A Lady Cake for Yvonne

Well, apparently yesterday was grandmother's day in France. Nicolas shared this news with us Friday (having learned it from his girlfriend) and so I got to work preparing the cake and vegetables for the family meal on Sunday at the winery.

And, for reasons unknown, a favorite cake from my childhood browsings of Joy of Cooking (1960 edition) came to mind. As we all know everything is findable on the internet, and so not having the book on hand, I was still able to find a good copy of the recipe:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
3 cups flour (I believe this is for pastry flour, as I had 65 grade meant for breads, I ended up using 2 1/2 cups)
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 beaten egg whites
and I added a pinch of salt...

Without a proper electric beater (the winery is only minimally equipped for those who enjoy cooking and baking) I had to use a fork to mash the softened butter (I'd left it out on the counter, happily) into the sugar. I then added some of the milk, then some of the flour, etc., etc., till I got to a thick paste. I then mixed in a third of the egg whites, followed by the rest. Not having a spatula, I simply mixed gently, but no doubt lost some of the lightness and air the egg whites might have conveyed if treated more gently.

The cake baked up easily in the mini-oven -- though it took over an hour. A. because the oven is pretty dinky, and B. because the batter is quite heavy. A light sponge cake this is not.

While the cake baked, I made an orange syrup to pour over it with the juice of two oranges and a cup plus of sugar. I also prepared the ingredients for my ganache topping: 200 grams finely chopped dark baking chocolate, 100ml light cream and three pats of sweet butter.

Once the cake was out of the oven, flipped onto a plate and dowsed in syrup, I got to work heating my cream for the ganache. I poured the hot cream over the chopped chocolate, blended it together to "faire une mayonnaise" as they say here, and then added the butter till blended as well.


In the past I've used lemon juice/orange juice and powdered sugar to make a simple glaze for this cake with very good results.

The ganache went on smoothely, and the cake awaited the next day partly in the fridge, and partly on the dining table. Yum!

Oh yes, just to keep things amusing, I made a crême anglaise to accompany the cake: 2 cups milk, 5 egg yolks and a 1/3 cup sugar. Heat the first, blend the sugar into the egg yolks, add some of the heated milk to the egg yolks, whisking, then pour the egg yolks into the milk in the sauce pan (heavy bottomed, stainless recommended). Whisk and whisk and whisk, -- as the milk is already quite hot, this goes very very quickly. In a couple of minutes the milk had thickened. I removed the cream from the stove, poured it into a cooler and shallower recipient, whisked some more, and let it cool. Perfect to dollop atop the cake the next day.

Cheesecake.... How I love it still

Here I am, living in France, surrounded by superb pastries, butter creams, éclairs, religieuses, ganâches to die for, tartes aux abricots... and yet, I yearn for a good old fashioned cheesecake.

Over the years, I've made attempts in this direction. At one point I purchased tubs of fromage blanc, dumped them into a (very clean and not soapy perfumed) dish cloth and squeezed as much liquid as possible out of these lovely textured dairies to render them if not as solid as Philadelphia Cream Cheese, then at least less fluid than they had been.

Then I pretty much gave up on the traditional New York style cheesecake (excepting when someone snuck me some cream cheese in from the States), and opted for ricotta (here known as brousse or broccio) cheesecakes. These have a grainier texture, which can be somewhat smoothed out in a mixer, and over the years became a standard dessert during the cooking courses. But though I was able to make them interesting (honey and spices, orange zest, grand marnier...) they lacked that certain acidic bite of a traditional cheesecake. Something was missing.

Out of the blue, I was inspired these past two weeks to make more cheesecake. It simply came upon me. Though then again, I had two dinner parties to orchestrate, so somewhere the inspiration for dessert was necessary, and rather than settle for a fruit tart, or a chocolate mousse, or a fruit salad and cookies... I felt like experimenting.

My first cheesecake was traditionally inspired, flavored only by lemon zest (of two lemons) and the juice of half a lemon. Delicate and creamy, all deemed it a success. I used the brown sugar cookies known as Gascognes crushed into crumbs by my blender, and melted butter with a pinch of salt as my crust. Graham crackers they were not, but they did have a lovely caramel flavor that well complemented the cheese and lemon.

My later creation (here photographed) was more flamboyant and considering that all my guests were French, rather on the unusual side for this side of the Atlantic. Fresh and candied ginger with dark chocolate swirl. I didn't have a packet of cookies on hand, but I did have hazelnut meal, cocoa, sugar and butter, so these made my rather haphazard, but appreciated and remarked upon crust.

And so, how did I succeed at long last where for years I'd simply stumbled or wiggled around the ingredients? Well, I picked up a faisselle. This is a fresh cheese with neither salt nor sugar, in a plastic tub in a tub. The inner tub is a sieve, keeping the curd intact and apart yet leaving it in contact with the whey.

To make this particular ingredient work for me I purchased it a day (or two, a bit more time wouldn't hurt) ahead of time. I removed it from its whey (which I put aside in a jar for future muffin or pancake making) and put it inside a strainer over a bowl and back into the fridge. In this way, I returned it to its cheese origins, and put it into a situation where it would slowly release its liquid and firm up. Thus, my kilo of faisselle became 850 gr of fresh cheese (approx 2 lbs).

To this I added 3 eggs, 1 1/2 cups of sugar (about 300g) -- note, these are the same proportions I used for the lemon cheesecake--, 2 heaping tablespoons of fresh grated ginger (which I now store in the freezer, something friends in Boston do, and how brilliant!) and 2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger. I blended this all together and tasted it to see if I wanted more ginger or not (I love ginger... can you tell? I also love tasting cheesecake batter...).

Once I was content, I poured the batter onto my rather creative crust (it was interesting, but not as yet a recipe I would share as a finished, or even preferred option...) and then prepped my chocolate.

In a heavy bottomed stainless saucepan I melted 150g (5 1/2 oz) of dark chocolate on the surface of my wood stove (t'is winter after all). I scooped up and blended some of my cheesecake batter with the chocolate in the saucepan till somewhat smooth and then poured this extended chocolate batter over the ginger batter and swirled it around with a knife till it looked relatively lovely, or at least like a meeting of the worlds of light and dark, with perhaps dark winning.

I opted for baking the cake at a low temperature (150C/300F), rather than in a water bath, for nearly an hour or till the cake looked done with barely a touch of browning on the top, and the center jiggled only slightly. It rose high as a soufflet, and them came down a good bit, but not unpleasantly so.

I made this cake two days before my party, so I simply let it cool and put it in the fridge till needed. The extra chilling time deepened and melded the flavors.

The Kings' Cake - Galette des Rois

A favorite dessert and snack for this time of year. Easy to make, and easier to eat! Surprise your friends (elsewhere than in France and Québec!) with a homemade version.

The kings' cake is a favorite snack and dessert for this time of the year. My kids adore it and request it often. I can purchase one from any bakery worth its name, but it really isn't hard to make from scratch (if you've some flaky puff pastry on hand).


Ingredients:

* two sheets pâte feuilletée (puff pastry)

For the Frangipane:
* 1 1/2 cups ground almonds/almond meal
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/3 cup sweet butter
* 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
* 2 eggs
* 1 tablespoon flour
* a pinch of salt
* an egg with 2 tablespoons syrup (I used maple) to brush on top of the pastry so it will golden in the oven.
* a bean or a whole almond or a small clay figurine to be your fêve.


If you haven't found almond meal, then use your spice grinder or your blender to make it yourself (as I did this time). Blend all the ingredients together in your mixer, and then spread onto one of the puff pastry sheets. Put your fêve in the frangipane then top with the other sheet. Draw a criss cross pattern with the back of a knife (careful to not puncture the pastry). Pinch the edges of the pastry. Brush with the whole egg wash.


Place in a medium hot oven (375) till nicely golden on top, about 20-30 minutes depending on your oven.

Enjoy as an afternoon snack with tea, or for dessert. In traditional French house the youngest child goes under the table and tells the server of the cake to whom each piece should go. Then, he who gets the fêve is king for the day. Best to have a crown in the house ready for his/her head!

A Bûche begins

Une Bûche de Noël au Chocolat et Fruits Rouges
(a photo of the finished cake will need to wait till tomorrow's post... but the process is well detailed below).

I have been making a variation on this Yule Log cake since I lived in Seattle. The last year I was there, and my last Christmas on the West Coast, I found in Gourmet Magazine -- either that fall (1995) or one of the prior years -- a recipe for a Bûche with chocolate ganâche, raspberry jam and raspberry eau de vie as made by the pâtissier of La Maison de Chocolat in Paris.

Already at that time I was creative in my interpretation of the original recipe -- I didn't have any potato starch on hand (féculant de pomme de terre - far easier to find in a French grocery store than in Seattle in 1995) and so replaced it with normal wheat flour. Nor did I have raspberry eau de vie -- which at the tender age of 27 I didn't even recognize as referring to alcohol, a lapse which has since been corrected. So, at the time, I simply soaked my raspberries in the simple syrup I prepared to drench the cake. Not that the lack was felt by the many who indulged in the cake as I drove from friend to friend sharing what had turned out to be quite a generous cake -- a little dark chocolate goes a long way.

In the years since I've taken further liberties with the original recipe, and along the way I lost the page I'd taken from the magazine, well smudged with chocolate.

My current version of the recipe is enhanced/affected/adapted to include the pastry lore I've soaked up during my visits both professional and friendlyl at my local pastry shop -- my pâtissier's basic recipe for biscuit, the base of most of his cakes which he then elaborates with ganâche, fruit jellies, mousses, pralines and more. He uses only egg whites, almond meal and powdered sugar. Hmmmm, and advised me to bake it in a very hot oven for a very short time -- just seize the outside and leave the cake as flexible and soft as possible to allow for rolling/bending/ etc.,

And of course, my chocolatier shared with me his basic ganâche recipe. And I started making oodles of jams alongside Erick, adopting the technique of 2x fruit to 1x sugar and leaving the fruit to release its juices for at least a few hours before putting it over a flame.

It's come to the point where the original recipe is no longer necessary. I simply make my bûche. And, when I come across someone who is gluten intolerant, I've many a solution. However, in the spirit of the season, I kept careful track of my steps yesterday and today. And below are the precise measurements (where possible in both American volumes and metric, but without a scale at Ma's house...) that I used this time around... Enjoy!

Ingredients :

For the biscuit :

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup powdered sugar
6 egg whites whipped stiff
4 egg yolks whipped till lemon yellow
scant 1/4 cup brown sugar

For the jam:

1 pound fresh or frozen raspberries or mixed berries
1/2 pound sugar

To drench: if you have it on hand:

1/2 cup of raspberry eau de vie
1 cup sugar
1 cup boiling water

Or, you can do as I did yesterday: remove a cup of the sugared berry juices from the jam pot, add a 1/2 cup of white rum.

For the ganâche filling :

For the Ganache:

300 grams (12 oz) superior quality dark chocolate (like Lindt 70%, Valrohna 64%)
225 grams (9 oz) tablespoons heavy cream

for the coating:

200 grams (8oz) superior quality dark chocolate (like Lindt 70%, Valrohna 64%)
150 grams (5 oz) tablespoons heavy cream

To make the biscuit : Preheat oven to 400F/200C

Sift your cocoa and lightly blend with the ground almonds and powdered sugar.


Whip the egg whites stiff.



In a separate mixing bowl, whip till lemon yellow the egg yolks and brown sugar.


Sprinkle in some of the dry ingredients, then fold together with the egg whites and the rest of the dry ingredients.

Spread thinly on a lined (with parchment paper) or non-stick baking sheet, or on a silpat atop a cookie sheet.

It is important to either bake the cake on a silpat and let cool, then remove onto parchment paper before drenching in syrup/alcohol, or to bake it directly onto parchment paper, remove onto another sheet of parchment paper when cool, and drench. I once made the rather total error of leaving it on the silpat and drenching it with the syrup/eau de vie mixture. It then stuck terribly and made a total visual catastrophe of a dessert. Lessons must be learned, right?


Bake for 5 minutes – till the surface is lightly browned, but the center still soft.

Remove from the oven promptly. And let cool. Reverse onto a large sheet of parchment paper and put aside.

Mix together the eau de vie and the simple syrup (or do as I did yesterday) and brush evenly and generously with a pastry brush over the biscuit and let soak in.

For the jam:




Put your fruit and sugar into a bowl (this can be done the night before) with a 1/2 cup of water (if not the night before) and set it to simmer. Once it is nicely blended and bubbling, ladel your berries into a vegetable mill and grind away. The grinding will release the pectin present in the raspberry/blackberry seeds and help thicken your jam. Not feeling the need to truly remove all those seeds, (in a mixed berry jam) which is far more necessary if you're only using raspberries/blackberries, I put the solids back into my jam pot and continued simmering till the mixture thickened sufficiently -- when it cooled a thick skin formed on the surface.

For the Ganache:

Chop the chocolate into very small pieces. You can use a large knife, a meza luna rocking chopper, or a food processor. Put your chocolate into a large mixing bowl.

In a saucepan, heat the heavy cream till just the boiling point. Remove the cream from the heat and pour it slowly over the chocolate – you can pour it on the whisk to limit splatter. Stir gently till the chocolate melts into the cream.


Pour your chocolate over your biscuit, and gently spread it out in an even layer. Let cool and set, this will take at least 2 hours.

Finishing touches :

Once the chocolate is cooled and set (you may want to speed up the process by putting it in the fridge a bit), spread your jam (somewhat cooled too) over the ganâche and let set for a couple of hours.


Having your cake on the parchment paper gives you a tool for rolling the cake. You can roll it either the short direction -- for more rolls, or the long direction -- for more slices. I tend to do the latter.

Once your cake is rolled up, put in the fridge covered to set. It is best to leave it over night.

The next day, slice off the ends of your bûche on an angle and position them as branch stumps. Then melt more chocolate with a bit of heavy cream to extend it, drizzle over your bûche (being cold, it will quickly set the chocolate). Then pull a fork over it to design your bark.

When you are ready to serve: Sprinkle of powdered sugar on top.

A fun touch is meringue mushrooms... boughs of holly or branches of pine, or perhaps even some snow drifts of whipped cream (not unwelcome with such a rich cake).

Slice carefully, and enjoy!

left-over jam never goes to waste.