I love these little flaky cashew cakes, which come from Lebanon, whose gastronomy I love. I had made this recipe in my first book, Mes desserts, published by Flammarion in…]]>
Lebanese puff pastries with cashew nuts
I love these little flaky cashew cakes, which come from Lebanon, whose gastronomy I love. I had made this recipe in my first book, Mes desserts, published by Flammarion in 2014. I really wanted to make it again for my cooking blog and share it with you. It's quite demonic, because when you start, it's a little hard to stop ! The recipe is very easy to make and I can guarantee that it crisps up just right and the flavors are delicious. You can also replace the cashews with pistachios.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Caramel and Peanut Crunch Popcorn
I love popcorn and it's so easy to make at home too! A pan with a lid and that's it! I like it salty or sweet, but my pet peeve is the caramel popcorn, nice and crunchy. And with roasted peanuts, it's a little miracle! It took me a while to put this recipe together and I've been thinking about it for a while. To find the right proportion of corn and caramel, and then to get a popcorn that doesn't stick to your fingers at all and stays nice and crispy, I had to do a few tests. To do this, you will need to take the precise temperature of the syrup, then put it in the oven at low temperature for 30 minutes to dry the caramel. It's very easy to make and you can keep it for almost a month! Well on the other hand the diet will wait!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Santa's stuffed boots
I went to Strasbourg and loved the pastries. One of them, Christian, offers incredible gingerbread that I rushed to taste. One of them had this exact boot shape. I took some time to redo them from what I remember. I filled these bunches with an almond and walnut paste with Grand Marnier (the alcohol evaporates during cooking to leave a delicious taste). The dough itself is full of irresistible things. Upon arrival, Santa Claus boots that will be ideal to get in the festive mood of the holidays!
Ingredients
- 90 g candied orange peel
- 90 g candied lemon peel
- 150 g chopped almonds
- 90 g nuts
- 45 g hazelnut powder
- 325 g flour
- 5 g potash diluted in 10g water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 teaspoons cinnamon powder
- 1 teaspoon ginger powder
- 1/2 teaspoon 4 spices mix
- the zest organic lemon
- the zest organic orange
- 100 g brown vergeoise
- 200 g honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 15 g water
Almond and walnut paste with Grand Marnier
- 80 g nuts
- 150 g almond powder
- 125 g sugar
- 90 g Grand Marnier
- 40 g glucose syrup
Icing
- 100 g powdered sugar
- 40 g water
Decoration
- 300 g tempered chocolate
- 2 candied cherries
- 20 almonds without skin
Instructions
- Put the candied orange and lemon peels in a blender to reduce them to small pieces.
- If you have chopped almonds, blend them to reduce them more finely.
- It looks like a very coarse almond powder.
- Also grind the nuts into a coarse powder.
- Put everything in a container or in the bowl of your food processor.
- Add flour, salt and spices.
- This is the potash. It is really the leavening agent used in gingerbread from the East and Germany. I bought it on a vegan website. I put you the link HERE !
- Pour 5g into a small container and add the 10ml of water. Mix until completely dissolved.
- Add the zest of one orange and one organic lemon to the container.
- Pour the brown vergeoise, honey, liquid vanilla and the 15g of water into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. On the picture it looks like butter, but it's really honey that I was offered!
- Pour into the dough and mix until you have a homogeneous paste.
- With everything in it, the dough is already delicious. Well, the potash gives a funny smell that will go away when cooking.
- Set aside. For the almond paste, mix the nuts to obtain a nice powder.
- Mix the almond powder and nuts.
- Add the sugar.
- Pour the Grand Marnier.
- Finish with the glucose syrup.
- Mix well. The smell alone is delicious.
- For the boot, I drew on a cardboard and cut it according to the shape I remembered. You can of course make any shape you want!
- Roll out the dough fairly thinly (5mm thick), making sure you have enough surface area for one bundle.
- Spread a second layer of dough with the same surface.With the blade of a knife, without incising, mark the dough. Put almond-nut paste (the layer is 3-4mm) leaving 1,5cm before the edge of the bundle.
- Place the second layer of rolled out dough.
- Place the stencil on the dough and cut the dough this time.
- And here is a nice boot!
- Do the same for all the dough and almond-nut paste. Place the bundles as they come on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- For the decoration, just like at Christian's, I put half a candied periwinkle and 5 raw almonds.
- Bake at 155°C on fan heat for 27-28 minutes. In fact, the firing depends totally on the size of your subject.
- The boots must be well cooked. The smell during cooking is just crazy.
- For the icing, mix the water and powdered sugar. This one is very fluid. Apply with a brush on the surface.
- Do the same for all the gingerbread.
- Return to the oven, this time at 90°C for 12 minutes (still in a revolving heat).
- For the finishing touch, temper the chocolate you have chosen. For the method, it's HERE!
- Dip the top of the boot to make the cuff or do it with a brush.
- I also brush the entire underside of the boots.
- Let the chocolate set. The boots are ready. Now let it sit for a day or two to allow the fragrances to develop even more! If well packaged, these cakes can be kept for a long time.
Nutrition
Serving: 4stuffed bundlesCalories: 1445kcalCarbohydrates: 230gProtein: 21gFat: 65gSaturated Fat: 22gPolyunsaturated Fat: 9gMonounsaturated Fat: 30gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 0.01mgSodium: 1051mgPotassium: 892mgFiber: 16gSugar: 135gVitamin A: 50IUVitamin C: 39mgCalcium: 298mgIron: 8mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Turrón with 78% almonds
After I went to Barcelona, I devoured with my eyes all the “turrones” in the stores. There are so many different kinds! Just look at the few photos I posted on the culinary journey THERE! I already offered my version of Alicante turron (recipe HERE) some time ago on my cooking blog. Today it’s a much simpler version, which can be prepared in 15 minutes on the clock for a sensational result! It’s very hard to resist these roasted almonds coated with just the right amount of sugar! This holds perfectly and breaks up very naturally into wonderfully crunchy bites!
Ingredients
- 350 g peeled raw almonds
- 50 g sugar
- 50 g glucose syrup
- 1 sheet of unleavened bread
Instructions
- Place the 9X23cm rectangular frame (or other equivalent size) on a sheet of unleavened bread, grooved side down. Don't forget to grease the inside of the frame to allow the turron to be removed! For the surface of the frame, mine is 207 square cm (9x23). If you have a 14 or 15 cm square frame, it will do perfectly. Otherwise, multiply the sides of your frame to know its surface and make a rule of three to have a multiplier. Explanation: if you have for example a frame of 20X20, it will be 400cm squared, mine 207 (we can round up to 200), so basically you will have to multiply by two the ingredients. Is that clear to everyone?
If you have a 5X10 frame, you will have to divide by 4 ! - Here are the beautiful almonds I bought in a market in Barcelona.
- Pour the sugar and glucose syrup into a saucepan.
- Add a little water to soak the sugar. Be careful not to get sugar on the sides of the pan.
- Place the almonds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 12 minutes. Halfway through cooking, mix them so that they are all evenly browned.
- Bring the syrup to a boil.
- Thanks to the glucose syrup, there is no risk that the sugar masses (crystallizes).
- You should get a fairly colored (but not burnt!) caramel.
- Then pour in the toasted almonds while still hot.
- Mix quickly because the caramel will harden quite quickly!
- Pour it all into the frame.
- Then spread them evenly with the back of a spoon.
- Still, almonds and caramel are always nice!
- Cut the unleavened bread around the frame.
- When the caramel has hardened, decadent the turron.
- Keep it in a perfectly sealed box!
Nutrition
Serving: 1portionCalories: 409kcalCarbohydrates: 103gFat: 0.2gSodium: 67mgPotassium: 1mgSugar: 71gCalcium: 1mgIron: 0.03mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Fruit Pasta: Passion Fruit
This has been nagging at me for a while! I love fruit jellies and I enjoyed figuring out the percentage of sugar and pectin based on the fruit I wanted. So I start with the passion fruit pasta. A perfect sweet and sour mix. As you can imagine, we’re going to need a few more hard-to-find ingredients (but everything is available on the internet nowadays!). And homemade fruit jellies are so good!
Ingredients
- 400 g passion fruit puree
- 400 g sugar
- 100 g glucose syrup
- 20 g pectin yellow
- 1/2 lemon juice
- crystal sugar
Instructions
- First of all, here are the two products that are harder to find for some. Yellow pectin and passion fruit puree in a bottle. As always, I buy from G.Detou.
- Place the passion fruit puree in a saucepan over low heat and bring to a boil.
- Mix some of the scure (3-4 large tablespoons taken from the total weight of the sugar) with the yellow pectin.
- When the liquid boils, add the sugar-pectin.
- Mix well and bring back to a boil. Add remaining sugar.
- Also add the glucose syrup. Note from Bernard:to pour it easily, you can heat 30 seconds in the microwave or in a bain-marie. This way it will become liquid.
- Add the juice of half a lemon, filtering it well (in a tea strainer for example).
- Bring to 107°C while stirring.
- Pour into a 18X18cm frame placed on a silicone mat. Don't worry, the whole thing will remain watertight and the liquid won't come out under the frame...
- Put immediately a stretch film on the contact (really on the liquid). Let cool completely then put in the fridge for a good two hours.
- Here is my guitar for ganache, caramel, fruit jelly etc...
- But don't panic! It remains a toy that I gave myself by pure madness! You can cut the fruit paste with a knife! Remove from the pan by running a knife along the set mass and unmold.
- Cut into six on each side.
- Then cut each slice into 6 pieces.
- Put some granulated sugar in a container and roll the resulting pieces in it!
- Place on a plate and then throw yourself on it!
Nutrition
Serving: 36piecesCalories: 62kcalCarbohydrates: 16gProtein: 0.05gFat: 0.04gSaturated Fat: 0.001gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.004gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.001gSodium: 6mgPotassium: 31mgFiber: 0.1gSugar: 14gVitamin A: 80IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 1mgIron: 0.05mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Flemish Waffles with Vanilla
Delicious little waffles from the North! They are thin and fluffy, filled with a generous vanilla filling. But they can be filled with other fillings like rum brown sugar for example!Before I start, I want to tell you that I have tried a number of recipes… You will see in my recipe the addition of glucose syrup. It keeps the vanilla filling soft (otherwise the filling tends to dry out…) and in the waffle batter. If you really want to do without it, replace the 80g of syrup in the dough with 50g of caster sugar… For the filling, you can leave it out, but having tried it with it, it’s a little wetter, so the fluffiness is preserved!
Ingredients
Waffle dough
- 270 g of flour
- 20 g of whole milk powder
- 75 g of soft butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 package dry baker's yeast
- 40 ml of warm milk
- 80 g of glucose syrup
Vanilla filling:
- 200 g of powdered sugar
- 120 g of butter
- 20 g of glucose syrup
- 1 vanilla bean
- 1/2 teaspoon of liquid vanilla
- 1/4+1/8 teaspoon of vanilla powder
Instructions
- Put all the ingredients for the dough in a bowl (bowl of a mixer).
- Turn on the machine (or if you don't have one, knead by hand!) and knead the dough for 10 minutes.
- Let the ball of dough rest. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place for at least 2h30!
- Divide the risen dough into balls (which will inevitably fall back!). I made dumplings of exactly 16g each! This way we will have identical wafers!
- Turn on the waffle iron with the waffle plates. These plates are commercially available. They can be ordered through the internet.The best being a cast iron waffle iron from the grandmothers of the north! But I don't have gas or a fireplace... Put a ball of dough on each small wafer plate and press the plates together as tightly as possible for most of the baking time!
- Let cook for about one minute. The wafers should be removed as soon as they are golden brown. This way, they will keep their softness!
- As soon as the waffle iron is removed, cut the wafers in the thickness.
- Put the wafers immediately in a plastic bag and close it. The steam will also keep the wafers soft! Because if they dry on a wire rack, they will become crispy! With my method, we keep the moisture!
- Place all filling ingredients in a small bowl and mix with a spoon until creamy and smooth.
- Open the bag when the waffles have cooled and put a large knob of filling inside each wafer. Do not hesitate to put a real good layer, because if it is too thin, you will not feel much!
- Spread it evenly with a knife. Close the wafer like a sandwich.
- Using a pastry ring or cookie cutter, cut the edges of the wafers to make a perfectly even waffle. It is also possible not to go through this operation. This has only a visual purpose.
- Put the waffles back in a plastic bag to keep them soft!
- They keep well packaged for almost a week (or more, but they didn't survive longer!)!
Nutrition
Serving: 30wafflesCalories: 119kcalCarbohydrates: 15gProtein: 1gFat: 6gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.4gMonounsaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0.2gCholesterol: 15mgSodium: 118mgPotassium: 17mgFiber: 0.3gSugar: 9gVitamin A: 169IUVitamin C: 0.001mgCalcium: 20mgIron: 0.3mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!