fraise tagada macarons

Macarons again! Not as delicious as pistaccios macarons, but better-looking. I don't know if you can find "fraise tagada" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraise_Tagada) in many other countries, but I hope so! If you really don't fing fraise tagad and you really want to try this recipe, try to find a kind of marshmallow candy with colored sugar around it...

ingredients:
-3 egg whites
-225g icing sugar
-125g almond flour
-30g caster sugar
-re food-coloring
-150g fraises tagada ("strawberry tagada")
-30g white choclate (no idea why, but it's what the recipe says...)
-10cL whipped cream

recette:
The recipe is exactly the same as the one for the pink macarons (http://shrimpinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2007/03/pink-macarons.htmln.blogspot.com/2007/03/pink-macarons.html), except:
-some more red coloring
-in order to customize not-yet-baked macarons, why not some fraise tagada's sugar (often in the bottom of the packet)?
-for the filling: let the whipped crem boil, then add fraises tagada and chocolate while mixing. The original recipe didn't say it, but I also added the rest of almond flour that was too big to sieved (not too much of course). The ideal situation is too stick couples of macarons together with the filling not too long after it is finished, otherwise if you wait too long it will turn into a real glue. If it does, don't worry, just warm it upand it becomes soft again.

#BON APPETIT#ENJOY YOUR MEAL# (and I promise, no more macarons before some time!)

apple-bars

As everybody knows, when you do sport, you need energy, and these apple-bars are energetic and ways healthier than chocolate-bars. I had this recipe from http://unspeculoos.blogspot.com/2007/02/jai-une-gastro.html , but I changed some things, like the fact that I didn't use pineapple or violette syrp.

ingredients:
-150g oatmeal
-100g flour
-80g bown sugar
-150g soft buter, cut in pieces
-4 little apples or 4 bigs
-2 eggs
-70g caster sugar
-several teaspoons cinnamon

recipe:
#Preheat your oven th6 (quite hot). In a salad bowl mix together the flour, oatmeal, brown sugar and butter (with bare hands or with some ustensile). Crumble this dough to get a sandy mix, like the top of a crumble. Overall, resist to the tentation of eating evrything now!
#Cram it with the bottom of a glass into a square tin if possible (it will give better bars), or any other shape is also good, it will just make strange bars. And if your tin is anti-stick, it's even better (like flexipan). Let it bake 15 minutes.
#Cut apples in quarters, peel them and take the seeds out of them. Then cut them in little squares (or blend them coarsely). Add the eggs, the caster sugar and the cinnamon.
#Pour teh apple mix on the pre-baked crumble bottom and let it bake 20 minutes. Let it cool before cutting it in bars or squares. You can eat them directly as a dessert or a snack or take them with you during a hiking.

#BON APPETIT#ENJOY YOUR MEAL#

rebel financiers

I love green pistaccios, because it brings colors and originality to easy recipes, like madeleines or financiers. I took this recipe on http://popotedevero.blogspot.fr , and I just added pistaccios. On the other hand, traditional financiers are baked in rectangle-shaped small tins, but I don't own these ones, so I improvised with little tartlets tins and small kougloffs tins (that's why they are rebels).

ingrédients:
-70g almond flour
-50g flour
-120g icing sugar
-50g butter
-4 egg whites
-a teaspoon vanilla
-1,5 teaspoon bitter almond extract
-some green pistaccios

recipe:
#Preheat the oven medium heat.
#Mix sieved flour (it's not compulsory, but it will avoid lumps) with almond flour and icing sugar. Add the melted butter and the egg whites, then vanilla and bitter almond.
#Grind quite thinly a part of the pistaccios and add them to the dough.
#Pour it in financier tins if possible or otherwise any little tins, decorate with the rest of the pistaccios and put them in the oven 15 to 20 minutes.
#Remove them from the tins.

#BON APPETIT# ENJOY YOUR MEAL#

rebel madeleines

philosophical thought from the very witty movie "Camping" (I know, this movie is no recommendation, but this sentence is the only thing I remember from the movie):

"if you take the legs and the arms off of a hunchback, well it gives a madeleine. (referring to the typical shape of this traditional cookie)"

I adapted this recipe from http://alatabledel.canalblog.com/ , who herself adapted it from http://mercotte.canalblog.com/ .

ingredients: (for 18 madeleines)
-3 separate eggs
-120g butter or margarine
-120g flour
-1/2 packet baking powder (about 10g)
-70g sugar (the recipe originally said 120g sugar, but I made a mistake and used 70g but we don't feel at all the lack of sugar so we won't complain!)
-the zest of one lemon
-5 tablespoons lemon juice
-a little hanful of non-salted green pistaccios
-as mush cashew nuts
-as mush hazelnuts
-a very little handful coconut powder
-as much poppy seeds
-some chocolate squares (dark, milk or white, whatever)
-some marshmallows

recipe :
#Preheat the oven th6 (medium hot). Let the butter melt in the microwave or in the bain-marie. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar and egg yolks. Whip the egg whites apart, without whiping them until stiff, then add them to the mixture with the melted butter and then the lemon's juice and zest.
#Prepare the fillings (we can change unlimitedly, following what you have at home: we could have used dried fruit, other candies, carambars…). Grind roughly (separatedly) pistaccios, cashew nuts, hazelnuts and chocolate. Cut the marshmallows in little pieces with a scissor. Mis coconut powder with chocolate nuggets.
#The amount of paste gives about 18 madeleines, the equivalent as two batches of flexipan tins of 9 madeleines each ( a flexipan tin is a kind of flexible rubber tin in which very easily turn out all your cakes. Some exist for big cakes, other for muffins, other for cannelés... and other for madeleines. It's about the same shape as a very little boat). Otherwise, take regular madeleine tins and butter them. Put some filling in the bottom of the tins and put some madeleine paste in it but not too much because it rises and risks to overflow, and sprinkle again with some filling.
#Put the madeleines high in the oven during 4 minutes quite hot (th6) then 4 minutes medium hot (th4). Normally at this time you should have madeleines that melt in the mouth, cookes but not dry, just as it has to be. Turn them out as soon as they are out of the oven, and continue until you don't have paste anymore. Marshmallows madeleines are not very presentable, because the marshmallows go down when they cool, so there are little gaps, but you can trust me, they are the first gone!

#BON APPETIT # ENJOY YOUR MEAL#

two-coloured chocolate- pistaccio rolls

Excellent recipe taken on a super French blog: http://gourmandises.blogspot.com/

ingredients : (10 green rolls and 10 browns)
(brown for everything that concerns the chocolate roll filled with pistaccio / green for everything that concerns the pistaccio roll filled with chocolate / black everything that concerns both of them)
-20g sugar (10g/10g)
-160g flour (80g/80g) + some more
-2 eggs (1/1)
-10g cocoa powder
-10g green pistaccio mixed in a very thin powder
-green food colouring
-1 can ricotta (half/half)
-about 30g pistaccio paste, or if you don't:
-30g green pistacio
-icing sugar
-almond flour
-almond extract
-100g whipped cream
-1 packet vanilla sugar
-1 egg yolk
-10g soft butter
-some Nutella
-some almond flour
-icing sugar

Recipe :
#Mix the flour, the cocoa, the sugar and the egg, with the spoon and then with the hand in order to form a little dough ball. Do not hesitate to add some flour if the paste is too sticky.
#Spread on a flat surface sprinkled with flour and flatten it with a rolling pin. The paste has to be elastic and overall not to stick. When it is thin enough, cut 10 rectangles 5x12 cm in it, and keep them on the side.
#Mix the flour, the pistaccio powder, the sugar,the egg and the green colouring likewise (without putting, like I did, green colouring everywhere on my hands) and acting the same way for what follows (same number of rectangles). Alternate on a flat surface, take a nice picture, congratulate yourself and continue this recipe.
#Cook together the 2 kinds of rectangles during some minutes in salted and oiled boiling water, until the rectangles float. Drain them, then take them out one by one, dip them in cold water and dab them in order to remove the flour left if need be. Act quickly not to give to the rectangles the time to stick together or to fold or even break. Alternate again on a flat surface and admire the wonderful lively and sparkling colours the rectangles take once they're cooked and flourless.

#If you already have some pistaccio paste skip to the next step.
Prepare 30g « pistaccio paste» : mix very thinely 30g pistaccio with some icing sugar and some almond flour. When it's a nice thin powder, add some almond essence and a little whipped cream, just to give it the glummy modelling clay consistency, but not before the powder is really thin otherwise it won't work.Thin this paste down in 100g warm whipped cream, in a saucepan. Let the mixture boil. Mix one vanilled sugar packet with the egg yolk and add it into the saucepan. Mix, add the butter, and let it cool.
#Mix in a bowl half of the ricotta with green colouring, some sugar, pistaccio paste and whole green pistaccios. #Mix in an other bowl the other half of the ricotta with some tablespoons Nutella an almond flour.
#Put a knob of brown filling in each one of the green rectangles and vice versa. Roll widthways (well, in order to get rolls 5 cm long in the end). Alternate in a buttered dish sprinkled with a little icing sugar, then sprinkle the rolls themselves with icing sugar. Put in a hot oven in grill position (high in the oven) until the rolls caramelize, then let them cool until diner time. Appearance suggestion: in the shape of a cross in each plate with knobs of each filling between the rolls, whole pistaccios in the middle, and cocoa powder or almond flour sprinkled above other colour's rolls...

#BON APPETIT#ENJOY YOUR MEAL#

Scottish brownies

Sorry, but this recipe isn't Scottish at all. Hence the question: "so why are these brownies called Scottish?" Well, given that they were invented in order to finance (0,50€ each piece!) thet travel my high school will make to Scotland next Easter, and that at this moment I didn't have any imagination, the name "Scottish" stayed.

ingredients :

-350g dark chocolate

-3 eggs

-225g butter

-225g sugar

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-100g flour

-half a packet baking powder (in France, they sell very little packet, so half a packet is maybe 10g)

-cashew nuts

-2 yoghurts

-350g carambars (a kind of caramel chewy sweet)

Recipe :

#Make the caramel sauce: take the paper off the carambars (or any caramel sweets), put all of them in a little saucepan and melt them until you get a uniform cream. Once out of the cooker, add the yoghurts, more or less according to how sweet or to how soft you want the sauce to be, and serve it with the cheese cake. If there is too much sauce, it is reusable and it can be served with any other cake, yoghurt, cream...

#Preheat the oven medium heat and grease a pan. Melt in a bain-marie (it is a sauce pan put in another saucepan in which there is boiling water) the chocolate with the butter. Mix steadily, and once out of the cooker don't let it freeze.

#Whisk eggs, sugar, vanilla, and some tablespoons caramel sauce together until you have a bright cream. Add melt chocolate, sifted flour, baking powder, and a part of grinded cashewnuts. Mix well. It is possible to add white or milk chocolate, pecan nuts, nuts, hazelnuts, almond powder, coconut powder, marshmallow bits...

#Pour into the greased pan. You can decorate the surface by drawing a caramel spiral (or anything else), by sprinkling with grinded cashew nuts...you have the choice. Bake about 45 minutes th5 depending on our oven's power, and keep an eye on it if you're not sure. Let it cool and enjoy!

#BON APPETIT # ENJOY YOUR MEAL#

Molly's New York cheese cake

For once, this recipe won't be the translation of the one I put on the French blog, because the girl who gave it to me, my American penpal Molly, gave it in English, so I will write it as it was originally, without any change like I did in the French version.

NEW YORK CHEESECAKE

Preheat oven to 500°F.
Make crust w/: shortbread cookies or graham crackers, 1/2 stick of butter, + 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar



Cake: Mix well:

5 boxes of cream cheese (2 1/2 pounds)

1 3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
Pour into pan.
Bake at 500°F for 15 minutes; then at 200°F for 1 hour.
Let cake cool.
Refrigerate.

Bon appetite!
Enjoy!
Molly (taken from Joy of cooking book)