It's only until I moved to France that I've started liking figs. Here, you're so aware of what comes in and out of season, that it's hard not to pass up the opportunity to enjoy a fruit or vegetable at its very best. Making a simple and delicious brunch at home at the weekends using in-season treasures found at the the organic market down the road is a luxury I try to indulge in each week. This recipe has to be one of my absolute favourites and I love when fig season rolls around each year.

For recipe...

Mardi Gras :: Swedish pancakes

Happy Mardi Gras! Or, as I like to call it 'Fat Tuesday'!

The one day I like to celebrate eating like a little piggy, whilst still managing to splutter between spoonfuls of awesome food "The diet (aka Lent) starts tomorrow!".

Traditionally in France, as at home, pancakes are eaten today each year (those lucky French, they get two Pancake days within the month!), as the day's common name in English describes. As I have been making Swedish pancakes of late due to my place of work, here is the recipe I've been handed down by my Swedish boss, despite the fact that in Sweden semlor are eaten today instead - my friend Anna has posted an awesome recipe for these over here.

Diet starts tomorrow...

xx

Lovely lavender icing (Le Week-End 23::02)

This weekend I got sick. AND, due to it being school holidays at the moment, I was bestowed a long weekend this week. But I got sick and spent half of it on the couch. No fun, no fun at all.

Right before I came down sick, however, I made this lavender Earl Grey tea cake for a knitting afternoon tea I organised at my dear friend Katie's apartment - honestly, the two are definitely NOT related! While I didn't love the cake recipe - it needs a little tweaking - the frosting was a hit! And I can never, ever get frosting right! So here it is...

Coloured cake frosting (adapted from the Twinings site here)

Ingredients

+ 180 gms of icing sugar, sifted

+ 55 gms of soft, soft, soft butter

+ 1 tbsp vanilla essence

+ 1 tbsp milk

+ approx 10 drops of food colouring

Method

Using a spatula/ wooden spoon mix the icing sugar and the butter together until the icing sugar and butter are well combined - this I do every time the recipe calls for butter to be beaten with any kind of sugar, if I don't the sugar usually flies out of the bowl and I get bits of butter all over the walls, which I can't stand because it makes me feel like a muppet in the kitchen.

Add the tablespoons of milk and vanilla essence and mix with an electric beater until it goes nice and fluffy and creamy.
Add the food colouring a couple of drops at a time and mix lightly with the spatula/ wooden spoon, until you reach the desired colour.
Spread over cake and make pretty swirly patterns with the spatula or with a palate knife.  

xx

Red Velvet Tiered Heart Cake

With Mr M leaving for Australia the weekend before Valentine’s Day we celebrated a little early by sharing this heart cake I adapted from one of my favourite treats in the whole wide world - the red velvet cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road.

Here’s the recipe I used, after the jump. It does make two cakes, in case you’re not the sharing kind :)

xx

Champagne Tiramisu with rose biscuits

Not quite as well known as the champagne the region produces are the pink-hued biscuits from bake house Maison Fossier. Initially developed out of a desire to utilise the warm ovens in between batches of baking bread, the biscuits were given their namesake colour from added Carmine to disguise the vanilla added for flavour. As the oldest biscuit production house in France, Maison Fossier, or Maison Mère des Biscuits de Reims it was known prior 1845, was the official biscuit supplier to French royalty. Not only do Fossier suggest their biscuits be served alongside coffee, they also recommended the biscuits be dipped in champagne!

Champagne Tiramisu with rose biscuits.

Makes one large baking tray, two small dishes, or six ramekins.
Please note; this recipe requires one hour refrigeration time.

Ingredients

(French terms of ingredients are provided in brackets for those on this side of the world to more easily locate them in the supermarket).
+ 500g Mascarpone
+ 5 eggs (ouefs)
+ 1/3 cup icing suger (sucre glacé)
+ 1 tbsp espresso coffee
+ Approx 20 rose biscuits Maison Fossier - more or less depending on the size of the vessel you're making it in.
+ 1 cup of champagne, plus extra for serving
+ Dark chocolate for garnish (chocolat noir patissier)

Recipe continues after the jump... xx

Anzac biscuits

While Australians around the world all celebrate Anzac Day in their own way, one staple year in, year out, is the consumption of Anzac biscuits.
A hearty treat made with shaved coconut and oats, the original biscuits were much tougher to be able to withstand being sent overseas to the troops by their wives and mothers. It has become so iconic that the base recipe of the contemporary version is now protected by Australia's Department of Veteran's Affairs which forbid it to be called a cookie!
The version below recipe is on loan from my bestie who used to be very popular with her fellow Australians at the cabaret she used to dance at, so much so that the usually figure-conscious dancers wouldn't stop at one!
While the recipe calls for quite a lot of ingredients the biscuits are ridiculously easy and super quick to make.

Anzac biscuits

Makes approx 20 biscuits

Ingredients

(French terms of ingredients are provided in brackets for those on this side of the world to more easily locate them in the supermarket).
+ 125g butter, chopped into blocks (beurre)
+ 2 tbsp golden syrup (this product, as us Anglos know it, doesn't really exist in France, I buy my golden syrup from Marks and Spencer in Levallois)
+ ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda (bicarbonate de soude)
+ 1 tbsp water
+ 1 cup rolled oats (flocons d'avoine)
+ 1 cup desiccated coconut (noix des coco rapée)
+ 1 cup plain flour (farine de blé)
+ ¾ cup caster sugar (sucre en poudre)


Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Mix together in a large bowl the coconut, flour, sugar and oats.
Place the blocks of butter in a small saucepan and melt on low heat melt. Once half the butter has melted add the golden syrup. Stir until melted and then add the bicarb soda to the water and stir to dissolve. Add the water to the butter - it should froth and double in size. Very quickly add this to the dry ingredients and mix together until the all the mix is wet.
Take a small amount of the mix and roll into a ball. Place on the baking paper and flatten slightly. Repeat until the baking tray is full - don't place the balls too close together as the mixture will spread. Bake for 15 minutes or until the outside is toasty brown. Take out the tray and with a spatula transfer the biscuits to a flat surface - I use a glass chopping board - as they will be very soft and need to set flat as they cool. Repeat with the rest of the mix.

xx

Mr M's French Toast

Before we had even started dating, Mr M came over to my, which is now our, apartment to cook me breakfast. He made me his self-proclaimed 'famous' French Toast and as I ate slice after scrumptious slice I realised that while the "coming over and cooking breakfast" stunt hadn't wooed me as it should have - I was wise enough to know it was just a dating ploy - the French Toast he prepared most definitely helped win me over.

Like French Fries, French Toast is not referred to as French Toast in France. It's called Pain Perdu - perdu being the French term for 'lost', therefore called 'lost bread', as you'd normally use day-old stale bread that would be 'lost' otherwise. Normally pain perdu is eaten as dessert and is made with lots of milk (instead of the orange juice in Mr M's) so it's quite soggy once cooked, slightly resembling bread and butter pudding more so than toast. It's served in a pool of sweet syrup with generous amounts of icing sugar and is, of course, absolutely delicious all the same!

The other week we celebrated Mr M's birthday. As I 'd seen him cook his delightful French Toast a hundred times since his first trip to The Beehive (what our apartment's called) I now know how to make it off by heart and surprised him with a huge home-prepared brunch, featuring his yummy Toast, for when he woke up.

Mr M's French Toast
Makes about 10 thick slices, or enough for one large loaf of brioche (the loaf pictured I'd consider to be on the small side).

Ingredients
+ A loaf of brioche
+ 1 orange, juiced
+ 4 eggs
+ 1 tbsp of cinnamon
+ A small heap of icing sugar and some strawberries to serve
+ A little bit of butter (not pictured) to grease the pan

Press the orange and leave the juice to the side. In a small bowl lightly beat the eggs and then mix in the cinnamon. Pour the egg mixture into a flat-bottomed dish and then add the orange juice. Mix the cinnamon and juice through the eggs thoroughly. Slice the loaf into thick slices.
Heat up a fry pan to a mid-to-high setting and melt the butter. Take a slice of brioche and lay flat in the mixture for about 20 seconds and then, using a fork, turn over for another 20 seconds.
Then gingerly fry each side of the toast until the egg is properly cooked, adding a little more butter after each lot if need be.
Serve with icing sugar and strawberries, or some maple syrup.

Miam!
Have a lovely weekend!

xx

Choc-Coco Egg Nests

This simple recipe is a hand-me-down from Mamma B. I remember munching on these each Easter growing up, and while the original recipe calls for Copha and resembles the Aussie 'Chocolate Crackle', I had to improvise as the famed Australian block of shortening doesn't exist in France. This version is much more healthy anyway!

Choc-Coco Egg Nests
Makes three large nests or four small.

Ingredients

(French terms of ingredients are provided in brackets for those on this side of the world to more easily locate them in the supermarket).
+ 200g good-quality all purpose cooking chocolate (chocolat patissier)
+ 1/2 cup of icing sugar, sifted (sucre glace)
+ 1 1/2 cups shaved coconut (noix de coco râpée)
+ Toppings or sprinkles of your choice - I used orange vermicelli sprinkles to add a bit of colour but chocolate, bits of honeycomb, or even 100s and 1000s would be a cute touch. (vermicelle de sucre)
+ Small Easter Eggs (Œufs de pâques au chocolat)

Over a bain-marie melt the chocolate. When half the chocolate has melted, mix in the sifted icing sugar, tablespoon by tablespoon, making sure it is properly mixed before adding the next spoonful. Once all mixed together with no residual lumps of chocolate take off the heat and dump in the coconut. Mix, mix, mix until all the coconut is completely coated. Line a baking tray or chopping board with baking paper. Using a large spoon or clean hands take a small handful of the mix, form it into a ball and press onto the sheet. Using your thumbs or the back of the spoon make a dent in the middle of the ball. Continue until all the mix is used and dust the sprinkles all over. Place the baking tray/ chopping board in the fridge for a couple of hours until the chocolate hardens.

I packaged them up for les enfants with some beautiful speckled Dutch-chocolate eggs, little fluffy chickens, fringed green tissue paper and wrapped it all up cellophane, secured with a white pipe cleaner to resemble bunny ears.

Wishing you all a wonderful and safe Easter weekend!

xx