Strawberry Cuteness

As a child, I went to school with two girls who were sisters (one of which incidentally shared my name, something I’ve never encountered again), and whose mother was intent on delivering their every fantasy and protecting them from every evil. To her, that meant that the girls wore lacey white socks and mary-janes with a tiny heel (a heel, imagine my envy dismay) and had access to all the girly toys a girl in the eighties could want: barbies, my little pony, every single hello kitty accessory ever dreamt of, care bears (get to the point already!) and the smelliest bestest of them all: strawberry shortcake. She (strawberry) was cool, because she smelled of strawberries and basically had no real back story as far as I remember expect for being cute and pink, and well, smelly.

In french however, this particular character was called charlotte aux fraises (hum, don’t even think that I would waste my time colouring things on the internet ahem-cough-cough) , which is a completely different dessert and my mentioning it serves no other purpose than showing of my mad language skillz and popculture chops.

So, strawberry shortcake has until today, been something I’ve always wondered about the reality of. And after today, i’m even more confused, to tell you the truth. The shortcakes were really very good, quick to make and the strawberries and greek yoghurt I piled on top worked really well, but… I totally don’t get what the difference is between a shortcake and a scone. The ingredients, you see, were pretty much the same that I use for making scones (recipe here), and aside from the fact that the shortcakes didn’t rise as much as I expected, they tasted just as delicious as those scones do. But they’re shortcakes. Is there another difference besides the fact, that they are served with whipped and not clotted cream, and with fresh strawberries instead of jam? What gives people? Can someone explain?

Delicious, albeit puzzling Strawberry Shortcakes

From Cynthia Barcomi’s Kochbuch für Feste

prep time: 10 min total, baking time: 10-12 min
Mixing bowl, baking sheet

280 g flour
1 Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
75 g of cold butter, cut in pieces
180 g cold cream*

Preheat your oven to 225°C. Stir together the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Add the cut-up butter and work it in with your fingertips until the mixture ressembles coarse crumbs (you could also put this togther in a mixing machine fitted with a steelblade). Add the cold cream and mix until just combined. Don’t overwork the dough, otherwise it will be all tough (and won’t rise properly ahem).

Pat the dough down on a floured surface and cut circles (or flowers or hearts or any cute shape you want) with a glass or cookie cutter.** Put your pretty shapes on a baking sheet with baking paper and bake for 10-12 min or until golden.

To serve, slice the shortcakes in half and fill with whipped cream and slightly sugared strawberries.

Edited to add: I’ve just realised that Cynthia has posted this exact recipe on her website! go check hers out, they are way more pretty!

* The recipe called for a tsp of salt, but because I like to use salted butter in my baking, I omitted it entirely.

**Try and use up as much dough as possible the first time, reworked dough doesn’t look as pretty and won’t rise as much.

My Grandmother’s Clafoutis

Uhm. Hi. Yeah… I know. But, let’s not talk about it, mkay?

Instead, let’s talk about SPRING! And Cake! and my Grandmother! This grandmother, to be exact. The one whose understanding of cooking and baking is close to mine, because it’s about making something very good very fast and with little effort. She is a true homecook and has herself spawned a few more homecooks in my mother and uncle and their children in turn aaaand before I scare you away with more genealogy, let’s get back to the mention of cake made at the beginning of the post.

One of the desserts my Grandmother used to make for us regularly, was a Clafoutis. The Clafoutis is a cross between a cake and a baked custard to which you add fresh fruits*. As a child we used to be a bit bummed when she made Clafoutis, because it seemed incredibly boring and plain, but now, come SPRING, I could practically make it all the time. It comes to together in seconds and bakes fast, too. You can eat it warm or cold. There really is nothing not to like about it!

My favourite way to make it is to use rhubarb (see also: SPRING!) and to add a teaspoonful of homemade vanilla extract**. The last time I made this, the five of us destroyed it in seconds: the two little ones were howling for more and J. just quietly ate one piece after another while L. and I tried hard to practice moderation. Our friend who was visiting was quickly given seconds before the whole thing vanished. That’s what it’s like at our house: eat it now or someone else will!

Rhubarb Clafoutis

Prep Time: 5 min cooking time: 35 min

4 stalks of rhubarb (just short of a kilo), peeled and chopped in trunks
3 eggs
6 Tbsp sugar
6 Tbsp flour
1 Tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 tsp baking powder
200 ml cream
more sugar to sprinkle on the rhubarb

mixing bowl, wire whisk, 1 gratin dish (23 x 23 cm)

Preheat the oven to 190°.
Wash, peel and chop the rhubarb. Sprinkle with enough sugar to cover each stalk and set aside in the baking dish.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add the flour, baking powder and cream whisking and mixing until well combined. Pour over the rhubarb and bake for 35 min or until set.
Enjoy warm or cold.

* Some fruits worth mentioning are cherries (please pit them, nothing more annoying than pits keeping you from scarfing down enjoying your delicious dessert), tiny yellow plums, apricots, anything really! Some people are partial to apples in a Clafoutis, personally i’m not a big fan but go ahead and try it out for yourself.

** go make this, right now. it’s really easy and the results are spectacular, especially if you use good vanilla, as I did. Come to think of it, I used vanilla sent to me by my grandmother!

Happy Birthday!

Happy new year, gentle readers I know it’s been awfully quiet here in the past little while and I know you are all tired of hearing my lame excuses (but, I’ve moved houses, with three kids and also I’m tired and I work full-time and did I mention the three kids?) and sorry offers of I-O-U’s(uhm, a recipe? for christmas? Who was I kidding really?).
So this is why today, despite of the cold weather and all the other lame excuses (tired – check, three kids – check, cold – check) I am making a special effort to not be lame and not complain because today, you see, is my grandmother’s birthday and the 1st anniversary of this little blog.

And to celebrate my grandmothers birthday, the one year of my blog and the return of my eldest who spent 10 days in France with his grandparents (must.not.complain.about.how.hard.that.was.), I went and whipped up a batch of puff pastry / pâte feuilletée over the weekend, while following the fabulous tutorial by the lovely Ashley over at Artisan Sweets, complete with a supercool video.
I had it in mind to make a galettes des rois, the traditional french desserts eaten on the 6th of January, the day of the Epiphany, which is the day the three kings (les rois mages, one of which my son is named after) came to pay their dues to the child born a few weeks earlier. I was also hoping that posting a proper recipe would induce an epiphany of my own, bloggingwise, but that remains to be seen.

This particular traditional dessert (Us French seem to have a traditional dessert for pretty much any occasion, or is it just me?) is a puff pastry ‘pie’, as my husband would say, he who calls everything a pie, that is filled with a buttery almond cream in which you hide a porcelain token. The person who gets the token is named the queen or king of the night. The slices are given out at random by the youngest child who sits under the table and tells whoever is serving the cake whom to give each slice to. Our son had a ball sitting under the table and was slightly disappointed that the token didn’t appear until his father and I had eaten our way into the second round.

We had made just enough for a small galette for the three of us and it’s only after I ate the greater part of it that I realised that today marks one year of 13desserts. It’s been a great year for me and I really enjoy posting here (despite evidence to the contrary in the past months!) as well as being more than a mere spectator on the other blogs I read. Comments always make me happy, so don’t feel shy, tell me what you think! Here’s to my grandmother’s health and another year of this!

Galette des Rois

Adapted from ELLE à table

prep time: 45min, rising time: 2h total, baking time 25 min
mixing bowl, dough hooks, rolling pin, parchment paper

for the pâte feuilletée

390 g flour
1-1/2 tsp salt
90 g unsalted butter, cold
210 ml cold water
300 g unsalted butter, softened

for the filling

60 g softened butter
60 g of confectioners sugar
60 g blanched, ground almond (you could substitute pistachios or hazelnuts if you realy wanted)
2 eggs, lightly beaten

I wouldn’t really like to paraphrase Ashleys tutorial, so please go check out the post and the video on how to make puff pastry. I made mine up to the last turn, divided it into three equal parts, wrapped those tightly in clingfoil and stuck them in the freezer. One of these parts (each weight about 300 g) was enough to make a galette for 4 -6 people.

When your puff pastry is done and waiting for you to use it, preheat your oven to 190° and make the filling.

In a mxing bowl (or, say, your brand new kitchenaid fitted with the paddle attachment), cream together the butter, almonds and sugar.
Whisk the eggs together. Reserve a generous tablespoon of the eggmix to brush onto the galette and incorporate the rest to the butter-almond cream.

Roll out your dough into two circles of equal size. Spread the almond cream onto one, leaving a 1 cm edge. Brush this edge with water, place the token (you can use an almond or a button instead of the porcelain figurine) inside and cover with the second dough-circle. Press down and slightly crimp the edges to seal. Poke a little hole in the top to allow the steam to escape and make pretty patterns with your knife to decorate ( I obviously skipped the part about the patterns having to be pretty). Brush with the reserved tablespoon of eggwash.

Bake until golden, for about 20 min, serve warm or cold.