The house smells like mulled wine. Fairy-lights have been plugged. Cookies have been sent in a jar. A wreath has been hung at the door.

It really start to feel like Christmas around here.

We’re only missing a tree and perhaps, a dinner back home, with our families. But hopefully, one of those will come true next week if I find the courage and super-powers to carry a Christmas tree back home.

And while I’m on the subject, anyone knows where to find one around Clapham?

I definitely wouldn’t want to miss on this tradition. Ever so more that I’m already eight-day late on this.
At my home – the one in France – we always decorate the tree on the very first day of the month. Then the presents start piling up as they are bought.

At night, we watch movies, while sipping through a green tea for me, or camomile for my mum and sister, and a (cold) coffee for my dad.

During the day, we bake. Christmas cake, brownies, and cookies. My mum also makes the best pain d’épices, while my sister writes the labels for the jars to be sent.

Jars filled with flour, light brown sugar, chocolate chunks, nuts. And perhaps, mostly filled with love.

They’re so easy to make. And you can be certain they always please. So there you have them: cookies in a jar, with a new 2010 addition: crushed pretzels. Because, deep inside, I think that your heart looks like a pretzel.

This year, I’ve used those beautiful jars from Jme.

But really, you could use any recipe you like. Just make sure the total content fits your jar and leave out the butter and eggs for the lucky recipient to add.

There is something about early nights that feels like magic.

It can be the glimmer of cheap ikea candles that smell of vanilla. Or the warmth of a pair of chunky mittens.

Or perhaps for you, it’s the cosiness of the blanket you’re wrapped in, while reading a book to your favourite animal; mine currently being a Portuguese-speaking guinea pig called Joseph – which I would have never thought as plausible, the liking a guinea pig that is, not the whole language compatibility issue.

I love early nights because they ooze comfort, and at times, if I’m in the mood for baking, they ooze chocolate as well.

Tonight, the house is empty and quiet. I can hear the rain hit the roof and the heater roar.

The sunset happened just three short hours after I woke up, but it feels like the day has just begun.
In short, the perfect background for the slow-motion day I have been dreaming of.

With no plan, but an empty stomach, I put some music on, preferably something by girls in Hawaii. I light up our gas oven, and mix butter with muscovado sugar, add flour and a touch of baking powder. I chop some valrhona chocolate into chunks.
Getting my hands dirty, I form little pats, put them into a muffin pan and bake.

Yes, there is something magic about early nights. It can be anything you want; wherever and whenever, as long as it’s after the dusk.

For me, it was as easy as soaking a thick and chewy cookie into a cup of hot matcha latte. The photographing part was obviously slightly more difficult, but well, no apologies needed, it’s dark outside.

Chocolate chip cookies
I think I already have more recipes for chocolate chip cookies than needed. I went through different phases, each more successful than the previous one.

Rather evidently, you could use a little whole-wheat flour and I cannot recommend it enough. It gives the cookies a lovely earthy flavour that matches the chocolate and sea salt perfectly.

You’re crazy. Possibly good-crazy, but crazy nonetheless.

The fact that you can’t refrain your love for acorns, for anything impossible, and for green tea simply proves it.
Or it might actually be that many times when you take the cutest voice ever and start rambling about ponies with glitter manes that live close to a chocolate lake.

One or the other – almost certainly both – that one person you’re very much in like with doesn’t know that. Yet.

So you feel uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what you should do, or say. In fact, you’re quite confused as to how you should be.

He invites you for a drink. You pretend to think twice.
He kisses you on the cheek when you arrive – late. You refrain that I’ll-show-my-teeth smile.
And then, after a drink or two, it seems like you’re having a the-ponies-strike-back moment. And then, after a second or two, he simply laughs and kisses you. Except this time, it’s not on the cheek.

I think it would be safe to say: if an oven can’t handle you at your worse, then it sure as hell don’t deserve you at you best.

Wait, an oven?

I certainly did mean to say a guy, but you see, I’ve had a little relationship problem with my oven lately. I’m new to him, and he’s new to me.

We started well with some cheddar and chives scones a couple of weeks ago. And then, a blueberry cake made way past midnight for one of my starving friends. But today, it seemed like all he wanted was to upset me.

I had the highest plan for some perfectly earthy and yet creamy matcha whoopie pies. The batter looked pretty-in-green and the frosting was more than adequate for some straight-from-the-bowl-finger-eating-action.

But from the neat little domes I had piped just ten short minutes beforehand, only what could definitely be mistaken for the teletubbies rolling hills landscape subsisted.

I was heartbroken. Until I realised I should just be my very own good-crazy-self (please, may I insist on good?) and tweaked the thermostat (nb. remind me to have a word with the person who invented those all the heat from the bottom gas ovens) to 5.

Ten minutes later, it felt more like into the wild than tinky winky. Which is a good thing in my world.

Matcha whoopie pies
For this first experiment with those macaron-wannabes, I decided to go a little feral and ditch the cocoa powder for the house favourite: matcha green tea.

I thought the slight bitterness of the tea helped cut through the sweetness of the marshmallow filling. And while we’re on the subject, I shall mention that I made my own marshmallow cream, just because it’s something I’ve always wanted to try.

I’m not sure it’s anything close to the actual fluff, but it was still lovely enough to be eaten by the spoon.

Quite unexpectedly, summer showed up; with its glorious harvest, hot breezes and refreshing drinks.

Quite unexpectedly, I hadn’t noticed how time flew by. These past months; this past year.

It seems that since I came back from New Zealand, things haven’t stopped. Not even for a brisk moment. New Zealand. Bang. Nice. Bang. Pierre Hermé. Bang. Nice. Bang. Paris. Bang. Toulouse. Bang. Nutrition & Santé. Bang.

Nutrition & Santé. That’s what keeps me busy at the moment. And actually, that’s what has kept me busy for the past few months as well.

It might sound cliché, but although four months have passed by, the day I arrived feels like it was yesterday. Now the project I’ve been working on is drawing to an end, and just the thought of it gives me that strange sensation: I know where all those hours of hard work go – into a terrific biscuit, period; however, I can’t help but wonder why the hours faded away this fast.

Time is such a delicate concept. Something you can’t grasp unless you’re missing it. Yes, time is one of those things you aren’t aware of until the day you realise you don’t have it anymore.

And I think this day has come for me.

Sure, I’ve always complained about how I don’t have enough time to make random things. But today is an entirely different matter. I just realised I haven’t lived for a year. I just kept doing what people wanted – expected – me to. And, well, yes, the whole I-hate-not-having-spare-time situation is part of it, but it was only a very teeny part.

I’m happy though.

Everything I do makes sense. Giving people happiness. Sharing. Working. Having fun. But somehow it feels different.

Maybe I’ve just become an adult. A lovingly crazy adult, that is; but adult nonetheless.

By the way, are adults allowed to eat ice cream sandwiches now and then?

Gosh, thank you. Can’t believe I once saw adults as austere beings. If only I knew back then, that one can have the life one dreams about.

Brownies-like cookies en ice cream sandwich au chocolat et à la banane

Okay, so let’s get this off right away. I did not make this luscious banana and chocolate chunk ice cream. I wish I had, but I’m the sad owner of a non-turbine-à-glace. Read: please somebody buy me an ice cream machine.

The inexpensive ones don’t fit in my tiny freezer and the huge ones… well, I just seem not to be able to keep six hundred euros long enough for me to rush to Darty and get myself the most prized and loved Magimix.

Anyway, this is mostly a recipe for cookies. Killer cookies that taste and feel like brownies. I love them. Day and night. But I have to admit, I love them even more with ice cream sandwiched in between two of them.

To me, the perfect ice cream conveyor. Cookies that make me wish ice cream sandwiches were more popular in France than they currently are. Maybe one day.

I assume you guessed from the lack of content around here that I’ve been somewhat busy. And well, you’re just damn right. I haven’t been cooking – or more accurately baking – much lately.

I sure have been making myself lovely meals: from pink-hello-kitty-bento-packed lunches to warm and comforting dinners. But baking, ahem, not really. Aside from delicious fudgy brownies of which only the scraps were photographed, that is.

But yesterday, as I was redesigning fanny (previously known as je suis une cacahuète), I definitely felt the urge to nibble on something sweet yet delicate. Lindt milk chocolate being anything but delicate, I put my laptop down for the first time in the past couple of hours and headed to the kitchen.

Butter had been let at room temperature all day (I must have subconsciously known I was about to use later in the day). Icing sugar quietly sat on the shelf, along with flour. A dozen of day-fresh eggs were waiting for me in the fridge; next to my preciously kept jar filled with fat vanilla beans. And, almost unnoticed, matcha green tea was at the far end of my beautiful antique wood counter.
It only took me a second before I knew what I was going to make. Kelli’s green tea shortbreads.

I might have only made them once – for the second birthday of foodbeam – but damn, I got hooked. And so did many bloggers. It’s funny because it took me quite some time to get around and make Kelli’s recipe, which got posted on lovescool back in May, last year. But soon after I made them, it reminded all the people who had bookmarked the recipe to actually make it. And well, you know the rest of the story.

Since then, I made appoint to cook more from other blogs. Quite evidently, this didn’t happen, but well, I am bookmarking like crazy. Just check my tumblr blog and you’ll grasp the full scale of my craziness. Anyway, this time around I didn’t make them plain – oh you had guessed that already? from the pictures? damn, I’m bad at creating the surprise. So well I did experiment, with Sarah’s peppermint cookies well in mind.

Now two things. 1/ Don’t they look super pretty? 2/ French nonpareils don’t taste good.
The sables themselves were absolutely perfect – but that’s totally what you would expect from one of Kelli’s recipe. As for the nonpareils. Well, pretty, but not delicious.

Sablés escargots à la vanille et au thé vert
Adapted from Kelli’s green tea sweets.

As said above those sablés are really delicious. But if you’re planning on making them, I would suggest leaving out the nonpareils, which – at least in France – don’t taste good. Unless you’re making them for children, but I doubt they would appreciate the green tea flavour; or maybe I’m just wrong and they’d love it – I mean green cookies. Green. Cookies. Yeah!
You could also make the sables plain, by increasing the tea to one and a half tablespoon, instead of the one tablespoon the recipe calls for.

Pâte feuilletée [puff pastry] is one of those things that people don’t make, ahem, very often. You might, which you should be blessed for; but so far, I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t rely on store-bought puff pastry. I guess this is okay for most of us; I have to admit that whenever I have a tart craving and no time to make puff pastry, I prefer to quickly put a simple pâte brisée together and get on with the filling comme si de rien était.

However, come over on a Sunday morning and you’re likely to find me making pâte feuilletée. I just love to make puff pastry, see the beautiful cream-white layers come to life, fold the smooth dough. Oh yeah, this is good people and you should try. But if I’m being totally honest, the best thing I like about making puff pastry is to eat what I make with the scraps. You know, those little ribbons of dough that get cut during the making process: after the dough has been rolled and before folding, I trim the far ends of the dough so it looks like a proper rectangle.

Oh I know what you’re thinking. Those little buggers look totally unpretentious. Sure they have that lovely golden-brown colour, that endearing caramel aroma, but well, in the end they’re simply bâtonnets of puff pastry. But you’re oh so wrong.

Those people, are the unfussy* version of the fancy palmiers. Think crispy layers of sweet and caramelised puff pastry, which rank them quite high amongst my favourites. High enough for me to forget about my original tart cravings, which slowly morphes into roches carbonatées caramelisées du Carbonifère cravings as I roll and fold.
And in case you didn’t get it, I did name them caramelised Carboniferous carbonate rocks, for they look nowhere near a palm tree, but marine limestone beds, well, that will do. Quite obviously their name comes from the day I spent studying, or more accurately: procrastinating, for the oral de géologie I was supposed to take the next day by making pâte feuilletée and the so-called, feuilletés comme des roches carbonatées du Carbonifère.

* not that palmiers are difficult to make. They actually take the same time to be shaped, but just look different. Plus, since the folding is done in a different way, the palmier tend to expand horizontally; while those presque-palmiers grow vertically, which I really like.

Since those cookies are made from the scraps, this is anything but a recipe; more a sort of guideline to follow. Simply use plety of sugar and make sure the scraps of dough you start with are fridge-cold before beginning.

You preheat the oven to 240°C and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
You then dust your work plan with a good handful of golden sugar, pile the cold scraps of pâte feuilletée and finely roll them out. Dust the dough with more sugar and fold into three – just like you would do with a business letter. Roll out again, dust with sugar and fold.
You finally roll the dough into a half a centimetre thick* rectangle that’s about 10cm-wide and slice this into 1.5cm bâtonnets. Reduce the oven temperature to 190°C and bake until well puffed and golden, I’d say around 15-20 minutes.* if using proper finished puff pastry instead of scraps, roll the pastry way thinner, like 1 or 2 mm thick, or your presque-palmiers will grow tall then fall on the side in a twisted-style.

If after reading this you don’t need to make pâte feuilletée – that is just for having the chance to bite into one of those -, then I would suggest you pay your doctor a visit. By the way, this is totally a teaser for the pâte feuilletée 101 that will come later this week.

I would have preferred a guinea pig.
Those were my first words when my mother told me she was pregnant. As an eight year-old single child, the anticipation of having a sister – or even worse, a brother – was a rather dreadful thought.
However, as years went by, I got used to the idea. And today there is hardly anything or anyone I love more than Aïda, the sweetest sister ever. Not even my awesome boyfriend – or more accurately lack of boyfriend-awesomeness (blond guy who works a Kusmi, find me and my number, and call me); not even my Kitchen Aid stand-mixer. Yes, she totally rocks this much.
So basically, when she asked if she could have her own column on foodbeam, we both got somewhat excited. She chose a recipe. From Pierre Hermé – just another evidence of her innate terrific-ness.
Sure, at the exact moment I write this, she’s being plain annoying and makes me wish I would actually have had a guinea pig instead; hopefully, she’ll soon turn back into the great sister she is most of the time :)

Anyway, let’s move on to the sablés. Rich little pieces of butter and chocolate (and quite obviously, flour, sugar and egg white as well). The recipe, which comes from Pierre Hermé’s Mes desserts au chocolat, should make 65 sablés. What we didn’t know is how small they’re supposed to be; clearly we ended with around 30 chunky biscuits.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Line two baking sheets with baking paper. And get all the ingredients ready:
- 260g flour
- 30g cocoa powder
- 250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
-100g icing sugar
- 3tbsp whipped egg whites (use 2 eggs and spoon out 3tbsp)

You can prepare your piping bag at the same time.

In a large bowl, combine the flour and cocoa powder, until no white or brown streaks remain.

Cream the butter using an electric whisk, until fluffy. It must be very soft, almost cloud like.

Fold in the sugar and a pinch of salt.

Separate two eggs, keeping the white only (save the yolks for another use – pastry cream, yum!).

Whisk the egg whites until frothy. And fold three tablespoons of them into the butter mixture.

Mix in the flour and cocoa powder and stir with a spoon until just incorporated. The dough should be sort of lumpy.

Not too lumpy though. Keep in mind that it’ll be piped.

Fill the prepared piping bag with the dough, pushing down to get rid of the air.

Pipe small Ss (however, Ws would be prettier). And bake in the preheated oven fo 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack. When cool, keep in an airtight box for up to one week.

To me, nothing feels as comforting as the perfumes that always filled my great grandmother’s house. That slight musky scent from the thin layer of dust, which used to cover the bibelots that sat on the wooden shelves. Those green, almost lemongrass-like, notes – most certainly la verveine [verbena herbal-tea] she had before going to bed every night after a perfectly cooked meal washed down with a glass of red wine and some squares of bitter chocolate.
We used to get on so well. Me, the 8 year-old and her, still glowing after 85 years of a forceful life. I miss her. And her fragrance; at least, the fragrance I think about whenever Mémé comes to my mind. A pungent aroma; a combination of caramel, floral honey and almonds. Les florentins.

I loved to spend the day with her. I would watch her knitting or stitching the beautiful table cloth she later offered to my mum. After lunch, she would start making some sweet treats for le goûter; whether it was some gauffres, crêpes or sablés. But, really, nothing could beat her florentins.
She always started by making a caramel with sugar and honey, then deglazing it with full-fat cream. She would toast some roughly chopped blanched almonds, add them to the golden-brown caramel, and pour this over a thin layer of pâte sablée. I can remember the countless times when I burnt myself by trying to pick some of the piping hot almond and caramel mixture with my fingers. Patience has never been one of my virtues; definitely never.

She’s gone for seven years now and yet I hadn’t found the courage to make her florentins. But well, sometimes life pushes you and before you realise it you’re doing something you never thought yourself capable of.
One day, still an intern at Pierre Hermé Paris, as I arrived to the laboratoire, I was told by Guilhem ‘aujourd’hui, on fait les florentins‘ [today, we'll make florentins]. This was my fate after all. So I made florentins. And tasted them. The happy memories brought by the first bite made my day. I wasn’t sad. It just felt natural. As if I had been rewarded for those seven years of patience during which I didn’t make or eat florentins. Trust me, those were tough years. Make them and wonder how I managed to resist for so long. Mémé je t’aime fort.

Les florentins de mon arrière grand-mère
Adapted from Mémé’s recipe and inspired from Pierre Hermé’s process.

My great grandmother’s florentins’ recipe is quite close to Pierre Hermé (I’m just she would have jumped from joy if she knew it). However, she didn’t use orange peels and obviously didn’t need a thermometer, which I certainly couldn’t do without. But then, she could make candied chestnuts – something I tried and screwed during the holidays.
She also used coarsely chopped almonds while I decided to go for sliced almonds, just because they look pretty.

Regarding the steps, none of them is difficult. You simply have to make sure to spread the caramel and almond mixture quickly enough so it doesn’t get all sticky. The key is to work fast on a hot pastry crust. If this sounds intimidating to you, you can toast the almonds slightly before incorporating them to the caramel so its temperature doesn’t drop too much.

Sometimes, our lives get so busy that we forget about how beautiful it is to live; and we can’t even see the lovely things that surround us.
Call it the side effect of our super-exciting way-of-life full of crazy experiments and adventures; I just think it’s sad and find necessary to take a break from time to time to admire all the random petites choses that I usually disregard. It is a fantastic feeling when you realise how so little can make you so happy.

Today, I didn’t have one – but three – of these wonderful moments. The ones that truly matter.
The first one occurred around 4.38am. As I was quietly sleeping, I started hearing what is, to me, a divine sound. Raindrops were softly hitting my window, making for the most superb orchestra concert you could ever dream of. Covered with a huge pile of fluffy duvet covers, I coudn’t imagine a more beautiful place to be.

Then, around 7.50am, as I opened my mailbox, I found a package. It came from my favourite girl. Ever. She’s been my friend for years, introduced me to plastic-bottle-biting and tiny fake pastries. Une fille en forme de fée. She made a small felt pochette [pouch] with apparent stitches. And when I finally got the chance to tell her how happy it made me, we couldn’t help but talk about food. I’m sure they’ll be some good times ahead. I just can’t wait to see her and organise a chic dinner for New Year’s eve. Je t’aime fort mon petit pasteis.

That last *blissful*moment* is happening right now: a laptop on my legs and a chocolate malted whooper drop in my hand.
When I made Dorie’s recipe, I knew it would be good. I mean, have you ever found Dorie’s recipe to be lacking of anything? I haven’t, and suspect that nobody ever has. She is one of those people who make you feel instantly cosy, whether you’re having tea with her or just reading of her books. That’s why everyone loves her. But more than that, her recipes are terrific and always work. Thank you Dorie for making my day special.

Cookies au chocolat et aux maltesers
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: from my home to yours.

Maltesers are the European version of Whoopers and trust me, they’re very yummy. So imagine how wonderful they are when combined with a moist malted chocolate cookie dough and chunks of milk chocolate.

These are some great cookies – or as Dorie calls them -, drops and will make everyone happy. The maltesers had some crunch to an otherwise smooth and fudgy biscuit.
The dough almost has the same texture than frosting and to make things easy, you just have to spoon and drop it onto your lined baking sheet.

I decided to slightly underbake my cookies (10 minutes instead of the suggested 12). Well, the girl likes her dough raw.

Remember the day when I said I would write about my internship at Pierre Hermé’s pâtisserie on a weekly basis? Well, I seem to have forgotten that last part: weekly basis…
I have to admit I’ve been doing really bad. Out of ten terrific weeks, I managed to write two articles. Just two.

I had high hopes though. I intented to tell you about how I got to taste the bûches de Noël and new macarons months before their official release at the palace Crillon. I also meant to write about the awesome two weeks I spent au tour, making doughs, pâtes feuilletées, sucrées et à foncer*.
Oh those two weeks…certainly the best at Pierre Hermé Paris. It is probably where I learnt the most, but my sweetest memory has nothing to do with the techniques Guilhem taught me. Three words: sablés aux olives.
I think I spent hours (and yes, I do mean hours) cutting out 5,5cm-wide disks out of the amazingly smooth yet speckled with crushed black olives dough. The pâte à sablés was so fragrant that as soon as I took it out of the fridge, it filled the room with a strong and delightful olive perfume.
The dough was then rolled, détaillée, arranged into small silicon moulds and baked. Possibly the best cookies I’ve ever had: sweet yet pleasantly salty and perfectly short-textured.

I left Paris with one obsession: making those cookies at home. And so did I. Once, then twice… As you can imagine they quickly became my go-to recipe.

* I promise I’ll try to whip up some posts about those weeks ate Pierre Hermé Paris.

Sablés aux olives noires comme chez Pierre Hermé
Adapted from Pierre Hermé and Julie Andrieu’s Confidences sucrées

I recently bought Pierre Hermé’s new cookbook, co-written with French food writer Julie Andrieu and it appears to be a great book.
Pierre Hermé reveals some of his signature recipes: macarons passion, tarte tango, cake ispahan or sablés aux olives noires; just to name a few.

The recipe for the sablés is the same as the one used at the laboratoire, but is so straightforward that you can easily make it at home.
First, you start by hard-boiling an egg. This might seem weird to you, but you’re only gong to keep the hard yolk, finely grate it and incorporate it into the dough. The use of cooked egg yolk is traditional in Alsace and gives a light and crisp texture.
Then you mix the butter, olive oil and sugar, in which the egg yolk goes. Finally, to rapidly fold in the flour and starch, and crushed black olives.

The key is to mix the dough just until it comes together. Then you have to work fast: roll it and chill overnight. Pierre Hermé suggests refrigerating the dough before rolling it out; but I always find it too hard to roll when too cold; so I chose to roll the dough just after it’s been made, taking care not to overwork it.

At the laboratoire, the sablés are baked in small silicon moulds. Sadly, I don’t have any at home so I went for my muffin tins and it makes wonders. I guess you could also bake them on a lined baking sheet, they just wouldn’t be as regular-looking.

The recipe can easily be halved; just make sure you don’t overwork the dough and you’ll be just fine.