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 12^th 201850 K 24 15 hours 55 min.

Eggs with tomatoes and courgettes

(Found inStages)
Melting courgettes with tomatoes and onions into which the eggs are slid carefully, without breaking the yolk, and cooked gently. The secret of success in this recipe is to combine the tomatoes and courgettes when they are really soft, and cook the egg white, leaving the yolk still runny.
September 27^th 201578 K3.8 55 min.

Fried eggs with tomatoes

(Found inStages)
In this recipe, thick slices of tomato are cooked first, then the eggs are left to cook gently in the spaces between them. Particularly delicious served simply with a trickle of balsamic vinegar.
November 27^th 201382 K4.8 35 min.

Classic French white bread

(Found inStages)
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 6^th 2017293 K4.1 3 hours 50 min.

Almond tuiles

(Found inStages)
These delicious little biscuits ("tiles" in French) get their crunch and lightness from the use of flaked almonds rather than ground. It is not difficult to succeed, you just need to work fast after taking them out of the oven.
August 21^th 2019377 K4 1 hour 20 min.

Comtoise apple charlotte

(Found inStages)
This "Comtoise" charlotte, inspired by the Franche-Comté region of eastern France, is a more rustic take on the famous dessert. It is made with sliced bread, lightly buttered and fried, then filled with sugared apple pieces, drizzled with clarified butter and baked.
September 15^th 201940 K 1 hour 35 min.

Blackberry and almond fondant tart

(Found inStages)
Balckberries and almonds go so well together: the slight tartness of the berries is the perfect foil for the sweeter almonds. This combination makes for a delicious tart. The sweetcrust pastry case is filled with a blackberry jelly and an almond panna cotta, presented in a bold and unusual way as a...
December 30^th 201938 K 3 hours 50 min.

Alsatian apple tart

(Found inStages)
This tart from France's Alsace region has a sweet pastry (or sweetcrust) case, filled with raw apple slices and a light vanilla egg-custard mixture, then baked.
July 13^th 202265 K 55 min.

Escalope cordon bleu

(Found inStages)
Escalope cordon bleu, or "cordon bleu", is a great classic of French family cooking: a cutlet of poultry (often chicken) that is folded over a slice of ham, béchamel sauce and strips of cheese, then breaded and baked in the oven. It's a delicacy that most French children have eaten at home, or at...
March 31^th 202412 K 1 hour 35 min.

Chicken pie

(Found inStages)
Apart from the obvious chicken, this pie's puff pastry "lid" also conceals mushrooms, bacon, hard-boiled eggs and leeks.
May 10^th 2023112 K4.3 2 hours 30 min.

Natural leaven

(Found inComments)
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 3^rd 20201.69 M 304.0 7 days 15 min.

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

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 3^rd 2024728 K 413.6

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 1^st 201817 K4.4

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

In Praise of the Vegetable Mill

When a recipe or preparation calls for something solid to be pureed, as in a soup for example, the natural reflex is to take out the blender and plunge it into the saucepan. This works very well in most cases, but there are times when you'd like to puree something and at the same time remove the...
July 12^th 20236,2455