Believe it or not, but I’ve made pâte à choux twice in the past couple of days; and nope, no flat little choux buns were involved. This might not sound special; but trust me – if you’re unaware of my choux-bun-helplessness – it is.

Choux pastry is something I love to make. I mean don’t you dream about not feeling your own arm anymore, because you’ve just beaten three whole eggs into a thickish dough, which tends to split as you do so? Come on! Admit it, you love it too.
Well, I do. But choux buns. Oh no; these definitely don’t love me back. They probably even hate me; and that’s a massive understatement.

We all know how the story ends. On a random day, I decide to overcome this feeling, persuading myself that choux buns do actually love me. After all, there just made of flour, milk, water, salt, butter and – breathe – eggs.
So, yes, I make pâte à choux. It looks sleek and pretty, and has the most wonderful smell. I gently pipe it onto a lovely baking sheet. And bake. And cry.

During my whole life, I might have gotten choux buns right once or not twice. Not a single time more. So well, after giving up for a year, I made it again. Thanks to the NY Times magazine – yeah, finally a two-way relationship!

When I spotted the recipe for herbed fritters, my heart felt quite excited. How could fromage blanc and chives folded into pâte à choux then fried could taste bad? And, perhaps more importantly, how could I possibly failed that?
Frying. This is like totally different from baking. Three different letters, and a couple of litres of oil later, I found myself dropping little balls of the most beautiful dough ever into some bubbling greasiness. It felt good. Quite dangerous –yes – but I’m wild and fearless, so that doesn’t count.

Anyway, since I got such terrific results, I decided to love the NY Times even more. And even got the idea to make one recipe from it every week. Oh, I know, those don’t looks as yummy as the frosted cake and luscious tart I got you used to; but well, they pretty much have the same calorie content!

Choux croustimoelleux au fromage blanc et à la ciboulette
Adapted from the NY Times.

This is quite straightforward a recipe. If you know how to make pâte à choux, then you’re done. And it happens to actually be true as well if you don’t know a thing about choux.

You first make the pâte à choux. Heat the milk, water and butter together, then throw in the flour and salt in one go. Now using a wooden spoon, mix the dough like mad until it forms a ball. Finally mix in the eggs, one at a time. Here I have a couple of things to add: 1) you needn’t a stand mixer, keep using your wooden spoon. And 2) you might not need the entire third egg, so what I advise you to do is to crack it into a small bowl, mix it with a fork until smooth and slowly pour half ot it onto the dough. If it feels right, add more. If not, throw the remaining egg mixture away.

Once the dough is made, it should be used immediately, so I can only recommend heating the oil before you even start making the dough.
Making the fritters is just a matter of folding: some fromage blanc – which you can substitute with ricotta, a handful of chopped chives, and freshly ground pepper.

Then comes the frying. Be careful. I decided to pipe the dough into the hot*hot oil. Basically, I filled my piping bags with the dough, squeezed it over the oil and cut it – using my tiny pair of scissors – to form little balls.
Oh and yes, while I’m at it. I don’t own a thermometer that goes high enough in temperature, so I just rely to the dip-it test; i.e. spoon a little of the dough and se it it pops up and float. If it does, the oil is hot enough; falling that just wait for an extra couple of minutes before trying again.

As you might have not guessed from yesterday non-post, I’m not ill anymore. I did spend most of the day sleeping, but the evening was put to use for some beaujolais nouveau celebration.
And what’s better with some really bad wine that some equally good bread.

I used my favourite bread recipe, which I tweaked in order to get some soft and flavourful small breads.

I divided the dough into 6 small balls, got on with one of them, while I put the other to rest, covered with a cloth.

The ball is then flattened with the palm of my hands. In the centre of that disk of lovely elastic dough, I placed a teaspoon of a mix of:
- butter
- cooked shallots
- chopped parsley
- salt and freshly ground white pepper

I really enjoyed closing the ball; it’s like a nest of pure yumminess.

There you go. I told you it was going to be quick and easy.

The final step consists in shaping the ball again so they’re all round and smooth. Proof the breads until they have doubled in size and bake as explained in the simple white bread recipe (just dust some flour on the breads before they go into the oven).

I definitely took the easy-way here, but please, people, I urge you to do the same. I know I’ve already praised Dan Lepard’s white bread last week. But well, it’s that good. And the addition of perfumed butter is fantastic. Fragrant, moist innards. Soft crumb. Crisp golden crust.
Be an easy rider. Make these petits pains.

Before I start I should warn you. When I’m sick, I love to complain. And well, as my body temperature has now reached 39.7°C, I guess I wouldn’t be wrong if I said I am indeed ill. For the third time in less than a month.
I’m really starting to wonder where the heck my lucky-start has gone.
Note: you, yes you know who you are, who have stolen *my* star. Please bring it back. Right now.

Does anyone care about the fact that I’m so sick I can’t move from my bed (only slightly exaggerating here)? Hmmm not really. I know you want sophisticated desserts. And eye-catching entremets. And sweet tarts. And fluffy cakes. And trust me, I want them too. But right now only soups and savoury comfort food seem to be right. Foodbeam might turn into soupbeam. How yummy is that?

Today, while the pain killers were slowly making their job – giving me a couple of hours of relied, I made what appeared to be the best for me. Something with honey. To soothe my sore throat, you know. Something with rosemary. Known, along with thyme, as being a natural anti-bacterial agent. Something with cheese. Just because I love cheese.
It was good. And I’m sure that if I could smell, I would have referred to it as great. I might have to taste it again later during the week, when I’ll finally be better (although, I’m so pessimist right now that I feel like it’s never going to end – never).

By chance, the cake – or loaf cake, in correct English – was a doodle to make. The egg whites are whipped. The egg yolks, honey, butter, rosemary and flour are mixed. The egg whites are folded in. The cheese is eaten and what remains is incorporated into the batter. The loaf is baked and left to cool. The loaf is good.

Cake au miel, romarin et gorgonzola
Adapted from Elle à table.

This loaf is moist and flavourful. Egg whites, baking powder and baking soda are used as leaveners. But its fluffiness mostly comes from the egg whites, so you should take care to whip them until they for firm peaks.
The recipe calls for gorgonzola, but I decided to use gorgonzola-mascarpone cheese since that’s what I had in my fridge. But to be honest, I do think it added pleasing creaminess without cutting too much on the flavour.
The honey isn’t too noticeable. Just enough to bring a great contrast with the saltiness of the cheese.
As you can see from the picture, my loaf quickly became dark on top. SO do not hesitate to cover it with foil after 30 minutes.

Inspired by Anne and adaptated from The Cook’s Book (p.458)

Well, I know I said I would update foodbeam more often but it seems I’m so busy at the moment that I barely have time to eat; thus you can imagine how much time I spend cooking – definitely not a lot.
Soooo how a foodaholic (who said greedy?) like me can almost stop cooking/baking? There are multiple answers; but in my case the answer is: an internship at Pierre Hermé’s pastry shop.
Don’t get me wrong! I do love every single second I spend in the laboratoire. Actually, I do even enjoy waking up at 4.30am. It’s just that the French saying metro-boulot-dodo makes full sense to me now.
Indeed, I feel like I am this saying.
I wake up – take the RER and tube to Pierre Hermé’s Vaugirard pastry shop – work – go back to my flat (ideally located in the first arrondissement) – sleep for a couple of hours – check my emails and feeds – go to bed – wake up – take the RER…
However over the last two days, I was put in the afternoon team (yep, the *macarons* one), which means I didn’t start working until 2pm. So guess how I spent my morning?
That’s where we come to the main subject of this article: a yummy and fragrant garlic bread.

A little more than a week ago, I spotted a lovely bread at Beau à la louche – one of my favourite French blogs; it was a beautifully folded bread in which you find pesto between each layer of dough. Simple, effective, gorgeous.
So I decided to make it, only I replaced the pesto with some herbed butter. And as you can imagine it was delicious.

The first step is to make the dough and beurre persillé (see recipes below).

Then you roll the dough into a rectangle just over 5mm thick.

You can now spread a third of the herbed butter over the rolled dough.

And fold in three ( like a business letter).

Top with a third of butter and fold again in three – still in the width (so that the length of your bread remains the same between the forth and fifth steps).

Spread the remaining butter and fold in two (in the length).

Do the same with the other three balls of dough.

Eat!

Pains à l’ail et au persil
This bread is really fragrant. The beurre persillé [litteraly parlsey-ish butter] difuses through the bread; keeping ot moist and flavourful.
This bread is lovely served with a salad made of roasted/grilled mediterannean vegetables.