Family meals

Tarte aux fruits rouges

For dessert, I used a tart shell that I baked à blanc a few days ago using leftover dough. I did a crème patissière flavored with lavender. After filling the shell with the cream, I decorated it with raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. As «la cerise sur le gateau» (colloquial French expression meaning the summon of a whole thing, literally the cherry on the cake), I sifted a little amount of confectioner sugar and two tuiles au chocolat shaped in a S pattern. I really liked the result and thought that my cake wouldn't be ashamed to stand amongst other red fruits tarts in Paillard, famous French pâtisserie in upper East Side, Manhattan, or in Dean and Deluca, esquisive gourmet boutique in SOHO. After tasting a bit, I though thought that my crust should be a little bit thinner for more crunchiness...So my satisfaction went high !

Crème brûlée

I also prepared a creme brulee from a very simple recipe found in Gourmandises, French pastry book from Lenotre. Most of the Crème brûlée recipes call for a bain marie slow cooking in the oven. The one found in that book didn't mention such a thing... So, you give you that recipe if you need to prepare a Crème brûlée in a very limited time, less than 20 mn baking time included !

Ingredients (yield = 4 to 6 dishes) :

• 120 gr sugar
• 6 egg yolks
• 40 cl milk

Boil milk with any flavor you like (tradition calls for vanilla but you can infuse with any kind of ingredients you like : eg. coffee beans, earl grey tea, verbena, lavander, etc...). Be sure to strain the milk

Mix sugar and yolks until the mixture turns slightly white. Add milk

Pour in ramequins and bake for 15 mn at 150ºC/300ºF.

Rest until cool. Sprinkle brown sugar on top and slightly burn it underi broiler or with torch.

Compared to the traditional way of baking (bain marie), the usual use of heavy cream instead of milk and the 3 hours resting time, I thought that the result was very acceptable to my taste.