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...
December 31^th 20111.65 M 74.3 4 hours 40 min.

Rice pudding (riz au lait)

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My personal version of this classic family recipe.
December 18^th 2018392 K5 40 min.

Real custard sauce (crème anglaise)

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Real custard or vanilla sauce consists of egg yolks beaten with sugar and cooked slowly in vanilla milk. It is the base or the accompaniment for many desserts.
January 17^th 2018412 K 24.3 45 min.

Potato gratin

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This classic French recipe is made with sliced potatoes baked in milk and browned on top.
February 21^th 20111.10 M 14.6 1 hour 50 min.

Parisian-style chocolate custard tart

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You may well already have met the classic French custard tart, with its vanilla filling. Here is a delicious chocolate-flavoured version.
July 13^th 202251 K 1 hour 8 min.

Chocolate rolls (petits pains)

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Here is a recipe for "real" chocolate petits pains, i.e. with a milk bread dough (not croissants dough) and with a stick of chocolate inside.
October 30^th 2021433 K4.6 5 hours 30 min.

Pizza dough

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Pizza dough is a lind of bread dough with olive oil, which make it softer. This is the same dough that I use for pizzas and flammenkuches, this is no doubt incorrect, but it's very good nevertheless. At home we used to make pizza dough quite thick, and flammenkuche as thin as possible.
September 22^th 2024502 K4.6 1 hour 60 min.

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

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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.

Apricot blancmange

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Blancmange is a very old dessert recipe, going back to the middle-ages. Updated for our century, it's almond milk with whipped cream and a smooth apricot puree.
August 23^th 2011306 K4 3 hours 15 min.

Chocolate muffins

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Variation on muffins recipe. In this version each one is filled with a dark chocolate ganache.
February 21^th 2011310 K4.3 1 hour 15 min.

Bechamel sauce

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Bechamel sauce is a classic, made from a cooked butter-flour mix called "roux", where milk is added and slowly cooked. We get a thick sauce, used in many recipes.
June 13^th 2024423 K4.3 20 min.

Boiling potatoes in their skins

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Boiling potatoes has given rise to two sayings: 1) You should not peel potatoes before boiling. 2) You should not leave potatoes to cool in the cooking water. The first suggests that potatoes should be always cooked in their skins, to prevent water penetrating and making the potatoes go soft and...
July 25^th 2017610 K 34.4 30 min.

Chocolate cream

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A very simple recipe with a really chocolatey taste. Cream, milk and chocolate, mixed with egg-yolks and sugar, then cooked in the oven in a bain-marie, like for crème brulée.
October 13^th 2010260 K4.2 3 hours 6 min.

Hot chocolate

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Here's something simple to cheer up cold days, or a delight to look forward to on coming home after a walk in the rain.
December 19^th 2010215 K4 25 min.

Chocolate ganache

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A chocolate ganache is a mixture of cream and chocolate made while hot. This gives a kind of paste which solidifies somewhat as it cools but remains fairly soft. This is the filling used in many chocolates.
January 25^th 2022323 K 13.7 15 min.

Cherry clafoutis

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A clafoutis batter and cherries lightly cooked in sugar and Kirsch, then de-stoned. The clafoutis is baked in the oven.
June 19^th 2011134 K4.3 1 hour 20 min.

Pain perdu

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This is a sweet French version of "eggy bread": slices of bread soaked in a mixture of milk, cream, egg yolks and vanilla sugar, then pan-fried until golden. It's really simple and wickedly delicious!
July 20^th 2011163 K3.8 40 min.

Praline rochers

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Here is how to prepare your own chocolate rochers with a chocolate praline filling covered in milk chocolate and chopped torrified almonds.
August 28^th 2011192 K5 3 hours 15 min.

Milk rolls

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This sweet milk bread, made as baps or rolls, with its sugar topping is delicious for breakfast or with afternoon tea.
September 11^th 2018187 K 13.8 5 hours 35 min.

Celeriac soup with mustard

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This delicious creamy soup is very quick to make.
May 4^th 2012148 K4.6 45 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

Information on weights and measures in the kitchen

The way ingredients are described in a recipe varies from country to country. This difference, which is quite profound, relates not only to units of measurement, but also to the way in which they are measured: weight or volume. Let's take a look.
August 22^th 2024822 K3.7

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

Soured dough

Underneath this strange name lies a baking secret: when you want to give a bread or pastry dough (without leaven, but with yeast) a certain percentage of fermented dough must be added, i.e. the same dough made the day before, and left to ferment overnight in the refrigerator.
August 25^th 2024146 K 24.1

Half milk, half cream

In a multitude of recipes, savoury or sweet, milk is used as the main ingredient, or at least as the main liquid ingredient. Milk is used instead of water, for example, because milk contains a proportion of fat, which adds roundness and softness to the recipe. This mellowness is very pleasant on...
February 27^th 20245,7285

Devising a recipe

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 201214 K4.4

Cream and sauces

Have you ever wondered why making beautiful tasty sauces is so easy when you use cream? .
October 15^th 201218 K4.4

Different kinds of pastry and dough

When cooking in general, and particularly in baking, we can make and use many different kinds of pastry and dough. All built on the same "base": flour - a powder to which we add fat, liquid or both to produce the dough which is then cooked. .
November 6^th 2012106 K 14.0

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

Lemon in recipes

Let's take a look at the lemon, yellow or green, which is used in a whole host of recipes, both sweet and savoury. It brings both its taste, and the small acidity that makes its charm. Mind you, I'm not talking about lemon used as an anti-oxidant that prevents it from turning black, or to just spice...
October 23^th 201712 K5

Vegetable soups

As I write this post, we are slowly slipping into winter, and this late autumn is the perfect time for soups, especially vegetable ones. Soups, that somewhat "soft" dish, often associated with our childhood, infallible remedy against a cold evening or an ugly weather, or both.
December 5^th 20178,2255

Fats for cooking

If you need to fry or sear anything a frying pan or saucepan, the temperature is likely to be high. In particular, I have cooking red meat in mind. In this case, what should fat should we use? And at what temperature?
January 23^th 201817 K5

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

Is it really necessary to cream egg yolks?

Let’s try and answer a question that crops up in cookery and patisserie, even if it verges on the existential: do the egg yolks in a custard recipe really need to be beaten until pale, or not?
February 28^th 201839 K4.3

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

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 201927 K4.1

Introduction to New Nordic Buffet Delicacies

Nordic delicacies reflect culinary proficiency from Nordic nations of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland. It features a range of simple and classic flavors and ingredients that produce satisfying meals when combined. As is the case in other regions, the flavors and ingredients often...
August 10^th 20219,440 Sponsored article

In praise of Mont d'Or cheese

Do you know the Mont d'Or, this extraordinary cheese from the Haut-Doubs in France, with a unique taste and appearance, which can be eaten both raw and cooked? I'll tell you a few words about it, and with some tips on how to choose it and cook it. .
November 27^th 20217,8595

The super powers of cornstarch

I start this new year by evoking an old product, that you most probably have in your cupboards, a white powder, often in a small cardboard package with a slightly outdated look, only the "gluten free" is relatively recent, it is simply cornstarch, hence its name of maïzena. It's used for a lot...
January 14^th 20229,701

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 20229,4404.5

Soup vs. potage

It's true that we're finally coming out of winter as I write these lines, and that we'll all be making, no doubt, a little less soup and potages, but even if it's out of season, it really is a simple and delicious dish, which is one of the always easy answers to "What's for dinner this (Sunday)...
April 9^th 20225,868

Celeriac soups and the 3rd ingredient

Do you like celeriac, a vegetable that is not always a big hit? If your answer is "no" or "not so much", it is perhaps that you have in mind the celery remoulade, the emblematic starter, with the eggs mimosa, of the bistrot kitchen. It's very good, well if you like it of course, but it's a bit...
May 21^th 20229,3294.9

Parmesan cheese crusts

If you use Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano) in your recipes, you may have already noticed: when you grate it, it becomes (very) difficult near the crust, especially if it is a slightly aged parmesan, as the cheese gets harder and harder. So we stop grating, leaving some crust on top, and a...
September 14^th 202213 K4.8

The 3 secrets of Parisian flan

A flan Parisien, or boulanger, is a simple yet delicious cake. A cream, a mixture of milk, eggs and sugar, is poured into a raw pastry base and baked in the oven until the pastry and cream are cooked. This is the simplest version of the recipe, probably the original one, but nowadays the cream...
July 21^th 20238,8444.7