alice’s posterous

This recipe is pretty easy to do but my guests were quite impressed I think!
All you need is:

• chicken breast
• a pack of Boursin (if you can't find this typical French cream cheese, you can always use any other type of creamy cheese such as Philladelphia mixed with fresh chives or even some Italian blue cheese. I reckon, it will be as delicious!).
• Parma ham (or Prosciutto or Serrano or Bayonne will do...)
• cherry tomatoes

Wrap the chicken breast in 1 or 2 slices of Parma ham (depending on its size).

Bake in a roasting tin at 180 degres with a handful cherry tomatoes for about 30 minutes and voila:

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Yesterday night was St Martin's day in Germany and I had to bring some food to my children's kindergarten (or nursery). I had a bar of chocolate in my cupboard so decided to bake an easy peasy chocolate cake! I found the recipe on this fantastic French website called Marmiton where people share their recipes. Each recipe comes with a rating and comments from other people who have tried it as well as a picture (but not for every recipe).

For the chocolate fondant, all you need to do is to melt 100g butter and 200g chocolate in the microwave. When melted, add 5 egg yolks.

Add 100g caster sugar and 4 tbsp of white flour and mix well. Then beat the 5 egg whites until stiff and incorporate them to the mixture. My son did this very carefully!

Pour the mixture in a butter greased cake pan and put it in the oven at 180 degres for about 20 minutes (depending if you want the cake to be firm or gooey!). My children loved eating the leftovers of the chocolate mixture ;)

Unfortunatly, I don't have any pictures of the final cake because I completely forgot to take one! But here is the picture from Marmiton:

http://www.marmiton.org/Recettes/Recette-Photo_fondant-au-chocolat_15025.aspx

And here is where we had the cake, around a nice fire :)

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First you need about 140g hazelnuts. I didn't toast them but I finely chopped them in a food processor.

I then added 140g self-raising flour and 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (and I completely forgot to add 140g sugar!).

I whisked 3 egg whites until stiff, then I quickly stirred 140g butter melted, 75ml milk and the 3 egg yolks into the dry ingredients.
When the mixture was smooth, I stirred in one-third of the egg whites, then I gently folded in the rest. My son wanted to give me a hand :)

I poured the mixture into a tin,  and baked it for 40-50 mins until the cake was golden and springy to touch.

Whilst the cake was baking, I prepared the dark chocolate filling. I microwaved 100g dark chocolate with a bit of water and 1 tbsp clear honey and mixed it well to obtain a smooth consistency.
When the cake was out of the oven and had cooled down a bit, I splitted the sponge in half. I gently spooned the chocolate filling over the first half.

To finish, I put the other half of the cake back on top to obtain this delicious torte (even without sugar!).

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In my previous post, I mentioned that pumpkins were in season (well, at least on the stalls on the market place next to where I live!). So I bought half of an enormous pumpkin and of course I had to carve it, cut it and peel it! I used part of it in small chunks for my creamy mushroomy chicken casserole. The easiest was for me to first scoop out the stringy insides and seeds, then cut the pumpkin into medium chunks and to peel each chunk. The outer skin is so though, I think it is too difficult to peel everything at once.

With the other part of half of my pumpkin (which results to a quarter of a pumpkin!), I decided to go for a pumpkin pie without the crust, so this basically became a pumpkin flan! It was a bit flat but still very tasty!

For the recipe, I more or less followed the guidelines from the video below, except I added a bit of ginger and vanilla essence and instead of the milk or cream, I added quark (cream cheese). You can find more details about the ingredients and how to carve a pumpkin here.

What about you? What is your favourite pumpkin recipe?

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I had a few ripe nectarines so I decided to bake this yummy cake for dessert.
I followed this recipe but took a shortcut: instead of melting the butter and the brown sugar in a pan, I greased a tin with the butter and sprinkled it with the brown sugar. I then layered the nectarines on top of it and finally added the batter. It was quicker and saved me on cleaning a pan!
My one year old son loved it and had a quarter of the cake! He loves his food so much!

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June means strawberry time!!! They are delicious eaten on their own but also in cakes and tarts.
This recipe is good when you have strawberries that are past their best.

Enjoy ;)

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I looove blueberries!!!
My favourite recipe is blueberry pancakes with lot of marple syrup on top!

But I also like this recipe with soured cream or yogurt for the healthier version. It is simply delicious! I tried with and without the cheesecake frosting and both are good, although being French I prefer the one without the frosting ;)

 

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My dad (@jfayel on Twitter) bought a huge box of strawberries so me and my mum ( @nanouk on Twitter) decided to make a strawberry tart using mascarpone as the filling.

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Until I came to live in England, I didn't know this tradition: during Easter, on Good Friday, hot cross buns, a type of sweet spiced bun made with currants or raisins and leavened with yeast, are eaten in remembrance of Jesus crucifixion. They have a cross marked on the top which can be done in one of a variety of ways including: pastry, flour and water mixture or even icing.

I decided to try and bake them as they looked quite appetising! So I chose an easy recipe on
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10119/easy-hot-cross-buns
and baked them with my 3 years old son and my sister-in-law who is also French and didn't know them.
It was easy to make and delicious warmed from the oven for breakfast.
If you want to find out more about the history and superstitions about them, have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Cross_Bun

And remember to share a hot cross bun with another to ensure friendship throughout the coming year, particularly if "Half for you and half for me, Between us two shall goodwill be" is said at the time!

   

Click here to download:

Hot_cross_buns..zip (4696 KB)

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This dish is a typical Italian dish and is great to use aubergines
I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food website
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10033/aubergine-tomato-and-parmesan-bake-melanzane-alla-

 The aubergine is in fact a fruit and is a good source of fibre and
folic acid. The colour of the skin is a result of the presence of
anthocyanins - compounds with antioxidant properties.
In Italy, aubergines are know as "la piccolo scarpetta" translated in
English as "the little shoe". They are also considered as the poor
man's meat because of their texture.
That is why I prepared this dish for my family as a main course and
everybody enjoyed it, including my 1 year old boy!
As they say in Italy, buon appetito tutti!

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