly in baking, we can make and use many different kinds of pastry and dough. All built on the same "base": flour - a powder to which we add fat, liquid or both to produce the dough which is then cooked. .November 6th 2012106 K 14.0
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
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
What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?
This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .February 7th 2017123 K 14.1
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
Foie gras service
For the upcoming christmas meals you too may be sacrificing to the tradition of foie gras? If so, I suggest you take a look at everything that revolves around serving foie gras: how to serve it, and what to eat and drink with it.December 23th 201711 K4.9
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
Lexicon: 2 results
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...
823 K
Rising
(Found inTexts)"Pousse" (rising) is the french term used in bakery to describe the resting time during which the dough rises, i.e. swells thanks to the action of the yeast or leaven. During rising, the yeast ferments the sugars present in the dough, producing carbon dioxide which forms bubbles and increases the...
823 K
Utensil: 9 results
Short-handled brush
(Found inTexts)This is a small hand brush with very fine bristles, used for gently brushing the dough during bread making, to remove excess flour. Very useful, indispensable even, for bread recipes where the soft dough has a high water content, like French baguettes.
823 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...
823 K
Bread dough at the right temperature
(Found inTexts)For the dough to rise properly, it needs to be at a temperature of around 25°C, sheltered from draughts. To achieve this, bakers have what they call a "rising chamber", a small closed room at the right temperature. At home, it's hard to afford this luxury, but you can cobble together something...
823 K
Bread crate
(Found inTexts)This is a large wooden crate for airing loaves after they come out of the oven, and where they cool more easily than on a table (air can pass all round the loaves).Mine is 90 x 45 cm (35 x 16") with a handle to hang it for storage.
823 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...
823 K
Plastic sheet
(Found inTexts)Bread dough needs to be covered during resting and rising, and a damp tea-towel works well. (It needs to be damp so that it does not take moisture from the dough). Another good solution is to use a plastic sheet (cut from a large plastic bag for example) which protects the dough well and, very...
823 K
Plastic sheet
(Found inTexts)Bread dough needs to be covered during resting and rising, and a damp tea-towel works well. (It needs to be damp so that it does not take moisture from the dough). Another good solution is to use a plastic sheet (cut from a large plastic bag for example) which protects the dough well and, very...
823 K
Serrated knife
(Found inTexts)Unlike a classic knife, which is ground to produce a fine cutting edge to the blade, a serrated knife has teeth like a saw. This kind of knife doesn't need sharpening, and cuts certain foods, bread and cakes for instance, more easily than a normal knife.
823 K
Pastry shims or rulers
(Found inTexts)Pastry shims are 25 cm (10") long strips of varying thickness, often 3, 5 and 10 mm, which allow you to roll out dough (shortbread, shortcrust, etc.) to exactly the right thickness, limiting the action of the rolling pin.
823 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...
823 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...
823 K
chestnut flour
(Found inTexts)Made from dried chestnuts, this is a light brown flour without gluten. Not suitable for making bread (unless mixed with a proportion of wheat flour), but it's excellent for cakes, biscuits, pancakes,...
823 K