Fillings for macaroons

(Found inTexts)
The macaroons recipe shows how to make these small cakes, and gives the example of a raspberry filling. Here are several other possibilities: Apricot macaroons, Chocolate macaroons, Mint macaroons, Blackcurrant macaroons.
May 30^th 2020292 K 24.3 2 hours 1 min.

Vanilla sugar

(Found inTexts)
Almost essential in patisserie, you can find it in expensive little sachets of about 10g. It's necessary to distinguish between the vanilla sugar which really contains vanilla, and vanillin sugar, purely chemical which has never seen a vanilla pod. Here is how to quickly make a whole jar full of...
August 12^th 2018414 K 15 30 min.

How to cook Morteau sausage well

(Found inTexts)
This is, in my opinion, the best smoked sausage. You can cook it in a number of ways, here are three of the best known.
November 15^th 20182.75 M 23.4 40 min.

Sweetcrust pastry (pâte sablée)

(Found inTexts)
Sweetcrust pastry is one of the basic pastry of French patisserie, used in many tart and cakes recipes, but it can also be rolled out and cut into biscuits, delicious with tea or coffee. This recipe is given for those who have a mixer (Kenwood, KitchenAid or other), but it can also be done with your...
July 1^st 2019477 K 24.4 35 min.

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...
November 12^th 2017929 K 54 20 min.

Fruit coulis (fruit purée)

(Found inTexts)
Contrary to what people usually think, coulis is not just a simple fruit purée with sugar. Of course, this is the general principle, but it's possible to make something much better and more refined. This recipe is for a strawberry coulis (see below for other fruits): how to make it, but also how...
October 20^th 2012770 K 44 25 min.

Four quarters

(Found inTexts)
It's "the simpliest cake in the world", called four quarters, because it's made with 1/4 eggs, 1/4 sugar, 1/4 flour and 1/4 butter.
February 21^th 2011314 K3.7 1 hour 15 min.

How to cook hard-boiled eggs properly

(Found inTextsStages)
A hard-boiled egg is properly cooked when: shell is not broken, white and yolk are firm, yolk is only yellow with no traces of green around it. Here are some tips to make this easy.
November 4^th 20131.37 M 65 1 hour 30 min.

Five hours poultry

(Found inTexts)
Perhaps simplest recipe on this site, but what a result! The idea is to cook the bird, without fat, at low temperature, covered, and for a long time. In this way, the poultry cooks so as to be almost like a "confit": soft and very tasty. The effect is more spectacular with duck because it is a...
January 27^th 2012535 K3.8 5 hours 15 min.

How to peel a pineapple

(Found inTexts)
For most recipes it is necessary to completely peel the pineapple, and to keep only the flesh which is then often cut into small pieces. Here is a method.
February 21^th 2011202 K3.7 20 min.

How to extract passion fruit juice

(Found inTexts)
Passion fruit are rather strange fruit as they do not really have much flesh, but rather seeds surrounded by a fine layer of pulp. Here is a way to extract the juice.
March 23^th 2011515 K 32.3 20 min.

How to peel a fruit

(Found inTextsStages)
Usually French chefs says "peler à vif", which means to completely peel the fruit (removing skin and core) and keep only the very best of the flesh. Here is a method for grapefruit, but it can be used for all the other citrus fruit, and many other fruits.
February 21^th 2011179 K4.3 35 min.

How to prepare an avocado

(Found inTexts)
Here is how to get from an avocado only the flesh of the fruit.
January 9^th 2010194 K 14 15 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 2010295 K4.6 25 min.

How to prepare tomatoes

(Found inTexts)
Yes, I know you will say to me: why peel tomatoes? The answer is very simple: it's much better, gives a better texture, softer in the mouth. The skin is tough, adds nothing to the taste (and you will have noticed that commercial tomatoes have practically no taste), and finally it's there (on/under...
June 6^th 2012328 K 24 40 min.

How to glaze a tart

(Found inTexts)
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...
February 15^th 2016444 K4.4 7 min.

How to use a forcing bag (piping or icing bag)

(Found inTexts)
The forcing bag is the tool needed whenever you need to deposit a blob of something precisely in a particular place (in a mould, a glass, on a plate, etc). Here is how you do it.
January 14^th 2011295 K 15 25 min.

How to prevent peeled fruit or vegetables turning brown

(Found inTexts)
Most fruits turn brown soon after peeling due to oxydation, and this is unattractive. To prevent this, you will find many recipes that tell you to coat them with lemon juice as soon as they are peeled. It's relatively effective when fruit are simply to be used peeled, but if you want to make a...
February 21^th 2011117 K4 1 min.

How to cook bacon and remove excess fat

(Found inTexts)
To prevent excess fat in a recipe using bacon, you can "blanch" it before use, leaving most of the fat in the pan with the water.
February 21^th 2011379 K 44.8 15 min.

How to heat milk without it catching on the bottom of the pan

(Found inTexts)
Very often when you heat milk in a saucepan, it forms at the bottom of the pan (especially if the milk boiled) a sticky and brown bottom of milk that burned and attached. To avoid this here is a very simple and very effective tip.
February 21^th 2011251 K 24.2 1 min.

Ice-cream and sorbets

Making homemade ice cream may seem complex, but with the right methods and a few tricks, you can achieve a creamy texture and incomparable flavors. On this page, we'll be revealing the secrets of successful homemade ice cream, guiding you step by step through the various stages of preparation. ...
August 12^th 2024433 K4.0

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 2024170 K3.6

Electronic controlling of a pump

I needed someday a mechanism for controlling an electrical device (pump) on a water level, it was necessary that the pump is switched on when the level was reached, and works for a short time (20 seconds) and then it stops and the cycle, start again. I found nothing in shops that will make it at a...
August 29^th 2023171 K4.4

Nutritional information and ingredients

For each recipe you will find on this site, dietary information is calculated. It is thus presented to you: Protein weight in grams (gr)Weight of carbohydrates in grams (gr)The weight of lipids in grams (gr)And finally the energy value, expressed in kilo-calories (1 kilo-calorie = 1000 calories) and...
August 29^th 2023521 K3.5

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 2023308 K 13.6

This site without commercials?

Cooking-ez is a free non-commercial, but it still needs a little sub to pay its own expenses (web hosting, domain name, etc.). And that's why banners advertisements are displayed on the pages of the site. This is not pleasant, we are well aware of that, but there is another solution: you can...
August 29^th 2023101 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 2023301 K3.9

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 2024189 K 13.9

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 2024510 K 433.5

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 29^th 2023282 K 43.6

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 2024201 K 13.6

Small history of elements classification

The road to Mendeleev's table of tables has taken centuries. Here's a brief chronology.
August 24^th 202441 K3.9

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

Home Automation and CP290 with Excel

If you're using a CP 290 interface to do a bit of home automation and, for example, regulate your heating, you must have used the "Lighthouse" software under DOS and Windows 3.1. Apart from the fact that this software is in English with AM and PM times, and that it wasn't very user-friendly, the...
August 29^th 2023145 K4.2

sorrel

This is a plant of which only the leaves are used. There is a wild species, very tasty, with small red and green leaves, and a cultivated variety with large green leaves.
August 29^th 202343 K4.3

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

How to choose a centrifugal juicer

A centrifugal juicer is an appliance designed to extract juice from all kinds of fruit and vegetables. It will produce juice from tomatoes, carrots, apples, pineapple, blackcurrants, etc.
April 1^st 201141 K4.4

How to choose a good password

These days more and more websites ask you to create a user account, so that you can be identified before being allowed to access some service or other. To create an account you need to choose a user identity. This is simple, as your email address is used in most cases (ann.other@gmail.com, for...
March 29^th 201317 K4.1

How to zest a fruit?

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 201342 K3.8

Asian hornets: Why and how to limit their spread

In France, the Asian hornet is one of the most dangerous insect species, and a formidable predator of our domestic bees. Having arrived straight from South-East Asia, it poses a real threat to local beehives.
October 10^th 20194,2155

How to avoid lumps

You've probably come across this unpleasant phenomenon where, when you try to incorporate an ingredient (usually a solid or powder) into a preparation (usually a liquid), the mixture doesn't mix properly and you end up with little "balls" or little lumps of the solid part that refuse to mix with the...
October 9^th 202016 K4.8

How to break eggs properly?

It is a very common gesture in pastry, bakery and of course cooking: breaking eggs to incorporate them into a recipe. You have eggs (which professionals call "shell eggs" to differentiate them from liquid eggs in cartons or cans), and you must break them to incorporate the contents into your...
June 26^th 202110 K4.8

How to properly roll out a pie crust?

Very often in pastry making, you have to roll out a pastry before using it for a pie or another dessert. At home, of course, you get out your rolling pin and simply roll it out. Is there a way to get an evenly rolled out dough? That's what we will see in this article.
May 10^th 20235,6894.9

How to sprinkle well?

When in a recipe you need to sprinkle something, that is to say to spread a fine layer of powder (flour, sugar, etc.) on something, powdered sugar on a pie for example, you will probably use a fine strainer or a sieve, this is the best way to proceed. But is that all?
May 23^th 20235,4964.7

Fried potatoes or fried mash?

In cooking there are a lot of dishes that appear to be extremely simple but which can actually prove to be very tricky. Amongst those that I'm aware of having this reputation are omelette and fried potatoes.
February 6^th 201121 K4.5

Well-cooked meat

Have you ever noticed that if you like your meat well done, it invites strange looks? For instance, in a restaurant, when asked “How would you like that cooked?” If you reply, “Well done,” it is almost as if you are swearing….
May 21^th 201130 K 14.4

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 16^th 202189 K 23.9

One should cover a pan while heating?

You've probably heard it before: "Cover your pan, it'll boil faster", but is it true? Let's find out.
February 27^th 201527 K 13.4

Artichoke stalks

When preparing artichokes for cooking, you may well already know that we often need to remove the first round of leaves, if they are tatty or dirty, as well as the inedible stalk. The operative word here is “remove” , rather than “cut off”.
October 25^th 201649 K4.3

Candied fruits: don't get ripped off

Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.
June 21^th 201757 K 24.2

85 grams of eggs?

Some time ago, I already spoke to you about the difference between baking and pastry-making, I emphasized, among other things, the precision of pastry-making which requires grams, cm, degrees and minutes. That's why, on the one hand, you have baking and cooking, where a certain tolerance is...
November 26^th 201848 K4.6

For well opened (puffed) cakes

It's always nice to have a well puffed up cake after baking, not only will it taste good but it looks great too. Let's see how to get this beautiful shape almost every time.
January 23^th 201928 K4.2

Drawing a pattern in pastry

Often in the kitchen, in pastry-making, or in baking, we need to trace a pattern on a pastry. It's just a question of aesthetics but it has its effect after baking on a galette, pithiviers, pâté en croute (terrine in a pie crust), etc.
May 23^th 201928 K4.1

Baking cakes

Where we see that to put a cake in the oven, once the dough is finished and in its mould, there is no hurry and that the cold is your friend.
June 28^th 201940 K4.1

Fruits and their syrup

As I write these lines, we are finally in the summer, the holidays are approaching, and above all, the fruits are pouring onto the market stalls, if they are ripe, it's time to enjoy them to the full! .
July 24^th 20197,9874.7

The proper use of a dusting machine

Let's take a look at a simple gesture, the sprinkling, that is to say to distribute a fine powder (icing sugar, sugar, flour,...) on a surface. If you have to sprinkle something, you may use a sprinkler or "poudrette" (in french) it is a very simple utensil, a box, with a lid pierced with holes...
July 31^th 20197,8334.6