A spring clafoutis //

If you see clafoutis on a menu, 99% of the time the word cherry precedes it which is fair enough as it's a match made in heaven. But why would I want to make cherry clafoutis before the start of the cherry season when there are luscious striking pink sticks of rhubarb awaiting a playful wanna-be chef with a penchant to rhubarb and custard flavoured anything...!? This meant a couple of weeks ago when a desert was requested at short notice (I say short, there were three maybe four hours to play with but it was a Sunday...) I knew I could do this hassle free as a fool proof dish.

Freshly picked from the garden!

Be sure to mix well, you don't want any lumps and if there are some be sure to sieve the mixture. It needs to be silky smooth! 

I played around with cooking and frying the rhubarb in brown sugar, that alone could have been desert. 

There are an abundance of clafoutis recipes to choose from however I went straight to my 'Paris Pastry Club' recipe book which I cannot recommend enough. To serve I made a rhubarb and ginger sauce which added a delectable freshness and tartness and a vanilla mascarpone cream... Let's be honest, there is no point in making a desert if you aren't going to be indulgent. 

What I love most about this dish is the versatility, to be able to change it with the seasons and now it's the right time of year I may well whip up a cherry clafoutis! 

Not quite right // Kugelhopf

Wanting something so much that you strive for perfection every time is a fulfilling feeling and when you bake something that doesn't match that, you write down what you did, figure out what went wrong and start again. I made kugelhopf. I don't think it was wrong let's say, I just don't think it was as it could or should be. The texture wasn't as soft as I wanted and flavours didn't shine through like I wanted. This was my spiced fig and lemon kugelhopf...

Sweet sweet delicate figs bursting with summer tones, I'm not sure there is anything more beautiful....

But in the end, it still looked pretty and tasted wonderful warm with slathering of proper butter. 

If it wasn't for the pot mould I picked up from a French antiques shop a few years ago I would never have made this, that mould was the start of my antique baking equipment collection. After purchasing said mould and having a long discussion with owner of said shop I went home with the difficult task of finding a recipe for this Alsatian cake. Now I won't say this too often, but thank god for the Great British Bake Off because I used this recipe, which I adapted with spiced honeyed figs and lemon instead of apple and cinnamon though I may have to try the latter next time!

Italian almond biscuits // Little treats

Little treats... little, delectable, delicious, sweet treats. These are quite possibly my favourite thing to eat alongside a shot of strong black coffee with a good crema. Being a favourite of mine, I thought I should really learn how to bake them and was pleasantly surprised by how simple these moorish biscuits are to make (yet slightly messy if you dig in with your hangs, as did I... queue biscuit dough being flung everywhere).

There are umpteen recipes around for these biscuits, I went for David Lebovitz which you can find here yet I put my own twist on these lovely things with the addition of homemade raspberry and blackcurrant jam. The addition of stem ginger is pretty wonderful as well and I'll soon be making a whole batch of stem ginger Italian almond biscuits.

These perfectly sized treats are chewy and sweet and everything you want from a biscuit, they would go perfectly after a strong cheese course to finish a meal. Or you could just sit and eat them one after another...

Beautiful handmade cup and saucer purchased in Damme near Bruge -  here

Tasting memories // Madeleines

It's that old cliché of taking a bite of something, slowly closing your eyes and being transported back to your first ever bite of it; or the scent of something cooking in the air reminds you of that restaurant or that gîte you stayed in. Whatever it may be, eating for me, is being able to taste memories.

For a couple of weeks the thought of baking madeleines has been at the forefront of my mind and having never made them it was something new and also a chance to have a small and delectably sweet taste of France. Today was the day it happened. With a shiny new madeleine tin (thanks to Mum who understood my great need to bake these) and the beautiful book 'Paris Pastry Club', I was in safe hands.

These being my 'first time madeleines', there was no room for playing, except for the replacement of blueberries for raspberries and the addition of some blackberry cream cheese on the side. 

They may be a tad too crisp but they taste of long car journeys through France, boulangeries in Paris and fanciful family picnics. So in fact, they are just right.