Crème brulée

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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 of the former recipe, with video.

Rice pudding (riz au lait)

(Found inTexts)
My personal version of this classic family recipe.

Macarons (the original French macaroons)

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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, particularly the tricky parts. This variety of flavours means that I test many alternatives, so don't be surprised if in the pictures the colour of the macarons changes, I used the best photograph available...

Meringues

(Found inTextsStages)
A very simple recipe but which always impresses.

Confectioner's custard (Crème pâtissière, or French pastry cream)

(Found inTextsStages)
Quite similar to crème anglaise but much thicker. It is used in many pastries like choux pastry (pâte à choux) or millefeuille.

Chocolate sauce

(Found inTexts)
This rich smooth chocolate sauce, with its full flavour, is one of the indispensable ingredients of profiteroles, but it can be used with many others desserts.

How to succeed in making sabayon (syllabub)

(Found inTexts)
A sabayon is a delicious and delicate preparation based on egg yolks and sugar, with a liquid added (wine, alcohol, fruit juice, etc), which is then whipped in a bain-marie until it is both light and smooth. Usually sabayon is sweet (syllabub), but you can make it savoury, in which case there is only egg yolk, salt, and the chosen liquid, which could be stock, reduced wine, roasting juices, etc... This recipe is for a sweet sabayon, using just two egg yolks. You will need to adapt quantities...

Couscous

(Found inTextsStages)
In couscous, the meat and vegetable mixture is rather long to cook, but not difficult. And the couscous itself (a kind of coarse semolina) is simple and quick to prepare.

Home-made terrine of foie gras

(Found inTextsStages)
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, in order: de-veining the liver, seasoning and cooking. As usual, I have explained every stage of the recipe in full, with photos to help you.

Foie gras cured in salt

(Found inTexts)
This a quite different preparation from the terrine of foie gras, this time it does not go in the oven, the liver is salted for 48 hours and it "cooks" (or cures) in this way.

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 history...(note: the ancient Egyptians seem not to have had exclusive knowledge of the process: in Germany evidence of cooking a fermented dough has been found from 8000 BC (the Neolithic era). The...

Surprise bread

(Found inTextsStages)
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.

How to roll out pastry for a tart

(Found inTexts)
Lining the bottom of a tart tin with pastry is not as simple as it sounds. To help you get it right every time, here's an illustrated procedure.

How to glaze a tart

(Found inTextsStages)
Professional pastrycooks usually say that "a beautiful cake is already half sold", it is one of the reasons why they do not put a tart on sale without glazing it ("abricoter" in Fench), i.e. coating it with a thick apricot syrup. This glaze gives a glossy finish to the tart (see the photographs below) and also protects it from the air and thus from oxidation and browning. It's a quite simple technique that you can easily apply to give to your desserts a professional look. This is how you do it.

Quail egg canapés

(Found inTextsStages)
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.

Chaud-froid of grapefruit, pineapple and lime custard

(Found inTexts)
Cold grapefruit quarters with slices of hot caramelized pineapple, lime custard (crème anglaise) and citrus crunch.

Pears and caramelised walnut samosas

(Found inTexts)
Samosas are small parcels of filling wrapped in brik (or filo) sheets and either shallow or deep fried. Here is a sweet version, with pears and caramelised walnuts.

Italian Meringue

(Found inTextsStages)
Italian meringue is made with sugar cooked to 120°C or 248°F. This is different from the French, which is made from caster sugar. The cooked sugar gives a softer meringue which can be added to other preparations or use as it is.

Stock-pot fish

(Found inTextsStages)
A julienne of vegetables (small sticks) mixed with choice morsels of fish, slowly cooked in vegetable stock.

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.

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 2024546 K 433.5

Subscriber's recipes

This list includes the recipes which were submitted by subscribers. Those recipes, under the responsibility of their author, are not always in the same format of the site, one photo by each step, but they are the result of the work of passionate womens and mens, thank you to them for their...
August 29^th 2023202 K3.8

Homemade plancha

The plancha is a cooking method that originated in Spain. It consists of a very hot metal plate on which food, usually cut in small pieces, is cooked with little fat.Contact with the hot plate means that cooking is very rapid, only a few minutes, and there is an obvious "cooked" side. Food is well...
June 3^rd 2024285 K 43.7

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.
November 16^th 2025253 K 44.2

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 22^th 2024579 K 63.9

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 3^rd 2024209 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.
July 14^th 2025196 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 29^th 2023337 K4.0

Cooking with herbs

Herbs: there's nothing else so small that can add so much to a recipe. They are not only for garnishing, but are a true part of the dish, sometimes one of the main ingredients. A small example of the "power" of herbs: you make a chopped carrot salad, which is very good with a vinaigrette, but if you...
June 3^rd 2024227 K 13.9

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 2024132 K3.8

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 24^th 2024188 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 24^th 202499 K3.9

A Mendeleiev periodic table in 3D

It's an old idea that was in my mind for years: making a real periodic table of Mendeleiev (who always fascinate me) in 3D, where in each element box, there is some atoms (at least) of this element.
August 24^th 2024225 K 13.6

Elements in the table

It's not always easy to represent an element. Some are obvious because they're used as such (iron, copper, lead...), but for others it's much trickier. In this list, you'll find the objects/materials that have been chosen to fill in the boxes in the table.
August 24^th 202445 K3.9

Small history of elements classification

The road to Mendeleev's table of tables has taken centuries. Here's a brief chronology.
August 24^th 202449 K3.9

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 2023243 K 13.6

The steam machine

Fogging is an essential element in a bread oven. It's not easy to see, but it's the presence of fog that makes breads golden brown. To get steam on a regular basis, you can put a ramekin full of water in the bottom of the oven, or spray the inside with a sprayer, but this solution requires you to...
August 24^th 202468 K4

Submitting a comment or image

You can, if you wish, add a comment on the pages, articles and recipes of the site. This comment, or question, will be immediately put on line and available for consultation. Here are a few tips for your writing. .
August 29^th 202393 K 23.9

Start off well to cook well

What do I need to get started in the kitchen? First of all, a good website! That's it, you're there ;-), then a minimum of equipment, and the few products you should always have in your cupboards or fridge. Here are a few things to help you make your choices.
August 29^th 2023343 K 13.6

Advices for writing your recipes

If you choose to submit one of your recipes, you'll need to do so via a form (accessible when you're logged in), in which you'll need to enter all the information about the recipe. Please note that in order to log in, you must first create an account. Here are some tips on how to fill in the various...
August 29^th 202370 K4.4

When you make a cake, pound cake or whatever (what bakers call a "travel cake" because it's easy to carry around) you've most likely made a batter, either by hand or in a food processor, which you then pour into a buttered pan. It's a classic, and I've already talked to you about 2 or 3 tips on...
February 6^th 202141 K4.6

When plating or serving a dish—whether hot or cold—on a plate, it’s very important to make sure they’re both the right temperature; in other words: if the dish is hot, the plate should be hot, and conversely, if the dish is cold, the plate should be cold. Is this really important? Let’s...
September 2^nd 20268603

In French cuisine, sauces are a very important part of a recipe—not just a side dish. In fact, they’re so important that, especially since the time of Auguste Escoffier, they’ve been classified into categories. And among these categories are “hot emulsified sauces,” or lukewarm ones. ...
September 9^th 20261,0495

You will no doubt have noticed that in cookery, it's often the actual cooking process that gets neglected. This is understandable; it comes at the end of the recipe and getting the dish in the oven is something of a relief (ah, that's done!), which frees us to cope with what's left: tidying the...
February 9^th 201144 K4.2

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 201219 K4.4

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 15^th 201217 K4.4

You will no doubt have come across this problem while cooking: after starting a recipe, when you already have some ingredients in a pan and have maybe cooked them, you need to know the weight of the pan's contents so that you can take half out, or add the same weight of sugar, for example.
May 9^th 201130 K4.6

Can you really trust your oven? This is an important question as we are always tempted to take the temperature indicated as gospel truth and, unfortunately, this is rarely very precise. .
July 4^th 201135 K4.6

Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
March 26^th 201247 K4.5

It's a no-brainer, surely? If you want a chopping board, just find a piece of wood, and Bob's your uncle! You can happily chop away with a knife and not damage the table or worktop. But in reality, it's a bit more complicated than that. You need to be careful what you are buying, in particular the...
May 8^th 201252 K4.6

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 201222 K4.4

This is a real chef's skill: being able to look at a fish fillet cooking and say, "Stop – that's enough, it's cooked". I always admire this ability to see at a glance if something is done. It is what sets the professionals apart from us mere amateurs. And it's true that how fish is cooked is...
November 26^th 201222 K4.4

If you use a "bowl" or "blender" mixer, as opposed to a plunger, you've probably noticed that it's a bit of a hassle to clean it after use. And yet, with a simple trick, it can be done very quickly. See how here.
June 26^th 20249,7815

In cooking, cooking means bringing food into contact with a source of heat, to transform it: improving its taste, and sometimes its texture. This contact with the heat source can be achieved in a number of ways: these are the cooking methods, and let's take a look at the main ones.
July 24^th 202411 K4.7

You will have no doubt noticed that many recipes call for the zest of citrus fruit. The zest is that outer layer of the skin which adds so much flavour to a dish. There are many different ways to peel off the zest and various tools are available. Here is a summary of the “dos and don'ts” of...
November 5^th 201349 K3.8

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 16^th 202199 K 23.9

I adore foie gras... I willingly admit it, I adore foie gras: the texture, the taste, the festive aspect – I enjoy all of it. I really love eating it, preparing it and, most of all, sharing what I have made with my family over Christmas and New Year. ...but then I begin to have doubts Of...
December 15^th 201451 K4.4

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 30^th 201566 K4.0

You've probably heard it before: "Cover your pan, it'll boil faster", but is it true? Let's find out.
February 27^th 201533 K 13.4

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 16^th 2021151 K4.5

Bain-marie

(Found inTexts)
Method of gently heating something over hot water without direct contact with heat.
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Monter au beurre

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Adding cold butter to a hot liquid a little at a time, while beating with a whip to make a smooth sauce.
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Réserver

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Set aside or put away.
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Sole

(Found inTexts)
Word meaning the floor or bottom of your oven.
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Garlic "en chemise"

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Said of garlic cloves which are used without being peeled ("in its shirt" in French). In the photo, the left hand clove is peeled as normal, the right hand one is "en chemise".
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To simmer

(Found inTexts)
"Simmering" is used for a liquid that just start to boil, not rolling boil (left photo). The opposite of "simmering" is "rolling boil" (right photo).
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Poaching

(Found inTexts)
Poaching is a way of cooking food (usually slowly) by lowering into a hot liquid: water, vegetable stock or syrup, for example. This gentle method of cooking allows the food to retain all its flavour more easily. .
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To sauté

(Found inTexts)
In cooking, “sautéing” means quickly cooking chopped ingredients in a skillet, sauté pan, or wok with very little fat over high heat, stirring or tossing them so they “sauté” and brown evenly. The goal is to sear the outside (caramelization) while keeping the inside tender; this...
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Tongs

(Found inTexts)
For turning something easily during cooking (apple quarters for example), or removing something hot from a pan, and also for serving spaghetti.
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Cream whipper

(Found inTexts)
The Gourmet Whip was initially intended for making whipped cream (like chantilly) by injecting a neutral gas. But now it is used for many other foams, in different flavours, savoury or sweet, cold or hot. It was the Catalan chef Ferran Adria who started to use a Gourmet Whip to make his famous...
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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...
17 K4.5

Mandolin

(Found inTexts)
A mandolin is used to cut ingredients (fruit, vegetables, etc.) into very even slices or small sticks. It consists of flat bed with an adjustable blade (plus a range of additional different plates or blades) over which the items are pushed to and fro.
17 K4.1

Wooden leaven spoon

(Found inTexts)
For use when refreshing, mixing or taking out leaven. It must be kept exclusively for use with leaven, and never washed with soap or any chemical product (only hot water).
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Wire rack

(Found inTexts)
Mainly used for leaving items to cool (cakes, tarts, etc.), so that air can circulate around them, particularly underneath. Generally metal utensils, rectangular or round as in the photo.
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Rolling pin

(Found inTexts)
A rolling pin is a rigid cylinder which is used for rolling out all kinds of dough.
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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...
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"Quatre-épices" spice blend

(Found inTexts)
Quatre-épices (4 spices) is a mix of: black pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.Sometimes a fifth spice is added, ginger or chilli. [Translator's note: this mix is rather hotter and less sweet than British "mixed spice", and in France is often used in savoury dishes. If using British style mixed...
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Mont-d'Or cheese

(Found inTexts)
Mont-d'or is a delicious raw-milk cow's-milk cheese made in Franche-Comté (a beautiful region in eastern France) that has held AOC status since 1981.It is a soft, very flavorful cheese that is sold in a wooden box tied with a spruce strap.
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Dark chocolate

(Found inTexts)
Chocolate use in pastry is usually sold in bars that sould be break into small pieces and then melted in a bain-marie. You can also find chocolate in "pistoles" (small round pieces, at left on the photo). .
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