Lemon Steamed Pudding

Happy New Year!
I have never been one for making New Year's resolutions, but if I was, it would be to try and find more time to bake and keep working my way through the history of British baking and food. 
The more I discover about British food, the more I realise how rich it is and how much it deserves being explored deeper. If Great Britain lacks anything, it's pride in its food heritage. 
With the British government’s recent launch of the five-year Great British Food campaign to increase the number of EU Protected Food Names from a mere 64 today to around 200 (which is what you find in countries like France or Italy), and many artisan producers working towards gaining recognition for their traditional foods, I hope the general public in the UK and abroad will get more and more opportunities to discover how great British food is.

Lemon Steamed Pudding

When I think British baking, I think steamed pudding. We don't have anything similar in France, and on top of being quintessentially British, this steamed pudding is delicious!
It look me a long time to dare make my very first steamed pudding, because I feared it would be difficult to make. It actually is very easy to make.  
This pudding will keep in an airtight container for a few days. I almost think it gets even better after a day or two!

Ingredients
For the pudding: 
1 lemon
1 vanilla pod
140 unsalted butter
60 caster sugar
65 golden caster sugar
3 eggs slightly beaten
200g plain flour, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
125ml milk

For the syrup: 
Zest of 2 lemons, juice of one
150ml water
150g caster sugar, 50g golden caster sugar

A couple our lemon slices, to line to pudding mould 
Double cream or plain greek yogurt, to serve

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 160
2. Butter a medium size (1 litre) pudding basin
3. Grate the zest of the lemon et the seeds from the vanilla pod et set aside
4. Cream together the sugar, butter, vanilla seeds and zest until light and fluffly (I do that with an electric whisk). Add the eggs gradually.
5. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and fold them in until combined. Fold in the milk until combined. Set aside.
6. To make the syrup: in a small pan, put the sugar, lemon juice and zest, water and vanilla pod. Heat gently, sitrring until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer until the mixture has reduced to a syrup. Remove the vanilla pod, clean it under fresh water and leave it to dry (once dry, you can then put in and leave it in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar)
7. Place the lemon slices and place them at the bottom of the pudding basin (that's optional and just for decoration). Pour 3/4 of the syrup into the basin and cover with the pudding mixture. Set the rest of the syrup aside.
8. Cover the pudding basin tightly with two layers of baking parchment or foil and tie a string arong the edge of the basin to secure the cover tightly. Place the basin in a deep roasting tin or oven-proof pan. Fill the tin/pan with hot water to halfway up the height of the basin, and bake for about 2 hours (remember to keep the water topped up). 
9. To check if it's ready, uncover the pudding and if well risen and slightly firm to the touch; it's ready. 
10. Leave to cool for about 5min, run a sharp knife around the edges of the pudding and turn out onto a shallow plate and pour the remaining syrup on top. Serve slightly warm with yogurt or cream.

Recipe adapted from Leon's St Clement's pudding. 

Mango and Lemon Cake

My to do list to be ready for Christmas:
- drink mulled wine
- see the local Christmas lights
- listen to Magic fm until feeling sick of Wham, Band Aid, Mariah and all the others
- go to a free concert of Christmas carols
- have a chocolate from the Advent calendar

I've done all of this and I still don't feel ready for Christmas. 
So, there's only one option left: an intensive Christmas Spirit mission. 
When I land in Basel airport on the morning of the 24th, I'll drive straight to our local Christmas market in Montbéliard (one of the cutest Christmas markets in France); meet my family there, buy myself a tartine de raclette; drink a hot chocolate from Ragot (the best in the universe); and freeze my feet off wandering around the market for a couple of hours before heading home. 
Then, I'll be ready to celebrate Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone!

Mango and Lemon Cake

I found canned mango pulp at my local Coop and wanted to experiment with it.
So I adapted my pumpkin and orange cake's recipe, and here was the result!

It's a lovely cake off the beaten track. Super easy to make, super moist, a real crowd pleaser!

Ingredients
225g self-raising flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground ginger + a good pinch of cinnamon

110g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs (beaten)

200 ml sunflower oil

210g mango pulp, mashed (fresh or canned)

Zest of 1 lemon and juice of 1/2 lemon

Method
1/ Preheat the oven to 180deg C (160deg C fan oven). Grease and base line a medium sized cake tin.

2/ Sift together the flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl, stir in the sugar. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, oil, vanilla extract, rind and juice of lemon then stir until smooth. Add the mango pulp and stir in well.

3/ Spoon the batter into the cake tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 40-50 minutes until a metal skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake.  Leave to cool for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

4/ Lightly dust the top of the cake with icing sugar.

The Ultimate New York Cheesecake Recipe

When you're the youngest kid in a family, you share your parents' fate, to see your brothers and sisters growing up and spreading their wings, with pride and a little sadness.

The first holidays they spend away with their friends, the day they leave home to go to University, the day they move in with their partner...and their first Christmas with their in-laws.

Like your parents, you find out that you can never really get prepared for any of this, and that even though it's life and you're happy for them, every Christmas eve without them breaks your heart a little. 

This year is one of these Christmases, when most of my siblings (yes, I've got many of them) will be with their in-laws. So this time, the rest of the family have decided to make the most of it and shake up those Christmas traditions by getting away from our big empty family home. 

So, tada!, this year my parents and one of my sisters will come and spend Christmas in London, at mine!

...and slowly...this is when the pressure sinks in. Will I be able to pull if off?
More on that later.

The Ultimate New York Cheesecake Recipe

This is a simple and delicious New York Cheesecake recipe adapted from my favourite cheesecake recipes book : Women's weekly cheesecakes book
Fresh, rich, it has everything to please!
You can either make a crushed biscuit base like in this recipe, or use a sweet shortcrust pastry for the base (which I did this time). Both work, so just go with your mood! 

Ingredients

1 shortcrust pastry
750g mix of cream cheese and quark (I used 600g cream cheese and 150g quark)
100ml sour cream
200g caster sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
juice of 1 lemon + 1 tsp of orange juice (from the pressed orange)
3 eggs

For the sour cream topping, mix together

150ml sour cream
2 tbsp of caster sugar

Make the New York Cheesecake

Preheat the oven at 160deg C/Gas 2

1/ Bake blind the shortcrust pastry with baking beans for 10min at 180deg C
(Grease and line the base of a 23cm spring form cake tin with baking parchment and the pastry, you cover the pastry with baking parchment and baking beans or uncooked rice, and you bake for 10min. Remove the paper and beans, and leave to cool)

2/ Make the filling : with an electric whisk or food processor, mix the cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time. Add the sour cream, juices and zests of lemons and orange, and mix until well combined.

3/ Pour the cheesecake mixture over the base and cook for 40 min to an hour until the cheesecake is cooked on the outside and still slightly wobbly in the center. Spread over the sour cream topping, leave to bake for 10 more minutes, turn off the oven, and leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven with the door ajar.

4/ Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or ideally overnight. 
 

My Lemon, Coconut and Mascarpone Tart

Girls (or maybe just me) often have a very specific idea of what they expect from their Man as proofs of their love to them.
Flowers, surprise dinners, boxes of chocolate, secret love messages hidden in a drawer ...all of these are in the Universal Repertory of Proofs of Love.
As some boys don't seem to have been given a copy of the Repertory and are not so keen on following any rules but their own anyway, they don't do any of this and get regularly into trouble.

"We've been together for a year and you still haven't offered me flowers?!"

Until one day, out of nowhere and god knows why (probably thanks to some kind of divine intervention), girls realise that proofs of love are all around, just not where they look for them.

Does he always carry your grocery bags (and all your bags for that matter) for you?
Does he serve you breakfast in bed even though you know he's phobic of crumbs in bed?
Does he spend time repairing your broken bike without you even asking for it? 
Does he clean the mess you leave behind you at his place without ever even mentioning it?

Sometimes, you're actually happier and luckier than you think, you just have to look in the right direction.

Lemon, coconut and mascarpone Tart

This tart is very fresh and creamy. It is so easy to make, and so delicious. 
A great new take on lemon tart!

Ingredients: 
Finely grated zest and juice of 4 lemons
2 handfuls of dissacated coconut
4 eggs and 4 yolks (you can keep the whites to make a meringue)
200 g mascarpone
250 runny honey or maple syrup (I used honey)
1 shortcrust pastry ( I used lighter shortcrust pastry from Sainsbury's)
Unrifined sugar (or light muscovado sugar), for dusting

Make the lemon and coconut tart: 

1/ Take all the ingredients out of the fridge so they come to room temperature. 
 
2/ Preheat the oven to 150deg C

3/ Prepare your lemon zests and juices and place in a small bowl with the coconut. Leave to soak for 5min

4/ In a large bowl, beat the eggs and yolks with a whisk or an electric mixer until light and pale (this will take 3 to 5 mins)

5/ In a third bowl, beat the mascarpone until smooth and creamy. Add it to the eggs mixture, add the honey, mix, then add the lemon zests and juices and coconut, and mix until combined and smooth.

6/ Line a pie dish with the shortcrust pastry, and bake at 150deg C for 40-50 min. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin. Ice with sugar and serve.

 

"You're so fine, and you're mine..."

Citrus and Poppy Seeds Cake

I love coffee. 
Sometimes, I choose a restaurant just because I heard it has a proper espresso machine (which is pretty rare around here). 
My boyfriend, being British, has no idea how to make a good coffee (hellooo stereotype!)
No matter how strong I ask him to make my coffee, it's alway a slightly-black-coloured and tasteless concoction, that has nothing to do with coffee. (We call this "sock's juice" in French)
He is trying hard, but it's not his fault, he doesn't have the coffee gene.

Poor him, I had been teasing him for months...until I realised that I was apparently deprieved of the most important gene in this country: the tea gene. 

Does it matter if the tea brews for 3 or 5 minutes?
How much milk is a "dash of milk"?
What? How come I can't just add the milk when I want?
How am I supposed to judge if it's strong enough?

Slowly, we're learning each other's ways, and becoming caffeinely bi-cultural.
And I'm learning how to shut up from time to time ;-)

Citrus Poppy Seed Cake 

Let's be clear, poppy seeds don't bring any taste to the cake, but they make it pretty and they crunch under your teeth, which is quite a pleasurable eating experience. 
The yogurt makes the sponge very light and moist, and the mascaropone topping is a real delight. A crowd pleaser!

Ingredients for the cake: 

175g butter, softened
175g sugar
3 eggs, beaten
250g self raising flour
50g poppy seeds
grated rind of 2 oranges, and 2 lemons
4 rounded tbsp plain yogurt

For the topping:

250g mascarpone
grated rind and juice of 1 small orange or lemon
2 tbsp icing sugar

Make the cake: 

1/ Preheat oven to 150degC and butter a round cake tin

2/ Using a wooden spoon, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, poppy seeds, citrus rind and yogurt until smooth
Tip: my secret is to first beat the butter and sugar until the mix becomes light and fluffy before adding the other ingredients. This makes a real difference in making the cake light and moist!

3/ Spread the mixture in the mould and bake for 45-50min until just firm. Cool in the mould for 10min until turning out and cool completely on a wire rack. 

4/ In the meantime, beat the mascarpone with enough orange/lemon juice and the icing sugar to make it spreadable. Spread over the cake, and leave to set for 1 hour before decorating with additional orange rind and serving.

 

The Bear Who Baked (Treacle Tart)

It's very common to have stuffed bears, to give them names. 

It's even very common to take them around with you all the time.

It's very common when you're 5 years old.

I'm 30, my bear is called Chocolat, and he travels with me everywhere. 

His journey started in Quebec (without me actually, a friend took him on holidays with him) 7 years ago. He came back with lots of funny pictures and that's how I realised he would be a perfect model for my travel pictures. (You can fall out with a boyfriend or a friend...no chance I'll want to tear up the holiday pictures of my stuffed bear in million pieces in a year or two)

Since then, we went to Jordan, Morocco, Argentina, NYC,... we even went to the Olympic Games and met Jamie Oliver together. 

Funnily enough, I also discovered that Chocolat is a great conversation starter. When I'm in a country where I don't understand the language, just the fact that my bear brings smiles on people's faces (even if it's to make fun of me) makes a first contact with locals easy. 

Smiling is the best international language I know.

And well, maybe I'm just a child and I find it amusing to take pictures of my stuffed bear as if he had some kind of conscience. I'm sure I'll love showing my kids Chocolat's travel books when I grow older though.

(To follow Chocolat's travels: http://www.facebook.com/chocolat.lourson)

Treacle Tart

Treacle tart is one of this British baking mystery which has been intriguing me since I've arrived in the UK.

A breadcrumbs tart? Really? And well, once again I was surprised but not disappointed. It's too easy to make and too good to be missed!  

Ingredients: 

1 shortcrust pastry

2 lemons (juice and zest)

300g golden syrup

140g fresh white breadcrumbs (see below How to make breadcrumbs)

1 egg yolk (for the egg wash)    

Make the Treacle Tart: 

1/ Preheat your oven to 180deg C

2/ Roll out the shortcrust pastry and line a deep pie dish with it and prick the base with a fork (it will stop it from raising while cooking). 

3/ Cut off all the edges of extra pastry, put it back into a ball and roll it out again, cutting it in large strips, that you will use to decorate the top of the tart)

3/ In a saucepan, gently melt the golden syrup without boiling it (I put the whole unopened can in a bowl of very hot water for 10min beforehand to make it runny and easier to measure)

4/ Add the breadcrumbs, zest and juice of the two lemons, and mix well. Leave this mixture to set for 5min before spreading it onto the tart base, without pressing it down too much.

5/ Egg wash (brush with the egg yolk diluted in a bit of water) the edge of the pastry, and make the cross patterned lattice with the pastry strips over the mixture, leave the strips hanging over the edge of the tin. Once the lattice is in place, use the tin edge to cut off the strips by pressing down with your hands, creating a neat finish. 

6/ Egg wash the lattice, taking care not to put too much egg wash on the breadcrumb mixture itself, and bake in the oven for 35-40 min until the pastry is golden brown and the mixture set.

7/ Remove the tart from the oven and leave to firm up in the tin. Serve warm or cold. 

How to make breadcrumbs: just crumb some white bread (I used a white loaf from the supermarket) in a food processor. The bread can be fresh or 1 or 2 days old.

 

What's on the Drinks Menu Alex?
As a sweet wine, you could try a sweet muscat
On the dry side, why not match the treacle tart with a Pinot Grigio?
And for those who are looking for a alcohol free option, nothing will be better than a lemon tea!

Thanks Alex!

Recipe adapted from The Great British Book of Baking

Double lime and lemon cheesecake

One thing that makes a language singular is idioms. These little phrases / metaphors that most of the time wouldn't mean anything  or sound really funny if you tried to translate them word by word into a different language.

“Every cloud has a silver lining”, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”, “in a nutshell”, “on the wrong side of the tracks”, “come hell or high water”, ”a double rainbow”…I love idioms. They tell you a story, they speak for a culture.

I don’t actually know if “double rainbow” is an idiom or if I just heard it from a movie, but I love it and I use it all the time.

A double rainbow is anything that combines two layers of pleasure, i.e. a romcom that is a musical at the same time, a movie starring Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds (still to come, but fingers crossed someone will hear my prayers), a supplier who is both efficient and nice.
You get the point?

Double rainbows are really common in British baking, because British are never afraid of going a step too far. They put cream on top of chocolate tarts, they create cakes in which a brownie goes on top of a cookie (I swear it’s true, I made it for my Bday, and it’s absolutely evil)

I’ve told you before, the whole Pauline à la crème anglaise adventure is about embracing British baking. So I am getting around to creating my own double rainbows. Actually, the last one was a triple rainbow….

Double lemon and lime cheesecake

- the base could be eaten on its own. It’s an absolutely delicious biscuit –very crunchy, very tasty, very crumbly too

- the cheesecake is light and smooth. Well set, it’s like a lime mousse - devine

- the layer of lemon curd on the top is just the step higher in the direction of the sky (a step too far? Naaaa)

Ingredients for the base:

1 ¼ cup flour

½ cup butter, cut into pieces

1/3 cup caster sugar

¼ tsp salt

Make the base:

1/ Preheat the oven 200°C.

2/ In a big bowl, mix flour, salt and sugar together. Rub in the butter and crumble it between your fingers until it resembles moist crumbs, and make a ball with the dough.

3/ Press firmly the dough on the bottom and the sides of a cheesecake pan (a removable bottom cake tin), lined with baking parchment.

4/ Freeze crust for 10-15 min until firm

5/ Prick the crust all over with a fork and bake for 20-25 min until golden. If the pastry puffs up while baking, press it gently with a spoon. Let it cool completely while you make the filling.

Ingredients for the filling:

500g cream cheese (philadelphia or equivalent)

350g whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks

120g caster sugar

50 ml of lime juice (approx. 6 tbsp + 2 tsp)

Zest of 2 limes

1 ½  tsp of gelatine (powdered gelatine, or agar agar powder) dissolved in 2tbsp of water (or lime juice)

1-2 tsp of vanilla extract

Make the filling:

1/ In a big bowl, cream the cream cheese, sugar, lime juice and lime zest together.  Add the gelatine and vanilla extract and mix well.

2/ With a spatula, gently fold in the whipped cream (don’t over beat or it will become runny)

3/ Pour the mixture on to the cold biscuit base. Cover the cake with cling film and refrigerate for 5 hours at the very least (the cheesecake needs long to set and be really moussy. It’s first the wait) Ideally, make it the night before.

4/ 30min before serving, cover the cheesecake with a thin layer of lemon curd (recipe here)

Recipe adapted from http://chicgorgeous.blogspot.co.uk/

We say "chocolate", you say "citrus" - Lemon Curd Recipe

We, French people, have a thing for chocolate.
Chocolate mousse, chocolate tart, chocolate fondant, chocolat éclair, opéra and royal cakes, Nutella, chocolate truffles, marshmallow and chocolate bears ...the range of chocolate delicacies one can find in France is endless.
(...God I miss France sometimes)

We often have animated debates with my British friends about what we respectively put in the " decent chocolate" category (in which I don't include Cadbury, Thorntons or supermarket chocolate). Here in the UK, good quality baking chocolate is a luxury. You can find some, but it's really expensive.

Message in a bottle : if you are a supporter of Pauline à la crème anglaise or if you have tears in your eyes when reading about my lack of good cooking chocolate, you can send me a Nestlé Dessert Chocolate bar. You'll make me the happiest woman in the world!

On the other hand, British people have a passion for citrus fruits.
Orange marmelade (x 10 variations depending on how thick and how much peels you like in your marmelade), orange peels, mixed citrus peels, lemon drizzle cake, lemon boiled pudding with a whole lemon in it, lemon posset, self-saucing lemon pudding, lemon tart...and lemon curd. La Révélation.

Few months ago, I brought back to France some lemon curd for my dad (it doesn't really exist in France).
He liked it so much that he ate it all directly from the pot with a teaspoon.
So I knew what I had to do for his birthday last week.

Lemon Curd

Traditional product, traditional recipe. I went for a sure ride, I borrowed this recipe from Delia Smith.

Ingredients

grated zest and juice 4 large juicy lemons

4 large eggs

350 g golden caster sugar

225 g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into dices

1 teaspoon of cornflour

Make the lemon curd:

1/ Lightly whisk the eggs in a medium-sized saucepan

2/ Add the rest of the ingredients and place the saucepan over a medium heat

3/ Whisk continuously until the mixture thickens for about 7-8 minutes. Next, lower the heat to its minimum setting and let the curd gently simmer for a further minute, continuing to whisk.

4/ Remove it from the heat, pour the lemon curd into the hot, sterilised jars, filling them as full as possible

5/ Cover straightaway with waxed discs, seal while it is still hot and label when it is cold.

It will keep for several weeks stored in a cool place

Thanks to the family Little Chefs for their hard work on zesting and juicing the lemons!