Tag: almond

What about la galette des rois???

If there is one traditional food I don’t care much about it’s the Epiphany kings’ galette, the “galette des rois”. Whether the brioche or the frangipane, I don’t care much about them. Not that I dislike them but I don’t like them either. They are not part of my must-eat food. And since I am bad at making puff pastry, that’s even easier to forget about it… but this year IG was covered with galettes and though I was insensitive to them A. wasn’t… and he asked me why we never have galette though he loves it so much!

What???? Why on earth would you wait more than 20 years to tell me???

How could I have not imagined he would love galette. He who doesn’t like almonds but loves calisson and financiers, he who doesn’t love butter but loves croissants and brioches… of course he loves galette… of course I ignored that…

Well then… I took all the courage it takes to make an attempt at puff pastry when I have failed so often.

So here I am folding and rolling and turning every hour my puff pastry by the book, hoping it will become something… probably because of the cold temperature inside it is not as tedious as I remembered, and no butter spill.

For the frangipane I used a standard recipe: almond powder plenty, 1 egg, a bit of sugar and a tiny bit of butter, stirred into a dense pomade.

The rest is just simple. I decided for a square galette, rolled one layer of dough, topped with frangipane, leaving enough room to close it. Rolled another layer of dough to put on top, sealed the borders well. Paint an egg batter. Made a little seasonal drawing: blooming camellia japonica as we have so many in the garden, and 30min at 200deg. Until just golden. A. couldn’t wait any longer!!!

The result was surprisingly delicious. It didn’t have the sticky sugary top it too often has in shops, it was not too sweet, actually very nice, and the puff pastry worked well! Beginner’s luck!!!

Kwarezimal, my way

When we decided to go to Malta last winter I didn’t know what to expect… the history of the island is so much different than this of the neighbouring places such as Sicily and Greece… I imagined that the landscapes and the culture would overwhelm me with beauty and mystery but I didn’t expect that the Maltese food would have such a strong impact on me and on my cooking. More than the food, in general, it’s been breads, pastries and sweets that completely bewitched me. The mix of spices: clove and cinnamon more than any, the citrus fruits, the almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts, the dates, figs and honey… well I am still under the charm and cloves have made their way back to my pantry. When we were in Valetta our friends had in mind to test many of the pastizzi, so we stopped at several places to taste some and ended up rather full, but the kids didn’t seem that full, or the adults eat all the pastizzi and left nothing to them… ??? and so when after hours of walking up and down the city we stopped at caffe Cordina, they ordered some sweets. A. ordered Kwarezimal. At first, I wasn’t much interested in them but after a pause, my appetite was back and when she offered me to try I couldn’t resist. The small pastries attracted me, with the crushed nuts topping and the promise of a taste of honey. And yes, as soon as I had a piece in my mouth, there was something else on my to-do list of things to bake when back home. The one thing special at caffe Cordina is that their Kwarezimal is made from hazelnut powder and all the recipes I found afterwards were made with almond powder. The good point for me, it’s that it is a lot easier to find almond powder than hazelnut powder in Tokyo, the bad point is that the Kwarezimal I made didn’t match my experience at caffe Cordina, but it’s a good reason to try again with hazelnut powder, would I find some!

None the less the almond base treat was truly delicious. I used a combination of recipes I found on the internet to make my Kwarezimal and I was very happy with the results. Having eaten Kwarezimal only once in my life I cannot claim that they were true to the Maltese taste, but at least taste-wise and texture-wise it was delicious. So let me share my recipe here because not only it is delicious but it is super simple to make and vegan: no butter, no egg and no yeast or baking powder… I think it could easily become an energy bar for active days!

Kwarezimal (makes 8 pieces)

– 150g of almond powder (or hazelnut powder)

– 100g of flour

– 60g of brown sugar

– 1tsp of orange blossom flower

– 1tsp of cocoa powder

– 1tsp of cinnamon

– 1tsp of clove

– 1/2tsp of cardamom

– the zest of half an orange or any other citrus fruit

For the topping:

– a handful of crushed pistachio

– some zest of citrus fruit

– 3tsp of honey

Pre-heat the oven to 180 while mixing all the ingredients (but those for the topping) together. Add a bit of water if needed until you obtain a very dense and not too sticky dough. Cut in 8 and make oblong shapes slightly flatten on top (easier for the topping!). Set on cooking paper in the oven for 20minutes. As soon as out of the oven, spread the honey on top of each Kwarezimal, sprinkle the crushed nuts and zest. Let cool down before enjoying (it’s hard to wait, it smells so good!!!!!).

Almond sables

When there are so many delicious fruits to eat it’s nice to have a few biscuits to go with. Usually with summer fruits I like to prepare simple sablés. This time: almond sablés with a recipe I found browsing some magazines online. The sugar sprinkles really attracted me because I had some I use for frosting some time ago and it needed to be finished before the rainy season makes it unusable. So I went for it… and it was much much better than anything I expected. So here is the recipe.

Almond sablés for 30 bite-size pieces

– 140g of flour

– 100g of butter (at room temperature makes it easier to knead)

– 60g of almond powder

– 30g of sugar

– a bit of icing sugar for the finish

Mix all the ingredients (but the icing sugar) together to obtain a smooth dough. Pull chucks and make small balls that you gently squeeze into a flat and thick coins and arrange on a baking plate greased or with cooking paper. Bake for 15 to 20 min at 160 deg. Sprinkle icing sugar… it’s ready to enjoy!!!

Sweetness for cold afternoon

Not only it’s rainy… which is normal for the rainy season, but it’s super cold. With not more than 15degrees today, we could neither play tennis with that rain, nor go swimming in the ocean with that cold… The arcade and at the batting center kept us active for an hour but then we had to admit that reading at home was the only option… and cooking was obviously a good alternative. I pulled out from the shell my old “fall baking” magazine and was in the rare enough mood for some rich recipes to go with a hot chai. I stopped on a recipe of spicy cake with a coconut and walnut caramel topping. I decided to try, but since I had neither coconut or walnuts I replaced them by almond powder and almond slices. The recipe frightened me a bit with the quantities of sugar and butter so I reduced them a bit (a lot)… and the result was really rich and suited perfectly the chai! So here is the recipe.

Spicy cake with almond caramel

For the cake:

– 1.3 cup of flour

– 2/3 cup of sugar

– 1/4 cup of butter

– 1 tbs of baking powder

– 1 tsp of baking soda

– 1 tbs of nutmeg

– 1 tbs of cardamom

– 1 egg

– a bit of vanilla

For the almond caramel topping:

– 1/2 cup of almond powder

– 2/3 cup of sliced almonds

– 10g of butter

– 1/3 cup milk

– 2 tbs os sugar

First mix all the ingredients for the cake and stir well. Bake in a greased baking pan at 180deg for 30min.

In a small pan mix all the ingredients of the caramel. Cook at medium heat and stir once in a while until bubbling and browning. Top the baked cake with the almond mix. Eat when cool.

Muesli pancakes

Since A. is away, I was thinking of having muesli and fruits for breakfast, so I stopped by the supermarket last night to buy some nuts muesli and some soya milk. But then this morning I was up at 6:15 and decided that after a bit of workout I would rather eat pancakes. So basically I prepared my muesli in a large bowl, covered it with soya milk, added a mix powder of black sesame, almond and kinako (grilled soya beans), add 2tbs of flour, a bit of baking powder and stirred well. Then cooked on both sides in a frypan. Finished with my uncle’s honey, added a kiwi sliced and I got a delicious breakfast, or rather two! Because I prepared a bit too much… I so much used to cook for two people… it’s hard to be alone!

Carrot soup and almond cake

Carrots and tomatoes could both be on top of my favorite food and favorite infredients. I love how it is easy to prepare them in many different ways, raw, grilled, simmered, in puree, sauce, with herb, just with salt… I could continue endlessly the list of options they offer. Yet, I don’t think it is easy to find delicious fresh products after tomatoes pick season in summer, and carrots, which season for the big sweet ones is now on, are often too hard and a little bitter. So when I find some big, soft, juicy and sweet carrots, I prepare them in the most simplest way: a soup which is just made of carrots and a bit of water, eventually a bit of sea salt and black pepper for the final decoration. Nothing more because the taste is just perfect like this. For two, I used two large carrots, peel them, boil them, blend them, add a bit of water if needed to obtain the preferred consistency. Serve hot or cold.

And because after a long day a soup is just not enough for dinner for us, we need carbs, I prepared a very strange thing that actually was perfect with the carrot soup (I must say that I am a bit in an inventive period now, so I try new recipes I invent on the spot and things have been working pretty well so far!). I made a kind of vegan almond bread, or almond cake:  it’s basically the base recipe of the scones, where I replaced half of the flour by rough almond powder, butter by vegetal oil, sugar by salt (much less though) and milk with soya milk,  and set in a cake pie to bake for 30min at 160deg. It gave a very crumbly bread texture a bit between scones and brioche and the almond taste was perfect with the carrot soup. 

Pear tart “bourdaloue”

It’s been a long time I haven’t made cake or tart. With all the nice pears in the grocery store, I wanted to make one for tea time.  

You need a puff pastry, 4-5 nice pears. spread out the pastry, and put the pears cut in small dices. 

Mix 3 eggs with 3 spoon of brown sugar, 10cl of cream and 20cl of vanilla soy milk. You can add a drop of vanilla. And add 150g of almond powder. Pour this mix on the pears.  

Then 35-40 minutes in hot oven.  

You can add a pinch of slender almond on the top before the end of baking. 

Wait 1h before eating  

Fig tart

There is one thing that I really love in the end of summer it’s figs. It is relatively easy to find beautiful purple figs in Japan and I usually cook them in tart. I use a very traditional and simple recipe with a classic dough sable and an almond powder base with very little sugar. It is always delicious with the crispiness of the dough and the sofness of the figs and the almond powder. I top it with a little of brown caster sugar for the perfect balance. 

Apricot tartelets

Well, I had in mind to finish this zucchini week with a vegan zucchini tart but the weather has been playing against me, it’s the rainy season here in Japan and this year we had very few rain until this week. It’s been raining or rather pouring for the last 5 days so I have trouble finding vegetables at my local shops. On top of that we’ve decided to spend the week-end in Tokyo (museum frenzy and shopping spree) so no local farmers product from Isumi neither. All this to say that I’ve ran out of zucchini without even noticing! So instead of zucchini tart it’s gonna be apricot tart (luckily found some beautiful apricots from Nagano prefecture).

A simple homemade sable dough, an almond puree and vanilla custard, topped with fresh apricots, and blackberry all baked in the oven for 20min. Et voila!

For the zucchini tart, I hope next week I’ll find all I need to prepare it and give you my recipe! Have a nice Sunday!

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