Me against Charlotte, le Rematch

"Are you sure you want to bring a dessert you've never tried?" asked my husband over breakfast.  I had just told him I wanted to bring the charlotte I'd made last night.  His innocent question spoke volumes.  Hundreds of years of French cooking supremacy had imprinted on my very Gallic mate.  He couldn't help it.  The food imperialism seemed to be passed on genetically for his people.

There was also the ILF- the in-law factor.  My in-laws have a history of being a bit dubious about new food, and some of my desserts which are perfectly fine and tasty have been labeled as "not bad" but a bit "rich" or "my, very sweet".  Maybe my husband was just thinking back about how such casual remarks had hurt me and scared me off from bringing another dessert for the next year(s).

But I countered his foodie chauvinism with decades of watching sarcastic US sitcoms.  I sighed heavily and raised my eyebrows to the roof.   To add a bit of FB-speak I even said the word "Sigh!" out loud.  "It's just a charlotte with chocolate mousse," I said huffily.

My husband didn't know the history between me and Charlotte, as I affectionately call her.  I have been trying for years to recreate that elegant and quintessential French dessert. It's a soft, feminine and often fruity cake that is a delicate explosion in your mouth.  But it's also technically a difficult one to make for me.  Often the fruit versions of this recipe involve using gelatin strips that you must dip in cold water and it never seems to work for me.  But since my mother-in-law (MIL) gave me a charlotte mold for Christmas (at my request), I thought I better give it a try.

So after my past forays into Charlotte's world that had mixed success, I found a recipe that seemed rather fool-proof.  No gelatin, not even fruit this time.  Just basically making a chocolate mousse that you pour into the lady-finger lined mold.  Simple, right?  I forgot that I'm not actually the most experienced chocolate mousse maker.  Something about folding in those egg whites always trips me up. 

But I did put this on my "to do list" for 2015, so I tried my best. Here's how I did it:

• Line your charlotte pan or a medium-sized saucepan with plastic wrap.  This makes it easier to get the thing out later.  

• Dip the side of the lady-finger cookies you intend to be on the outside in some water briefly and line the mold with them. Place cookies on the edge first, then the bottom.

Mmmm, smell that chocolate!

•  Melt a 200-gram ( 7 or so ounces) bar of dark chocolate (or milk chocolate if you prefer) in a bain marie or in a microwave safe bowl.   
• Once it is all smooth and melty, remove it from heat and combine it with 4 egg yolks .  

• Now beat the remaining egg whites (yep, four again, go figure!) until they are stiff.

• Now for the tricky part: delicately fold in the egg whites with chocolate and yolk mixture without totally crushing the fluffy whites.  
• Hmm.  Isn't that supposed to go up to the top?  I started wondering if there was something wrong with my chocolate mousse.  Maybe it would expand overnight.
  
• So I put it on the cold balcony (a minimum of four hours in the fridge is recommended) but the next morning it still looked a bit, well, short. 
• Never fear, I just cut the excess cookies down and folded them over on the top, which would end up being the bottom after all. 

And I'm happy to say it looked almost decent when I took it out of the mold.  And it tasted, "not bad" and even "good" to my in-laws.  And my husband took a second helping.  

However, my MIL did ask me how I made the mousse and suggested I add some water or milk when I melted the chocolate to make it more liquidy and perhaps mix better with the egg whites.  This time I didn't take her comment badly but just in stride.  She does have a lot of experience making pastries after all.

But I don't think I'll be bringing too many desserts over there anyway.  That was enough stress for one Sunday.

What are the desserts or recipes that challenge you?  Do you dare cook for your in-laws?

A not so lazy recipe

I call this Lazy Girl's blog because I feel like I'm kind of a lazy person.  That maybe I don't get off my duff as much as I should.  But perhaps that's also just a harsh opinion of myself.  Compared to my husband's highly-worked family, anybody would seem lazy.  And what's wrong with some good down-time on the couch with a book or some lazing about in the park?  These are moments that feed the soul and make us more than all work and no play dullards.

But speaking of feeding, this post is actually about a recipe.  And one that requires a tiny bit of effort compared to some of my go-to recipes.  Ok, not that much effort because this is still a lazy girl posting.  And true to my "lazy" self, this recipe was one I took from a magazine a few years ago and am just now getting around to trying. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does that!

Stuffed Round Zucchini

• First wash three or four round zucchini.  Peel them to alternate the green peel with the light green flesh underneath.  Cook in boiling water for about 10 minutes.  Drain and let cool till you can handle them.  

• Carefully cut the top of the zucchinito create a little hat for the presentation afterwards.  You don't need to cook the hat a second time.  

• Scoop out the zucchiniflesh and separate out any seeds.  Dice the zucchiniflesh. 

• Meanwhile sauté the meat of your choice, ground beef, turkey or sausage with shallots/onions, cherry tomatoes, according to your heart's desire. 

• Mix the meat mixture with the diced zucchiniin the frying pan for a minute or two.

• You can add some cream or tomato sauce or a soft cheese to the meat mixture and top with mozarella or grated cheese.  

• Cook the stuffed zucchini in a pan in an oven preheated to 180°C or about 325°F.  Serve with rice or pasta.  Enjoy!

When life gives you mushy bananas...

So instead of being a productive person on this, the first of my three days off, and do something like sort out Juliette's toys or clothes or clean the apartment, I decided to make muffins.  It is productive in that now I've used those overly ripe bananas AND created a semi-healthy snack.

This recipe is so easy that I have to share it!

Take three ripe bananas and mash them up.
Add two cups of flour
One cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
a bit less than 1/2 a cup of your favorite neutral vegetable oil

Mix well and fill muffin tins 2/3 with batter.
Place one chocolate square in each muffin center.  Press it down a bit.
Let your toddler go crazy with nonpareils (those cute little sprinkles!).  I just figured out that nonpareils are called that because it means "not the same" in French.  Because they're all different colors, I guess.  It can also mean "without equal", a little online digging has told me.  It took me ten years in France to make the connection even though I've spoken the language that long already.

They are ooey-gooey when still warm. A little zap in the microwave the next day brings back the melty magic.  Enjoy your virtual muffins.

So, this is Christmas

You know that saying, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?  I guess that can account for my lack of blog posts lately.  I've kind of been in one of those downer cycles and I didn't feel like just complaining on my blog.  That and sometimes I guess the time runs away from me on the weekends.  Let's just say I've had some internal and external stuff playing on me that's made for some bleak autumn (now winter) days.  But I'm trying to focus on the good things in my life and be positive. 

One bright spot in this past month has been a cooking show that really gets my creative juices flowing.  You know I enjoy dabbling in baking adventures; therefore the Best Pastry Chef show (Le meilleur patissier) was a real treat.  Amateur pastry chefs participated in bake-offs on different recipes and themes.  I learned lots of techniques I'd like to try myself. 

 

Source (The guy on the left in purple was the winner, by the way.  And his real job: lab tech!)

Coincidentally, this Christmas is going to be kind of bakery themed since I asked my mom for an apron and a spring form pan.  After watching the show, I think I NEED a pastry bag.  It's THE tool for making cool desserts like the adorable macarons (see below) you find all over the place in France and for piping out eclairs. 

 

Source

I haven't done anything too adventurous baking-wise lately but I did make some sugar cookies and mini-muffins for my coworkers last week.  I made some royal icing (confectioner's sugar and egg white mixed together) and put it in a plastic bag to pipe on the cookies.  Juju added chocolate chips and then showed me her brown hands afterwards.  She also helped with the rolling out and cutting.  I do get a thrill when I hear my friends or coworkers let out a spontaneous "mmm" as they take a bite.  Then I say, I made some people happy with my baking.  It's a nice pay-off.  And so is eating warm gooey cookies straight from the oven.

I also made the good old Tollhouse cookie recipe this weekend for some people who came over and for a friend's tea party the next day.  And for the those of you who want to try this while living in France, here's a recipe that is adapted to French measures and ingredients. 

So on this Christmas Eve, let visions of sugar plums and all things sweet dance in your head.  Here's hoping you all have a lovely, homey Christmas. 

Italian food and Swedish dreams

Typical. As I try to get over my post-vacation hump, I find myself baking (to recreate flavors from home) and wanting to decorate (to "cozify" my place to remind me of the comfy décors of my family's places).

On the baking front, I made a recipe I'd tried in the US for calzones. We saw the recipe on a cooking show, Kelsey's Essentials, and as I love Italian food, I wanted to try it out. I simplify the filling recipe though, and you can add other things according to your tastes, like Italian sausage you've sauteed, mushrooms, spinach... In the US I used ready-made pizza dough, two packages. Here I tried an easy pizza dough recipe and rolled it out. Worked out pretty well.

Here you see the calzones ready to go in the oven. I just scooped the ricotta-cheese mixture in the dough and folded it over to get a half-moon shape. Don't forget to put slits in the calzone to let steam escape (Kelsey says so).




And here's the end result, served with some chunky tomato and basil sauce that I bought (chair de tomates). You can also just sautee chopped tomato and onion, etc.


In other baking adventures, I've made zucchini fritters (thanks Crystal), zucchini muffins and another charlotte aux framboises (raspberry and lady fingers dessert with whipped cream ). I guess when you like eating, you like cooking...

As for the decorating part, that's where the Swedish dreams come in. Nothing kinky, I swear. Though in a given day I sometimes think more about Ikea and decorating than my own husband. I've become a bit obsessed with thumbing through the catalog (last year's, haven't yet received next year's) and projecting myself into the cozy interior scenes. And thinking how I can make my place a bit comfier.

When I was in America I realized (again) that we like carpet and rugs. And with good reason. They are soft on your feet. And as we are more often than not on the floor playing with Juliette's toys, it's only logical for us to get a rug. So we did that and are now basking in post-rug-purchase glory. Saying things like, isn't it nice to walk on a rug?! To think I waited nearly four years to get a rug for our living room. Shameful.

Here's Juliette enjoying it with all (and I do mean ALL) her stuffed animals.


Even Catki seems to like it. Maybe he'll start exercising again...


The past two weeks have been a bit odd, with not so much work (and two days free this week since the summer day care was not open and I watched Juliette). But I've been trying to master the transition and remember to enjoy myself in no matter which country I'm in. Thanks for your comments and advice from my last post. Maybe the key to living abroad is not to forget the living part, even the daily living, the little things. They are what grounds us.

My British friend used to say, when you pick a flower, it wilts, as we bemoaned our situations in France and missing our own culture. Artist Mary Engelbreit says, "bloom where you're planted." To do that, you've got to set down roots, which is the hard part.

So I suppose I can love my home country but try to establish a good support system here and a home I consider just that. I'm coming up on ten years here this month, and there are some things I'm glad I never have to go through again in terms of adapting. But it's still an ongoing process. That changes as I change and grow myself.

So to all my friends and family, hope you're doing something you love today.

Back to baking

Virtual champagne for everybody! (That is just a random stock photo, by the way.  It's not Remi spewing champagne.)  I got my degree for the biological analyses program which will re-qualify me for working in a lab. It’s what’s called a BTS in the French system. I’ve spent the last week hanging out in the school computer lab just to note my presence (we had to do it to get paid) working on CVs and cover letters (or just shooting the breeze with the other students). Starting back at the English teaching gig next week and it feels a bit weird to put myself into the teacher role again. I know I’ll slip back into it but there’s always a transition period. And though I’m getting better at transitions, but it’s still a bit tough sometimes.

 

Now that I have a bit more free time (no more studying, yeah!) I’ve been able to put my energy into more pleasant things. Like baking. Truth be told I never gave up the odd batch of muffins on a Saturday afternoon but I did cut back a bit. Last Saturday to celebrate my new-found freedom I made a recipe I’d been wanting to do for a while- petits pains au lait. They are basically just yeast rolls. The recipe was surprisingly simple and I enjoyed munching on warm bread with Juliette at snack time. It’s even better with a little butter and honey…

I got the recipe from a French blog site but I’ll translate it into English. Though this recipe already had imperial measures, let me pass on Diana’s Desserts website (http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/tools.measures/Measures.cfm) which has a wonderful measures converter.

500g (4 and 3 cups) all-purpose flour

1 and 1/5 cups (30 cl) of milk

30g (2 heaping tablespoons or 1 oz.) of butter or margarine

30 g (1/4 cup) sugar

1/3 oz. of dry yeast...not so sure how to measure that in US, any ideas?!: (1 packet of levure de boulanger (5 g) for those living in France)

A pinch of salt

Heat the milk (not to boiling) and the butter in separate saucepans. I heated my butter up in the microwave.  

Add the yeast to the warmed milk and mix and let sit 15 minutes.  

 

Add the milk/yeast mixture to the flour, sugar and salt. Then add the butter and stir with a wooden spoon (why wooden, I don’t know).  

Knead by hand. Add a bit of flour if the dough is too sticky.

Form into a ball and let the dough sit for an hour or an hour and a half in a warm place. Cover with a clean dishcloth. The dough should approximately double in size.

 

Form the dough into small rolls, elongated or round. You can also add things like chocolate chips or fruits. Or form the balls and then arrange them into a clover or flower shape (with the rolls touching) on your non-stick baking sheet. Let rest a few minutes. With a knife cut a few lines on the top of each roll.  

Place into pre-heated oven (175°C/350°F) for 20 minutes.

And enjoy!