Pete Fred

Chocolate Buckwheat Truffle Cookies (recipe)... If cake-brownie is your thing then go for it. But not for me. I found them better cold from the fridge when a little chewier. (And I actually preferred the raw batter; kinda like a dense chocolate mousse. Go figure.) A batch of The World's Best Cookie... A bold claim. They turned out to be, indeed, very good... These might be of interest to @ElsieD who is searching for her Platonic crispy, oatmeal coconut cookie. In the recipe linked above, the volume measures are from the book. I don't do cups, and didn't like the look of a couple of Heidi's conversions, so I did my own. It's so nice when something actually lives up to the hype for a change.

I had a pot of plum and vanilla jam from last year that I was looking to repurpose. I found a recipe for a steamed suet pudding lurking in a folder and thought I'd give it a go, even though I could kinda tell it probably wouldn't amount to much. The sponge contained ground almonds (almond flour) which I don't recall having in this sort of thing before, and the jam was stirred into the batter rather than lining the bottom of the pudding bowl. It looks quite plain... Unfortunately it tasted quite plain, too. The jam flavour was pretty invisible, and the texture was a bit dry and heavy for a steamed pudding. I managed to perk things up with a jug of custard and a dousing of plum caramel, but I won't be bothering again...

You can view it on the Wayback Machine. 👍

I made the brioche earlier this week so that I could stale it for a few days, all the better for soaking up the orange flower syrup in this bostock... The almond cream on top was spiked with a generous amount of rum. And because it's been more than a week since I posted a Gateau Basque and @Katie Meadow will be suffering withdrawal symptoms... I was curious if unblanched almonds would add anything (spoiler: not really). Plus, the bottle of rum was now open so that found its way into the custard.

I had 250g of surplus brioche dough so decided to turn it into a small tear-and-share* loaf... I love warm brioche straight from the oven but then I remembered I still had some of the plum caramel from a couple of weeks back. A good dredging later... *there was no sharing, just tearing.

I posted a couple of links a few months back (although the Bruno video seems to have now disappeared). But most recipes seem to be broadly similar, so I doubt you can go wrong. A regular pastry cream is fine; I just seem to have settled on this slightly different one, and I use a larger quantity than is usual. You should make one. It's a good cake, and pretty straightforward.

Gâteau Basque... I've posted several in the past, so for those suffering Basque-fatigue I've left the pretty French countryside in the background for added interest. The little granules in the filling are down to it being a semolina crème pâtissière. Belgian friends were passing through whilst château-hunting and gifted me a book covering their part of the world... In the past I've flirted with the idea of getting a waffle maker but ultimately never bothered, figuring any initial enthusiasm would soon fade and it'd just languish in the cupboard. The book has several variations of Belgian waffles so I told my friends that maybe this will spur me on. I sent them away with some macarons (I think I got the better end of that swap)... A few days later I received a text... And they didn't just turn up with a toothless nonagenarian's best wishes. Oh no, they also had one of these... Apparently, this was languishing in the cupboard (obviously!) of their airbnb host, Madeleine, a barely used gift from her grandkids. Dazzled by my macarons, and saddened to hear of my waffle maker hesitancy, she figured it would be better off going to a good home instead. And so I made my first waffle... Having zero experience, the first ladleful (right) was slightly misjudged, but the second (left) wasn't too bad. I was getting in the swing of things by the next batch... The batter wasn't sweetened, so a generous dusting of icing sugar was recommended... I don't think I've had a freshly made waffle before, so the hot, crispy shell and soft, airy inside was a bit of a revelation... Even better with vanilla whipped cream... So thanks to Madeleine my waffle adventure has begun. As a small thank you, my friends headed back with a chunk of gateau Basque for her to suck on.

Good to know. If I come across some decent peaches I'll give it a go.

I made some scones... For an English cream tea, it always feels wrong to use crème fraîche but you've gotta make do with what you've got... Not wishing to offend any Cornwallians who might be reading*, the other half got flipped... *are you a top or a bottom 🤔

I used mirabelles.

Apologies for the continuing Mira-pocalypse but every day or two there's another kilo or so lying on the ground. They'd otherwise just go to the wasps. Today's went into a German Plum Cake... I believe there are many regional variations; this one had a bread dough base and a streusel topping... I liked the yeasty flavour, the bready texture and the crunchy crumble topping. I'd like to try it with some bigger, deep red plums next time make it pop more visually. It was a good cake, especially with some of the plum caramel from yesterday...

She does go on to say… “I've also had amazing results making this recipe with apricots instead of plums, and I would think almost any bright acidic fruit puree will shine.”

Looking for something to make with my surplus of plums, the plum caramel in Dana Cree's "Hello, My Name is Ice Cream" caught my eye. Very simple: cook and purée some plums, make a caramel, combine. I normally take my caramel quite dark, whereas her recipe calls for a medium amber. So I made it both ways then raided the freezer for some of the spoon cake from earlier in the week... I preferred the lighter version; it was more caramel-y with a nice, bright fruitiness. The cake-caramel combo was a winner, too.

Toscakaka, which is a Swedish toffee almond cake... A very good cake. Never fails to be a hit.

The plums from my mirabelle tree are not as good as last year, but decent enough to eat out of hand. I also used them in this Spoon Cake by Anna Stockwell... It looks a little unassuming, but it's a good dessert, the cake on top being nicely buttery. Warm cake and cold crème fraîche, job done... A kilo or two got turned into jam, which in turn made it into these mazurka bars (oats, nuts, coconut)... Another batch were macerated with sugar and crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur), then served with zabaglione... It was my first time making zabaglione, and it turned out to be a bit of a bust. I made a lovely thick and airy sabayon using the macerating liquor, but the next step was to combine it with a mascarpone whipped cream. That was where the problems started. Infuriatingly, my fridge had gone into overdrive and the cheese had frozen solid and wasn't useable. I have trouble at the best of times whipping what passes for 'cream' in France, so without the extra fat from the mascarpone I was always going to be on to a loser, but persevered more in hope than expectation. Anyway, the cream barely whipped, which then overly thinned out the sabayon, resulting in more of a crème anglaise consistency. If only I'd stopped at the sabayon, everything would've been fine. Oh well...

A couple of months ago when I made a Praluline (brioche with sugared almonds), a chunk of it went to an acquaintance. She asked if I could make one for her grandkids who are down from Paris for the summer... It's a reasonable facsimilie, but Pralus have multiple shops in Paris so I've recommended they pay a visit and try the original. Their homemade praline roses are a cut above and make it something special.

When life gives you lemons, make a lemon cake... I've made this Pierre Hermé recipe a few times but not recently, and found it not lemony enough. The soaking syrup had a relatively small amount of juice, so I'd up that next time, or swap in a lemon icing instead.

Far Breton... It's a flour thickened custard/batter poured over booze-soaked prunes. Very simple and rather tasty. (Recipe and YouTube)

Few things give me more pleasure in the kitchen than turning out a no-colour, soft-set, french omelette... Just a rub with a pat of butter and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt. "Faites simple", as someone once said.

They are adapted from Dan Lepard's Halva Flapjacks . Changes: 100g tahini, 125g dates/prunes, 100g raisins/cranberries, 40g dessicated coconut, 50g sesame/pumpkin seeds, and 225g oats. I add a fair bit of fine sea salt, too; 7g (1½ tsp); YMMV. Baked in a 20 cm square tin.

I have visitors this week so, rather than experimenting, I've been banging out the greatest hits. Macarons... Flapjacks (cereal bars)... Chocolate chip cookies... Chocolate Walnut Cookies... Cherry pistachio coconut cake... All received approvingly.

A recent meal I attended concluded with caillé, which, I've since discovered, is what we anglais call junket (caillé translates as milk curds (n); curdled (v)). I loved the texture: delicately creamy, silky, and wobbly. She'd acquired the milk the day before straight from a neighbour's cow (!), added a few drops of rennet and left it to set overnight. It's quite common here to have little pots of fromage frais sprinkled with a bit of sugar for dessert, but this stuff was next level. I've made curds before by adding an acid to milk, but that seemed to result in a different texture. So I got myself some raw milk (from a shop, not a teat next door, sadly) and some rennet... I can definitely see more of this ambrosia in my future. And with a bunch of curds lying around, I took the opportunity to revisit the old country and made a Yorkshire curd tart...

I made some dainty scones (the British kind)... I treated myself to a cream tea using some of the mirabelle jam that I made last year... Sadly there's no such thing as clotted cream in these parts. Might have to try making some myself. (Hmmmm... I've just remembered that a local supermarket occasionally carries an Isigny fromage frais with Madagascan vanilla that might work here, being thick, creamy, and sweet rather than tangy. Will give it a go next time I see it.)

I never tire of making (or eating!) Gâteau Basque...

I view it more as an aid to browning rather than seasoning. I don't bother weighing it, just a generous four-finger-pinch, so it's probably a touch more.