Category: French

  • French pastries course day 1: Macarons and canelés

    French pastries course day 1: Macarons and canelés

      You’ve heard me say it a kajabillion times so I won’t draw this out for too long. I love macarons. But try as I might, I was unable to reproduce these heavenly confections in my own oven. So when Toronto’s Bonnie Gordon’s School of Confectionary Arts offered a two-day French pastries course teaching how…

  • Julia Child’s Cherry Clafouti

    Julia Child’s Cherry Clafouti

      I first tried clafouti (or clafoutis, as it is spelled in France) at a French cooking class at Dish Cooking Studio several years ago under then-Auberge du Pommier chef Paul Benallick. It wasn’t until recently, when I found myself purchasing in-season cherries every weekend, that I cast my mind back to that memory. At…

  • Julia Child’s Reine de Saba

    Julia Child’s Reine de Saba

      I was moved to make the Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba aka chocolate and almond cake) after watching “Julie & Julia” during which Julie makes this simple, but chic, cake for company. After a pregnancy-long drought of chocolate, I am getting back on the cocoa bandwagon. I know, I know, I have been…

  • SoNo’s classic chocolate mousse

    SoNo’s classic chocolate mousse

      Good chocolate mousse is rare. At its best, it is delicate, intensely flavoured, and light on your tongue. At its worst, it’s nothing more than stodgy chocolate pudding from a box. Sometimes, it falls somewhere in between.Like this recipe for classic chocolate mousse that comes from “The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook,” which I’ve already…

  • Merveilleux macarons

    Merveilleux macarons

      A few years ago my husband and I were shopping on the fashionable rue Saint-Honoré, an ancient street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, known for its high-end boutiques, cafes, and hotels, when the skies opened and a veritable ocean of water poured down. It was a bit of a disappointment as we had…

  • Pear and chocolate cake-tart

    Pear and chocolate cake-tart

    I came across this recipe in food blogger extraordinaire Clotilde Dusoulier’s book “Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris.”Dusoulier, the blogger behind Chocolate & Zucchini, a delectable compendium of recipes and anecdotes has never steered me wrong before.Be it the chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles; tarte tomate a la tatin or pistachio and chorizo cake; or the mini-financiers au…

  • Picture-perfect palmiers

    Picture-perfect palmiers

      Palmiers are elegant, delicious and surprisingly easy to make. Named in French for their resemblance to palm fronds, they are also known as elephant ears or butterfly wings. I made classic palmiers, and also cinnamon-flavoured ones, from one box of puff pastry. I used the recipe from “The Art and Soul of Baking” for…

  • South of France-inspired brunch

    South of France-inspired brunch

      It’s been nearly ten years since I stepped foot in the south of France, but the tastes still linger in my culinary memory: aromatic olives, sun-kissed red tomatoes bursting with juice, the hint of lavender in Herbes de Provence.As much as I’d love to hop on a place to take a stroll on the…

  • French bistro cooking class

    French bistro cooking class

      A friend of mine wanted to take a cooking class and I recommended Dish Cooking Studio to her, where I’d enjoyed taking two classes on previous occasions: “brunch entertaining”, and “Simply French.” I’ve successfully adapted recipes, and skills, that I learned from these classes to my everyday life, and so it was with great…

  • Chocolate and Zucchini’s chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles

    Chocolate and Zucchini’s chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles

      Pressed for a last-minute sweet for dinner guests, after my macarons failed miserably, I turned to my copy of “Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian kitchen.” Penned by food blogger extraordinaire Clotilde Dusoulier, I read this book cover-to-cover on a train ride from Paris to Amsterdam. It holds a special place in…