Crème Brûlée

There are many crème brûlée recipes, with or without some fruit as a surprise to the dish. Inspired by John Burton Race recipes, here's the one we serve in http://www.aubellefleur.com

Here's enough for 4 persons

Shopping list:

4 Egg yolks

180 gr. Caster sugar

2 Vanilla pods (or vanilla essence)

140 ml Milk

350 ml Double cream or Crème fraiche

Optional: raspberries to place underneath

Put the egg yolks and half of the sugar into a bowl.

Split the vanilla pods in two and scrape out all seeds into the egg yolks and whisk until smooth.

Add the milk, whisk in the cream (or crème fraiche) and pour the liquid into ramekins.

They need to refrigerate for 1 hour before you can cook them.

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degr.C.

Fill a shallow roasting tin with water to a depth of 2.5 cm, place on the stove and bring to just below the boil.

Put the ramekins into the water and place the tin into the oven.
This will take about 1 hour to set.

When they are cooked, remove from oven and roasting tin, because they need to cool down.

When they are cold, pre-heat the grill to its highest setting, sprinkle the tops with the remaining sugar

and when you see that it's caramelizing under the grill...it's ready to serve immediately.

If you make crème brûlées regularly, it's worth to buy a blow-torch, that saves you the hustle of the grill.

Why not putting a drop of Cognac in yours!

Mousse au Champagne with red berries

This dessert is a winner even if I say so myself and I haven't met anybody who didn't like it.
For 4 persons this is what you need.

Shopping list:
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 dl Champagne or sparkling wine
2 tablespoons of Pineau des Charentes or sweet sherry
4 tablespoons of white granular sugar (basterdsuiker)
A tiny little bit of nutmeg
A tiny little bit of cinnamon
2.5 dl double cream
Red/black berries, fresh is always better but otherwise buy a frozen mixed pack of red/black fruits (remember if frozen to defrost a few hours before using it).
Choco sticks or something else for decoration

Whisk the cream with (normal) sugar until it gets the thickness of porridge.
Mix the lemon juice with champagne, pineau or sherry, sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Stir until the sugar has disappeared.
Add little by little the cream and stir.
Divide the fruit in 4 'verrines'.
Add the mixture of the mousse.
Decorate with some chocolate sticks.

All together it will take you about 10 minutes to make this desert, however, you can beat the cream earlier and stall it in the fridge until needed.  But only the cream!!!! Not with the mixture because it will be flat as a pancake ;-)

Eton Mess my way

Eton Mess, for the non-Brits some more explanation. This desert normally consists of a mixture of strawberries, pieces of meringue and cream. All the students at Eton College eat this dish after the annual cricket game against students of Winchester College. Throughout the years the recipe has been changed slightly and here was my version of yesterday's Eton Mess.

Shopping list:

Eton Mess with cherries

Cherries or other red fruit (or a mixture of raspberries, black currant, red berries...)
Cream (in my area you cannot get double cream -slagroom- so I use fresh crème d'entière)
Sugar
Meringues (home made or bought at the baker's)
Chocolate sticks

Make sure when you use cherries to remove the stones.
Mix the cream with sugar, until the the texture is firm (you can put it away in the fridge until needed)
Break the meringues to pieces.

Actually you make some layers of fruit, cream and meringues.

In yesterday's Eton Mess I have used cherries from our own tree. I had frozen the cherries and the result was better than I thought it would be.

The picture tells the story.

French Onion Soup

Tonight for dinner I just fancied some hot soup and I decided to make a French onion soup. I do remember that I have made it ages ago and that it didn't taste that much of onion soup, but more experienced and wiser I gave it another go.

For 3-4 persons (depends about size of your soup bowls)

Shopping list
3 White onions
2 Cloves of garlic
Chicken stock (from cube) 600 ml
Sugar
Dry white wine
Butter
Cheese (grated)
(French) bread
Cognac (optional)

Cut the onions roughly.
Take a large sauce pan and put +/- 25 gr. non salted butter until melted
Then put the onions in together with 1 table spoon of sugar
Stir and simmer for 10 minutes until they get a nice brownish colour
Peel and cut the garlic and add to the onions
Then and I'm sure you like that one, pour half a glass of white wine
and 600 ml of stock. Bring it to the boil.
Lower the heat, put the lit on and let it cook for another 15-20 minutes or until onions are soft.
Switch on the grill for the last bit of your soup.
After the soup is ready, you can -optionally- add a little drop of cognac.
I didn't add any salt and pepper in mine.
Then pour the soup in a oven/grill proof bowl, add a piece of french bread or toast,
some grated cheese and put it for a very short while in the grill. Keep on looking....
until brown/melted.

As you can see I didn't put my bowl of soup under the grill because our grill isn't really
that good, so I used the oven which explained the melted cheese but not brown coloured.

Bon appetit!

Salmon sauce

This is a dish that is nice all year long; easy, and all ingredients can be bought all year round as well.
It's a sauce for 4 persons

Too big for this recipe :-)

Shopping list
3 shallots
200 gr salmon filet (no bones)
100 gr smoked salmon (if you buy it in little cuts pre-packed it's much cheaper)
1 small glass dry white wine (according to taste)
1/2 teaspoon saffron powder (for the colour)
100 gr mascarpone*
3 tablespoons cut chives
125 gr mushrooms

* You can change this into blue cheese or mon chou, then add 1/4 litre cream.
You can also add some pieces of sun-dried tomatoes, from the jar.
If you don't like mushrooms, then leave them out.



If you have chosen to use the mushrooms in this dish, then clean (with kitchen towel), cut them and fry them first.

Peel and cut the shallots.
Cut the salmon in small pieces
Put in a sauce pan the wine with the shallots and saffron to boil till the quantity is reduced to 1/4.
Add the mascarpone (or the other cheese with the cream, sun-dried tomatoes)
Stir and bring it to boil again and let it gentle heat for 10 minutes.
Add the salmon and heat all for another 2 minutes.
Salt and pepper according to taste.
Finally add the chives

Nice to serve this sauce with pasta, especially penne or tagliatelle.

Bon appetit

Mushrooms

I can't say that I am getting over-excited by white mushrooms, however, if you mix them with some other sorts, a new starter (or lunch) has born.

For 2 persons:

Shopping list
White mushrooms
Chestnut mushrooms (kastanje)
Chanterelles mushrooms (cantharellen)
Porcini or Cep mushrooms (Eekhoorntjesbrood)
1 Shallot
100 Gr. Blue Cheese* (Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Danish Blue)
White bread for toast
Olive Oil

Chanterelles

Chestnut

Porcini/Cep

* Why don't you use Stilton...I bet somebody gave you some for Christmas!

If you have the chance to get the mushrooms from the green grocers, just ask for a hand full of each, 3 sorts will do the job perfectly.


Cut the mushrooms to an eatable size.
Cut the shallot, but not too small.

Put some olive oil in the frying pan until hot.
Add the shallot and mushrooms and keep stirring
When almost ready, put the blue cheese over the mushrooms and let half of the cheese melt a bit, but make sure you will still see some of the cheese so it's not going to turn into a cheese sauce.

Toast some white bread and serve it separately.

Enjoy this tasty and quik starter.

Cup Cakes (not only for children)

Our 8 year old daughter likes her cakes. Fortunately for her, her father used to be a pastry chef in the Rubens Hotel in London...many 'light'years ago. Since a few months she can make cup cakes herself, without any help. She reads in the special cookery book for children all ingredients, measures them and somehow makes it happen.

Ready to cook

They should look like these

The result

So today it's cup cakes!

Shopping list
125 gr Soft (real) unsalted butter
125 gr Caster sugar
125 gr Self-raising flour
2 Eggs
Box of (paper/silicone) cake cases *

This makes about 12 cup cakes

Put all ingredients into a bowl and beat until you get a sticky yellowish texture. You can have the food-processor to do the work, but it's fun to use some muscles!
Divide the mixture between the cases.
Bake them in the pre-heated oven 180 degr.C for 15-18 minutes.

* Paper ones are easier, silicone ones come in different colors and give an even more festive effect but need to be hand washed.

This is the recipe for a basic one, but why not experiment to add a little vanilla essence in, or grated zest from lemon/orange, or cocoa powder!

Don't forget before decorating, to taste one first :-)

Decorating your cakes:

Let them cool down in a natural way.

To let the decoration stick on the cakes, you have to do the following:

Put some icing sugar (poedersuiker for the Dutch friends)  in a bowl and add some off cold water and stirr; the substance should look sticky....if not just add more sugar or too sticky add more water.
Spread this over the cupcakes so decorations will stick.

Decorate your little cakes with sprinkles, marzipan or whatever you think it's nice to give that personal touch.