Please Root For Me

Regardless of my origins, I have nurtured a life-long love of root beer. I know it's not to everyone's taste, but I can't get enough of the stuff. Literally. Root beer is not a thing here in France.
So imagine my delight when I stumbled across six cans of A&W in the 'foreign foods' section at the supermarket yesterday! It would seem that the tourist season has some benefits after all.
Coincidentally, I was participating in a discussion on junk food in one of my online study groups, and a friend posted this: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/08/diy-root-beer-how-to-brew-your-own-root-beer-recipe.html
Finding the ingredients may prove to be a challenge, but I'm willing to give it a go. I'll let you know how I get on, Internet.
Love,
bob

TIL: SOS - Save Our Sponges

Today I Learnt that re-purposing sponge cake is a thing. These days we are only three at home, and one sponge cake goes a long way. I have followed internet advice and taken to freezing uneaten cake for later use (it is hard to reduce ingredient quantities below a certain point). Today I have defrosted a wedge of Strawberry/Vanilla Sponge and used it as the base of a trifle/tiramisu hybrid. I lined the dessert bowl with slices of sponge cake, then filled it with a marscapone/crème fraîche/vanilla sugar mix (250g marscapone, tablespoon crème fraîche, sachet of sugar). Topped it off with fresh strawberries and icing sugar. Nom.

Hazelnut & Maple Crumbly Cake

Ingredients:

100g ground hazelnuts
200g flour
190g white caster sugar
60g golden cane sugar
250g butter
2 large free range eggs
1 sachet (or one heaped teaspoon) baking powder
3 tablespoons maple syrup
splash of milk

Method:

Cream together the sugars and butter, add the eggs and beat until smooth
Sift together the dry ingredients, then gradually add to the butter mix
Add a splash of milk as necessary to get a smooth, even cake batter
Mix in the maple syrup, stirring until blended
Pour into cake mould and bake at 190°C for approximately 30 minutes

Note:
You can expect the cake to be slightly crispy on top and very crumbly on the inside (hence the name). Allow to cool thoroughly before turning out.

Cup Cakes

[caption id="attachment_1273" align="alignnone" width="1880"] New house Cup Cakes[/caption]

Quite Fondant of Chocolate

Good news, everybody!  After another long gap I'm back. Possibly the most inconsistent blog in the world *sigh*.

Never mind.  In the time since my last post I have crossed the 'verse to Canada and sampled their cuisine (will write that up properly later) and have perfected(ish) my 'Fondant au Chocolat' recipe. Boyfriend Of Daughter adores it - the pic is of one I made for him to celebrate an exam result.

Barbecue season is here again.  In a distressing development, we have not been able to lay our hands on any vine wood thus far this year, meaning I have had to resort to using charcoal for the first time in six years. The horror!!  Usually we can pick up vine wood for free at the sides of the roads through the vineyards, but it would seem that nobody had any old vines to pull up this year.  It is possible to buy sacks of pre-prepared wood from some places, but it's expensive and burns quicker.  May have to resort to this for the Fête National, though, as I will be cooking very expensive meat and the difference in taste from using the different fuels is substantial.

Til next time, my imaginary friends!

bob

 

 

Pastry Of The Week 10/03/13: The Results

Ta-daaaaah! Quite straightforward to make, although I need to work on my piping technique to get them as even as the boulanger does. Will update with taste results and recipe on Monday.

bob xx

PASTRY OF THE WEEK: IT'S BACK, BABY!

This week: Chocolate eclairs.  Here they are filled with a chocolate cream rather than whipped cream.  Nom. Of course I had to buy a sample from the boulangerie because I really needed to check what they taste like (Hey - they could have changed in the last couple of weeks since I had one, no?). I shan't be recreating them until tomorrow as I promised to wait until The Husband was back from his business trip.  The thing that most concerns me at this point is piping good, even eclair shapes and not blobby phallic shapes.  We shall see......