Clafoutis

This is June ! This is the month of my birthday and also Cherry Season. 
Here in toronto we have a lot of cherry trees that have been given to the town by Japan and when you go there around march/april you have this nice romantic atmosphere with all the blossoms. 

My favorite way to eat cherry is raw direct from the trees. I was lucky to have cherry trees in my parents backyard when we lived in Lascours, a small town in South East of France. I remember eating cherry when I came back from school. 

Raw is the best way to eat cherry but if I have to cook them, I will make Clafoutis. Clafoutis is a French classic dessert from the Limousin area. It is like a flan.  It is cherries cooked in a batter of eggs sugar and milk. It is a rustic and a comforty dessert. It can be served warm or cold but I prefer to eat mine cold. 

I use whole cherry because they are less likely to bleed into the batter and it give an almond lovely taste to the cake. But tell your guests, you don't want people break a tooth, right ? But I have been eating clafoutis for almost 30 years and so far, no accident. I might be still a child because I enjoy spitting out the pits!!!

Here is the recipe from my mom.
Ingredients:
3 eggs
25cl of milk (use whole milk)
75g of flour
25g of melted butter
125g of sugar
500g of fruit

1. Combine egg and sugar until the mixture whiten.
2. Add butter, milk and flour.
3. Pour the batter over the cherries
4. Bake for 40 min at 380F

The best Clafoutis my mom makes is the one with apple. The secret is that she  sprinkles the cake with vanilla raw sugar right out of the oven and it gets caramelized on top, yummy !!!

The classic recipe is made with cherry but the recipe works for all year round, with seasonal fruits like blueberry, apple, pears, peaches and plum... Whatever fruit you like, you can make Clafoutis with them. 

Bye bye Chicago

Sorry guys, I have not been active on the blog lately. 
Because I was busy organizing the move. Yes, we are moving back to Canada at the end of the month.
The time we spent here was short. We arrived in October last year, we experienced only winter which was so cold and long this year. I was 'wow' by the architecture when we arrived and we decided to live in the Loop. This is where I decided to start this blog. We did not have time to discover everything and to enjoy the summer which people say is pretty good here. 
Chicago is a beautiful city with great restaurants, parks, architecture, the river and the old steel bridges, museums, events and the famous subway with elevated tracks. I am going to miss it a little bit but we are happy to leave too.
Here is an homage to our time in Chicago. My view of Chicago in B&W, under the snow and on a sunny day!!

Toronto here we come (back). We lived there for about 5 years. Toronto is a great city too and the countryside is beautiful, like the Muskoka area, a place we used to go to all year round. Toronto has a lot of nice neighborhoods with parks, small coffee shops and local restaurants. Like the Distillery District, The Saint Lawrence Market area, Queen and King West, Mount Pleasant Village... 
Canada is home like France. Toronto, we missed you!!

Photographed by my husband Alex

I am excited for spring in Toronto and looking forward to see my friends for a lot of things like dim sum brunch, sushi, drinks, barbecue party, tea time, shopping, fresh pastries at my favorite bakery, etc...

Garlic

Garlic or not garlic... I will say garlic! 
Raw, cooked, minced, chopped, crushed or puréed, it will give character to your dish. And now you can even find garlic ice cream...Yes, no kidding.
But I know that garlic can be stinky and give you a bad breath but it is supposed to be relieved by eating fresh parsley or a bean of coffee but I think that a minty gum will do the trick. 

Cultivated for thousands of years, garlic comes from Central Asia. China is the first producer of garlic.
Over time, successive civilizations have used garlic as both food and medicine. For example the Egyptians included garlic in the daily diet of the pyramids slaves to give them strength. 
In Italy, Greece and India, garlic was used to protect against the Evil eye.
In the Middle Ages the legend was that garlic was hanged at the door to scare off vampires. 
In France, garlic was served to newlyweds on the morning of their first weeding night for its aphrodisiac and fertility properties.

Garlic is easy to grow and can be grown year-round in mild climates on chalky soil.
There are different kinds of garlic and they are all different in size, color, shape, taste, number of cloves per bulb and pungency.
The new garlic: harvested in may or june. It tastes sweeter and it is more digestible. It can be eaten raw or cooked. It should be kept for a few days in the fridge, otherwise it will dry out.
The old garlic or dried garlic: harvested in june but it is dried and sold during fall and winter. This one does not like to be cooked on high heat for a long time, it makes it bitter. The old garlic is less digestible. It is the green dry folds in the center of the garlic clove that are especially pungent. Try to remove it before cooking. The old garlic can be stored in metallic or plastic container at room temperature.

I find garlic tastier when roasted whole with olive oil. It is called "ail en chemise", meaning slowly cooked in his protective layers of skin. 
My grandma likes to put fresh crushed garlic in the salad dressing with olive oil and red wine vinegar. And she uses cloves of garlic, rosemary, thyme, olive oil and slice of bread as a stuffing for roasted chicken. It is yummy!!

Garlic is widely used around the world as a seasoning for sauce, spread, broth, marinade etc... 
Garlic is the very essence of Provence. Here are some typical recipes. 

Aioli: like a mayonnaise made with garlic and olive oil served with salted cod, potatoes and steamed seasonal vegetables. It is the official provencal garlic dish.

Rouille: like a mayonnaise made with garlic and saffron, spread on a toasted bread and topped with gruyère cheese to go with a fish soup (typical dish of Marseille with the Bouillabaisse)

Poichichade: purée of chick peas with garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. It is like Hummus without tahini (sesame paste). 

Caviar d'aubergine: purée of roasted eggplant with garlic, olive oil and rosemary. It is like baba ghanoush without tahini.

Tomate provençale: roasted tomatoes topped with a mixture of chopped parsley and garlic and olive oil. Cooked until caramelized.

Soupe à l'ail: cold soup made with poached eggs in a garlic broth and served with crouton.

Agneau a l'ail confit: braised leg of lamb with garlic cloves and rosemary. It is a typical dish made for easter.

Soupe au Pistou: cold vegetables soup with tomatoes, green beans, rice beans, zucchini and small pasta with pistou. Pistou is similar to Pesto but lighter and without nuts.

Most of these dishes are made in spring and summer with new garlic and seasonal vegetables. 
Spring is around the corner so if you are interested in the recipes just contact me!!

Tea time and Madeleine

Today is the third snow storm of the year, pffff... And Phil the Groundhog has predicted an early spring?, "humm I don't think so..."

I needed a nice cup of tea to warm me up. And I was craving to have a bite with my tea and I was thinking: "humm cookies??, humm... no". I made a lot of cookies lately so what about madeleine. It is one of my favorite comfort childhood snack. Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive scallop shell-like shape, they are moist light and puffy. It is a traditional small cake from Commercy in Northeastern France, La Lorraine. 

You can find many different stories behind the name and the origin of the madeleine. Here is one : during the 18th century, Madeleine Paumier was a young lady working as a maid. One day the cook was sick (or quit and take all his recipes with him) so she improvised a cake recipe that was served to the Duke of Lorraine Stanislas Leszcynski. And later on his son in law Louis XV named them after her.

Even though you have never tried a madeleine, you heard of it. Who does not know Marcel Proust, a well known french author. He immortalized the madeleine in A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time aka Remembrance of Things Past). While having a tea soaked cake, suddenly he experiences an involuntary memory involving the madeleine and remembering his childhood spent in the village of Combray. 

He wrote: "I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touch my palate than a shudder ran trough me and I sopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses..... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was a little piece of madeleine ....which my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her cup of tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it...All taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, from my cup of tea."

There are so many recipes. The original is made with citrus but you can make them with chocolate, hazelnut, almond extract or matcha powder, glazed or even dipped in chocolate. My favorite is the one with lemon zest. For me it is the classic recipe.

Madeleines are better just out of the oven, still soft and warm. Because they tend to dry out very quickly. But you can freeze them directly out of the oven and reheat them at low heat for a few minutes. Or they can be kept a few days in a air proof metallic box.

You can find many and many recipes on internet but here is one that works for me and that I like.
Ingredients: (make 24 madeleines)
3 eggs
5.5 oz of flour (150g)
4 oz of sugar (130g) and you can add a tbsp of honey as well
4 oz of butter (130g)
1 tsp of baking powder
zest of lemon or orange

1. Preheat oven at 450F (230C)
2. Melt the butter 
3. Mix eggs and suger until the mixture whitens and add the zest
4. Add flour and baking soda
5. Add butter (cool down)
6. Grease the mold with butter and fill them 3/4 full, do not spread the batter
7. Cook for 5/6 min until the bump develop then for 4 more min at 350F (180C) or golden brown on the edges

If you can not get the little bump do not be disappointed, it is maybe the oven was not hot enough or you over mixed the batter.... It happens to me all the time, sometimes I get the bump sometimes not... But the taste and the texture are there!! Sometimes people say that you need to put the batter and even the mold in the fridge for a few hours. The temperature difference will help to develop the bump.

But when you crave for something you want it now, right?
Luckily this time, they turn out great, I got the bump, yes !! I was happy because it looks better for the pictures. And great taste too!!

Despite the snow storm, it was a wonferfull day after having a hot cup of tea and some freshly baked madeleines. Perfect !!

Charlotte Cake

The Charlotte is one of the favorite cake of my husband with the meringue lemon tart. Since we have been living in North America, I have not done any. Living here sometimes it is a challenge to find ingredients that I want or need. The only ones you can find are the ones with a harder texture and less wide. I like and need the soft ladyfinger cookies to do it but in Toronto there were impossible to find. In France I was just used to go to the grocery store, it was easy, even convenience stores had some. 

You are gonna tell me: "Why don't you bake some?" and you are right! 
It never occurs to me to do my own ladyfingers until last year when my mom bought me the book Le Sucrée from Ladurée. I tried once and they did not turn great, the taste was good but they were too flat and too dry to be used in a charlotte, I did not like the texture. A ladyfinger cookie is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, with a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. Like a sponge cake.

But a few weeks ago I found some at Trader Joes and my husband was like a kid in a candy store, so happy like "Yeahhh I'm gonna have my charlotte cake, yuhu !!!" 

Charlotte are usually made in spring with fresh berries, it is a cake with layers of fruits, cream and ladyfingers. But there are so many variations, with mousse, custard or bavarian cream or yogurt. It can look complicated but it is not, it is quite simple to do.

The dessert Charlotte russe was invented in the 19th century by Marie Antoine Carême, a renowned French Chef who named it in honor of his Russian employer Czar Alexander I. He was inpired by an old english dessert made of slice of bread and custard. But as usual there are so many stories behind the origin and the name.

Because it is a cold dessert, for those who are afraid of baking, this is the perfect dessert for you, no baking!! Just need to prepare it in advance and keep it  in the fridge. 

I bought a fresh pineapple last week end and I did not know what to do with it.  A pineapple upside down cake? Yes why not... I then when I opened my cupboard, I saw the ladyfingers and this was it. A Pineapple Charlotte.

I am just going to do a simple yogurt cream without gelatine, it will not hold very well but this is the way we do it in my family, more rustic. I remember my grandma used to make one with pears and yogurt and covered with chocolate.

The first step was to poached to pineapple to get a softer texture. I poached it in a simple syrup with vanilla bean. I kept the syrup to soak the ladyfingers in it. For a more adult version you can soak the ladyfingers in a syrup with rhum or any liquor that goes well with the fruit filling.

Ingredients:
One can of fruit of your choice or fresh fruit
Around 40 ladyfingers
35 oz of greek yogurt (1kg)
1 cup of sugar (130g)

1. Drain the fruit and keep the syrup
2. Mix the yogurt with sugar
3. Dip the ladyfingers quickly in the syrup
4. Line the mold with the ladyfingers and place them at the bottom, round face in
5. Pour half of the yogurt in the mold, add the fruits and a layer of ladyfingers
6. Layer again yogurt, fruits and finish with ladyfingers
7. Cover the cake with plastic wrap and place a weight on top of it
8. Place in the fridge overnight
9. To unmold the charlotte, run the blade around the edge, invert the charlotte on a serving place. It should slide right out.

You can serve the Charlotte with berries coulis, whipped cream or just like that.
It is a perfect dessert after an heavy meal, it is light and refreshing.
But I think next time I think I will try to make my own ladyfingers. And do a more classy version with fresh berries. Looking forward to spring!!

Valentine's Day: Chocolate & Berries

Today is Valentine's Day !!
My husband and I we are not really into celebrating Valentine's Day by exchanging gift or going to a nice restaurant, it is so crowded and so expensive that day. But it is an other excuse to have a nice meal and open a very good bottle of wine.
So usually we stay home and have an "apéritif dinatoire", meaning finger foods with drinks. Like crostinni, deli meat with cracker, cheese, ham and olives loaf, quiche. And for dessert of course a chocolate dessert, my favorite Lava Cake.
It is Valentine's day so it is Chocolate day and chocolate is the color of Love.

Here is the recipe:
Ingredients (serve 4)
3.5oz (100g) of dark chocolate 
5 tbsp (70g) of butter 
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
3 tbsp of sugar
3 tbsp of flour
2 tsp of cocoa powder

1. Melt the butter and chocolate over a double boiler. Whisk together the eggs and sugar until the mixture whitens.
2. Stir the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and whisk until combined. Sift in the flour, cocoa and a pinch of salt.
3. Spoon into 4 buttered ramekins.
4. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Bake for about 12/15 minutes. 

It is really easy and quick to do but the key is to use good quality of chocolate.
You can prepare your lava cakes ahead of time, put them in the fridge and then just bake before serving. Serve it hot right out of the oven garnished with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, berries, caramel sauce or just a dust of powdered sugar. Whatever you like.

Moreover this year we have some chocolate candy shaped like strawberry that our nice neighbors have made. Thanks to the girls.

And if you are not really into chocolate, a great dessert for Valentine's Day is a cake with berries. Something pink and red.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone !!

Best B&B in Provence

When my parents told me "We are going to open a B&B", it was an evidence!
My mom is the best hostess, she knows what french hospitality means. 
In addition of being a good hostess, she is a great decorator and also a very good cook. She has handled each part of the house, from the bedroom to the garden and the kitchen with meticulous attention to detail.

The B&B is called "La Bastide d'Eyragues en Provence". The B&B is a traditional house from Provence with an amazing view to the Alpilles (a small range of mountains). The B&B is located in Eyragues, 5min drive to Saint Rémy de Provence and 15min to Avignon. The garden showcases a swimming pool and a beautiful landscape with olive trees, lavender, rosemary, oak, cypress and white bay trees. All the scents of Provence.

The B&B offers several rooms. The rooms are welcoming, comfortable and offering a lovely view to the garden and the swimming pool. The cosy and quiet rooms come with a queen bed, complimentary breakfast, wifi internet access, and a private bathroom.

Every morning the breakfast is served on the terrace or in the living room with the view to the Alpilles. You will be able to taste some Mariage Frères tea, organic coffee, homemade jams and cakes, fresh fruits and squeezed jus and of course some fresh baguette. The food is from seasonal, local organic products.

The B&B offers a "Table d'hôtes", meaning an homemade dinner served at the table with my parents and of course cooked from scratch by my mom.
For 35€ you can enjoy a 3 course meal with drinks (water/soft/wine) and coffee/tea. 

Here are some examples of the dinner "Saveurs de Provence" served with wine from Baux de Provence or Côte de Provence or Côte du Rhône.

Pre-appetizer (finger foods): 
Olive spread with bread or caramelized onions tart 

Appetizer:
Eggplant Loaf with Fresh Tomato Sauce or Zucchini or Asparagus Soup or Green Salad

Entree:
Fresh vegetables risotto or cep mushrooms risotto or Lamb with Garlic and Sage or Poultry with Thyme and Rosemary or Fresh Fish with Herbes de Provence

Dessert:
Strawberry Tiramisu or Seasonal Fruit Tart or Figs Cake or Berries Crumble

La Bastide d'Eyragues en Provence is a great place for a relaxing getaway.
Check out their website  and plan your visit there.  You will not be disappointed.

Crêpe Day Celebration

Today is La Chandeleur (Candlemas), it is the tradition of making crêpes to celebrate the first signs of springs. 
Here is a French proverb: "À la Chandeleur, l'hiver s'en va ou prend vigueur", meaning "On Candlemas, winter ends or strengthens".

It is celebrated on Feb 2nd, same day as the Groundhog Day in North America. 

The trick is that if you could catch the crêpe with a frying pan after tossing it in the air with your right hand and holding a gold coin in your left hand, it will give you happiness and properity throughout the coming year.

But we do not only eat crêpes on Feb 2nd, we do not need that opportunity to eat crêpes. Crêpes are enthusiastically made any time for breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea or dinner.

You can garnish them with whatever you like. There are so many toppings to put on your crêpes: sugar, sugar and salted butter, jam, nutella, compote, whipped cream and fresh fruits... You can even flambé them with orange liquor, it will be a Crêpe Suzette.

In Brittany, West part of France, savory crêpes are made with buckwheat flour and are called "galettes".
Personaly I use the same recipe for both savory and sweet crêpes, I found it easier and quicker if I cook both with the same batter .
My favorite savory crêpe is Ham/Gruyere cheese/Sunny side up egg.
My favorite sweet crêpe is sugar and lemon jus. My husband does not have a favorite, he likes all of them.

It is very simple and quick to do and you just need a single bowl of batter made from just eggs, milk, flour, and butter. Who doesn't have these ingredients in their fridge all the time?

Ingredients (make about 15 crêpes):
2 cups of flour 
2 1/2 cups of milk 
1/2 cup of water
4 eggs
2 tbsp of melted butter
pinch of salt
vegetable oil for the pan

1. In a large mixing bowl , whisk together the flour , the salt and the eggs.
2. Slowly pour in the milk while stirring, then add butter.
3. Place the batter, covered, in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. This allows the bubbles to subside so the crêpes will be less likely to tear during cooking.  

4. Pour the batter (approximately 1/2 cup for each crêpe) into a lightly oiled frying pan (I use a 10-inch pan) over medium high heat, turning and tilting it in a slow, circular motion to spread the batter evenly. 

5. Wait until the edges start to turn golden brown, and pockets of air lift the center, and then run a spatula around the edge of the crêpe.

6. Slip the spatula underneath, and in one swift gesture, lift and flip the crêpe back into the pan.

7. Cook until the other side is golden brown, about 20s. 

Do not be disappointed if the first attempt is a dud. It happens even if you are a crêpes expert. Usually it is because you were impatient and the pan was not quite hot enough.

The batter will keep for up to 48 hours in the fridge. Or the crêpes can be made hours ahead of time and kept, covered with plastic wrap, at room temperature. Crêpes can be frozen for up to 2 months.

Now is time to eat. So add the filling you like and fold them the way you want. You can roll them (the way I like sweet crêpes), fold them in quarters (the way my husband eats them), or fold them like a purse, we call that "aumonière de crêpe".

The traditionnal way for a savory crêpe is to fold the four sides in and make a square crêpe and serve it with a green salad and a glass of apple cider from Brittany.

Enjoy !!!

Olive Oil

Coming from the south of France in Provence, Olive oil takes a big part of my life for cooking. 
We don't really cook with butter in Provence. 

I am lucky that my parents have a lot of olive trees in their garden. 
My mom does the picking and then goes to the mill and they make her own olive oil. 
She starts to harvest the olives in November when the color is still green but almost turns to black. She brings every night the olives to the mill because olives need to be grinded the same day. And then the olive oil is ready in mid december. In average she harvest around 120kg (265lbs) of olives per year. To make 1L (34oz) of olive oil, you need 6kg (13lbs) of olives.

Photographed by La Bastide D'Eyragues

This year for Christmas my parents offered to each of her children a bottle of olive oil from their production. 
Olive oil is the gold of Provence, it is a very precious gift. It can be sold around 30$ per liter. 

It is so good comparing to the one you buy at the grocery store. 
The color, the smell, the taste is different. It is called the "fruité vert" : the oil is greener and has a fruity taste and tastes like artichoke, it does not taste just like something oily. 

It is an extra virgin olive oil. Extra virgin is the highest quality and most flavorful olive oil. It must be produced entirely by grinding whole olives and extracting the oil by mechanical. It means without the use of any solvents, and under temperatures that will not degrade the oil. 

I remember at my parents home sometimes we just have a dinner with salad, cheese and olive oil. 
My favorite way to eat olive oil is with salt and a piece of bread. Yummy!! 

Tip: Do not try to eat olives directly from the tree, they are inedible. Olives are a naturally very bitter fruit, they need to be fermented or cured with water and salt to make them more palatable.

American cookies

I am not really into american sweet treats like doughnuts, cupcakes and layered cakes with cream cheese frosting. 
I find them too heavy and too sweet to my taste. But cookies are my favorite. 

We have the similar kind of cookies in France, we call them Sablé (it is made with butter sugar egg and flour) . I will do a post later about Sablé.

I like them just out of the oven because they are still gooey in the inside and crisp on the outside. With a cup of tea it is the perfect treat for a cold winter day. This week the weather is so so cold... 2˚F (-17˚C) yesterday and today it's snowing . So I am in a mood to have a nice warm cup of tea.  And I can not have tea without any sweets to go with . So today is cookies day !!

I have a book called "1 dough, 100 cookies" by Linda Doeser that my mom bought me. There is a basic recipe and then you can make 100 types of cookies  with fruits, nuts, jam. They are quick and easy to make.
I have tried already the double chocolate chips and the almond with raspberries jam cookies.

But today is going to be the original chocolate chips cookie. There are so classic and comforting.

Here is the recipe (makes about 30):
Ingredients:
1 cup butter softened
3/4 cup sugar ( I use brown sugar, I prefer the taste)
2 tbs vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips 
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven 375˚F/190˚C. Line 2 cookie sheets with baking parchment.
2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and mix well with a wooden spoon, then beat in the egg yolk and vanilla extract. Sift together the flour, salt and chocolate chips, and stir until combined.
3. Scoop up tablespoons of the mixture and shape into balls. Put them on the prepared cookie sheets spaced well apart and flatten slightly.
4. Bake for 12-15min. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely or not if you are like me and you can not wait to eat them all.

There are so many recipes in this book to try but the next one that has catched my eyes is the recipe with hazelnut and Nutella. Looks yummy !! Who does not like Nutella ? 

An hot cup of earl grey tea and a few cookies and I am fine for this cold winter afternoon.

My Favorite Hot Beverage

I love tea, it is my favorite hot beverage!!! I drink tea all day long. Usually I have an Earl Grey for breakfast, one or two green tea in the afternoon and a green tea with mint after dinner.

I have tried so many brands and the best tea for me come from Mariage Frères, a well-known company for the French Art of Tea.

It smells so good and tastes even better. I like tea that have been enhanced with subtle fragrances of rose, bergamot, citrus and jasmine.

I have always at home all these different kind of tea, they are my favorites:

Thé au Tibet: Black China tea scented with vanilla, jasmine, mandarin orange, rose, and bergamot.

Thé à l'Opéra: Green tea with fragrance of red berries and precious spices. 

Thé Casablanca: Green tea with Moroccan mint and bergamot.

Thé Vert Provence: Green tea with lavender, rose petal and black and red berries. (I was born and raised in Provence so when I smell it, I feel like I am in Provence on a sunny spring day)

Thé Earl Grey: Premier black China tea with bergamot.

Thé sur le Nil: Green tea with citrus fruits and spices.

And around Christmas I have a blend of spicy tea with orange, almond, vanilla and Christmas spices.

Most of the tea come from China, India and Japan. But as well from Turkey, Africa, South America and Russia. There are so many varieties of tea: white, green, blue and black.  

But each tea is different, subtle delicate and refined. Steeping time and water temperature are very important. And the best quality comes in loose leaves.
It needs to be store in a metallic container because tea doesn't like air, light and humidity. It is better to use filtered water to preserve the tea flavors and scents.

Here is a simplified table of how to drink your tea:

Type of tea        Water Temperature           Steeping time

 Black tea               95˚C - 203˚F                   4-5min         

 White tea              70˚C - 158˚F                    10min

 Green tea         70/90˚C - 158/194˚F             1-3min

A lot of friends tell me "how can you drink tea. It's like drinking hot water that tastes so bitter". I ask them what kind of tea do they drink and their response usually is "pouring boiling water over tea bags from the grocery store". But after having tasted a very good infused tea they change their opinion about it. And now when they come to my house most of the time they ask for a tea instead of a coffee!! 

Best French Bakery in Toronto

I wanted to share with you my favorite bakery in Toronto.

The Thobors Bakery !! 

When I go there I feel like home, the smell of the freshly baked bread and the ambiance is perfect. 

Everything is good, from the bread to the french pastries. You can go there even for lunch, they have quiche, sandwich, salad and soup.

The owners Sylvie and Marc Thobor are very nice people and are good friends of mine now.

They have been voted best baguette in Toronto in 2011 by Toronto Life Eating and Drink magazine. And this year they are in the top 5 loaves in Toronto.

I had the chance to spend a couple of days there taking pictures. It was part of my assignment for school. Telling a story with photographs. Obviously I choose a theme around food !! I called it " A day at the Bakery" . 

They have a large selection of breads (baguette, sesame seed, poppy seed, figs, whole grains) and french pastries (quiche, chausson aux pommes, croissant, pain au chocolat, financier, madeleine, macaron, tart and cake). 

Moreover I was lucky that they choose my photographs to put on their updated website www.thobors.ca

Thanks Sylvie and Marc to have given me my first job as a photographer !!

King Cake Celebration

Today is King Cake celebration to celebrate the Epiphany.
It is a tradition in France to eat a Galette des Rois on January 6th.

The Galette is a flaky puff pastry filled with a buttery almond cream or frangipane (mix of almond cream and pastry cream). 
But it depends on the area you live in. In Provence we have a Gâteau des Rois or Couronne instead, it is a ring shaped brioche filled with candied fruits and flavoured with orange flower water.

A fève (dry fava bean or a little figurine) is hidden in the cake and the person who gets the fève, will be the king for the day and will have to pick his queen. Or the queen will have to pick her king. And both get a golden paper crown.

The tradition is that the youngest child hides under the table and decides which slice goes to whom. I remember when I was a child it was so much fun.
And even at the office people bring a Galette but try to avoid the slice with the fève because the person who gets the fève will have to offer the next one. 

Every year I make my own Galette and we try to eat one every week end of Januray. Yes, we like sweets !
You can make you own puff pastry but the ones you can find at the grocery store are a good option.  
Here is the recipe. It is really easy and quick to cook.

Ingredients:
- 2 sheets of butter puff pastry
- 1 cup of almond powder
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of unsalted butter (beaten until creamy)
- 2 eggs + 1 yolk for the eggwash
- 1 tablespoon of orange liquor or rhum or liquor of your choice (this year I flavoured my galette with blood orange jus and zest)

1. Mix the almonds, sugar, butter, the liquor/jus and eggs to a smooth paste.  
2. Place the first pastry in a baking tray and spread the paste evenly across. Then insert a fève close to an edge.
3. Dampen the edge of the first pastry and lay the second over it. Press down with a fork to seal the sides and decorate with a knife. Pierce a hole in the center.

4. Glaze the top with the egg yolk
5. Bake 30 min until golden brown at 350F
6. Place on a rack to cool

I baked it this morning. My husband and I had a slice after lunch , a second slice with the tea this afternoon and I think by tonight it will be finished. I got the fève so I guess I have to bake one for next week end !! Who is coming to have a slice with us ??