Galette au Beurre and ‘À La Mère de Famille’ Paris

Recently, I was lucky enough to travel to London and Paris. I’m not really sure what anyone else thinks of doing when they travel, but all I think about is the food. Once the travel plans were organised, I set out looking up where I wanted to eat. Which in the end, mostly meant I had looked up where the cake shops, bakeries, patisseries and tea salons were. The list I made for each city took us round to all the places we could get good food, cake, tea, kitchen and baking supplies and more cake. By the time we returned home I was really excited to bake something inspired by my travels.

This recipe is from a book I bought before I knew I would get to go overseas. The book, ‘À La Mère de Famille’, is the cookbook from a confectionary shop/chocolatier in Paris of the same name. The shop, which now has more than one location in the city, was established in 1761. The original shop, on the Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, was on my absolute must do list. As in, I wasn’t leaving the city unless we went there. I even walked past one of the newer subsequent locations of the shop and refused to go in because I had my heart set on going to the original one. I’m not really sure why I was so insistent on only going to the original shop. Maybe there’s just something special about going into a shop that has been there for so long. In any case, I’m glad we waited because it was very quaint and sweet. The window displays were enticing and once you were inside, it was easy to imagine the shop selling more or less the same things for all those years. They even had a separate booth for the cashier. All the pâte de fruits, caramels, chocolates and cakes were beautifully presented and I had a hard time choosing what I wanted. I settled on some chocolates for gifts, some marshmallows and some passionfruit caramels. 

So, once we were home, the chocolates were gifted away and the marshmallows eaten (I am still rationing the caramels because they are so very good), I decided I just had to make something from À La Mère de Famille’s book. Confectionary was ruled out due to my jet lagged state, so I settled on these plain but very pleasing biscuits. They are quite easy to make, and they make a fairly large quantity too. Everyone who ate them agreed they were nicer than shortbread, as while they are a butter biscuit they are lighter than shortbread and less crumbly as well. I gave some to my Grandpa and he told me, that not only did he like them, but had gotten up in the night to eat them! 

Ingredients: 

270g softened unsalted butter

250g icing sugar

2 eggs

500g plain flour 

milk (for glazing) 

Method: 

Using an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, then sift in the flour. Lay a sheet of baking paper onto a bench or flat surface and tip the dough onto it. Cover the dough with a second sheet of baking paper and roll the dough until it is 2-3mm thick. Chill in the refrigerator for one hour. 

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line three large baking trays with baking paper. Remove dough from fridge and remove top layer of baking paper. Cut biscuits out using a fluted 48mm pastry or biscuit cutter. Place evenly on trays. Brush with milk and push down lightly on each biscuit with a fork to create a slight indentation. 

Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden. I found I needed an extra 10 minutes or so until the biscuits were golden, but it will depend on your oven. 

Best stored in an airtight container. Makes at least 50 biscuits. 

Recipe from ‘À La Mère de Famille Artisanal Recipes’ by Julien Merceron p.214.

The shop can be found at 35 Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, Paris.

À La Mère de Famille - 35 Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, Paris.

Originally Posted March 18, 2014.

Chewy Cardamom & Rosewater Macaroons (Gluten + Dairy Free + Passover Friendly)

This recipe is originally from Nigella Lawson’s book ‘Feast’ (p.186), however I have adapted it slightly to suit my tastes. I have made these many, many times, given them as gifts, and Cath (Confessions of a Glutton) and I sold some at our Bake Sale back in September last year. They are really easy to make and are great if you have egg whites left over from something else. The recipe is also really easy to double, and they just happen to be gluten free. 

Need any more reasons to make them or have I convinced you yet?! 

Don’t be put off by the flavours of cardamom and rosewater. They are quite subtle and very lovely. And in my opinion, anything that comes from a Nigella Lawson cookbook must be worth trying. Nigella has a great attitude and creativity towards food that is infectious and very admirable. 

Ingredients:

200g almond meal

200g caster sugar 

1/4 tsp finely ground cardamom

1/4 tsp rosewater

2 egg whites 

1-2 tsp rosewater, extra

25g blanched almonds (enough for each macaroon you make) 

Method: 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line two large baking trays with baking paper. 

In a free standing mixer, mix the almond meal, sugar, cardamom and egg whites until it forms a coherent paste. This process can also be done by hand, but as Nigella suggests, and I agree, the mixer is best due to the thickness, and stickiness of the mixture. At this point you may add 1/4 tsp of rosewater to the mix. This is my addition because I love rosewater. 

Sprinkle rosewater onto your hands and roll the mixture into little balls (walnut sized). Place on to the baking trays and the squash down a little. Then place a blanched almond in the centre of each biscuit.  

Bake for 10-12 minutes. If they go golden too quickly turn the oven down to 180 degrees celsius. The aim is not to have golden biscuits, but to remove them from the oven before this happens. Inevitably, I find the edges of some biscuits will go a little golden, probably because each rack in the oven I use cooks at a different rate. 

Cool biscuits on a cooling rack.

Makes approx. 28

Originally Posted February 1, 2014.

Passionfruit & Strawberry Iced Tea for Summer

Ok. I know my last post was based on passionfruit, but, it’s summer and they are so good at the moment! I also thought this recipe would be great considering how hot it has been in Sydney lately! 

This recipe was inspired by a drink I ordered at the T2 Tea House called ‘Summer Pash’. Technically the ingredients are the same, but my version comes out so different that it hardly ends up being the same thing. Which is good. Because now I can make it at home, and still enjoy their version at the Tea House! 

I found panama passionfruit during the week and used them here. I know I’ve said it before, but if you can get them, do. They are so good and the flavour is just so fantastic! 

This recipe makes about three litres. However, it is quite easy to halve the quantities and only make one and a half litres. 

Ingredients: 

2 litres of cloudy apple juice 

18-20 g green tea - I use ‘Green Rose’ from T2

800ml water, approx.

pulp from 3 panama passionfruit (or 5-6 ordinary passionfruit)

strawberries, to serve 

Method: 

Place tea in a three litre capacity jug (I use a jug that has a removable part for the tea). Heat the water to 80 degrees Celsius, or if using boiling water, allow to cool for a few minutes and add a little cold water to bring the temperature down. Green tea shouldn’t be brewed at 100 degrees Celsius. 

Pour the water over the tea, and allow to brew for 10-15 minutes. Once the tea has brewed, remove tea leaves from the jug. Using a fine strainer or sieve and extra bowl or jug, pour the tea through the sieve to remove any extra fine bits of tea. Rinse the original jug out and pour the tea back into the jug. You may want to pour the tea through the sieve again if there are still bits of tea left after the first time. Leave to cool for a while. 

Once the tea has cooled, add the apple juice and the passionfruit pulp to the jug. Stir everything in. Keep refrigerated. This iced tea tastes better when it has had time to infuse. I always make it the afternoon or evening before.  Add cut up strawberries and ice cubes to serve. You can add the strawberries to the whole jug of tea, I just find the tea won’t keep as long with the strawberries in. Without the strawberries, the tea should last in the fridge for 5-7 days. But really in Summer, how could it last that long?! 

 Originally Posted January 21, 2014.

Passionfruit Muffins

This is a recipe I have made a lot. Sometimes, when I was at uni, I would make versions of this recipe weekly to keep me going for uni and work. These muffins freeze well, so once they are cooled I put them in the freezer in a container and take them out as I want them. 

This recipe is originally from Julie Goodwin’s book ‘Our Family Table’, as White Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins (p.4). It is definitely the best muffin recipe I have come across and the combination of raspberry and white chocolate is fantastic. If I see fresh punnets of raspberries on sale, I buy them and inevitably make these! I have altered the recipe many times to cater to what I feel like or what fruits I have to use. My favourite variation of this recipe is passionfruit. 

If panama passionfruits are in season they are absolutely worth buying! The flavour is amazing. I would substitute two or three panama passionfruit (depending on size) for the 5 smaller ordinary passionfruit used in the recipe if I can find them. Wholemeal self-raising flour and low-GI cane sugar can also be substituted in this recipe. Though I have to say I hardly ever do both because I hate it when things ‘taste healthy’! Sometimes doing half and half can be a good compromise! 

Ingredients:

300 g self-raising flour 

165 g caster sugar 

130g white chocolate bits, or white chocolate melts roughly chopped

pulp of 5 small passionfruit 

2 eggs 

125ml skim milk 

125 ml vegetable oil

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place 12 paper cases in a muffin tin (80ml capacity hole). Sometimes I find I get one or two extra muffins from this recipe (depending on the size of the eggs or passionfruit), so its always best to have another muffin tray and cases handy. 

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre of the bowl. 

In a measuring jug or small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and oil, then add to the dry ingredients. Then add the passionfruit pulp. Gently stir the ingredients until just combined and there are no lumps. Don’t over mix this mixture, muffins are best if they aren’t over mixed. Divide mixture between muffin cases, I find using an ice-cream scoop helps keep them even. 

Bake for 20-25 mins, until golden and springy to touch. Cool on wire racks, however they are best when they are warm straight out of the oven! 

Originally Posted January 12, 2014.

Grandma's Shortbread Biscuits

This recipe is very special to me. That might sound strange as it really just comprises three ingredients, but this is probably my favourite thing that my Grandma used to make. I have great memories of making these with her and of course, eating them! The last time I remember she made them was for my twenty-first birthday. I called her and told her that I was having an afternoon tea for my birthday, and she asked whether she could provide any food for it. I immediately said no, as my Mum and I had been busy organising all the things we would need and probably didn’t need anything else. I instinctively felt bad saying no, as I knew Grandma probably wanted to bring something. My Grandma always brought food to everything, that was the way she contributed to things. A couple of days later I suddenly realised that I definitely DID want Grandma to bake something for my birthday! No birthday, and certainly not one that was an afternoon tea, would be complete without shortbread! I rang her up, and asked if she would bake some and she was happy too. I’m so glad she did as, though we all still had a few years left together at that stage, it was, I realised after she died, the last time she ever made my favourite shortbread for me.

This recipe for shortbread is quite easy but, the temperature of the butter will determine how crumbly the dough becomes. I find that butter at around room temperature is best. My Grandma never iced her shortbread, she always cut a red glacé cherry in half and placed it in the centre of the biscuit before baking. They are very nice this way, and quite festive for Christmas time. But of course, I could never only make them at Christmas! 

Shortbread the way Grandma used to make them.

Ingredients: 

160 g unsalted butter  

60 g caster sugar 

250 g plain flour

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees Celsius and line two large baking trays with baking paper.

Place the larger quantity of butter and the sugar into a food processor and pulse until combined. 

Add the plain flour, and pulse until the dough looks like the breadcrumbs. At this stage, if the dough does not start to come together well, add the extra butter and pulse until it is combined and the dough comes together. 

Tip the dough out onto a floured work surface. The dough may still look crumbly at this stage, but once brought together with your hands, and rolled out with a rolling pin, it will become a more consistent dough. Shortbread is a dryer dough than others so don’t worry if the edges of your dough are particularly brittle.

Once the dough is rolled out, cut out shapes with biscuit cutters. To ensure the shapes don’t break when you transfer them to a baking tray, slide a spatula under the biscuits to help lift them to the tray. 

Space biscuits evenly on the trays and bake for about 20 minutes. If your oven, like mine, doesn’t cook evenly on each tray, you might like to swap the trays over or turn them around half way through the cooking time to ensure the biscuits cook more evenly. 

Cool on trays or wire racks. 

The quantity this recipe yields is dependent on the size of biscuit cutters you use. When I used this recipe for the biscuits I made in the photo above, the recipe made twenty-two biscuits. 

Shortbread are lovely on their own, or once cooled you can ice them. When I first started icing biscuits, I used the royal icing that can be bought in a packed at the supermarket. It is quite good to use if you are just starting out and one packet will ice more than one batch of shortbread. If you want a more smooth and glossy finish of icing however, the packet mix royal icing isn’t the one to use. For such a finish it is best to make your own royal icing. I have been using the recipe from ‘Sweet Bake Shop’* and have found it to be fantastic.

*Sweet Bake Shop website has now changed (last checked 10/10/14). Website previously contained recipes and instructions. The website now represents the evolution of Sweet Bake Shop, which is now an actual store front in Vancouver, Canada. The website no longer contains recipes, however there are some video tutorials by Sweet Bake Shop owner Tessa. 

Originally Posted January 8, 2014.