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,...
October 3^rd 20191.58 M 714.6 2 hours 40 min.

You should not leave egg yolks in contact with sugar

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You should not leave egg yolks in contact with sugar for too long without beating them, because this contact "cooks" egg yolks and you will get small lumps of hard egg in your mixture.
February 21^th 2011121 K5

How to dust

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"Dusting" in cooking is sprinkling a very fine layer of something in powder form. Icing sugar or cocoa powder on cakes for example. As this is not very easy to do evenly, here is a way to do it.
October 13^th 2010147 K5 2 min.

Liège waffles

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Liège waffles have a very distinctive texture: quite dense with the crunch of sugar crystals. They also have a characteristic form: round and fairly small. Then there's that special flavour that comes with the delicious light caramel crust.
July 12^th 2011255 K5 1 hour 55 min.

Poached eggs

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Poached eggs are cooked, without the shell, in barely simmering (nearly boiling) water. White should be firm and yolk soft, that's the difficulty. This recipe teaches you how to succeed with three important points.
January 8^th 2013309 K5 2 hours 40 min.

Apple and Blackcurrant Brioche Pies

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These brioche pies look like muffins with their "mushroom" tops. They are filled with quartered apples and a little blackcurrant jelly.
September 10^th 201850 K4.5 2 hours 55 min.

Mini apricot and pistachio brioches

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These mini brioches are made with dried apricots and have double pistachio flavour: in the dough itself, which is tinged green, and with dry-roasted pistachios added whole.
November 22^th 201554 K4.1 20 min.

Ali Baba bread

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This bread is so-called because its magical sesame flavour is non-negotiable! The triple dose comes from tahini (sesame paste), sesame oil added to the dough before kneading, and toasted sesame seeds both in the dough and on top of the loaves. The texture is soft, rather like ciabatta, but with a...
December 10^th 201743 K5 4 hours 25 min.

Armagnac marzipan

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Almost the same as plain marzipan, but this almond paste is flavoured with a hint of Armagnac or Cognac.
September 12^th 201845 K4.8 9 min.

Special Cheese and Walnut Sticks

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These crusty mini-baguetttes are generously dotted with diced Comté cheese, toasted walnuts and fried bacon bits. They are ideal for slicing and serving as an aperitif snack.
October 24^th 201774 K5 3 hours 55 min.

Cretan Bread

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This Cretan (or Cretan-style) bread has a soft dough, enriched with olive oil, preserved tomatoes, green olives and cooked onions.
October 24^th 201782 K4.3 4 hours 30 min.

Roscoff loaf

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This speciality bread from Roscoff (a small town in Brittany, northwest France) is enriched with onions, red wine and smoked sausage. What really sets this bread apart is that instead of water, the dough is made with red wine in which the sliced onions are left to soak overnight. The onions are...
October 24^th 201765 K 13.7 5 hours 20 min.

Seeded loaf

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This seeded bread is based on a French baguette dough, with a mix of dry-roasted seeds added (poppy, millet, linseed, sesame...). Delicious on its own, this bread makes excellent toast to go with foie gras, adding an amazing complementary crunch.
October 24^th 2017152 K3.8 4 hours 30 min.

Peanut rolls

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Combining soft and crunchy textures, these flavour-packed peanut rolls are delicious just as they are, but they are also ideal for burgers.
October 24^th 201780 K4.6 4 hours

Two-olive ciabatta

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Enjoy the real flavour and scent of the Mediterranean in this ciabatta made with two olives (green and black).
October 24^th 2017115 K4.3 4 hours 15 min.

Pistachio confectioner's custard

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This is very similar to the classic confectioner's custard (crème pâtissière, or french pastry cream), but its marked pistachio taste brings a distinctive flavour to a whole range of desserts.
November 21^th 2018203 K4.7 35 min.

Pannacotta and blackcurrant crumble

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This is a glass of pannacotta, with a layer of blackcurrent coulis, and a crunchy almond crumble scatterd on top.
February 21^th 2011241 K3.8 1 hour 25 min.

Pitta bread

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This Lebanese speciality is made as a flat round pocket, which can be filled with all manner of things.
February 21^th 2011518 K 14.5 2 hours 55 min.

Four quarters

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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.

Poitevin twist

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This short baguette, from the Poitou region of western France is soft-textured, made with walnuts, walnut oil and goat's cheese. As the name suggests, the bread is twisted, rather than slashed, just before it goes into the oven.
December 19^th 201858 K 3 hours 20 min.

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 2024565 K 63.9

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

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

A few tips for effective kneading at home

When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23^th 2021272 K 23.7

Egg yolks and caster sugar

We often come across recipes where we need to mix egg yolks with caster sugar. This would appear to be a very ordinary and simple thing to do but, be warned, these two ingredients can behave oddly together.
February 15^th 201875 K 24.3

Creams in pastry

In this post, I propose you to make a small tour of the different creams in pastry. If you like to make them at home, you have already noticed the many creams that exist for the different desserts: Chantilly, custard, diplomat, Bavarian, etc. etc. Each one more delicious than the other, they...
March 12^th 20229,4414.5

Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!

When preparing a sauce or a cream, there's always a (small) risk that the creamy preparation you're working on will suddenly separate into two parts of different textures: a liquid part, for example, and a more or less solid part, or even become lumpy. It's terribly frustrating, but we'll see...
June 19^th 20237,0085