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.

If at times, nature compels us to slow down, I must admit I was slightly surprised when I saw the first lemons on my parents’ tree.

Lemons in september feels like eating strawberries around Christmas time for me.

But well, the little guys were hanging out in the tree and my sister’s favourite dessert in the whole entire huge universe is lemon meringue tart.

So I took this as an opportunity to remind you how lovely Pierre Hermé’s recipe is. This time around I just changed the crust for my new go-to recipe which seems to be easier to work with – which in my world means no shrinkage during baking (the one thing I dread the most in pastry).

Basically, you can make the dough and lemon crémeux a day – or three – in advance, and when you’re ready for THE tart, simply bake blind the shell and fill it with the smooth and tangy cream.

Whip up a nice and soft meringue italienne, pile it on the tart and burn with a châlumeau [blow-torch] or failing that the grill of your oven (something I’ve realised I’m not good with, burnt tart anyone?).

And trust me when I tell you I’m doing you a favour by writing down the ingredient list so you can just print it, go shopping and come back at home only to make the most delicious lemon tart you could ever dream of.

When it comes to the dough, the process is exactly the same as the one I described over there. Except thet ingredient list is different: less butter, more almonds and a tad more icing sugar make for the most perfect dough ever. Easy to work with, it will have a very deep aroma when baked. Just make sure you don’t get it out from the oven before it has the nicest shade of golden-brown.

As with most doughs, this recipe will yield to more than what you actually need for one tart. But I suggest you divide it into 3 to 4 pieces and wrap them in clingfilm. Then you can freeze them for as long as a month or two, and go back to your freezer every time you will need some.

Quite evidently, we also made cake. This cake to be precise. Because it is the best lemon cake. Because it’s soft and fragrant. Because it will keep for days. And mostly, because we need no excuse to make – and more generally, eat – cake.

This time, I used T110, which is a fine semi-whole wheat flour. I’m not sure it’s widely available outside of France, but I suggest you try making a tant-pour-tant using plain and whole-wheat flours.
What I love about this flour is the lovely aromas – deep and hearthy – that balances the tanginess of the cake and the sweetness of the soaking syrup.

As a matter of fact, I first intended to top the cake with a thick citrus and earl grey glaze, but ran out of icing sugar so syrup it became.
Whether you want to go for a glaze or a syrup, you simply need to heat the lemon juice to 70°C, infuse it with the tea for two or three minutes, then pour onto the icing sugar slowly.

I drenched the cake with it as soon as I got it out of its tin and it created the most perfect layer of fresh lemon flavour.

And since this post is too long already, maybe I should add a couple of things.

ONE. I would love to hear your suggestions for upcoming articles.
What would you like to see on foodbeam? Is there a specific French technique you would love to learn?

TWO. I’m thinking of putting a F.A.Q. post together. I find them so fun to do. So anything you’d like to ask!

THREE. I hope you don’t mind my current REmakes of old recipes. To be honest, I really enjoy writing them (and photographing them with my pentax ME). To me, it’s all about: 1) highlighting some of the very best pastries around and 2) showing you new techniques/ingredients.

OK, I’m done now. So do ask your questions in the comments below and tell me what you want to see here! x

It seems we made brownies. Yes those brownies.

In between sleeping on the beach, sipping through Pastis glasses, finding a name for the small pâtisserie I will own – one day – in France, buying heaps of vintage things at a vide-grenier, and spending time with my favourite person in the world – namely, my sister.

And well, the brownies are as good as ever. So please, if you haven’t done so yet, run to your kitchen and make a batch.
And keep in mind you can switch caster sugar for demerara or light brown. As delicious, and perhaps even better.

Now, I’m rushing to pack my suitcase as I’m heading on the west side.

But stay still, I have two recipes with apple coming – as in terrine of baked apple, some crisp cinnamon crumble, and an apple and walnut strudel – and one with white chocolate.

Who said autumn is just around the corner? I do think it’s time to forgive the winter. Soon.

Whenever I’m stuck in a kitchen, where all I have on hands are a couple of Pyrex bowls, a hand-held mixer, and an oven; well, I must admit I feel a bit lost.

Now, this might be a common statement, but I haven’t spent much time in a home kitchen – let alone made pastries in a home kitchen – for the past eleven months.

It’s not that I don’t like pâtisserie anymore.

In fact, I’ve never been so smitten with it as I am right now. It’s just that I get to have my daily fix every day, at the pâtisserie Lac.

But when – the much needed – holidays came I, all of sudden, started to make things. Over and over. At home, or to be more accurate, at my grand-parents’ house.

Read: I cut out the bottoms of metal cans to make cercles. I used baking paper instead of rhodoid. I whipped cream with a hand-held mixer. And I probably did many more unusual – at least for the pâtissière I’ve become – things I couldn’t even describe.

By the end of the week, I had a nice collection of homemade pastries: a fondant au chocolat, strawberry meringues, a tiramisu, fruit focaccias, and a raspberry charlotte.

Charlottes are one of those desserts I will never get tired of.

Think of it. Their endless customisation make them the most versatile entremets you could dream of.

The one I made during my off-time certainly don’t look perfect. Store-bought biscuits cuillère, and visible mousse. There, I’ve said enough.

FAIL.

In fact, a proper berry charlotte should: 1. use homemade biscuits, and 2. have plenty of fruits piled on top.

A little like the charlotte below that I made a couple of weeks ago, on the same day my camera decided to fall in love with error 99, and thus, let me down.

Hence the nasty pictures. Oh, I did cry on that day.

And then, I escaped to Fouras.

With its many flowers, endless bike promenades and a garden office (more appropriately, a table, a chair and a huge umbrella, right at the end of the garden = the only place I could access the internet from).

There, the neighbour was sweet enough to let my sister and I pick raspberries from the bushes she grows.

As soon as I graced ny lips with one of those plump berries, I felt like I had never tasted a real raspberry before.

Juicy. Sweet. Flavoursome.

And made a charlotte aux framboises with them. 

So simple it hurts. So good it hurts too. I have to confess that it’s sometimes nice to feel hurt, doesn’t it?

Charlotte aux framboises et au fromage blanc
This is a slightly more elaborate version of the charlotte that is part of one of my earliest food memories. I love to make this during summer while plenty of berries are available, but it also make a good winter dessert. Think pears.

If fromage blanc isn’t available where you live, just use plain live yoghurt instead.

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.