Fausse tarte aux mûres

Le week-end du 15 aout m'a ramené dans la régionnantaise pour quelques jours de détente... L'appel de la cueillette était irrésistible, et après moulte péripéties, luttes contre les orties et les ronces, nous avons repris le chemin de la maison avec quelques kilos de prunes et des mûres!

Les prunes étant trop acides pour être dégustées telles quelles, elle "finirent" en clafouti et en confiture.

La cuillette de mûres n'étant pas aussi généreuse, la confiture n'était pas envisageable. Cependant j'avais lu il y a quelques semaines le blog "Tartelette" (en anglais) qui donnait la recette d'une tarte "fromage de chèvre et fruits rouges" qui m'avait beaucoup intriguée.

De retour à Paris avec mes mûres, j'ai repensé à cette recette, et comme je n'ai toujours pas de four, j'ai adapté la recette pour en faire un dessert extrêmement simple -mais bon!- : une fausse tarte aux mûres et au chèvre...




Fausse tarte aux mûres

Pour 4-5 "fausses tartes"
- des sablés bretons (type palets de la trinitaine ou roudor)
- 1/2 cuillère à soupe de chèvre frais (type chavrou)
- 1 cuillère à soupe de crème fraiche
- sucre ou miel (selon votre gout- j'ai mis 1/2 cuillère à café de miel)
- fruits de la cueillette

Réalisation :
-Battre la crème en chantilly.
-Battre le chèvre avec le miel pour avoir une texture crémeuse.
-Mélanger la "crème de chèvre" avec la chantilly délicatement pour garder la texture mousseuse. Le plus dur est fait!

Recouvrir les palets de crème et disposer les mûres au dessus.

Déguster frais!

Le gateau Nantais

J'ai passé le week-end du 14 juillet à Nantes ce qui signifie accès illimité à un four à toute heure du jour ou de la nuit! J'en ai donc profité pour tester diverses recettes nécessitant un four que je vais décrire dans les prochains jours.

Le gateau nantais est extrêmement facile à réaliser, nécessite peu de matériel (et donc de vaisselle!) et est délicieux. Comme beacoup de gateaux, il est meilleur si on le prépare la veille. Si ce n'est pas possible d'attendre aussi longtemps, faites quand-même attention à prévoir assez de temps pour que le gateau ait totalement refroidit au moment de réaliser le glaçage.


Gateau Nantais

100g de poudre d'amandes
100g de sucre
100g de beurre (à température ambiante)
2 oeufs
1 cuillère à soupe de farine (bien bombée, ou 2 cullières rases)
1 cuillère à café de levure
2 cuillères à soupe de rhum blanc

Glaçage
rhum blanc
sucre glace

Ustensiles:
1 saladier (pour réaliser le mélange)
1 cuillère en bois
1 moule à manquer de 20cm



Préchauffer le four à 180°C

Mélanger le beurre et le sucre pour en faire une pommade.
Ajouter ensuite les amandes puis les oeufs et le rhum.
Enfin ajouter la farine et la levure.
Ne pas trop travailler le mélange!

Enfourner pour 25min.

Attention : le gateau, magré la farine n'épaissit presque pas, il faut donc éviter de prendre un moule trop grand!

Au sortir du four, laiser le gateau refroidir dans le moule pendant 10-15min puis démouler sur une grille. Une fois refroidit, le conserver au froid jusqu'au lendemain.


Pour le glaçage:
mélanger 3 cuillères à soupe de sucre glace avec 2 cuillères à soupe de rhum. Ajouter plus de sucre ou de rhum selon la consistance et la quantit de glaçage désiré.
Recouvrir le gateau.

C'est prêt!



Remarques
- j'ajoute le rhum avan la cuisson pour que le gateau n'est pas trop le gout du rhum, le parfum venant surtou du glaçage dans ce cas. On peut aussi ne pas mettre de rhum dans la pate mais imbiber le gateau encore chaud avec la même quantité de rhum.
- si on n'aime pas le gout prononcé du rhum, on peut faire le glaçage à l'eau.

Evil week-end and terrific chocolate cake

It was supposed to be a "playing and cooking" week-end at my grandmother country house. We were supposed to be 10 friends spending the week-end together and we had a long list a meals we wanted to taste. Well...

To make a long story short, destiny was against us and we were finally 3 remaining after the timetable/conference/car problems that happened. Not enough to play but some cooking was involved !

I will post the recipes we follow (or not!) in the forthcoming days... But the one I want to share first is the Chocolate and salty butter caramel cake we prepared for sunday lunch.

This recipe was inspired buy a recipe I saw on David Leovitz's blog. I had a big plan about preparing my own dulche de leche a week in advance, but was unable to find enough time... So I came with that new plan of using "caramel au beurre salé" (I found it "taste" better in french) instead.


That's very easy...

1/ Prepare a cup of salty butter caramel (recipe there)

2/Follow David's recipe and use caramel instead of dulche de leche... I also reduced the amount of sugar (100g) and didn't used any nuts.
You can also use your favorite browny's recipe...

Tip: put more caramel in the cake than at the top of it. But we all liked the caramel crust that appeared over the cake and on its sides...

Next time I'll tell you the story of our brioches.

Crumble

I'm leaving for the land of chocolate tomorrow, and so it wasn't reasonable to go to the market during the week-end. For once I bought some fruit in the supermarket on thursday, but I was desapointed by the greengages (reine-claudes) I had. And after few days it was obvious I wouldn't be able to eat them if I didn't cook them.

Then arrived the coincidence: on friday, Lilian told me she was planning to bake a crumble and when I turned on the TV on saturday I saw a show where they were talking about english food, and a woman was explaining her crumble recipe.

I had no choice...
What was particularly interesting for me in Rose crumble was that it didn't needed an oven to be baked.

Greengage and almond crumble
for 2
5-8 greengages (depending on their size
1/3 of stale bread
4 table spoon almonds
2 tablespoon "vergeoise" (I think you can use brown sugar instead, it was actually the only suger I had at home)
butter

Cut the greengage in 2 (or 4) and remove the stone. Cook in a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of butter for 5 min. Put in the dish you choose to serve them.

Process bread, almonds and sugar until it's like a powder.
In a pan, melt 1 tesponn butter. Had the powder you made and cook it until it browns. Don't stop stering (I did and it started to burn!).

Cover the plum with the bread and almond mix.
Serve warm.

The tiniest market ever

Last week-end I went to my grandmother's place with some gourmet friend.. While looking for things to do in the area I discovered there was a place where you can pick the fruit yourself at less than 15min walk from the house.
Some of us where excited by the idea of picking fresh raspberries and strawberries to prepare desserts. Unfortunately we were lazier than planned and woke up too late to be there in time...

So to have fresh fruit we had to go to the market on the Sunday. This was probably the tiniest market I ever been (4 stalls : fish, cheese, fruits and meat). We bought salmon, prawns and no fruit because I found them too expensive.

When we started preparing lunch, someone pointed out that we planned no dessert and that the tart I mentionned earlier should me tried... So V and S went back to the market to find raspberries... they came back with 3 cups of delicious fresh raspberries and I was forced to prepare the tart...



Chocolate and raspberries macaroon tart

This recipe is adapted from a book that Lilian offered me for my birthday. Original recipe is for individuals tarts, and I changed slightly the proportions.

Serves 6/8

Macaroon:
-3 eggs white
-125g grated coconut
-4 tablespoons sugar

Chocolate filling :
-3 eggs
-150g dark chocolate (I took nestlé dessert corsé)
-3 small (or 2 big) tablespoon cream
-4 tablespoon sugar
-2 tablespoon flour

-2 cups of raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Macaroon : mix all ingredients and spread the dough in a pan (the kind where you can remove the side, it makes things easier to take it out!)

Bake at 140°C for 30min (watch from time to time, you want it golden not burnt)

While the macaroon is baking, prepare the chocolate filing.
Melt the chocolate slowly with the cream. Beat eggs and sugar until white.
Pour melted chocolate in the egg+sugar, stir and add the flour.

Spread the chocolate filling over the macaroon, cover with raspberries.
Bake for 20 more minutes at 120°C.

Serve at room temperature.

Introducing agar agar

When Anelore gave me this set of spoon I was a bit surprised by the 1/4 of teaspoon that came with it. I never saw a recipe using so few ingredient. Yesterday evening was the 1st time I used it.

On my way from lab to home are a few "organic shops" and I sometimes stop bye to buy some thing I cannot find easily elsewhere like tahina (to make hummus) and I usually use my visit to the shop to try some "exotic" things.

Last time I went there I bought 2 individual drinks : one made of rice, the second made of hazelnuts. I also took some agar-agar because I heard about it...

The idea to cook with agar-agar was strange since the only time I ever used it was in biology courses... For this second experimentation with agar-agar I thought I should use it to prepare a dessert in combination with the hazelnut drink.


Hazelnut surprise cream

Ingredients (for 2 desserts - yogourt size)

-20cl hazelnut drink
-1/4 teaspoon of agar agar (~1g)

The recipe was very simple : open the drink box, put it in a saucepan, add the agar and boil for 30s... that cannot be easier!

That wouldn't have been a real dessert : too pale, no surprises... so let's add a little fun to that cream.
I made 2 versions:

Apricot : cut into small squares 3 dryed apricot. Pour the liquid over it. Cool down for 2 hours.

Dulce de leche : spread 2 teaspoons of dulce de leche in a little pot, pour the hazelnut cream over it. Cool down for 2 hours.

As a toping I used grated almonds...

Easy strawberries

For few weeks we can find beautiful tasty strawberries on the market... And that's hard to resist sometimes... Last 2 sunday I came back home with 500g wonderful strawberries.
The easiest and best way to eat them according to my taste is to alternatively dip them in cream and sugar (not that they need more sugar). But after eating some for lunch dessert, "gouter", diner dessert, and breakfast the day after... I still had some leftover.

Unfortunately this is not a kind of fruit that can be kept easily and I find 2 ways of using them the second day.

A chemist friend (whom cooking blog has disapeared) told me I should try with Balsamic vinegar...


Strawberries with Balsamic syrup

- just put 2 spoons of balsamic vinegar in a pan an let it reduce until it look like a syrup
- during that time, cut the strawberries in pieces
- whip 2 spoons of cream with a little sugar

Put the whiped cream in a plate, add pieces of strawberries and top with balsamic syrup...


Strawberries soup

Take the juice of a grapefruit. Warm the juice until boiling, and add strawberries cut in pieces. and cook for 5 min.
Sweeten with liquid honey. Once you take it out of the fire, you can add some mint leafs.
Serve cold

Une fois n'est pas coutume...

Today post will be in french...because the original idea for recipe I will describe comes from Mike's blog: the strawberry white chocolate mousse.

Donc en français pour la suite!

Devant préparer quelque chose pour un fête de départ, et n'ayant toujours pas de four (ni la place d'en avoir un), j'avais dans l'idée de commencer à expérimenter les recettes de ma liste "à essayer".
Ayant vu des fraises sur le marché le week-end dernier, j'ai choisi de préparer la mousse de fraise au chocolat blanc que j'avais vue sur le blog de Mike.
Evidemment, une fois au supermarché, les fraises avaient une sale tête... donc après moultes hésitations et des détours pas tous les rayons du monop', j'ai décidé de remplacer les fraises par des framboises.
J'avais de grands projets pour cette mousse, une idée précise du dressage etc malheureusement le manque de temps et d'espace m'a fait renoncer à appliquer mon plan jusqu'au bout.
Le résultat est donc moins joli que prévu, mais c'est bon!

Attention pour ceux qui compareront les 2 versions, j'ai changé pas mal de choses, nottament les proportions de sucre et de beurre.

EDIT :
J'ai écrit la recette avant de l'avoir goutée... à mon avis, on doit pouvoir supprimer le beurre et réduire encore la crême voir la suppirmer pour que ce soit plus léger.

Mousse de framboises au chocolat blanc

- 4 oeufs
- 200g de chocolat blanc
- 2 cuillères à soupe de sucre glace
- 3 cuillères à soupe de crême fraiche
- 50g de beurre doux (oui je sais, quelle horreur...)
- environ 450g de framboises (j'ai triché j'ai pris 1 barquette de framboises fraiches et le reste en surgelé ...chut...)
- du jus de citron

+ de l'huile de coude et du temps (environ 1h30- car j'ai fait la chantilly à la main)

-Faire fondre le beurre et le chocolat au bain marie. Quand c'est fondu, le laisser refroidir doucement.
-Pendant ce temps, faire la purée de framboise : 3/4 des fruits dans le mixeur, et on ajoute le jus de citron à la fin pour la conservation et une cuillère à soupe de sucre glace pour le gout. Passer la purée au tamis pour retirer les grains (ça aussi ça prend du temps).
-Monter la crême en chantilly : on commence doucement puis on accèlere, et on ajoute 1 cuillère à soupe de sucre glace.
- Séparer les blancs des jaunes. Battre les blancs en neige ferme.
- Ajouter les jaunes 1 à 1 dans le chocolat fondu.

c'est là qu'intervient le téléphone... Donc je vous raconte comment j'ai fait (tout en ayant le téléphone sur l'oreille, tenu par l'épaule.. vous visualisez?):

-Mélanger la purée au chocolat (j'an ai gardé un peu pour la déco). ajouter ensuite la chantilly en remuant doucement pour ne pas la faire retomber. Ajouter les framboises entières en en gardants quelques-unes pour la déco.
- Ajouter les blancs en neige petit à petit pour ne pas les faire retomber.
- Mettre au fais pendant 2h au moins
- Décorer avec la purée et les framboises fraiches.

Grandfather cooking

My grandfather is gone for a while now, but last week he would have been 100.
As a man of the 1st half of the 20th century, he was not very found of cooking. He prefers to wander in his garden and take care of his trees. Nevertheless, when I think about him, there are 2 things that come to my mind any time : "mousse au chocolat" (do I need to translate?) and "compote de pomme" (sweet apple sauce). They were the only things I ever saw him cooking, but believe me, they were the best I ever ate.

He made the apple sauce with apples from his garden. They were little, acid and impossible to eat without being cooked... And that is the easiest recipe in the world...

Sweet apple sauce

Per person :
2 small apples
1/2 glass of water
vanillia
cinnamon

Peel and chops the apples in pieces.
Put them in a pan with the water and spices (no need to add sugar)
Cover and forget in on medium heat for an hour.
When cooked, the apple can me mashed juste by steering with a wooden spoon, but I prefer to let them in small pieces.

Serve still warm with vanillia icecream...

Chandeleur's crêpes and caramel (with salted butter)

Last week-end I had the great pleasure to meet my friends for a lunch... once out of the restaurant Lil suggested a trip to the Pierre Herme shop that was not far away. Thanks to her I discovered how fabulous the "Emotion" are :-)

Next week-end should also be interesting (as far as food is concerned) since it's La chandeleur : the day to eat crepes!
My last experiment with crepes was for new year's eve. I had to prepare a dessert that could be light and yummy. I chose to make little crepes (10cm diameter) that one could fill with either safran honey or caramel with salted butter.
As I suppose all of you are able to make crepes without my recipe, I will just write the caramel recipe down.

Caramel au beurre salé

200g sugar
5 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons lemmon juice
2 tablespoon cream
1 tablespoon salted butter

Melt sugar and water together with lemmon juice. When it's golden-brown take out of the stove and add the butter in small pieces. BE CAREFUL there will be projections.
Add the cream.
Let cool down and fill crepes with the preparation.

La question de la langue / A question of language

Donc j'ai créé le blog hier, et déjà on m'a demandé de l'écrire en anglais...

So, I will now try to write in english... please forgive the typos and mistakes I will surely commit.

My first posted recipe will be Chestnut Tiramisu.
Why? Because it's the last recipe I tried! I prepared one on sunday so it would be ready for Géraldine's defense on monday. Yes, here we bake meals and desserts for defenses. Tradition is that after defense there's a little gathering that can be offered by the lab (not very common) or that is more often "home made". That's why I was in a supermarket to buy food for 40 to 50 people on a saturday instead of trying to find ideas for christmast presents.
Géraldine told me that one of her prefered dessert was tiramisu, so I decided to prepare one... but I also reminded she liked chestnuts very much! So I decided to try the recipe that was in my cooking magazine : The Chestnut tiramisu!!
Of course I'm totally unable to follow completely a recipe, so I made some little modifications...

For 6(hungry) to 10 persons, you need :
250g mascarpone
200g chestnut spread
4 eggs
50g sugar
lady fingers (sufficiently to build 2 layers in your pan)
coffee
chestnut syrup or liquor
cocoa

Prepare the Cream
1/ Separate white from yolk.
2/ Stir yolk with sugar until it becomes white
3/Add the mascarpone and stir until you have a homogenous dough
4/Add the chesnut spread
5/ Beat air in whites until it's firm
6/ Stir carefully the whites with the dough.

Build the cake (in a large baking pan -use one you can use to serve)
1/ Prepare coffee and let it cool down. Add chestnut syrup or liquor or rum in it.
2/ Dip lady finger in the coffee and arrange it in the pan until you have a complete layer
3/ Spread a layer of cream and go to 2/ again for another layer of biscuits.
4/ Finish with a layer of cream
5/ Put some cocoa at the top of the tiramisu
6/ "Forget" the tiramisu in a fridge for 2h minimum or a nigh (better)