You say tomatoe (just imagine the yankee accent ) I say tomato (and a brit one here). The same could go for cupcakes or as us Brits call them fairy cakes. I was doing some research for my next cookery class. The theme is cupcakes which is all the rage in Paris and I found a few interesting titbits…

According to the “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America”, cupcakes were originally just small cakes minus the icing, that came in the 1950s. The “cup” derived from two origins:
1. The switch from weighing to using cup measurements in the 19th century American households.
2. The practice of baking in small containers or cups. Large cakes were often burnt in the the hearth ovens.

Brits use the term “fairy cakes”, as you normally scoop out the top, fill that with buttercream and jam and then cut the top into two wings which you place on top. Hence them looking slightly fairy like. I would normally call those butterfly cakes and all the plain iced cakes, fairy cakes.

Anyway, at the end of the day they taste delicious and bring back memories of sticky little fingers at birthday parties (well, that is if you had an anglophone childhood).

By the way thanks a mil to all those who wished me luck for my muffin class. It went very well. We even had a waiting list for the class. Everyone seemed happy and went home with their little goody box of muffins and muffin secrets. If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the pictures on the La Cocotte group page.

Fairy cakes/cup cakes/small cake

recipe inspired by Donna Hay (my food styling hero )

125g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
200g self-raising flour
60ml milk
Preheat the oven to 180°c. Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla essence. Beat in one egg at the time. Sift the flour into the mixture and then add the milk. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes bounce bake when touched or the skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire wrack.

Dulcheese frosting/icing

75g cream cheese
125g ricotta
200g dulce de leche

Sprinkles/decoration/chopped walnuts

Combine all the ingredients. Spoon into a piping bag. Pipe onto cupcake and sprinkle on decorations. Eat immediately or put in fridge (take out 10 minutes before consuming).

Here’s my pick of cupcake books:

“Won’t you be my valentine?” A question which will be on many people’s tongues this 14th. Not mine though. I tend to be a bit more cynical and find the whole thing way too commercial. But then I guess if you’re unluckily attached to someone who needs that kind of reminder, than once a year is better than none a year.
I may be cynical in regards to valentines but I do have a small weakness for anything in a heart shape, though. For some reason I often end up making a cake, biscuits or other foods in heart shapes.
I’ve been wanting to make mooncakes ever since I saw this. Mooncakes are a chinese pâtisserie eaten normally for the mid-autumn moon festival. The traditional ones are baked whereas the new wave are “no cook”. Either jelly/agar agar or kao fen “fried glutinous rice flour” based. They’re usually sliced in wedges and served with tea.

It was the first time I ever attempted a mooncake. It’s definetly something which takes practice. Sorry about the “vague” recipe. You may end up with leftover filling or snowskin. Let me know if you try it out. Here are a few tips:

1. You need cold/dry hands. The dough warms up quickly and starts melting when you handle it too much.
2. Use a 50/50 icing sugar and kao fen flour to dust the rolling pin, hands and surfaces
3. Using bigger cutters/moulds makes it easier to work with. I tried small but it’s quite fiddly. Oh, and if anybody knows where I can get hold of mooncake moulds in France please email me.

Valentine mooncakes

Ingredients for snowskin (the outside bit of the cake):
(adapted from various sites)
120 g Kao fen – fried glutinous rice flour
130 g icing sugar
125 g coconut milk
50 g shortening, cold and cubed
Mix all the dried ingredients together. Add the shortening and rub into flour mixture until you have a “crumble/sand” like texture. Pour in the coconut milk and form into a dough. Wrap and chill for 10 minutes.

Ingredients for dulce de leche & coconut filling:
50g dulce de leche
50g Kao fen – fried glutinous rice flour
50g dessicated coconut

Mix together until you can form a dough. If the mixture is too crumbly, add a tiny bit more of dulce de leche.

Ingredients for chocolate centre:
50g icing sugar
50g cacao powder
1 tablespoon golden syrup
Couple of tablespoons coconut milk

Mix together all the ingredients apart from the coconut milk. Add the coconut milk by a tablespoon. Stop adding the coconut milk when you can form a dough.

To make:
The size of the mooncake really depends on your mould. It’s a bit trial and error. Basically the smallest part will be the chocolate filling, make a small ball. Then take a slightly larger amount of dulce de leche dough. Roll into a ball and then flatter out. Place the chocolate ball in the center and wrap the dulce de leche dough around it. Form a ball.

Now take a larger amount of the snowskin dough. Roll out to an even thickness (enough to wrap the filling). Place the filling in the middle and wrap the skin around. Form into a rough heart shape (similar to the one you’re using as a mould). Push into flour dusted mould/cutter and knock out. Keep in an airtight container in the fridge.

This recipe in taking part in “A heart for your valentine”. Take a look for other “hearty” recipes.

The lovely Fanny from Foodbeam sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, asking whether I could participate in the Menu for Hope IV event. Menu for hope is an annual fundraising event masterminded by chez Pim raising money for the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

Each year, food bloggers from all over the world join forces to host the Menu for Hope online raffle, offering an array of delectable culinary prizes. For every US$10, the donor receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of their choice. This year, the prizes include once in a lifetime experiences such as touring the elBulli laboratory with Ferran Adrià , dining on a historic British meal prepared by Heston Blumenthal, or joining Harold McGee on a lunch date to satisfy a lifetime’s worth of cooking curiosity. You can also tag along with your favorite blogger on a tour of their favorite markets, restaurants, or even receive a care package fashioned especially for you from your favorite bloggers themselves. All you need is $10 and a bit of luck.

Wanting to do my own bit I’ve submitted two prizes for the raffle…

EU08 Teatime for two at La Cocotte

Pop by La Cocotte, the tastiest bookshop in Paris (as seen in Elle à table, The New York Times, Gourmet Traveller…) for a personal guide to the boutique by me. And after enjoy a cup of tea and our house speciality, coquetine biscuits.

How to enter…
Buy raffle tickets now…
More prizes from around the world at chez Pim…

EU09 A box of coquetines

Les coquetines, the speciality of La Cocotte are delicious artisan made (yes, it’s me who makes them ) shortbread biscuits which are filled with dulce de leche. Packaged in a beautiful handmade origami box these biscuits are the next best thing to visiting La Cocotte, if you can’t make it.

How to enter…
Buy raffle tickets now…
More prizes from around the world at chez Pim…

So get your tickets now. I’ve got my eyes on a few things:

UK33: Heston Blumenthal will cook an historic British menu for 2 at the Hinds Head
EU31: A personal tour of elBulli kitchen laboratory with Ferran Adria
EU11: Foodie week end with French girl Fanny of Foodbeam

Crossing my fingers

Hate to blow my trumpet, but who cares I’m so excited about being on the cover (with my cake) of this month’s Elle à table I just had to share it with you. There’s an 8 page article inside “Christmas dinner with the 4 girls from la Cocotte“. Andrea and I wrote the recipes and made the food (and some food styling). Nathalie did the beautiful interior and prop styling…well worth rushing to your local newsagent and getting a copy now, while there are still some left

The days have been zooming past extremely quickly. Falling like the leaves on the trees at the mo. They’ve been filled up with plenty of delicious (very exciting) things. I was busy making plenty of Christmas food for a Elle à table (hitting French newstands in November), working on Christmas biscuits for La Cocotte, writing recipes and working on my new baby plus there’s the usual stuff like keeping up with the Parisian social scene…

So it took me five goes to get this recipe right but finally I’m happy with it. Fingers crossed you might see it published one day

Dulcheese muffins
Makes 12

Muffin mixture

270g flour
2 tsp baking powder
50g sugar
2 eggs
100ml milk
80ml vegetable oil
250g dulce de leche
150g chopped walnuts

Cheesecake mixture

125g ricotta
75g cream cheese (i.e. carré frais)
2 tbsp crème fraiche
2 tbsp sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp flour

Decoration
100g dulce de leche for the decoration
50g chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 180°c
Muffin mixture
Sift flour and baking powder together. Combine sugar, eggs, milk, oil and dulce de leche. Mix until smooth. Fold in the flour and chopped walnuts.

Cheesecake mixture
Combine all the ingredients together and mix until smooth and ‘lump free’.

Put a heaped tablespoon of the muffin mixture, followed by a heaped teaspoon of dulce de leche and then finally a heaped tablespoon of the cheesecake mixture. With a toothpick or the tip of a knife swirl the mixtures around. Finish by sprinkling some chopped walnuts and drizzling with some more dulce de leche. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cantucci: famous tuscan almond biscotti

The last couple of weeks (or maybe months) have been pretty crazy, not just workwise but socially. I seem to be meeting a whole bunch of cool people every week. The obligatory ‘So what do you do in life?’ question crops up within 2/3 minutes of the first conversation. I usually say I bake biscuits, makes things a lot simpler (telling people you’re a food stylist, always involves a lengthy explanation). Then comes the ‘Can you make xxx?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Can you really?’ …and a demand of some proof of some sort.

All this socialising networking (it’s all about who you know, darrrrrrling) has had a few other side effects (less sleep, more make-up to put on in the morning) meaning I’ve resulted into drinking a coffee or two (normally I’m ‘a cup of tea’ gal) to keep me going during the day.

Now for me, a perfect cup of coffee (or tea, even a hot chocolate) must include some kind of dunkable biscuit (here’s a past recipe). And no, you don’t want some kind of pathetic biscuit which will give up on you half way through being dunked. ‘Cantucci’ or often mistakenly called ‘Biscotti’ (which is the general Italian word for biscuit) are perfect dunking biscuits. Crisp and crunchy before ‘the dip’ they handle any kind of liquid well.

If the thought of baking these little dunkable darlings is too much to handle. Pop by La Cocotte. The cantucci go by the name of ‘Biscocotti’ and are sold at 1.50€ a packet .

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite Stop the traffik chocolate entry. Deadline is Tuesday 16th October.

P.S. The absolutely awful pun (I know they are getting worse and worse. I will stop, honest!) is dedicated to a fellow foodie blogger I just met. Who knows, you might see a food blog cook/bake off in the near future.

Dulce de leche cantucci

270g plain flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
140g sugar

180g blanched almonds
3 eggs
200g Dulce de leche

Mix together all the ingredients apart from the Dulce de leche. Then roll out the dough and spread Dulce de leche on top leaving an 1 inch border. Roll into a sausage (this can be quite messy). Bake at 160°c 30-40mins. Leave to cool. Cut 5mm slices and bake 10-15 minutes or until biscuits are crispy and dry. Makes 40-50

Recette en français

Cantucci de dulce de leche

270 g de farine
1 ½ c. à café de levure chimique
140 g de sucre
180 g de amandes entiers
3 oeufs
200 g Dulce de leche

Mélanger tous les ingrédients sauf que le Dulce de leche. Ensuite, étaler la pâte et mettre le Dulce de lait sur le dessus laissant 3cm d’une frontière. Roulez la pâte dans une saucisse (ça peut être un peu difficile). Cuire à 160 ° C 30 – 40mins. Laisser refroidir. Couper en tranches de 5mm et cuire 10-15 minutes ou jusqu’à ce que les biscuits sont croquants et sec. 40-50 pièces.

Back from my holidays, which now seem a distant memory in damp old Paris. I had an absolutely lovely time in the Austrian mountains. Cut off from the world, it was a perfect way to forget all the Paris goings on and chill out. My aunt’s garden (more like a mini farm) is an organic fruit and vegetable paradise. Plums, grapes, figs, raspberries, pears and plenty of apples. Although I did catch somebody trying to have a munch at some of the apples…

What to make with so many apples, nothing better than an apple crumble cake I say. And throw some dulce de leche in for good measure. Bake this and you’re have the delicious odeur of baking apples and cake wafting through your house….m mmmmmmmmmmm.

Apple crumble cake

250g sugar
250g butter, softenend
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
300g self raising flour
5 tbsp milk
2 large apples
250g dulce de leche

Crumble topping

200g flour
120g butter, well chilled
100g sugar

Large rectangle tin (30cm x 20cm) lined with baking paper

Preheat oven to 160°c. Cream together the sugar with the butter and vanilla essence until fluffy. Beat in one egg in at the time. Sift in the flour and then add the milk. Pour mixture into the tin. Spread out evenly. Peel, core and chop up the apples, mix with dulce de leche. Pour on top of the cake mixture.

For the crumble mixture, either process the ingredients in a food processor until it resembles breadcrumbs. Or cut the butter into small pieces, mix the dry ingredients together and rub the butter into them with your fingers until you have a crumbly texture.

Sprinkle the mixture over the apples. Bake for 35-40mins or until a knife comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake.

Yum yum pig’s bum as my Irish friend says. These little brownie cheesecake babies are delish. I’ve used my favourite Brownie recipe by Nigel Slater (minus slightly less sugar) ‘melanged’ with a creamy cheese dulce de leche mix.
The sweet deep chocolately taste combined with the tangy ‘slightly salty sour’ cream cheese made these little brownies go down a treat at the picnic I went to last week. Ahhhhhhhh all seems to be a long distance memory. I had to get out my 40 denier tights and boots out today. It’s so wet and cold in Paris. Good thing it’s holiday time soon.

P.S. These yummy brownies are taking part in the Brownie babe event hosted by Once upon a Tart. Check out the event for more delish brownie recipes.

Chocolate & dulce de leche cheesecake brownies

Chocolate brownie mixture
250g golden sugar
250g butter
250g dark chocolate
3 eggs + 1 egg yolk
60g plain flour
60g cocoa
½ tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180°c. Melt 200g of the dark chocolate in a bain marie. Chop the leftover 50g of dark chocolate in small bits. Cream the sugar and butter together. Slowly add the eggs, one at the a time and then the yolk. Stir in the melted chocolate and then the chocolate bits. Then sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the mixture. Mix until well combined.

Cheesecake mixture
400g cream cheese
1 egg yolk
50g plain flour
150g dulce de leche

Makes plenty

Combine all the ingredients together. Mix until creamy.

Grease a 23 square tin (5cm deep) pour half the chocolate mixture into the tin and then half of the cheese mixture, repeat. Use a skewer to create swirly patterns. Bake in the middle of the oven for 20-25 minutes. To test: insert a skewer into the centre, it should come out warm a the tip with slightly sticky crumbs clinging to it.

Or

Place papercases in a muffin tin. Add a couple of spoons of the chocolate mixture and then a couple of the cheesecake swirl with a skewer. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

The season of all things open air is in full fling in Paris. With Paris beach (don’t laugh , it’s quite cool with palm trees and some sand. It’s not a bad attempt), cinema, concerts, dancing along the Seine and of course the most important the PICNICS.

I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for a long time. Helen over @ Tartelette made them a while ago and they just sounded delicious. A picnic with friends seemed a great opportunity to try this out.

Last year when I studied @ Le Cordon Bleu we made regular Brioche. It all got a bit messy while kneading the butter as it was extremely hot. 40°c with the ovens on full blast and wearing a nasty chefs uniform. We added extra salt to the recipes with the sweat dripping off our foreheads. Nice! With a stand mixer and the dough hook attachment you can avoid the melting-butter-kneading problem.

‘Let them eat Brioche’ as the famous Marie Antoniette said.

Dulce de leche brioche buns

adapted from Tartelette and Le Cordon Bleu Pâtisserie manual.

250g flour
6g salt
25 sugar
3 eggs
1 sachet of instant dried yeast or 11g of fresh compact yeast
120ml of warm milk
125g of cold butter, cubed

250g cream cheese
250g dulce de leche

makes 12 buns

Mix the warm (not hot otherwise you will ‘kill’ the yeast) milk with the yeast and set aside. In a bowl add flour, make a well in the centre of the bowl. Add eggs and yeast into the ‘well’. Slowly combine. Once combined add salt and sugar. Knead for about 15-20 minutes or until the dough is elastic (like chewing gum). Add half of the cubed butter, continue to knead until incorporated into the dough (this can become messy, you need to work fast if you’re doing this by hand as your hands will melt the butter) then add the rest and continue to knead until you have a smooth elastic dough.

Leave to prove for 1 hour in a clingfilm covered bowl. Knock back and roll out dough into a rectangle. Spread cream cheese then dulce de leche (this part is a bit messy) leaving 1 inch border. Roll into a long sausage and cut into 12 parts. Place each brioche bun into a greased muffin tin. Wrap and leave to rise overnight in the fridge.

The day after take brioche out of fridge and leave to rise a bit while the oven is pre heating to 180°c. Put in oven, reduce heat to 160°c. Bake 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

I was told by an Argentinian that my version of making Dulce de leche was like comparing supermarket bought ice cream to Berthillon ice cream. I just had to make an authentic Dulce de leche after hearing that. Unfortunately I cooked my ‘milk jam’ a bit too long which made the consistency more caramel/toffee. The timing is supposed to be the most difficult to get right. It was still delicious though, the empty jar being the proof.

Homemade dulce de leche – Take II

1 litre whole milk
500g caster sugar
1/4 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp vanilla essence

Place all ingredients in a pot. Simmer over a medium heat, stirring from time to time. Cook until the mixture starts getting thick and caramel in colour (about 1 1/2hrs).