Gâteau praliné - Historical Food Fortnighly #10, l'échec

Sometimes things don't go as smoothly as I planned in the kitchen. Sometimes I can fix them up, and sometimes the end result looks like crap. Like it did this time - experimental cooking does not always work magic !
This entry was another sot at the tenth challenge of the Historical Food Fortnightly, Cake. I wasn't sure how it would turn out so I chose the safer route detailed in my previous post - happily so !

Parfois les choses ne se passent pas exactement comme prévu dans la cuisine. Parfois le résultat est sauvable, parfois pas. Là, ce ne le fut pas, et j'ai obtenu une belle bouse rosâtre.  Les risques de la cuisine expérimentale ! C'était mon entrée alternative pour le dixième challenge du Historical Food Fortnighly, que je m'étais gardée en réserve parce que j'avais quand même de gros doutes sur le résultat. J'ai commencé par la recette plus safe du post précédent - fort heureusement !

The Challenge: Let them eat cake !

Le Challenge : Qu'ils mangent du gâteau !

The Recipe: from La Mode Illustrée, June 19th, 1898

La Recette : La Mode Illustrée, 19 juin 1898

Gâteau praliné

Prenez 150gr. de pralines que vous pilez très finement, battez 4 blancs d’œufs en neige très ferme et mélangez le tout ensemble. Versez dans un moule que vous aurez au préalable enduit de caramel et que vous remplirez seulement à moitié ce gâteau montant beaucoup ; mettez à un four modéré et laissez cuire 20 à 25 minutes, abouchez et servez froid avec une crème à la vanille.

Take 5,2 oz pralines, crush them very finely, whisk 4 egg whites until they form peaks and add the pralines. Pour un a form which you'll have previously coated with caramel and which you'll only fill to a half, as this cake rises a lot ; bake in the oven on medium for 20 to 25 minutes, [unknown term] and serve cold with a vanilla-flavored cream.

How Did You Make It:

I had 4 egg whites in the fridge and for some silly reason I thought this would be the perfect way to use them up. I of course didn't notice the mention of the vanilla cream until the end - then I had to use 4 more egg yolks for the cream, and ended up right at square one in terms of leftovers. I have searched but couldn't find what "abouchez" means.
I followed the recipe for the main part - crushing pralines is a pain in the lower bottom and even my food processor didn't produce a very fine powder. If I am ever to redo this I will buy praliné powder instead. The cake did rise a good lot... and then flattened again at the end of baking. when I turned it over into a serving plate it went completely flat land started to furiously resemble cow dung. Oy... I made a basic vanilla cream to go with it (which wasn't a success either but that one is part of the usual mishaps).

Réalisation :
J'avais 4 blancs d’œuf au frigo et pour une raison inconnue j'ai omis la mention de la crème à la vanille, pensant utilise rles restes à bon escient. Évidemment, une fois qu'il a fallu faire une crème anglaise pour aller avec, je me suis retrouvé avec 4 nouveaux blancs d’œuf dans le frigo.
Pour l'essentiel j'ai suivi la recette (à part le "abouchez" que je n'ai pas réussi à comprendre, malgré mes recherches...). Piler des pralines c'est long et pénible, même mon robot n'y arrive pas, j'ai fini à la main pour un résultat moyen moins. La prochaine fois (s'il y  en a une), je prendrai du praliné direct.
Le gâteau a effectivement beaucoup monté... puis est retombé en fin de cuisson avant même de sortir du four, et au démoulage a montré autant de tenue qu'une bouse de vache... snif.

Time to Complete:
About an hour due to the time-consuming praline-crushing.

Temps de préparation :

A peu près une heure, merci les pralines.

The Result :

Unappetizing and a darker shade of pinkish maroon than the praline sI started from, but the taste was okay - a bit bland and I couldn't tell there were almond involved somewhere. We ate it, but I wouldn't have served it to guest due to the aspect, and I don't think it was worth the effort.

Le résultat :

Franchement peu appétissant, rose-marron et informe, mais le goût était correct, surtout avec la crème anglaise qui fait un peu tout. Au final, pas forcément mieux que de classiques îles flottantes, donc ça ne vaut pas vraiment l'effort du pilage de pralines.

Gonglof - Historical Food Fortnightly 10 - Let them eat cake !

I have terribly slacked at the Historical Food Fortnightly. I had the best intentions, and plans lined up, ... and life happened. I might try to catch up some because I have recipes I want to try out. For the current challenge, I did something relatively safe because it's my son's birthday and I wasn't sure he'd like the other option I was considering (which I might still test out someday).

J'ai été très nulle pour suivre le Historical Food Fortnighly. Pourtant j'avais des plans et tout et puis... oups, comment ça, l'été est fini ? Enfin bon, je reprends le train en marche ! Quelque chose qui ne me semblait pas trop étrange ou risqué parce que quand même, c'est l'anniversaire de Grand Troll, et je voudrais que Grand Troll aime son gâteau. Je testerai peut-être l'option chelou une autre fois...

The Challenge: Let them eat cake !

Le Challenge : Qu'ils mangent du gâteau !
(bon, techniquement, "let them it cake !" est une traduction de "ils n'ont qu'à manger de la brioche", ça tombe bien, j'ai fait un gâteau à pâte levée !)

The Recipe: from La Mode Illustrée, May 22th, 1898

This one amused me. From the name and the recipe itself, I assume it's some sort of hear-say gugelhupf. The recipes you find on the web are really similar.

My late 19th century fashion magazines contain a lot of recipes, sometimes (like here) including a mention that a reader sent them to the journal. This recipe was sent from the Doubs, not far from Alsace (in 1898 part of the German empire) and the the southern german-speaking areas, where this cake originates from and is a traditional treat. Apparently the recipe travelled a little further to the other side of the border and the name was transcribed with some alterations. Actually, one place in the magazine spells it Gonglof, and the other Ganglof.

La Recette : La Mode Illustrée, 22 mai 1898
Le concept m'a amusée, visiblement c'est un Kouglof voyageur qui est passé d'une région germanophone jusque dans le Doubs, avec quelques menues mutations orthographiques (le sommaire écrit ça Ganglof !). En tout cas, la recette est similaire, les ingrédients aussi, et le moule à kouglof est souvent en terre cuite (tiens, ça y est, j'ai envie d'un moule à kouglof en terre cuite maintenant !). Les magazines fin XIXème avec lesquels je bosse sont pleins de recettes souvent comme celle-ci envoyées par des abonnées. Le blog cuisine version 1898.

Gonglof

Faites fondre 125 grammes de beurre frais dans un demi-litre de lait tiède, délayez-y 25 grammes de levure de bière, ajoutez 4 oeufs, 200 grammes de sucre, 2 cuillerées d'eau-de-vie et 2 livres de farine. La pâte doit être travaillée fortement jusqu'à ce qu'elle boucle bien.
Ajoutez-y 200 grammes de beaux raisins secs et faites lever pendant deux heures dans un moule en terre cuite que vous aurez frotté de saindoux froid et garni d'amandes pelées.Faites cuire au four proportion pour 12 personnes.
Si la levure est bonne ces deux gâteaux réussiront toujours.
Merci à notre abonnée du Doubs

Let 125g of very fresh butter melt in half a liter luke-warm milk, mix 25g of beer yeast in it, add 4 eggs, 200g sugar, 2 spoonfuls of brandy and 2 pounds of flour. Work the dough until it "curls" well.Add 200ggood raisins and let rise for two hours in and enameled cake mold that you will have previously rubbed with cold lard and garnished with peeled almonds.
Bake in the oven, serves 12.
As long as the yeast is good, these two cakes will always be a success.Thanks to our reader from the Doubs.

How Did You Make It:

I adapted a bit, substituting vegetal butter for real butter and oat milk for milk, because lactose is not my friend. I had some beer yeast... or so I thought. It clearly wasn't "good" anymore - I tried starting it with a small portion of oat milk and sugar before just to check and got zilch. So I used what I had at hand, dehydrated bread yeast. As for brandy, I used vanilla-flavored rum, as it was at hand, contrary to cherry which would probably have been better for a gugelhupf (altough on the subject, the recipe leaves it up to the cook to choose which brandy to use).
And then, I made the thing... and I got too much dough. Twice too much I thought, so I put it in two separate molds - one tin mold in the traditional gugelhupf form and a regular rectangular oven-proof glass mold, as I don't have the prescribed pottery mold. I let the dough rise for two hours... and it went over ! So please note : the original proportions are for way more than we would usually bake for. In my transcription, and for my own notice next time I make it, I divided the quantities by two !
As for the kitchen utensils themselves, I used my kitchen robot wonder to knead the dough, and a modern oven to let it rise and bake it.

Réalisation :
Il y a eu déjà les adaptations de base, St Hubert pour le beurre et lait d'avoine pour le lait. Pour la levure de bière, je pensais en avoir... sauf qu'elle était périmée depuis des années (j'ai quand même essayé de la faire démarrer avec un peu de lait d'avoine tiède et de sucre... que dalle), donc je me suis rabattue sur la levure de boulangerie déshydratée.
En guise d'eau-de-vie du rhum à la vanille et plutôt que des amandes pelées des amandes effilées. On fait avec ce qu'il y a dans les placards. Du St Hubert aussi pour beurrer le moule plutôt que du saindoux.
Et... ça fait beaucoup, beaucoup, BEAUCOUP trop de pâte ! J'ai rempli mon moule à kouglof (en métal, je n'en ai pas encore en terre cuite), j'ai rempli un moule à cake en pyrex... et au bout de deux heures de levée j'avais un troisième gâteau dans la lèche-frite ! Dont acte : pour la recette adaptée, j'ai divisé les proportions par deux.
La pâte a été pétrie dans mon robot moderne chéri d'amour, et levée et cuite dans mon four tout neuf tout aussi chéri d'amour.

Time to Complete:
It was made very quickly, about 15 minutes tops for the preparation, then 2 hour of rising and about one hour baking in the oven.

Temps de préparation :

A peine une petit quart d'heure pour faire la pâte, 2 heures à lever et à peu près une heure dans le four.

The Result :

While there was a lot of cake, it was surprisingly light and airy, and I only ended up freezing three slices, the rest was all eaten up ! The general consensus was "Yummy, keep the recipe !" and I am definitely adding this one to the recipes I will make regularly. The cake is excellent fresh, and I suspect it will be very good with a ltitle of bit of butter spread on it for breakfast.

It does however get a little dry, which is why I froze the three slices after a day. Time will tell how it reheats.

Le résultat :

Excellent ! Certes, ça fait beaucoup de gâteau, mais il est tellement léger qu'il a été mangé très, très vite. La seule raison pour laquelle j'ai congelé trois pauvres tranches, c'est qu'il a un peu tendance à sécher.

On a mangé du gonglof à goûter, du gonglof en dessert, et du gonglof au petit-déjeuner. On n'a pas testé la tartine de gonglof beurré encore, mais je pense que ça viendra.

Transcription

65g de beurre - 2,25 oz butter

1/4l de lait - 1/4 litre milk

1/2 sachet de levure boulangère déshydratée - 1/2 bag active dry yeast

2 œufs - 2 eggs

100g de sucre - 3,5 oz sugar

1 cs de rhum - 1 tbsp rum

425g de farine - 16,8 oz flour

100g de raisins secs - 3,5oz raisins

amandes effilées - slivered almonds

Faire fondre le beurre dans le lait tiède, ajouter et délayer la levure, puis les œufs entiers, le sucre, le rhum et la farine. Pétrir au robot jusqu'à obtenir une pâte bien lisse. Ajouter les raisins secs et pétrir encore un bon coup.

Beurrer un moule et y saupoudrer des amandes effilées. Verser la pâte dans le moule et mettre à lever dans un endroit chaud pendant deux heures, puis au four à 160°C pendant une petite heure.

Melt the butter by placing it into the lukewarm milk, add the yeast and mix it well with the liquid, then add teh whole eggs, sugar, rum and flour. Knead in the breadmaker into a smooth dough. Add the raisins and knead some more.

Grease a cake mould with butter and sprinkle it with slivered almonds. Pour the dough into the mould and let it rise for two hours in a warm place, then bake it in the oven at 320°F for about an hour.

Tarte aux brugnons-plus-de-saison

Ben oui, il paraît que l'été, c'est un peu fini, et que les brugnons, ils sont plus très bons. Bon, sur notre marché ils n'ont pas été fabuleux de tout l'été, ce qui fait que je n'en ai pas beaucoup acheté. Les derniers, c'est le geek domestique qui les a ramenés, et au bout de 24 heures il fallait les manger ou les jeter. Oui mais manger des fruits pas très bons, moi, je m'y refuse. Donc voilà, j'ai une une idée. Encore une fois à base d'amandes, que vouez-vous, j'AIME les oléagineux, au risque de me faire traiter d'assassin par mes amis allergiques aux fruits à coques.

Pour étaler la pâte d'amandes au rouleau, on procède comme pour de la pâte à tarte, sauf qu'au lieu de la farine, on met du sucre. Beaucoup de sucre en poudre, dessus et dessous. La pâte d'amandes, toute imbibée du jus des fruits, donne juste le bon contrepoids au côté acidulé du brugnon, la semoule évite de détremper la pâte, c'est bon, c'est simple, je mets dans mon carnet (virtuel).

It appears summer has ended, and nectarines aren't quite in season anymore. They haven't been very good at our market all summer anyway, and I didn't buy that many of them. But lastly, the home geek (aka my husband) came home with a bunch of nectarines, and after 24 hours they had to be either eaten or tossed away. But I really, really don't like eating fruit that is not VERY god, so I came up with something. Once again, with nuts. I LOVE nuts.

To roll out almond paste, sprinkle your table top with sugar, and then sprinkle the almond paste itself with more sugar. The almond paste gets soaked with the nectarines' juices (yuuuuuuuum), and the semolina prevents the crust from getting muddy.

Tarte aux brugnons - Nectarine tart

4 brugnons - 4 nectarines

1 pâte brisée - 1 pastry dough

1/2 paquet (2 grosses cuillères à soupe) de pâte d'amandes - 2 large tbsp almond paste

de la semoule fine - fine grain semolina, about 2 teasp

du sucre - sugar

Préchauffez votre four à 180°C.

Etalez la pâte et foncez un moule à tarte beurré. Saupoudrez d'un peu de semoule.

Etalez la pâte d'amandes de façon à juste couvrir le fond du moule, et posez-là par-dessus la pâte à tarte.

Pelez et détaillez les brugnons en petits morceaux, disposez-les par-dessus la pâte d'amande, saupoudrez de sucre. Enfournez 40 minutes.

Preheat your oven at 360°F.

Roll out your dough and pat it into a greased tart mold. Sprinkle semolina on top.

Roll out the almond paste, so that it barely covers the bottom of the tart.

Peal the nectarines, cut them into slices and place them over the almond paste, sprinkle with a good dose of sugar. Bake for 40 minutes.

Enjoy !

Glace rhubarbe

Une fois qu'on a mis le doigt dans l'engrenage, impossible de revenir en arrière, tout passe à la sorbetière : prune, vanille, chocolat, chocolat-banane, melon, coco-citron-vert... et ma préférée ou presque : la rhubarbe. A savoir que je suis une fan inconditionnelle de rhubarbe. Et la seule dans mon entourage, et c'est tant mieux : y en a plus pour moi ! Cette glace, je la voulais bien crémeuse, du coup j'ai fait un entorse à mon régime sans lactose, et mon organisme ne sen est pas plaint, youpi !

Once we went down the rabbit hole of ice-cream making, there was no going back. There was plum ice-cream, vanilla ice-cream, chocolate ice-cream, chocolate-banana ice-cream, cantaloupe ice-cream, lime-coconut ice-cream...  and lastly, my favorite : rhubarb ice-cream. I love, love, LOVE rhubarb... and I'm the only one in the family to do so ! All the better, there's more for ME ! I wanted this ice-cream veyr creamy, so I added a little bit of real diary cream... and it worked, and it didn't make me sick, yay !

Glace à la rhubarbe - rhubarb ice-cream

1 poignée de tiges de rhubarbe - 1 handful rhubarb stalks

5 cas de crème épaisse (au moins 35% de matière grasse) - 5 tbsp diary cream (at leat 35% fat)

1/2 verre de sucre - 1/2 cup sugar

Lavez et coupez la rhubarbe en tronçons, mettez-là dans une casserole avec le sucre et faites cuire jusqu'à... ce que ce soit bien cuit, version purée. Vérifiez et corrigez si nécessaire le dosage du sucre. Faites refroidir. Passez au blender.

Battez en chantilly la crème (les 35%, c'est parce que sinon ça ne va pas monter). Incorporez la purée de fruits bien froide.

Mettez dans votre sorbetière et laissez tourner 30 à 40 minutes. Transvasez dans un récipient ad hoc.

Wash and dice the rhubarb stalks, put them in a pot witht he sugar and cook until tender. Check the sugar and add some if necessary. Let it cool. Blend.
Whip the cream (if it doesn't contain enough fat, it will stay liquid, and whipped cream will make your ice-cream lighter and fluffier). Gently add the (really cold) rhubarb mix.
Pour into you ice-cream maker and let it turn for 30 to 40 minutes, then pour it into your ice box and place it in the freezer.

Et voilà, je reprends doucement un rythme de publications plus régulier sur ce blog. Et je vais essayer de le tenir, promis ! Je traduis doucement les pages, et avec le temps j'espère traduire aussi les recettes précédentes... et bien sûr vous en présenter tout plein d'autres !!!

Plummylicious

Quand on a acheté la maison, on n'a pas vraiment regardé ce qui poussait dans le jardin. Mais le prunier, c'est un chouette bonus ! C'est un prunier plus ou moins sauvage, qui s'est planté tout seul tout contre le mur du garage, et qui nous inonde de fruits sucrés dedans, avec une peau un peu acides, tous les mois de juillet/août (surtout août cette année. L'an dernier, on en a ramassé plus de 70 kilos ! Cette année a été un peu moins prolifique et nous un peu moins déterminés à faire de la prune à toutes les sauces, mais quand même, il y a eu plein de (gros, très gros) crumbles.
Et puis on a acheté une sorbetière (c'est la faute à Grenadine !), alors on a fait de la glace à la prune... Et vous savez quoi ? La glace à la prune, c'est tellement bon que je me demande pourquoi on en trouve pas en magasin.

We have this old plum tree that grew in a little nook in front of the house. It's a wild thing, nobody planted it there, it just appeared. Last year we harvested around 155 pounds of plums. They are sweet and a greenish yellow on the inside, with a red-blue skin that gives a good punch of acidity. They are okay raw, and delicious cooked.

This year, we had a lot of rain and cold in the spring, and the plums are late, and from what we see, we won't get as much of them as last year. Which is good, as I don't want to make much more jam and all the visitors who left our house last year with 10 kilos each have come and gone before the fruit was ripe.

But we bought an ice cream maker. And let me tell you, our plums make a FABULOUS ice cream.

Glace à la prune - Plum ice cream (vegan)

500g de petites prunes rouges prunes - 1 pound small red plums

100g de sucre  (à moduler selon le sucre contenu dans les fruits)- 1/2 to 1 cup sugar (adapt depending on how sweet or acid the plums are)

1 brique de crème de soja (j'étais à corut de crème d'avoine) - 1/2 cup soy cream (because I was out of my favorite oat cream)
1 pincée de gomme de guar - 1 pinch  guar gum

Lavez et dénoyautez les prunes. Si vous voulez limiter l'acidité, pelez-en tout ou une partie. Mettez-les dans une petite casserole avec le sucre et faites cuire jusqu'à obtenir une purée de fruits. Ajoutez la crème, vérifiez le dosage du sucre et adaptez si besoin. Passez au blender. Ajoutez la gomme de guar.
Laissez la purée de fruit refroidir une ou deux heures. Quand elle est bien froide, versez-là dans la sorbetière et faites tournez une bonne demie-heure (à moduler selon les capacités de votre sorbetière, bien sûr, la nôtre c'est le modèle ultra-de-base). Voilà !

Wash and stone the plums. Put them in a saucepan with the sugar, and cook until the fruit gets mushy. Add the soy cream. Blend until creamy. Add the guar gum.
Let the fruit purée cool for a solid hour in the fridge. Basically, make sure it is already cold when pouring it into the ice cream maker. Let the machine turn for 30 minutes-ish, depending on how fast yours processes ice (ours is a slow, very basic and cheap one). Voilà !

Now you "might" have noticed I added the french version here. Yup, I am going to try and make this a bilingual blog. Wish me luck. The downside of this ? I lost the picture of my pretty ice-cream. I took it, and I just lost it. And I don't really want to eat another bowl of ice-cream just to take a picture... So I give you some lovely flowers and leaves my kids picked up on the way home this morning.

Comme vous l'aurez remarqué, voilà, j'ai ajouté une version française, et je vais essayer de continuer en mode bilingue, si ça ne me bouffe pas trop de temps. Souhaitez-moi bonne chance !
La photo ? La photo, c'est malheureux à dire, je l'ai perdue. Prise, et égarée sur un disque dur quelconque. Pour éviter le post sans photo, que quand même ce serait mal, j'ai un jolie petit bouquet automnal cueilli par mes mini-trolls ce matin en rentrant de l'école. On peut même arguer que la moitié de ces éléments pourraient se manger !

To each their own...

... chocolate mousse recipe !
Every person I've met had their particular recipe. Some had tried half a dozen before they found the one they claimed was THE recipe. Well, I'm no exception, I have my own recipe as well, combined for my own taste from several others.
Actually, this is not just a chocolate mousse recipe. This is one of my staple recipes to use leftover egg whites. Because one can get tired of meringue and still want to have some home-made mayonnaise.

Spiced chocolate mousse with only egg whites
9oz dark chocolate
4 egg whites
1 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch ginger
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup almond cream

Beat the egg whites until they are very stiff (they are when you can turn the bowl upside down and nothing moves). Still beating, add the sugar.
Cut the chocolate into small pieces, add 2 spoons of water and slowly melt it in the microwave. Add the spices and the cream. Gently fold the chocolate into the egg whites (not the other way round !) and place the mousse in the fridge for at least 6 hours.

This one has to sit in the cold for quite some time to set. It stays a little creamy (especially at the end of the bowl), but very light. As a good rule of thumb, one egg white makes for one portion, so this should serve four guests.

Baking week-end

There was a bit of a baking orgy this week-end. We spent Saturday and Sunday with my parents and ended up with three cakes for four persons. My Mom baked a candied fruit cake, my husband turned the way-too-early strawberries into a yummy strawberry tart, and I made a gâteau d'Aunis - because I was out of bread and hungry. Then after we went home on Sunday evening, dinner consisted of an onion tart (and some leftover rice).

The onion tart is one of those recipe that I have stored in the back of my head and don't need to look at my recipe files to make. No precise measuring, not too many ingredients - that's good in my book ! The only real difficulty is surviving the onions without weeping yourself to death. I do have a secret weapon : safety goggles. The kind you find at the hardware store for dealing with plaster or other stuff you don't want to get into your eyes. A friend of mine uses diving goggles.

Onion tart

1 pastry dough

10 onions

2 tablespoons mustard

7 oz (one small package) almond cream

1 egg

2 tablespoons flour

oil

1 big glass of dry white wine (optional)

Roll out your dough over a floured surface, grease a tart mold (I used a large, not very high one, but you can also use one that is smaller but higher, it doesn't really matter), place the dough in it.

Peel and thinly slice the onions (with the goggles on ;) ). Heat a good glob of oil in a large pan, once it's hot add the onions and cook them, stirring regularly, until they're very tender. This time I had some white whine leftover in the fridge, so I added it to the pan at the end and let it evaporate.

Pour the onions into a large bowl,  add the cream, the flour, the mustard, the egg and mix well. Pour this filling over your dough. Fold the dough's edges over the filling.

Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes at 360°F. The filling should be golden brown and the dough dry and firm to the touch, just a little golden. Serve hot.

Below is my usual recipe for the cake. I changed it a little this time - I had egg whites remaining from the strawberry tart my husband had made, so I used only one full egg and replaced the other with 4 egg whites I had beaten until stiff. It worked just as well.

Gâteau d'Aunis (Aunis cake)
6 oz vegetal butter substitute
7 oz sugar
2 eggs
8 oz flour
2 oz candied angelica
1/2 cup cognac or rum

Cut the angelica into small pieces and put it in a bowl with the alcohol.
Beat the sugar with the butter until it gets white-ish. Still beating, add the eggs one by one, then the angelica and alcohol. Lastly, add the flour.
Grease a mold (mine is about 10 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches deep), pour the batter in it. Bake in the oven, 40 minutes at 390°F.

Apple tart

For some reason I hadn't made one in a long, long time. I suppose it's such a simple recipe, I often try to make something fancier when I bake, especially when we have guests. But we didn't have guests this week-end, we had apples - and no one really eats that many raw apples at our house - , and I was feeling like baking something simple.

Apple tart
1 pastry dough
3 apples
sugar
cinnamon

On a floured surface, roll out your dough. Grease a large round tart mold and put your dough in it (the easiest way is to flour the surface of the rolled out dough, roll the dough around your rolling pin, and unroll it over the mold), leaving the edges of the dough to fall outside the mold. Sprinkle some sugar on the dough.
Peal the apples and slice them thinly. Put the apple slices onto the dough, sprinkle them with some sugar and cinnamon.
Fold the dough edges over the tart. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 355°F. The apples must take a nice golden shade.

Zombie tart - or the very not pretty lemon tart

I know this one is extreeeemely ugly. I also know it was a huge success. The green is green food coloring, because I used up an old supply of green colored sugar from our wedding. I suspect it would look a little more brownish (and not so funny) without the coloring.

Lemon tart

1 pastry dough

3 lemons

sugar to taste (between 1 and 2 cups, possibly more)

1 handful flour

2 oz butter or vegetal butter substitute

1 egg

Roll out your dough in a wide, low pan. Put another, slightly smaller pan (with a very clean bottom, or with some baking paper under it) into the pan, weigh it down if necessary (water is good, some lentils you'll never use can also work, or a handy rock). Pre-bake it in the oven - 15 to 20 minutes at 355°F. It should be hard to touch but it doesn't need to be golden.

Swueeze the juice out of the lemons, put it in a pan with half of the fat and some sugar. Taste the sugar + lemon juice mix so that it's not too acid for your taste. Put the pan over medium heat and stir until the sugar and fat have melted. Take it off the fire.

In another pan, melt the other half of the fat over low heat. Add the flour and stir together. You'll get a sort of solid dough. Don't panic ! Add just a teeny tiny little bit of the lemon-fat-sugar liquid mix. Stir until it has been absorbed by the dough (always on very low heat). Add just a little bit more of the liquid, stir again. Keep working the liquid into the dough until it has a creamy, almost liquid texture. Work slowly, add the liquid in small quantities, stir a lot each time, and you shouldn't get clumps. It takes a little time and a little bit of muscle - but then, I am a weak woman with matchsticks arms.

Now you have something that looks like a creamy filling, take the pan off the fire, add the egg and quickly mix it into the lemon... thing. Put the pan back onto the fire, over low heat, and let it thicken a little white (just keep stirring, just keep stirring).

Pour the filling over the pre-baked dough (don't forget to remove the upper pan before doing so... ). Bake the tart in the oven, 30 minutes, 300°F. It will bubble some and look weird.

Serve it cold.

Easy peasy chocolate cake

This is the recipe that started it all, one I wanted to keep track of : just a simple chocolate cake. Not too chocolatey, quickly made and errr... well, quickly eaten, I have to admit. It didn't last 24 hours between just my husband and me. Oopsie ! But hey, chocolate + cake ? It can't be a bad start for a cooking blog !

A few words beforehand : this is unnecessarily complicated. If you want to make vanilla sugar, take a vanilla bean (if it has already been used, let it dry a little before using it. No, it doesn’t have to be brand new), put it in an air-tight container with sugar for a few weeks. That's all it takes. In most cases, you can substitute a small dash of vanilla extract.

Easy peasy chocolate cake

5 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (or a dash of vanilla extract)

7 oz dark, unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup vegetal butter substitute

In a large bowl, mix the eggs and sugar, add the flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar or vanilla extract. Put the butter and chocolate in a small bowl and melt them in the microwave - use the lowest possible heat and only microwave in short spurs, mixing thoroughly in between. Add the chocolate mix to the rest of the batter. You should now have a chocolatey creamy mix. don't eat it right away ! :)

Grease and flour a pan, pour the batter in, bake for 25 minutes at 355°F. Try to wait until you can touch it to eat it (we had trouble with that last point)