Bubbles and bubbles, hot + cold appetizers

Chilled verrines. And red cheddar gougères.
Appetizers, but this set could make a whole lunch.

Simple classics, always appreciated.

Gougères aux herbes

A classic appetizer or snack food from Bourgogne (Burgondy), the cheese gougères. Served freshly baked, still hot with wine or a drink. Mmmm…

It’s the same recipe as the choux (cream puffs, here). Today my cheese was the infamous process product, I’ve added a little nutmeg and some fragrant fresh herbs to compensate.

And rosemary.

Baked till golden. Devoured 1 minutes after the photoshoot…

They call me ‘shoe cream’… Puff cake blues.

Les choux à la crème are probably the most successful French cake in Japan. Chou was easy to pronounce, but à la crème was too long. Everybody knew that meant cream. So the name became シュークリーム shu-kuri-mu chou cream, which is also how they say “shoe cream”.

Well we can see them everywhere from the luxury hotel tea room to the discount kombini (convenience store). They can be extraordinary, great, good, meh, abominable. The choice is huge. Some stands prepare them fresh all day.
I still find home-made fresher.

First let’s make the little choux. Then a cream at local taste including anko (azuki bean sweet paste) an ingredient borrowed from wagashi (Japanese tea sweets).

Simple, 125 g of water, 25 g of oil, 80 g of flour. I included about 2 eggs, a little vanilla extract and sugar.

Baked at 200 degrees, 25 minutes.

I really love the inside still wet. So I don’t fill them, I keep the cream on the side.

I passed boiled azuki beans through a sieve to get the creamy texture, added sugar and a little brandy. That’s koshian (‘passed’ bean paste, recipe here). More about it here.

The whip (here veg’) plus anko bean paste mix. It is very popular now.

Desserts de France…

Les crêpes !
Crêpes Suzette mandarine – Crêpes boisettes (berry) – Crêpes little sun – Crêpes soufflées tropicales

More : crêpes compilation (sweet and savory)

Noël et Rois (Xmas and Kings) :
Pompe à l’huile (sweet fougasse) – Nonnettes (fluffy gingerbread) – Flocon de neige (snowflake cake) – Nougat glacé (honey ice-cream) – Galette des Rois (Kings’ cake) – Galette des Rois au chocolat

More : Christmas dessert compilation

Les fruits !
Poire pochée au chocolat – Baked pineapple – Fruity papillote – Tartelette aux figues – Pomme lampion (baked apple) – Crémet aux fruits rouges

Classiques :
Génoise – Cygne et choux (cream puffs and swan) – Millefeuille –Tarte au chocolat – Religieuse (cream puff “nun”)

Regions :
Brioche de Pâques (Easter bread, Provence) – Gâteau de Metz (retro chocolate cake, Lorraine) – Croustade or Pastis aux pommes (apple pie, Gascogne) – Millas (corn and pumpkin, South-West) –Farz fourn (butter cake, Bretagne)

Chocolat.
Coffee sunglasses – Gâteau truffe aux kumquats – White chocolate cinnamon apple cake – Raspeberry choco-carob cake

More chocolate sweets.

Festifs.
Pets de nonne (‘farting nun’ carnival donuts) – Mango coco millefeuille – Star anise mandarin chocolate tarte – Crémet in mint sauce – Gâteau de la bergère (Shepherd’s cake made with potato) – Petits flans a la betterave (sweet beetroot puddings)

More ? French dessert compilation.

Cygne et choux, puffy swan

Cygne is the name of this cake, it’s swan in French. I need to precise as mine could be a turkey as well… It’s kitsch like an after-school salon de thé visit with granny. They were proposing those when I was a kid…

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

BTW, I’ve opened a Daring Baker Pinterest Board. Mostly my posts now, but I’ll add others’ progressively.

So, let’s go, mon chou. The recipe is already here (click on text) :

flockenshane

Well, the puffs. Very simple, I eyeball ingredients : water, oil, flour, eggs… a little salt, sugar, vanilla. I shape with the hands like a kid with playdo. So that doesn’t look pro.