That dish just gets me all excited, it’s just an amazing combination that I will make again and again. I don’t think I can never be tired of eating this.

I call this ratatouille even if it’s not the traditional way to make it. All the ratatouille vegetables are included, but the cooking method is completely different. Roasted rather than stewed, so obviously the texture is different, nonetheless delicious.

When I discovered skyr, I did some research on its use and how to use it in different dishes other than desserts. I found on Siggi‘s website some interesting new ways to use skyr, and that’s where I found the inspiration for this flat bread. I modified it a bit, I only used whole wheat flour, and used more skyr.

Ingredients for 2-3

For the ratatouille

• 4 zucchini, sliced
• 2 large heirloom tomatoes, cut in slices
• 1 red bell pepper, cut in 2 inch pieces
• 1 eggplant, cut in cubes
• 2 celery sticks, sliced
• 1/2 red onion, sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• olive oil

Yogurt sauce

• 1.5 cups goat milk yogurt
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbs mint, finely chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbs lemon juice

For the skyr flat bread (3 pieces)

• 100 gr whole wheat flour
• 140 g skyr
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 ts salt
• olive oil for sprinkling
• Za’atar spices for sprinkling

For the chili-herb oil

• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 2 scallions
• 2 handfuls parsley
• 2 handful mint
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the roasted ratatouille

Heat oven at 420F, in the meantime, place all vegetables on a large tray, add garlic, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix well and roast in the oven until the vegetables are tender and lighly browned, but still firm

For the Skyr bread

In a container, mix all ingredients together and form a homogenous dough (no sticky), if sticky add a bit of flour. Cover and let it rest for 30 min. Divide the dough in four portions, roll each portion to make it round in a ball shape. Using a rolling pin, flatten each ball to a 4 mm thick galette. Heat grill pan, and cook each flat bread on each side until golden brown. Sprinkle with za’atar and olive oil.

For the herb oil

In a blender or mixer, add all ingredients and mix until a smooth mixture (the mixture needs to be smooth with no visible pieces of herb)

Serve roasted ratatouille hot and top it with yogurt sauce, herb oil and a skyr galette,

I decided out of the blue one day to make pain d’épices…I think last time I had one slice I must have been 10 years old. What is pain d’épices? Well it’s another one of those traditional French breads or cake that is popular in Alsace region. It’s literally translated into “spice bread”, simply because it has many spices. It could be an distant ancestor of the Ginger bread, but the French one has no ginger so, I would not even try to compare it to ginger bread.

Pain d’épices is made with honey and rye flour, and no sugar even though some recipes include brown sugar. Of course some recipes vary slightly from one to another; this version has no butter nor oil, so no fat and no eggs. Its consistency is very similar to the one I am used to eating in France…chewy, dense and very flavorful.

The origin of pain d’épices is traced back to ancient times (as far as the Egyptians) and was brought to Europe from China by the Crusades. They brought back the recipe and the spices, It was then spread over Europe during the middle ages, and the first Pain d’Epices called Lebkuchen was found in Germany in 1296. But it’s in Reims in XVII century that the Masters of Pain d’épiciers (Maîtres de pain d’épiciers) were officially recognized by King Henri IV as a specialty company. Reims remained one historical city linked to this bread. Nowadays there are two different kinds of Pain d’épices, the one from Reims made with mainly rye flour and the one from Dijon made with mainly wheat flour. Think that that we have a Museum on Pain d’épices in Alsace, called Musée du Pain d’épice et de l’art populaire Alsacien so that’s a serious deal!

In this recipe I use already packaged spices “épices pour pain d’épices” I bought during my last trip to France, but you can use loose ones, so I will give you the quantities for regular loose spices.

Pain d’épices can be served with savory dishes such as foie gras, or salmon…it can be eaten as is with a cup of hot chocolate, or as a toast with butter and jam, even prepared as a French toast, or combined with fruits in verrines (this will be on my next post). So as you can see its use is quite wide.

I was thinking that for someone with a savory tooth like mine, I did quite a good job with the sweets lately. The beauty of it is that I always share half of my sweet concoctions with my neighbor…otherwise I would break the poor scale. Unfortunately I am not among the lucky ones who can eat anything and remain thin…I have to work at it!! Oh well, maybe in my next life!

Ingredients for one loaf

• 4.4 oz (or 125 g) wholewheat flour
• 4.4 oz (or 125 g) rye flour (you can also use 250 g rye only)
• 7 oz (or 200 g) honey
• 1.7 oz (or 50 g) agave nectar
• 6.7 fl oz (or 200 ml) milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp star anise powder
• 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
• 1/4 tsp clove powder
• 1 tsp orange peel powder (see picture above)

Preparation

In a mixing bowl combine honey, agave nectar and lukewarm milk. Mix well to dissolve the honey. Add flours gradually whisking well to obtain a smooth and homogenous mixture. Add the rest of the ingredients. Place in a bread pan previously buttered and floured to prevent from sticking. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 365-370F for about one hour. Let it cool and serve warm or cold.

My lovely and adorable acupuncturist, Heidi gave me some starter that is supposedly 250 year old, can you imagine? Maybe Thomas Edison ate bread using the same starter…Heidi is amazing, she is not only a sweet and great doctor but she is an excellent baker. So if you need a good acupuncturist, go see Heidi, you will not regret it, she will relax you while giving you tips on how to make great bread!

I have to admit that I don’t consider myself to be a great baker but growing up in France, I am a baguette snob and addict. Eating bad bread in a restaurant can ruin my meal. I tried making baguettes, here and there but I never managed to make bread like the one you get at the boulangerie. I never made bread using a starter before, only fresh yeast. I thought why make bread when you can buy good one. Well, in France you can, almost all the boulangeries make great baguettes, you just walk down the street and get your baguette, end of story. In the US, it’s not always the case but I still didn’t want to go through the trouble of bread making, that’s as simple as that…but always thinking, “oh that would be so great to make my own baguette”…such a conflictual thought!

After buying Tartine’s book called “Tartine Bread” (for those out of town who don’t know Tartine Bakery, it’s a famous bakery in San Francisco whose country bread is simply incredible) and reading some of it, I got once more a little discouraged about all the details and the process in making levain and its bread. So after I got the starter from Heidi, I figured I would use her starter (levain) and use a few ideas taken from Tartine Bread book. I have made baguette using poolish, traditional French baguettes don’t use a starter. Poolish is basically a yeast starter, it’s the same process than a regular starter, but you put same quantities of flour and water, and a little tiny quantity of fresh yeast and let the mixture ferment.

In this baguette, I used half starter and half yeast, so you can taste a little bit of the sour flavor of the starter, but it’s very subtle. I have never really liked sourdough baguettes, I thought the flavor is too strong and the bread too compact, not airy enough..Maybe I am used to the traditional French baguettes…

So if you are in the mood for a long process and are committed to it, go ahead and try this, you will love these baguettes. Kneading and touching soft dough, is even more relaxing than a massage! BUT WARNING….You need to be patient and not in a hurry so this is not for the impatient types. If you have no patience, do not start this process, you might get frustrated. But if you’re up for the challenge, don’t think twice! Crunchy crust, the inside is moist, wonderful nutty flavor…After eating all this bread this weekend with cheese, I will avoid getting on the scale.

Ingredients for 4 baguettes

• 300 g starter (see here for recipe)
• 600 g bread flour
• water
• 2 tsp sea salt

For the poolish

• 200 g water
• 200 g flour
• 10 g fresh yeast (dissolved in lukewarm water)

Preparation

Prepare the poolish the night before. Dissolve yeast in water and in a small container, mix with flour to obtain a smooth and semi-liquid batter. Cover with a towel and let it rise for one hour or two, then place in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, using a large mixing container, mix starter and poolish, then add flour, water and salt. The quantity of water depends on the texture, you need enough water to make the dough soft and slightly sticky. Knead (your hands will have dough sticking to them) for a little while, then let it rest and rise for one hour. Then every 30 minutes, knead the dough lightly to “chase” the air. Repeat the process for 3 hours (every 30 minutes a beating).

Remove dough from container, and cut in 4 equal pieces, add flour to work the dough if necessary. Make rectangle shape dough pieces. Fold dough taking one end folding it up. Repeat the process about 10 times. Form baguettes, place on a baking stone and let rise again for about 2 hours.

Pre-heat oven at 500F, and at the same time, place a small metal container filled with water in the lower level of the oven.

Using a razor blade, make cuts on top of baguettes crosswise.

Place baguettes in oven and cook for about 30 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

I reconciled with cinnamon thanks to Rui, my lovely Japanese neighbor. I decided I didn’t like cinnamon after moving to the US, where cinnamon is used in almost every dessert. I think I had a cinnamon overdose and refused to eat anything where I could taste it. Rui, gave me half a loaf of bread she made even though she said it didn’t turn out very well and was embarrassed to give it to me. I gave her fresh yeast a few days earlier, and she used it making this bread. One thing I never told her is that I don’t eat cinnamon and that I have been on a cinnamon rebellion for years. Jamais de cannelle !!! So I politely took the bread and what else to do? since I am polite, I tasted it, even though you could smell cinnamon one kilometer away…I thought well, if I don’t like it, will I be lying and tell her, I love it, or be honest and say, I hate it? Tough call, what would you do? Polite or brutally honest?

I was lucky, it was love at first bite! What a delicious, moist, and soft bread, a pure delight for breakfast with butter and jam. Then I thought “well, for someone who doesn’t like cinnamon, I did a pretty good job finishing it”.

After that happy encounter with cinnamon, I decided to make my own bread…yes with cinnamon…actually, this bread is closer to a brioche than to what we French call bread. It has the ingredients and texture of a brioche. Now thinking about it, we do have a bread that is called “pain brioché” which is something in between a bread and a brioche, so talking about nuances and making people confused, yes the French are the masters of it.

It’s faster to make than a bread or a brioche, you don’t have to prepare it the night before, so it’s a great recipe to have in hands. Essayer c’est l’adopter! To try it is to adopt it.

Ingredients for one loaf

• 8.81 oz (or 250 g) flour
• 0.52 oz (or 15 g) yeast
• 3.7 fl oz (or 11 cl) milk
• 0.35 oz (or 10 g sugar) + 1 tbs
• 1 small egg
• 5 g salt
• 0.88 oz (or 25 g) butter
• 4 tbs raisins
• cinnamon to taste

Preparation

Dissolve yeast in 1/3 of milk. In a recipient mix milk/yeast mixture, sugar and 1/5 of the flour, mix well and let it rest for about 1 hour. Add the rest of the ingredients (except raisins, cinnamon, 1 tbs sugar) and mix well, to form an elastic dough, knead the dough for about 15 minutes.

Form a ball, and let rise for about 2 hours. Flatten the ball to form a rectangle, spread 1 tbs sugar raisins and cinnamon. Roll the dough and let it rise for another hour. Using a brush, spread some yolk on top. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F for about 45 minutes.

Fougasse stuffed with olives is quite a common little bread in France, nothing too original in here, but then I added oregano to the olives inside the dough and topped it with cherry tomatoes and ricotta salata to make it a little more “full”.

In Italy focaccia is a little different, it tends to remain simpler with rosemary and onions or just tomatoes, but I have never really seen focaccia with cheese. Oh well, that’s not really a problem. I had leftover dough from another focaccia I made when I had guests, and I really love leftover dough so you can play with it, it’s like a little toy.

The great things with such a “loaded” focaccia is that you can just eat it as is, and don’t need extras to accompany it.

Whoever has been to France probably knows the boulangerie Paul, it’s somehow a huge chain that sells bread all over France…yes the word chain is not very sexy nor has a great connotation in terms of quality….BUT Paul makes good quality breads, very consistant (and not cheap, referring to the baguettes with the grid marks on the bottom, yuck, I really hate those) so you can be in Orleans, Nantes or Paris, the bread is always the same…which is unlikely to happen if you enter an unknown boulangerie. Some breads can be ecstatic and others below average…and getting an average baguette IS a spoiled day for a French. Of course boulangerie Paul cannot compete with the best local boulangeries in town but they do have cute and delicious little breads and their petits pains aux olives, aux noix (walnuts) or aux lardons (bacon) are quite good. So basically my point was that I made this fougasse thinking about my friend Paul…

So when in France and you’re not sure where to find good pastries or bread, check out Paul, even though it’s not top of the line, little artisan baker, their breads and pastries are fresh and good.

When making bread dough like this one, it is important the dough remains very fluffy and elastic, if your ratio of flour vs water is too high, the dough will be hard and will have a tough time rising. You need a soft and almost sticky dough.

Ingredients for one focaccia

For the dough

• 1/2 lb flour
• about 6 g compressed yeast
• about 120 ml water
• salt
• 2 tbs green olives, chopped
• 1 tbs fresh oregano, chopped

For the topping

• about 15-20 cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
• 2 tbs ricotta salata, crumbled
• rock salt
• olive oil for drizzling

Preparation

In a mixing bowl or working surface mix flour with salt olive oil and yeast that had been previously dissolved in lukewarm water.

Knead the dough, if too sticky add flour but the dough needs to be elastic and borderline sticky when kneading it.  At the end of the kneading period, the dough will be elastic and very soft.

Cover with a towel and let it rise for one hour, then knead again and let it rise for two hours.

Spread the dough using your hands, you don’t necessary need a rolling pin, you can flatten it up using your fingers.

Top with cherry tomatoes, placed evenly on top, then ricotta. Sprinkle with rock salt and olive oil.

Cook in a pre-heated oven at 390F for about 20 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown and top as well.

You can serve it hot, lukewarm or even cold, it’s delicious either way!

This brioche is simple, quite unpretentious and low-key, light, fluffy but nonetheless very tasty, just like we enjoy to have on some mornings with butter, jam and strong coffee. There are many versions and kinds of brioches, you just have to play around with quantities of eggs, flour, sugar butter and yeast, but the technique is always the same: a “pâte levée“, a “rised dough” . Pâte levée technique consists of preparing the dough the night before with a yeast, then refrigerate it overnight. The cold will enable the dough to ferment slowly in a cold environment, therfore acidity developed by the cells of the yeast will give more flavor to the ingredients and a better aspect to the dough due to the reinforcement of the tenacity of gluten.

Anyone who has been to France knows what brioche is, it’s probably as famous as Eiffel Tower, baguette and croissant. After brioche tressée that tastes more like Pain au lait (milk bread?) that I have been making for a while and the extra rich Farro brioche with goose egg, I went back to a more simple and traditional version of brioche. Retour à la simplicité.

Basically its origin goes back to Middle Ages in Normandy where similar “rised dough” have been retraced. Brioche is not considered a bread in France but a viennoiserie, which is slightly different. Techniques of making viennoiseries are similar to those of making bread but since they have more fat and sugar content, they’re considered more like pastries.

On Friday evenings when I realize I have nothing left for the Saturday morning breakfast, I start making one of those brioches, yes it needs to be prepared the night before and needs to rise in the refrigerator overnight for a light and fluffy dough. I am afraid you cannot cut any corners if you don’t have a bread-machine and will have to wait for the day after to enjoy it.

Breakfast is sacred in my little world and getting up in the morning with nothing to eat is not an option! Even though I have been living in the US for many years, I am not used to the brunch concept, I guess it’s hard to change habits. Brunch is a little confusing, it makes sense if you get up at 11 am but not if you’re up at 7 am like me and have breakfast as early as 7:30 am, call me boring but I like to stick to my traditional coffee, bread, jam and butter in the mornings. Et non, on ne se débarasse pas de ses habitudes comme ca! (no, you don’t get rid of your habits so easily!).

I have been playing around with ingredients quantities, putting less sugar than required because I love jam on my brioche slice so it’s sweet enough for me but you can certainly add more sugar in the dough if your tooth is sweeter.

Ingredients for 6 people

• 10.58 oz (300 g) flour
• 1.5 cup lukewarm milk
• 1.41 oz (40 g) sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3.17 oz (90 g) butter
• 1 dose dry yeast or fresh yeast
• 2 pinches salt

Preparation

Place flour in a mixing bowl, add dry yeast (if using fresh yeast, needs to be dissolved in milk), sugar. Mix well all ingredients.

Add one egg, milk and salt and gradually mix all ingredients. When the dough has thickened, add the extra egg. Knead the dough to incorporate the egg. It might be sticky at the beginning, but keep kneading.

Add butter at the end and mix until the dough becomes elastic but not too sticky. Let it rise for 3 hours. Then, knead a little to remove the “air”.

Place in the refrigerator overnight with a plastic warp, and preventing air from getting into the container.

In the morning, remove dough from the refrigerator, knead slightly and cut in 4 equal parts and form little balls. Place each ball in a greased rectangular baking pan loaf.

Let it rise for an additional hour and cook in a pre-heated oven at 365-370F for about 40 minutes.

Let it cool and enjoy plain or with your favorite jam. I don’t usually add extra butter, since the dough has already some, but you can!

My grandma used to make this crescia when we were kids (my cousins and I) since we were all living together as in a traditional Italian family, and we were just going crazy for it, it was called la crescia colle patate (in dialect it’s more like la crescia col patet). I remember her bending and in sweat, flipping the crescia back and forth on top of the grill on burning coals, she was already old but working so hard to make us happy. We had a fireplace in the attic we would use to grill meat, roast chestnuts, and grill crescia, when my grandma was in the mood for it. The wooden flavor would make anything taste wonderful.

Crescia is a word used in my parents region to call some types of focaccia or piadine, it’s basically a local word. Piadine are from Romagna region and are famous all over Italy, and of course in most of all in the neighboring regions of Romagna. They’re flat types of bread very thin and that are stuffed with various cheeses, greens such as spinach or kale, prosciutto, lonza or any other local product.

I don’t want to confuse you between a crescia and a piadina, but they’re two cousins, and if you ever end up in Romagna you might run into piadina and a meet a crescia if you arrive in Urbino, la città di Raffaello. In Romagna, piadina is a street food, and you can find many restaurants where they’re served with so many side dishes that you can stuff your own piadina with whatever you want.

Crescie on the other hand are usually grilled and originated in Marche and Umbria regions. There are different recipes for crescia, most of them do not have potatoes in the dough, but mainly flour, eggs, lard, water, salt and pepper. My grandma version has potatoes and no lard.

My grandma made this crescia with a potato base and made it a little thicker than regular piadina, and it was our treat. It is hard to translate something so typical and precise into another language, most of the time there is no translation for it because it does not exist anywhere else. I was trying to find some equivalent in English and could not find it.

When the crescia gets cold, it gets a little rubbery, so you need to eat it hot. The base is somehow a gnocchi dough base with a little more flour. Since I don’t have a fireplace, I cooked this in a skillet and it worked quite well.

I used dandelions in this recipe, my grandma used white cabbage, you can also use spinach or any green you like and any Italian cheese such as pecorino, or any sharp cheese. If you have a wood fire place where you can grill food, please try to make a crescia, it’s heavenly.

Ingredients for 6 crescie

• 4 large potatoes, boiled
• 2 cups flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 mozzarelle di bufala (or pecorino, etc…), sliced
• Prosciutto or any other cold cuts (optional)
• salt
• olive oil

For the greens

• 1 bunch dandelions or any other greens
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• 1 rosemary sprig, roughly cut
• 1 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the greens

If using dandelions, previously cook in salted water for about 5-7 minutes, than drain, let it cool and squeeze excess water. Heat olive oil in a pan, add garlic and rosemary, stir to get the flavors out without burning the garlic. Add the greens and saute for a while. Adjust with salt and pepper.

For the crescia

Boil potatoes in water until cooked allt he way through. Let them cool and peel.

In a bowl, mash potatoes into a thin purée, add egg and flour and mix to form a smooth and solid dough.

In a wooden working surface, divide the dough in 6 equal portions and roll each of them into a round flat circles about 3 mm thick.

Heat a large non stick pan or a grill, then cook crescia until both sides are golden brown, maybe a few minutes, depending on how think your dough is.

Remove from grill, drizzle with olive oil, coarse salt and stuff with greens, cheese and prosciutto.

After many unsuccessful attempts to make my beloved baguette, that led to frustrations, I finally managed to make some that made me quite happy. My mom makes bread in a blink of an eye and her bread always turns out delicious, without really any need for it, since they are surrounded by amazing boulangeries (bakeries). I figured being in a “non-baguette” land, I  needed to be able to make them, and there was no question about it. I was determined to try as many time as necessary, you cannot just stop at a few failures, can you?

I was determined to never give up trying even if it would take me months or years. I baked baguettes a few times with a starter (levain),  and quite unhappy with the results, the bread came out crunchy, then the crust would soften and become a little chewy (I hate chewy bread), and the inside was not airy enough, quite dense and that’s not a sign that the bread is right. I really don’t like heavy crumb, after a few bites, it feels you ate some iron. The taste was ok but not quite what I wanted and did not want to post something I thought was not right nor eat it.

After constant searching, and reading boulangers sites like this one www.boulangerie.org and with their amazing recipes that I will try soon, I found another wonderful blog dedicated to baking called Le Pétrin, so for those of you who read French, I strongly suggest it, if you are in a baking mood and interested in bread-making. The explanations are very clear and precise and her breads, patisseries, croissants, brioches are just amazing. I realized that good bread-making takes time and the process is long, so I am afraid you just cannot cut corners. It has to do with all the chemical reactions involved with the flour, water, and yeast…and there is no way you can just make bread in two hours, or at least baguette. What I like about this baguette is that the bottom part is very crunchy, very well cooked, almost burnt and hard with a very nutty taste, that you get in well cooked in some breads.

This mini baguette (20 cm) is made with a fermented dough made the night before, and mixed with a regular dough made the day you are actually baking the baguettes. It makes the crumb (the inside part of the bread) very light and fluffy. This quantity is for 4 mini baguettes (about 20 cm long).

There are so many recipes for baguettes, just because there are many kinds of baguettes, made with different techniques, flours, and so on, so this is one recipe among many others.

You’ll have some fermented dough left, you can keep it up to three days in the refrigerator or in the freezer for 3 months.

Ingredients for about 4 mini baguettes

For the fermented dough

• 5.20 oz (or 150) white flour
• 1/4 tsp dry yeast
• (0.008 0z) 2.5 g salt
• 6.1 fl oz (or 180-200 ml) water

For the dough

• 17.63 oz (or 500 g) flour
• 10. 65 fl oz (315 ml) water
• 0.14 oz (or 4 g) fresh beer yeast
• 4.4 oz (or 125 g) fermented dough
• 0.35 oz (or 10 g) salt
• 0.84 fl oz (or 25 ml) water

Preparation

For the fermented dough

In a mixing bowl, mix flour with yeast, then add water and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon, then start kneading the dough for about 5-10 minutes until it becomes smooth and rubbery. The dough needs to be a little sticky when touching it.

Start forming a bow, and place it in a container lightly oiled and allow the dough to be very slightly coated with the oil. Cover with a plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 hour.

Quickly knead the dough to let the gas come out, then place back in the bowl and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight.

For the dough

Remove fermented dough and leave it at room temperature for one hour.

Take the quantity you need and place the rest in the refrigerator well wrapped.

Place flour in a mixing bowl with water and mix with a wooden spoon. Knead well until the dough becomes smooth but without too sticky. Cover the container and let it rest for one hour.

Mix fermented dough with the regular dough and add crumbled yeast, knead the dough. Add salt and water gradually and knead for 5 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Cover the container with a plastic warp, let it rest for 1h30 and after 30 min bring both ends toward the center.

Remove dough from container and lay on a floured working surface. Cut the dough into 4 pieces. Cover with a towel and let rest for 20 min.

Take each piece and form baguette and place on parchment, thin extremities. Leave about 4 inches in between each baguettes. Cover with a towel for one hour.

Pre-heat oven at 400F  and place a small container like a cup (something that will handle that heat) in the oven while it’s heating up. When ready to place baguettes in the oven. Add water to the container so that steam will form and close the door immediately.

Make 2 cuts with a wet razor blade on top of the baguettes, then place them in the oven. 30 seconds later spray water on the sides of the oven to humidify bread. Close oven door quickly and let it cook for about 20 minutes or until baguettes have a golden color. Leave the bread for 5 min after the oven is turned off.

This is one of my mom’s favorites, she made it to eat it with fish terrine for that crazy Jan 1st meal. Seems like she recently got into bread making and so excited to make it for me. I love breads in France, all of them, baguette à l’ancienne, baguette tradition, pain de campagne, etc…they’re all so good that I love to eat them just plain, like some people would eat cookies and bread is the first thing I request when I arrive.

Not all bakeries make great bread but we all know where the best bread in town is, and get it fresh every morning and people have absolutely no problem driving a few miles to get the bread they want even though there is a boulangerie (bakery) at every corner here. Every one has its favorite boulangerie and we can have serious discussions about where the best bread is and why. Too bad I am no baker, otherwise I would open one in my San Francisco neighborhood since finding good bread there is like a mission impossible. Or eventually make it for my own consumption…I repaired my own shoes once, so why not make bread? I think making great bread is not an easy task though, you need the right ingredients, and a perfect humidity. I think the constant high humidity level in San Francisco makes it difficult to keep the bread crunchy for too long.

She made this bread very quickly and I was impressed with easiness of the process, it’s fairly simple. So you don’t need to be a baker to make it. I always thought it’s impossible if you’re not a baker to make good bread, and I have to say that some home made breads can be delicious.

Ingredients for one bread

• 12.34 oz (or 350 g) whole wheat flour
• 7-8 figs cut in pieces
• 10.14 fl oz (or 300 ml) water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 pack yeast

Preparation

In a container, place flour, add salt and mix. Dissolve yeast in water, and add gradutally to the flour. You need to have a little sticky consistency. Mix but to not over knead dough. Make a thick baguette shape bread. Let it rise for 2 hours. When dough has doubled its size, insert fig pieces and sprinkle with flour. Cook in a pre-heated oven for about 30 min. or until the bread is golden brown.

Un cake déjà vu – Cake traditionnel au gruyère, olives et jambon

Savory cakes are very popular in France, everyone has its own version and makes them for appetizers with drinks when you have a guests over. You cut them in small bites and pass them along with drinks. Usually, I don’t like to post too many traditional French or Italian dishes, I somehow love to explore new ideas, flavors and shapes but once in a while, it makes me feel closer to home like with this cake salé. You can flavor it with what you like, such as feta, mint and zucchini, or sundried tomatoes and thyme, or just use your creativity. You only need the basic proportions of flour, olive oil or butter, and eggs, then the rest is up to you.

Nothing too fancy or original in this post, just maybe the most traditional cake salé that every French person who cooks and entertains, knows how to make, it’s a great one, always appreciated and quite delicious combining three main ingredients. Usually savory cakes contain butter, but I like to use olive oil, it gives it a really fruity and fragrant flavor.

Savory cakes are another one of those things I don’t make very often, I tried a few with shrimps, and other ingredients but as far as entertaining menu is concerned, I tend to make other types of snacks or canapés. This is a great item when you have guests pour l’apéro, a lot quicker to make than a savory tart or quiche. Tonight I have a little time to cook, so cake is on the menu among other little bites. It’s healthier than serving chips and other pre-packed junk food. Even though I love thick and salty potato chips! One of those items I cannot have in the house, or I will just not stop thinking about them until I ate them all.

Ingredients for about 6 people

• 6.34 oz (or 180 g) unbleached flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 3 fl oz (or 90 ml) olive oil
• 3.38 oz (or 100 ml) milk
• 7 oz (or 200 g) ham, cut in cubes
• 5.64 oz (or 160 g) gruyère cheese or cantal grated
• 3.5 oz (or 100 g) green olives, roughly chopped
• a pinch of salt and pepper

Preparation

In a mixing container, mix flour and baking powder. In another container, mix eggs, milk, olive oil. Mix well and add to the four/baking powder mixture. Add salt and pepper. Add ham, gruyère and olives. Mix carefully.

Bake in a non-stick loaf pan in a 370F pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes.