French Language Blog

How to make and bake the French Lorraine classic madeleines in just dix étapes très faciles (ten very easy steps)!

A slightly different approach by le chef Pierre-Dominique of Larousse Cuisine (that’s right, the same as the famous French dictionary)

► CE DONT VOUS AUREZ BESOIN (What you will need):

• Two cups of farine (flour)
• Six separated œufs (eggs)
• Twenty cuillères à soupe (tablespoons) of melted and cooled butter (you’ll need a bit more for greasing)
• One cuillère à soupe (tablespoon) of baking powder
• One petite cuillère (teaspoon) of salt
• Two teaspoons of extrait de vanille (vanilla extract)
• Un zest of two lemons
• One and a half cups of sucre (sugar)

► VOILÀ COMMENT PROCÉDER (This is how to proceed):

1. Heat le four (the oven) to 325°

2. Grease and flour eight mini loaf casseroles (pans)

3. Fouettez (whisk) all together the baking powder, the flour, and the salt in a medium-size bowl

4. Beat the sugar, the zest, the extrait de vanille, and egg yolks in a larger bowl than the one you used in step 3. Stop when the color turns pale enough and the whole thing becomes at least three-times larger

5. Add the butter and flour mixture, and gently fold into batter until it combines

6. Put the egg whites in a bowl and beat on medium speed of a hand mixer until you get stiff peaks

7. Add a third of beaten egg whites to the batter and stir till it becomes more smooth

8. Add the remaining whites and fold in doucement (gently) until it combines

9. Make sure you share batter equally between the pans, and bake them for about 40 minutes till you get a deep golden brown color

10. Don’t be impatient: Let it cool for cinq minutes. Then, to cool completely, invert the cakes into a wire rack.

Bon appêtit, les amis!

By the way, remember this “other Madeleine“?

Today’s French Blog post will show you step-by-step how to prepare a tasty crème pâtissière classique (classic confectioner’s custard), which makes up the basis of many exquisite French desserts!

Ce dont vous aurez besoin (What you will need):

• 400 g of lait (milk)
• 1/3 of gousse de vanille (vanilla bean)
• 3 jaunes d’oeufs (egg yolk)
• 80 g of sucre semoule (castor sugar, or, if you prefer, “granulated sugar”)
• 40 g of farine (flour)

Les instructions:

• Boil the milk with the fresh vanille grattée (scratched vanilla) and its graines.

• Whip the jaunes d’oeufs (egg yolks) and the sucre (sugar) until you have a good mélange (mix)
• Ajoutez (add) the flour and le lait bouillant (the boiling milk) while mixing the whole thing.
• Put everything back into la casserole (saucepan), then cook la crème (the cream) while gently stirring it.
• Then, ôtez la crème du feu (remove the cream from the fire) once it reached l’ébullition (boiling), remove la gousse de vanille (again, the vanilla bean), and versez (pour) the cream in a cold pie dish.
• To preserve la crème pâtissière, be sure to cover its surface with a film alimentaire (also known as “film étirable“, meaning “food wrap”, or “cling wrap” as it’s called in the UK)

Dont rush too much: let the cream refroidir (cool down) for a bit, before you start using it for your delicious pâtisseries !

A slightly different approach to preparing la crème pâtissière, by “L’atelier des Chefs”

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With a crème pâtissière you could make, for example, a ”Saint Honoré“ cream, which is also sometimes called “crème chiboust“: It is essentially a mix of meringue and crème pâtissière.

Saint Honoré cake cream

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Check it out, mes amis: With your own crème pâtissière, you can also prepare some very nice Tartelettes aux Framboises (Raspberry Tartlets)

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•  Pictures shared by Un petit dejeuner de soleil and Mochiland via Flickr

The best pre-holiday tradition, au moins en France (at least in France), is les marchés de Noël: Christmas markets!

Although neither I nor mon amie Jennie particularly celebrate it, here is what she said about her own Christmas holiday experience in France, a few years ago already:

Les marchés de Noël are found throughout France (and the rest of the world), but le plus célèbre (the most famous) is in Strasbourg, in northeastern France.

Le marché de Strasbourg, comme tous les marchés, offre des saveurs régionales (local flavors), ainsi que des cadeaux (as well as gifts). L’une de ces saveurs typiques est… le vin chaud!

Le vin chaud is super-festive. This adorable carte des petits plaisirs d’hiver (menu of little winter pleasures) showcases it in the 18^th arrondissement of Paris!

Check out the rest of the carte—what  are you most excited about this winter? (If you live in a hot place, you should be extra excited about these snowy ideals.)

On peut bien acheter les cadeaux de Noël aux marchés, mais il est parfois difficile de choisir un cadeau. You can usually guess “le cadeau idéal,” the ideal gift, for n’importe qui (anyone), based on them answering you some questions about themselves. It is my vocabulary gift to you this week

You might find le cadeau idéal, but I pretty much guarantee you will learn new, useful, current words.  Écolo? Câlin? If you know these already, you’re excused; if not, allez hop!

Strasbourg: World Capital of Christmas!

En parlant des cadeaux… qu’est-ce que vous voulez comme cadeau de Noël? What do you want for Christmas?

I would like des vacances (a vacation), and a recommendation for a good French movie. Et vous?

Bonne soirée!

P.S. Regardez la diffusion en flux (streaming video) des marchés de Noël à Strasbourg!

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• Picture shared by GIPE25 and JuliEnVintX via Flickr