Gateau Breton

After being healthy with just a soup, I think now it is time to get onto a non-healthy recipe hehe.
This is a cake my mum makes and that I requested ^^ I made it myself before but as everyone knows, no matter how many times you make something the one your mum makes is always a bizillion times better. Yes, this is a fact ;) So yes the pictures of the cake you see here was made by Mama Rithuu! Mercii!

In any case, it is a pretty simple recipe and absolutely delicious as long as you like butter and the sweet and savory combination! :) This recipe is from my mum's region in Brittany and it's very similar to dutch boterkoek (also really delicious by the way). So if you like boterkoek, you will definitely like this recipe! A must try at home! :)
Recipe also available in French at the end of this post!

Ingredients:

• 300g of flour
• 240g of butter 
• 240g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 pinch of baking soda

Preparation:

Little advice: best to use Breton salted butter for this recipe like the one on the photo below. If it's not available where you are, just use salted butter (very important that it is salty!)

1. Melt the butter and mix the sugar. Then add the egg yolks (make sure the butter isn't too hot so it doesn't cook the eggs ><)
   
2. Add flour and mix well until it becomes dough-y.
   
3. Butter your mould and flatten the dough into it. 
4. Lightly brush with egg yolk so it becomes golden brown when baked! :) Use a fork to do the little design as shown on the photo and bake for 30min at 180 degrees!

And when it's ready... nom nom nom

So yeah as you can see it's a pretty straight forward recipe! It's really tasty and super delicious to have for breakfast or just as a snack :P or just anytime... hehe 

Just remember, it is important to use good quality salted butter for this recipe!

Hope you try making it! :D

Recette en Francais:

Ingredients: 

• 300g de farine
• 240g de beurre
• 240g de sucre
• 3 jaunes d'oeufs. 

Preparation:

1. Faire fondre le beurre et y ajouter le sucre. Ajouter les jaunes d'oeufs.
2. Ajouter la farine et mélanger le tout
3. Mettre dans un plat beurré. 
4. Dorer le dessus au jaune d'oeuf.
5. Faire cuire pendant 30minutes a 180 degres. 

Voila! :D

Tiramisu

Ok so maybe the picture does not look super appealing but I can reassure you this recipe is very good. It's the one my mum makes and it's so yummy and very simple! I've made tiramisu many times when we had big gatherings for birthdays with my friends and I think everyone liked it :)
Hope you try making it!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs 
• 300g mascarpone (sometimes they only sell 250g ones and that quantity is also ok. Makes the mascarpone mixture more liquid)
• 50g Sugar
• Salt
• 250-300g of lady fingers
• Lemon zest/lemon juice
• 1 dl of very strong coffee 
• 3 tablespoons of Amaretto
• 5 tablespoons of rum
• Chocolate powder

For this recipe you will need 2 large bowls and an electric mixer! (very important!)

Preparations: 

1. Prepare some instant coffee (add lots of it so it's very strong) and a teaspoon of sugar. Add the amaretto and rum and set aside so it cools down. 
2. In 2 large bowls, separate the egg yolk from the white. 
3. In the bowl with the 2 egg yolks, add 50g of sugar. Mix with the electric mixer until it becomes white/beige-ish. Add the mascarpone to the mixture (best here to just mix with a spoon/fork and not the electric mixer. Might make it a little too liquid-y). 

   

   Mascarpone mixture!

4. In the bowl with the egg white, add a pinch of salt and use the electric mixer to beat until they form peaks. As you mix, add a table spoon of sugar. It will become pretty compact and you will be able to turn the bowl upside down (and the egg white should not fall. If it does then it's not ready :P). As the cake noob that I am, I have messed up the recipe one time because I was lazy and did not wash the electric mixer (after using it to mix the sugar and egg yolk) before beating the egg white... It will stay all liquid-y so make sure there's no yolk or anything else before beating the white! (Just don't be lazy like meee! :P)

   

   fluffeeeehh

5. When it's done, add the egg white to the mascarpone mixture very delicately. For this you can either use a spatula or a spoon and mix in a circular motion not to destroy the egg's white fluffiness. 
6. Place the coffee into a bowl and dip each lady finger generously and place them in a mould (I usually use an oven dish ^^). Create one layer and add one coat of mascarpone mixture. The repeat this process (lady fingers dipped in coffee-rum-amaretto) and coat with the rest of mascarpone (ok I always have a problem here, I always either use too much in the beginning or not enough so try to make it equal unlike me :P). You may also realize that you just don't have a perfect amount of lady fingers.... (like me) so just YOLO it up. 

   

   Make it work :P
   
   
   

   

7. When you're done, cover it and refrigerate it for half a day or 24 hours (24 hours is usually better) so all the flavors sink in the lady fingers! 
8. When you are about to eat it, cover it with some chocolate powder and it's done! :D

You can cover with dark chocolate powder but I've used Nesquick as well and it works :P

Nut Cake to go nuts for!

Pretty :3

For New Years Eve, my mum made a hazelnut cake! This is considered an all time classic in our household for being delicious, simple, and yeah just delicious. If you are allergic to nuts, then yes, this is definitely a recipe to avoid… You can also replace hazelnuts with walnuts (also yumz). Anyways, here is the recipe as my mum makes it!

Ingredients:

• 100g of butter
• 200g of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 100g of hazelnuts (crushed)
• 80g of flour

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat the oven at 200C. 
2. Butter the mold and add some flour so the cake won't stick. 
3. Melt the butter, and add the sugar. Mix well.
4. Add the eggs one by one while mixing, and add the crushed hazelnuts and the flour. Mix until smooth.
5. Add the mixture into the bowl and bake it for 30min.

When ready, you can add a think layer of nutella and other decorations (ie. chocolate sprinkles). You can also serve with creme anglaise like we did. For New Years, my mum also added some chocolate chips/sprinkles inside!

Enjoy! :)

Recette en Francais:

Ingredients:

• 100 g de beurre
• 200 g de sucre en poudre
• 3 oeufs
• 100g de noisettes broyes 
• 80 g de farine

Preparation:

1. Faire fondre le beurre, puis dans un saladier, le travailler avec le sucre.
2. Ajouter les oeufs un a un en brassant, puis verser les noisettes et enfin la farine. Le melange doit former une pate homogene.
3. Verser le tout dans un moule a manque beurre et farine. Enfourner a 200C (th. 6/7) pendant 30min. 

You can see the chocolate chips on the side ><

Receta en Español: Torta de avellanas

Ingredientes:

• 100g de manteca
• 100g de azúcar
• 3 huevos
• 100g de avellanas molidas
• 80g de harina

Preparación: 

1. Ablandar la manteca y agregar el azúcar. Mezclar bien. 
2. Agregar los huevos uno por uno mezclando. Después, agregar las avellanas y la harina. Batir todo hasta que la mezcla sea homogénea. 
3. Meter el todo en el molde (el molde tiene un poco de manteca y harina para que la torta no se pegue) y al horno durante 30min a 200C!

Se puede agregar chispas de chocolate y/o nutella! 

Nutella Cake

For this year's Christmas cake we decided to make something new: Nutella cake. I think everyone is a big fan of nutella and most people would probably enjoy this recipe. As a baking noob, this recipe was still quite easy to make (even for me). I found the recipe on a French site and the link in French can be found at the end of this post! :)

Ingredients for 4 nomsters

• 6 spoons of Nutella
• 150g of flour
• 120g of sugar
• 1 yoghurt (plain yoghurt)
• 3 eggs
• Half a pack of baking soda

Preparation

1. Pre-heat your oven at 180C and butter your mold and cover it with flour so the cake doesn't stick. 
2. In a big bowl, mix the eggs with the sugar (you can use an electric mixer for this). Add the yoghurt, melted butter and mix well. Once it becomes smooth, add the flour and baking soda while mixing. 
3. Finally, add the Nutella. It didn't say in the recipe but we used the electric mixer (Nutella is quite thick so it was quite a hassle to mix. It was just faster!). 
4. Once the Nutella is incorporated, add it to mold and bake it for 30 min! 

Yeeey, so easy! Ok so this cake was pretty good. One minus point, it did not taste like Nutella as much as I thought... A little disappointed with this but it was very soft and spongy. It was also nice that it wasn't too sweet. If you add more Nutella it might be a little too intense... But yes, I think you should definitely try this out! We ate it with creme anglaise (vanilla flavoured *recipe coming soon*) and it was absolutely delicious! 

Nutella cake with creme anglaise

We made it Christmassy by adding powdered sugar (kind of like snow hehe) and some little decorations as you can see on the photo :)

Can you tell how spongy it is? :)

Recette en Francais --> http://gateau.com/gateau-au-nutella-facile.htm

Enjoy!

Xmas chocolate chip cookies!

Fresh out of the oven :3

Ok so this recipe is not reaaally a christmas recipe but more that christmas is a perfect reason to make some nice chocolate chip cookies :D
I found it on a french cooking site and it was super easy (although as a huge baking noob I did make a mistake the first time I baked them -____-) and fast to make... And it was delicious! What I liked about this recipe is that it was not too sweet or too greasy. I will definitely make them again!

So here is the translated recipe and the original one in French at the end :)

Ingredients:

• a bag of chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate ones)
• 100g of melted butter
• 1 bag of vanilla sugar
• 1/2 bag of baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 100g of brown sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 250g of flour

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat the oven at 200 C. Prepare a tray with some baking paper on it.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, brown sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt. 
3. In another bowl, mix the eggs and the butter. In the original recipe it said softened butter but I completely melted it in the microwave and it was totally fine (it didn't make the cookies greasier as I had read on other sites). When I mixed the room temperature butter and egg, my butter was actually not soft enough and it made nasty clumps and had to throw it away... Anyways, best to use completely melted butter to be safe and lightly mix with a electric mixer! 
4. When it's mixed, add the egg-butter mixture and the chocolate chips (I put an entire bag of them :P) to the flour one. Mix well. You will obtain a pretty thick dough.
5. Use 2 spoons to make little balls of more or less 5 cm of diameter and place them on the tray with baking paper. Once you place it, I would recommend flattening the dough a bit (the first time I made them, they were very yummy but maybe a little too thick. As you can see on the pictures they were FAT cookies. Not for amateur cookie nomsters). Make sure there's enough space between each cookie! 
6. Place them in the oven for 9 min (I actually left them in a little longer, around 12 min but it depends on your oven). When they are done, they will be super soft inside :3 Make sure to keep them in a Tupperware if you like soft spongy cookies (like me) or leave them in open air for drier ones! 

Overall, this recipe was super easy and the outcome was amazing! It's perfect for a little snack with your family during this time of the year or to leave them next to the xmas tree with a glass of milk for Santa! :D I also gave some to my dad as an afternoon snack at work as it can be easily be put into a box or even wrap it with aluminium foil. 

Recette en Francais ici! http://gateau.com/cookies-facile-et-rapide.htm

Galette Bretonne

Traditional galette complete! 

I'm sure everyone has heard of crepes. In many creperie places, they also sell savory ones which are actually called galettes in French. Those galettes are actually from my mum's region, Brittany and they are an absolute must if you go there. 

Galettes are pancakes made of buckwheat flour and good ones are supposed to be very thin and crispy. Unlike crepe that are beige-ish colour, the galettes are more of a brown colour. You can find these savory pancakes with an infinite type of toppings but I personally think that the best ones are the most simple ones. For example one of the most traditional and simple ones is galette complete, with egg, ham and cheese (emmental) which is the one I ALWAYS have.

*drool all over keyboard*

You might think I am narrow minded but I never ever take another one. This one is my absolute favorite of all times. It's not too boring because it has a few toppings which also allows you to taste all the flavors of the galette itself. This galette complete can also have some tomatoes or mushrooms. Anyways, by keeping it to the basics, you will really feel the buckwheat pancake and your wallet will also thank you (the most simple ones are the cheapest ones. The cheapest one that was delicious was only 5 euros! But its usually around 6 euros in Brittany and around 10 euros in Paris... Paris you cray!)

Galette complete with tomatoes!

Another traditional one is with andouille de guéméné, which is a pork sausage typical from Brittany. It smells really strong and it has a pretty strong particular taste. I guess it's one of those things that you either hate or love? I was not a fan when I was little (have not tried it again since) but my parents were always big muncher of andouille. 

Galette a l'andouille, you can see the crispiness of the pancake :D

Ok so I also have a photo of a galette with lots of stuff on it like some kind of ratatouille and a sausage. It also tastes really good so I would also recommend the more elaborate ones like these but I am really all about the complete one. Oh and the flag you see on the sausage is the Breton flag. Breton flag will most definitely pop up here and there if you ever go to Brittany (we have 3 of them hanging in our house :P).

Galette with sausage and ratatouille

Allright so... do you feel like just stuffing your face with these delicious galette after seeing these photos? (I do...) Do you wanna feel the crispiness of the pancake? The cheese melting in your mouth? Pop the egg yolk when you think it's the most appropriate time? Well, you don't necessarily have to go to Brittany to taste them because.... HERE IS THE RECIPE, yeaaaah boooooi! So yes here is the recipe from my mum! :D

Galettes Recipe

Ingredients:

• 250g of buckwheat flour
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 l of water
• 100ml of liquid cream 

For the toppings: eggs, slices of ham, emmental cheese etc. Depends on your mood :D

Preparation
To make galette it would be nice to have a very thin pancake pan BUT if you don't have it no panic, you can also use a regular frying pan :)

1. Mix all the ingredients in the order written above until smooth. You can also use an electric mixer to make sure nothing clumps up. 
2. Heat the pan with some butter and make sure the butter covers the entire surface of the pan. 
3. When the pan is hot enough, use a laddle to get enough of the preparation onto the pan. Make sure it is not too thick (it will make the galette heavy) or too thin (you will have holes otherwise) and spread it evenly over the pan. 
4. Let it cook slowly. 
5. When one side is cook, carefully flip the galette. Ok so this part you can use your own method as it is the trickiest part. Once you manage to flip it, let the other side cook until brown. 
6. When its done, serve on a plate. Add emmental cheese, slices of ham, fried egg, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, whatever you want :D

Perfect drink to go with the galette? Cidre of course. 'You mean cider'. No, no, my friend, CIDRE is the Breton cider. Delicious. Those 2 were made to be enjoyed together.. :3 The glass below is the traditional glass in which you drink cidre.

Noob looking fried egg (made by me. Apologies)

Bon appetit! :)

Recipe also available in French!

Galette bretonne:

Ingredients: 

• 250g de farine de sarrasin
• 2 oeufs
• Sel et poivre
• 1/2 L d'eau
• 100ml de creme liquide

Preparation:

1. Melanger le tout dans un bol. Utiliser un mixeur si necessaire pour ne pas avoir de grumeaux. 
2. Faire chauffer la poele et mettre un peu de beurre et recouvrir la totalite de la poele.
3. Quand la poele est assez chaude, utiliser une louche pour mettre la preparation. Faire attention a ne pas en mettre de trop! (Il ne faut pas que la galette soit trop epaisse)
4. Laisser la galette cuire lentement.
5. Quand elle est cuite, la retourner (differentes techniques personnelles peuvent etre utiliser :P).
6. Une fois retournnee, laisser cuire. 
7. A servir avec un oeuf au plat, emmental, jambon, tomates, champignons etc. et a deguster en buvant du cidre! :D

Madeleines

They reminded me of a submarine when I was small :P

Madeleines, are small vanilla flavored French cakes. They are very easy to make and very tasty. The shape of these small cakes are very crucial to their identification. They look a little bit like sea shells. The mold you should use for this recipe resemble like this:

One important thing for this recipe is to have the appropriate mould. I’m sure you could make them in a non madeleine shaped one but I feel like it would lose something and they wouldn't be madeleines anymore :P Up to you to try though! 

My mum used to make them for me as an afternoon snack for when I came back from school. I remember drowning them into my chocolate milk until no more bubbles would appear on the surface (yes I was an evil child). 
They are simple to make (20min preparation and cooking time) and delicious to eat so I decided I would try making them myself with my mama’s recipe.

Here is my mum's recipe! :)

Ingredients for 8 madeleines:

•          1 egg
•          40 g sugar
•          60 g flour
•          30 g of butter
•          1 pinch of salt
•          1 pinch of baking powder
•           Few drops of vanilla extract

 Preparation:

1. Preheat the over at 200-210 degrees
2. Beat the egg with the sugar
3. Add a pinch of salt and a few drops of vanilla extract
4. Add flour and mix
5. Add the melted butter and mix until you get a homogenous paste
6. Fill the moulds and immediately bake it in the oven for 10 min!

What my mum told me to do is use the back the spoon to make sure that the mixture is filling the molds so you get a nice madeleine shape J  

Make sure your little madeleines tan a lot and become golden brown! The first time I made them I didn't bake them enough and they looked rather pale and unhealthy :( 

Personally, I think the madeleines are best when they are fresh out of the oven. The smell of warm madeleines is just amazing and they feel extra soft! *drool*

フワフワ！so sooooft!

I used salted butter when I made them the first time and you could feel bits of salt in them. In case you don't like the savory-sweet mix, you can use regular unsalted butter as well :)

The preparation time is so short that it is also perfect to make them when you have unexpected guests and no snacks to offer!

This is how they look like underneath! 

Recipe also available in french and spanish! :)

Recette pour environ 8 Madeleines

Ingrédients:

• 1 oeuf
• 40 gr de sucre
• 60gr de farine
• 30gr de beurre
• 1 pincée de sel
• 1 pincée de levure
• quelques gouttes de vanille

Préparation:

1. Préchauffer le four a 200-210C.
2. Battre l’oeuf avec le sucre
3. Ajouter le sel et les goutes de vanille
4. Verser la farine et mélanger
5. Ajouter le beurre ramolli
6. Remplir les moules et faire cuire immédiatement pendant 10 min

A déguster tiède ;)

Receta para 8 madeleines:

Ingredientes:

• 1 huevo
• 40 g de azúcar
• 60g de harina
• 30g de manteca
• sal
• algunas gotas de vainilla

Preparación:

1. Calentar el horno a 200-210 grados
2. Mezclar el huevo con el azúcar
3. Agregar la sal y la vainilla
4. Agregar la harina y mezclar bien hasta obtener una mezcla homogénea
5. Agregar la manteca ablandada
6. Llenar los moldes y meterlos en el horno inmediatamente durante 10 minutos.

Para que tengan una linda forma de madeleines, se puede usar una cuchara para llenar el molde.

A disfrutar cuando todavía están calentitos y/o con un vaso de leche!