jmacnaughtan

This is a Langres I picked up yesterday. It's a cow's milk cheese from Champagne. Apparently, it's traditional to pour champagne or brandy into the little concavity at the top It was milder than I expected. A bit like an Epoisses, but less so. I think that it may have been a little young.

Ah, thanks for that The name is curious though.

What is Wedding Soup? Sounds interesting

I think it would depend on the soup. A robust minestrone would be fine, but anything delicate could get overwhelmed.

Do not add the rinds to stock. It makes it really unpleasantly cheesy. I'd be equally wary of adding them to soups.

I use this method. It's even better when you emulsify more olive oil into it at the end, with the blender.

Haha, I thought I'd try something exotic. Needless to say, it is rather unusual to drink any non-French wine here at all (unless you go to the hipster bars in the Marais, who like to be edgy by serving English cheese and natural American wines)...

They worked very well together Interestingly, it turns out that all of the goat's cheeses from the Loire actually originated from the Moorish conquests in Spain and France, when they brought their goats and expertise up from North Africa.

I've decided to take more of an interest in cheese this year, and enjoy as many of the 300+ cheeses this country produces as possible. Here's a couple from last night: Sainte Maure on the left, Bleu de Termignon on the right. The Sainte Maure was fine, fairly typical of a Loire goat's cheese. The blue was fantastic. Very fruity, almost floral, and pretty rich. And this to accompany them

The Medovik cake could work - it's pretty dry and biscuity, but does have a big honey flavour. Maybe replace the honey with golden syrup, or even glucose. A Joconde might be good too. It's light, firm and robust, and designed to be soaked within an inch of its life. Failing that, you could try a yeasted cake - a savarin or kugelhopf or something. ETA: Here's the recipe I came up with for the Medovik biscuit. It works well, especially for people like me who can only use metric

I did this yesterday, but left it for five seconds or so. Who knew that vanilla beans could explode?

I'm the same. And there's always the beautiful moment when you shove a bowl in the microwave without first checking...

I think you're the only person I've ever seen who uses those perforated tart rings. They make a cool pattern on the crust

Haha, I like that. It's a play on "bec sucré", or sweet tooth

You'd be surprised at how frequently "cold" dishes come straight out the fridge, even in restaurants. Fridge-cold meat depresses me (unless it is guiltily picked off a carcass during a night-time fridge raid).

I have this recipe, and have been looking at it for a while. Is it worth doing (in comparison to a normal tatin), and have you tried his quince version? ETA: It looks good, by the way

I wouldn't serve it actually cold. Make sure it comes up to room temperature somewhat and the texture and flavour will generally improve. But certainly slice it when it is cold.

Also, warming up glucose syrup so you can pour it.

If you add sugar and water, it is.

It can be a lot of things - oven too hot, too much raising agent, unbalanced recipe... Although I find that most cakes crack anyway. You can control it, however, by taking the cake out a bit before half-way though baking (don't leave the oven door open) and slashing the crust being formed with a knife. It makes it look more appealing. To be honest though, banana bread is never going to win any beauty pageants. Either slice the dome off the top and flip it upside down, or slather it with icing of some sort. Or do like I do: Slice a 1cm layer, soak it in flavoured syrup and use it as part of a more elaborate cake.

I second Kerry for softening butter. Doing it the old fashioned way requires far too much time and effort. If you have an old, tired and dry vanilla bean, you can zap it for a couple of seconds and it plumps back up, making it easier to split and scrape. My better half uses it to roast sunflower seeds in the shell. But mostly I use mine to reheat tea and coffee.

Better then road ragu.

Just drink beer with it. Beer and overly salty foods are made for each other.

Make a genoise, or even a baba/savarin. They're designed to be soaked in syrup, and I can confirm that they're dry as a bone when eaten without. Just replace some of the flour with cocoa powder.

Cassoulet? Or just crisp them up and serve them with potatoes sautéed in the fat. And drink a big, chunky red to go with it.