Exotic fruit tart

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An exotic fruit tart (bananas, kiwi and pineapple), with crisp pastry and almond cream which are cooked beforehand. It's a rather simple recipe, but the final result will impress your guests.
May 27^th 2020314 K5 2 hours 25 min.

Warm apple feuillantines

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It's a rather long recipe but which never fails to impress, perfect for a special dinner party. It's made up of 3 circles: one almond "tuile", 2 of caramelized brik sheets, with a caramelized apple layer between each, whipped cream on top, and custard all around. Everything, except whipped cream,...
May 28^th 2012321 K5 3 hours 9 min.

How to roll out pastry for a tart

(Found inTexts)
Rolling out pastry from a block and lining a tart mould or tin is not as straighforward as all that. To help you to succeed every time, here is a very simple tip. It will to change your opinion of tarts...
October 13^th 2010294 K4.6 25 min.

Little apple turnovers with almonds and raisins

(Found inTextsStages)
These are small apple turnovers ("chaussons") of puff pastry, filled with a mixture of caramelised almonds, stewed apple and rum-soaked raisins. To be eaten just as they are...
September 11^th 2018299 K3.8 1 hour 35 min.

Quail egg canapés

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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 21^th 2011327 K5 55 min.

Tart Tatin

(Found inTextsStages)
Tart tatin is one of the great classic desserts of French cooking. It's an apple tart cooked upside down. Apples are cooked in sugar until they caramelise. Then a circle of puff pastry is put on top, and the whole tart is baked at 356°F (180°C) for 20 minutes. To serve, the tart is turned over so...
October 30^th 2015400 K 13.8 1 hour 20 min.

Steak burger topped with egg

(Found inTexts)
A succulent steak burger, topped with a perfect egg. Here are all the tips you need to produce this simple but delicious dish.
June 22^th 2013254 K4.9 55 min.

Arizona cupcakes

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Cupcakes are small sponge cakes. In their original American version, they are usually decorated with brightly coloured icing. Here's a version inspired by the famous saguaro cactus, so common in Arizona.
October 13^th 2010190 K 14.6 1 hour 50 min.

"BN style" chocolate-filled biscuits

(Found inTextsStages)
These are similar to the BN biscuits so well-known in France. They are a sandwich of chocolate filling between two layers of biscuit. Children adore them!
March 21^th 2011206 K 24.6 5 hours 15 min.

Paris-Brest

(Found inTextsStages)
The Paris-Brest is a famous French patisserie: a ring of choux pastry, scattered with flaked almonds and icing sugar and filled with a praline cream. The name comes from a historic cycle race between Paris and Brest (600 km or 372 miles), as the shape is like a bicycle wheel.
May 8^th 2011187 K4.6 2 hours 20 min.

Fraisier (French strawberry cake)

(Found inTextsStages)
This classic French patisserie is a delicious assembly of 2 layers of genoa sponge filled with strawberries and crème mousseline (confectioner's custard with butter). The sponge is soaked in strawberry syrup and the cake is topped with a thin layer of marzipan.
September 18^th 2011172 K4.2 2 hours 45 min.

Saint Honoré cake

(Found inTextsStages)
The Saint Honoré cake is a famous example of French patisserie. It consists of a puff pastry base surrounded by a ring of caramel-coated choux puffs and topped with whipped cream (Chantilly). It is a bit tricky to make, but this recipe gives you all the hints you need.
April 14^th 2013119 K4.7 2 hours 55 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 28^th 2013100 K5 50 min.

Brioche Tatin

(Found inTextsStages)
For this filled brioche, the apples are cooked separately, as for a tart tatin (caramelized), then sandwiched between two circles of brioche dough.
September 10^th 201874 K3.7 3 hours 25 min.

Mini palmiers

(Found inTextsStages)
Palmiers are a traditional French patisserie, consisting of folded puff pastry caramelized with sugar. These small versions are made with the shop-bought puff pastry that comes ready-rolled in a circle.
September 11^th 201883 K5 40 min.

Cigarettes Russes (Piroulines)

(Found inTexts)
The French name for these tubular biscuits means "Russian cigarettes". Cigarettes Russes are perfect for serving with ice cream or other desserts. The basic biscuit is fairly easy to make; the tricky bit is rolling the tube once cooked.
May 25^th 2014102 K 54.5 50 min.

Ice-cream Vacherin

(Found inTextsStages)
Ice-cream vacherin is a festive French dessert. It consists of two different flavours of ice cream (blackcurrant and vanilla here) sandwiched between two circles of meringue, topped with whorls of Chantilly (whipped cream) which is then frozen. It is not too complicated, but involves a bit of work...
December 21^th 2014171 K4.5 8 hours 45 min.

Little caramelized peach tarts

(Found inTextsStages)
This is an elegant summer dessert: a thin base of puff pastry, topped with caramelized peach slices. For a delicious contrast of hot and cold, serve with the reduced caramel and citrus sauce poured over over hot and, at the last minute, a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, .
September 11^th 201650 K3.8 1 hour 15 min.

Strawberry feuilleté

(Found inTexts)
This elegant French dessert is not quite a tart. The base is a circle of puff pastry baked and caramelized, then topped when cold with a thin layer of lime-flavoured confectioner's custard and beautiful fresh strawberries.
May 27^th 201847 K3.8 45 min.

How to make a good pastry tart case

(Found inTexts)
Lining a tin or mould with pastry to make a tart or pie seems simple enough: you roll out the pastry, put it in the tin and trim off any overhanging bits. It may not be rocket science, but if you want a tart with a perfect pastry case, it really helps to take care over a few details, which I will...
July 14^th 201966 K 45 min.

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 30^th 2024187 K3.7

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 30^th 2024124 K3.8

Oven housing

Once the domed oven is finished and dry, we can start to construct the housing around it.
August 30^th 2024115 K3.9

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 24^th 2024118 K4.1

Roof

Once oven housing is built, it needs protecting from the elements with a roof.
August 30^th 202479 K3.9

Finishing touches

Is an oven really ever finished? Well there are always ideas for improvements. Here are af few...
August 30^th 202472 K4.4

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 24^th 202490 K3.9

Circles vs. moulds tins

If you like to bake or make quiches, pies etc. you must surely have one or more pie pans at home, in different diameters and perhaps materials. They are indispensable, without them there is no way to make beautiful pies, and they work very well, but you have another option, instead of moulds,...
October 2^nd 202012 K5

Devising a recipe

A question I'm often asked is: how do you come up with your recipes? How do you perfect them? This is something I've already mentioned on this page, but I'll take this opportunity to go into a bit more detail.
October 15^th 201214 K4.4

The painter, the restaurant owners and the opera singer

You might well have noticed that there are recipes involving names that have been so overused (often for any old thing) that they have almost become common nouns.
September 25^th 201218 K4.4

The art of the charlotte

In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...
February 27^th 201340 K4.3

Let's go easy on the salt

In terms of cooking, I'm probably not teaching you much, salt is ubiquitous, we put it in almost all our dishes, in varying amounts depending on our taste, some like salty, others less, others still not. Its main role is the flavor, the taste, we say that it is a flavor enhancer, ie it reveals the...
February 20^th 20215,1594.8