Paris-Brest

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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.

Strawberry tart

(Found inTexts)
For this great dessert classic: a sweetcrust pastry case, vanilla confectioner's custard and the best strawberries available. This recipe is simple yet demanding, but the result is an exceptional tart.
June 16^th 2013122 K4.6 2 hours 30 min.

Mont d'or in brioche

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For this delicious winter Comtoise recipe, we enclose a layer of grilled onions, diced Morteau sausage, sautéed potatoes and a Mont d'or in a brioche pastry. The whole thing, rather like a large pie, is baked in the oven, before being slit open to enjoy the melted Mont d'or that has deliciously...
February 18^th 202410 K 3 hours 40 min.

Brioche tart with Comté cheese

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A delicious brioche tart with a creamy Comté cheese and Jura white wine filling.
October 9^th 20245,333 50 min.

Small foie gras pasties

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Dainty pasties, filled with a morsel of seasoned foie gras.
September 7^th 2018315 K4.6 2 hours

Gisèle's Pasties

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These small pasties ("rissoles" in the original French version) are made with shortcrust pastry, filled with a mixture of cooked meat, onion, parsley, garlic and egg.
September 10^th 2018205 K3.8 1 hour 15 min.

Little apple turnovers with almonds and raisins

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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 2018300 K3.8 1 hour 35 min.

Gâteau Breton (Brittany butter cake)

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Gâteau breton is a rich cake that uses a lot of butter (from Brittany, of course) with sugar, egg yolks and a little rum to add flavour. This cake is traditionally served with coffee.
September 11^th 201891 K4 1 hour 10 min.

Vol-au-vent cases

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Vol-au-vents, whether large or bite-sized, need a special pastry case that is hollow to take the filling. Here is how to prepare these delicate cases using puff pastry.
October 16^th 2013302 K4.1 45 min.

Dublin fruit scones

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Scones originated in Britain and Ireland. The Irish version is often made plain and traditionally served with tea. Scones are more of a bread than a cake, eaten split in half and spread with butter or jam, for example. There are also sweeter versions and scones with dried fruit, like the ones I have...
September 12^th 2018113 K4.2 50 min.

Mini lemon millefeuilles

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These dainty and delicious mini millefeuilles have layers of puff pastry filled with lemon confectioner's custard (pastry cream). They are a bit tricky because they are quite fragile and do not keep well once assembled. But freshly made, they are a true delight.
March 25^th 201839 K 2 hours 25 min.

Olive and pesto bread

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This bread with olives and pesto has a very Italian flavour: a ciabatta dough, herbes de Provence and green olives. The loaf is baked in a tin, with a thin layer of pesto spread in the middle between two pieces of dough, and green olives (with stones removed) pressed into the top.
October 24^th 201767 K3.8 3 hours 60 min.

Linzer torte

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Linzer torte, or tart from Linz (Austria), has a cinnamon-flavoured crust filled with raspberry jam. The special and rather crumbly sweet pastry used for the case is made with cinnamon, ground almonds and the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. There are many different versions. In this rather unusual one,...
November 27^th 201651 K4.7 1 hour 5 min.

Agen prune cake

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This cake from Agen, in southwestern France, is a type of brioche. Inspired by the famous "tarte au sucre" (sugar tart), it is like a thick "galette" with a moist texture, filled with prunes and marzipan with Armagnac.
September 16^th 201840 K3 1 hour 55 min.

Buckwheat almond biscuits

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In this sweet biscuit recipe, some of the normal wheat flour is replaced with buckwheat flour and ground almonds. This gives them a very distinctive flavour.
October 7^th 201584 K4 2 hours 40 min.

Fried egg in bread

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This is a novel way to cook an egg in the middle of a slice of fried bread. For a continental twist to the English breakfast, it comes with a slice of grilled bacon and a little pesto. The tricky part (explained in full in the recipe) is to cook the egg white through but keep the yolk runny.
September 8^th 2015118 K 15 30 min.

Two-coloured chocolate-orange tart

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This tart, with its twinned chocolate and orange flavours, is a bit fiddly to make. The fillings are fairly straightforward (classic chocolate ganache and orange curd), but it is tricky to ensure that the fillings do not run into each other. You will need to make a divider but, as you will see, this...
April 15^th 201558 K5 2 hours 35 min.

Ice-cream Vacherin

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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.

Grated potato cakes

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These grated potato cakes (similar to hash browns, but without the onion) can be deep or pan fried. They are excellent with meat, but quite delicious on their own. Children love them.
November 23^th 2014153 K4.3 40 min.

Cigarettes Russes (Piroulines)

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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.

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

Make your own hot-wire or styrofoam cutter

A filicoupeur is a hot-cutting tool for polystyrene, which can be used to enhance any piece of polystyrene you've salvaged, and to do all kinds of things with it: model building, model making, arts and crafts, and so on. See here how to make your own.
February 20^th 2024509 K 433.5

Polynesian arrow

A Polynesian arrow is an arrow with a tail that is thrown by hand, using a piece of string. The result is a "slingshot" effect that propels the arrow much further than if it were simply thrown by hand.It's a craft to do with children, for example on an afternoon when they're a bit idle...
August 29^th 2023191 K 14.3

A mist free mirror

I don't know if you're like me, but I find it very annoying after a shower or bath to have to wipe down the bathroom mirror 36 times with a towel just so I can see myself shaving (or putting on make-up for the girls).How do you solve this tricky problem? First of all, by looking at the cause of the...
August 29^th 2023219 K 13.6

chives

Chives grow in clumps, and the leaves used as a herb have an extraodinary taste. It's an essential for adding to salads, and everything else that can be eaten cold, because it doesn't like long cooking during which it loses most of its flavour.
August 29^th 202376 K3.8

The right weight of pastry for a pie

Let's try to solve a thorny problem: How much dough will I need when I make my next pie? You're planning to make a pie, you're going to use your favourite mould or circle, but how much pastry will you need to fill it completely with a well spread pastry, without being too thin, or on the contrary...
March 20^th 202061 K4.3

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