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.

Fêtes . Dinners of Holiday. Many IDs, change of style.

A few ideas for holiday menus. Japan has a month to celebrate the end of the year with Bonenkai (funerals of the old year) parties. In other places, Yule, Noël, Xmas and New Year in many places. Add, yours…
I like trying different dishes and meal styles.

Take a hot cup of thé de Noël and enjoy :

Rétro Christmas, candlelight and rustic.

Simple appetizers.
Jambon en croute aux marrons (chestnut ham pie)
Provence’s style : 13 desserts of Christmas night
Nougat glacé (iced nougat)

Kani Nabe (crab hot pot)
Winter Japanese home parties are often nabe (hot-pots)
Japanese hot pot with Winter crab
Other nabe (hot pots) :
Nikomi Udon
Duck and veggie nabe
sukiyaki

Noël blanc
Everything white, and French flavors…
Full Menu White French Christmas
Boudin blanc (white pudding sausage was little people’s Xmas treat, DIY)
Blanc-Manger (Middle-Age style, not a dessert)
Canard aux airelles (duck with cranberry sauce)
Gateau Mont-Blanc (coconut Antilles’ whiteness)

A Japanese Christmas menu
chicken and sesame cooking class
marmalade and sesame wings
chicken slices with wine sesame sauce
tofu with wine sesame sauce
decorative potato sarada. (pote sarada)
sesame fruit cake

Mexican Navidad, Tamales
pickles and chicken tamales
yellow grits tamales
tamale pie

Islands
Christmas ham, from the Antilles (French Caribbean islands).
Petit jambon antillais (pineapple baked ham)
féroce d’avocat (cod fish spicy guacamole)

Classic French
potage Choisy
Le poulet de Gaston – Dijon chicken (mustard sauce)
bûche aux marrons glacés
Douceurs de beurre et marrons…

Osechi Ryori, a feast of good luck dishes for Japanese New Year, with the recipes. Click here.

Alsace influence. French and light.
Full Menu
Blinis with smoked salmon
Choucroute de la mer (seafood Sauerkraut)
Bûche forêt noire Blackforest log Yule cake
Bredele (season cookies)

Petit Jésus en brioche…
About this one, posts showing up soon :
Colorful first dish
Saucisson en brioche au safran (salami saffron pie)
Red wine red cabbage in rice cooker. The same in cocotte.
Chestnutty no-bake croquettes
Flocon de neige (streusel flocken-sahne). Berry Flockensahne.
Black sugar Nonnettes Kaki nonnettes. Mandarin nonnettes.

Nougat glacé aux noix et au miel

Walnut honey nougat ice-cream.

With raspberry coulis. Sweet and sour. That’s one of my favorite party dessert. I made some for the 13 desserts of Christmas and I had a few servings left. It is ice-cream so it can be stored in the freezer very conveniently.

The classic nougat is made of egg white, honey, roast nuts. This version is a honey Italian meringue, mixed with whipped cream. It is enriched by walnuts bits in caramel, a little Grand-Marnier soaked raisins and mandarin orange peel and grated lemon zest.

Then in the freezer, in a mold.

Crack… the bits of caramel nut stay deliciously crunchy. It really has the honey meringue flavor of nougat. And the citrus hints of Grand-Marnier.

The unsweetened raspberry sauce is a little sour. I didn’t add any sugar, on purpose. That makes a great contrast with the nougat.

Retro Christmas (3) : Les 13 desserts

That’s a tradition of Provence to conclude the meal with a symbolic number of desserts, often 13. The Thirteen Desserts.

I don’t have one photo with all of them.

This one. But what can you see ?
Well, you will believe me, I displayed and ate the 13 types.

And that doesn’t matter. That’s the game of superstitions. 13 like the Christ and Apostles some say, and for Christmas that makes sense. Or not. But in some families, they had only 12 or 7. Others would eat 7 dishes. And you needed 3 table clothes and 2 candles. Not everybody agrees, but everybody disagrees.
Then let the leftovers should be left on the table overnight, so the angels can come to eat their share during the night. Isn’t that a cute excuse for not cleaning ?

Very recently some kind of “official” lists of desserts have been published. They are all false. Each family has its truth.

Most have :

-La pompe à l’huile (a sort of sweet fougasse)
-Les 4 mendiants, reference to 4 orders of monks and the color of their clothes (almonds, figs, raisins, walnuts or hazelnuts or…)
-Le nougat blanc, le nougat noir (white and black nougat)
-Dates, a fruit symbol of the origine of Christ
-Pears, apples. Oranges, fresh melon, fresh grapes could be available in certain places in the South. They had techniques to preserve the last fresh melon and white grapes.
-Fruit sweets : candied fruits, jam, pâte de fruit, calisson…
-spiced hot wine

That was for 19th Century and all that was luxury for them. Now that looks like the bottom of our pantry. We should count as one of our blessings to have such an availability of sweets.
More sophisticated desserts are very recent and the dainty sweets of Christmas markets were for the princes.

So my list :

-Fresh fruits : 1.pear 2.apple 3.raspberries 4. mandarin oranges
-Dry fruits : 5. prune 6.raisin 7.apples (that I dried)
-Nuts : 8. walnuts 9.chestnuts
-Baked : 10. biscotti 11.mince pies 12. pompe à l’huile

13th : iced nougat

Nougat glacé. That’s my 21th century white nougat.

If you put an almond in a fig, you get a “poor man’s nougat”. So let’s say with the walnut that makes my black nougat.

Christmas biscotti and “convenient” mince pies made with all leftovers (dough, marinated fruits, egg yolk) and baked in a corner of oven. Of course, these 2 don’t exist in traditional Provence.

La pompe à l’huile closes the parade.

It should be broken, not cut otherwise you bring bad luck for the year.
The name means “oil pump” because it is a bread enriched with olive oil. It is flavored with orange blossom water. Today mine is made of the buckwheat dough with these 2 additions and cane sugar.