Ok so first things first. This isn’t a french recipe, its Belgian and comes from the Belgian town of Liège. Anyone who has visited Belgium will know that it’s not just famous for its beer and “moules-frites” (mussels and chips) but also for its unbelievably delicious waffles or gaufres !

The main difference between these gaufres and regular waffles is that they are made with a yeast raised dough, not a batter, so rather tan being light and spongy they are dense and rich.

I had been meaning to make these for ages and then finally got around to it today. Funnily enough the Tour de France is going to Liege today so it seems kind of fitting 🙂

Ingredients :

• 20cl lukewarm milk
• 1 sachet of active dry yeast
• 2 large eggs
• 500g plain flour
• 70g brown sugar
• A good pinch of salt
• 1 sachet of vanilla sugar (11g)
• 300g of butter at room temperature
• 150g pearl sugar

Method :

1. In a bowl mix the milk with the dry yeast using a whisk
2. Add in the flour, followed by the eggs, the brown sugar, the salt and the vanilla sugar
3. Mix it all roughly together with the whisk
4. Then either use a mixer with a dough hook or your hands and mix well
5. Chop the softened butter into cubes and add to the dough
6. Again mix either with the mixer or your hands until the dough is smooth and elastic
7. Cover the bowl with plastic film and leave the dough aside for at least 30 minutes
8. Mix in the pearl sugar
9. Form balls of dough
10. Heat your waffle iron and use as per instructions – placing a small round ball of dough in the centre of the waffle plate
11. Cook for 3 minutes approx but keep an eye on them as they can cook a lot quicker!

Enjoy! Sprinkle with icing sugar or another topping of your choice – nutella, whipped cream, ice-cream, salted-butter caramel sauce …..

They can make a really lovely dessert with some vanilla ice-cream and chocolate sauce.

Or cake aux abricots in french! Apricots are plentiful this time of year and this is an easy way to use them to make a cake thats perfect as an afternoon snack.

Ingredients :

• 6 ripe apricots
• 3 large eggs
• 130g softened butter
• 125g sugar
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar
• 250g flour (I replaced half the flour with cornflour as this gives a lighter texture to the cake but just using flour is good too!)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 large pinch of cinnamon

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Wash and dry the apricots, remove the stone and chop
3. Sieve the flour and the baking powder together
4. Use a fork to mash the softened butter until you get a beurre pommade*
5. Mix in the sugar, the vanilla sugar and the cinammon
6. Add in each egg separately, mixing well each time
7. Fold in the flour
8. Add in the chopped apricots
9. Bake in oven for 45 minutes (keep an eye on the cake, it might take less time)

*A beurre pommade is butter that has been let come to room temperature and then mixed with a fork or spoon until you get a spreadable mixture

Flaugnarde  or flognarde is a baked French dessert with fruit and a  thick flan-like batter hailing from the Limousin and Auvergne region in France. It is similar to a clafoutis, which is made with black cherries whereas a flaugnarde is made with apples, peaches, pears, plums, prunes etc. It can be served either warm or cold.

Ingredients :

• 100g flour
• 100g sugar
• 1 table spoon oil
• 300ml milk
• 200ml liquid cream (or liquid crème fraîche)
• 5 eggs
• 6 apples
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Peel and core the apples and slice into circles
3. Mix everything together in a bowl in the following order : flour, sugar, oil, milk, cream, salt
4. Beat eggs well and add to mixture
5. Butter a round oven dish and spread the apple slices around evenly
6. Pour the batter over the apples
7. Bake in oven for 45 minutes at 180°C

Riz au lait is a well loved dessert here in France – so popular you can buy it in ready made yoghurt sized cartons in different flavours – vanilla or rhum and raisin for example. My youngest loves this and it’s so easy to make it has become a staple in our household. Its a perfect dessert or after school snack!

Ingredients :

• 180g short-grain rice (almost oval or round in shape)
• 1 litre milk
• 100g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod

Method :

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the rice in it for 3 minutes.
2. Strain the rice
3. Cut the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds.
4. Heat the litre of milk with the vanilla pod and the seeds
5. When the milk come to the boil add the rice cook over a low/medium heat for 25 minutes stirring occasionally
6. After 25 minutes add the sugar, mix well and continue cooking for another 5 minutes
7. Remove vanilla pods, pour into pudding bowls and allow to cool

Sablé cookies are a traditional Christmas fare in France, although they are well loved all year round 🙂 They are from the Normandy region and are delicious plain but you can also dip them in dark chocolate or vary the flavourings – almond, orange zest, cinnamon etc.

The word sable means sand in French which is the term used when the English use the term “breadcrumbs”, as you rub the cold butter, flour and sugar together at the start of the recipe to make texture like breadcrumbs (or sand) before adding the egg.

Ingredients :

• 250g flour
• 125g butter
• 75g sugar
• 1 egg
• A few drops of vanilla essence
• I egg yolk (for brushing cookies before baking)

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Rub the flour, butter and sugar together until you get a breadcrumb texture
3. Make a well in the centre and add the egg and knead the dough into a ball
4. Leave the dough to rest for at least 30 minutes
5. Place on a smooth surface and roll out
6. Use cutters to cut out the cookie shapes
7. Brush the sablé cookies with egg yolk (to get a nice gold colour)
8. Bake in oven at 180°C for 12-15 minutes (keep an eye on them, once they are nice and golden remove from oven and place on cooling rack

Chocolate and pears go so well together, the dark chocolate and sweet moist pears make a lovely combination. I have already posted a pear and chocolate loaf , ideal with afternoon tea, this is more of a dessert which is perfect served with a scoop of ice-cream.

At this time of the year you can use fresh pears, making sure they are nice and ripe. You can always use a tin of pears too though!

Ingredients :

• 200 g dark chocolat (70%)
• 150 g butter
• 120 g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 130 g self-raising flour
• 4 pears

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Melt the butter and chocolat together in a bain-marie (put ingredients in bowl and place bowl in saucepan of water over a low heat)
3. Mix in the sugar
4. Separate the eggs into whites and yolks and add the yolks to the mixture
5. Fold in the flour
6. Beat the egg whites (with a pinch of salt) until stiff and gently fold them into the rest of the ingredients
7. Peel and core pears and slice in half
8. Grease and flour tin, place the pear halves on the bottom and cover with chocolate cake mixture
9. Bake in oven at 180°C for 40 minutes
10. Remove from tin immediately and place on rack to cool

Chocolate Pear Cake

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A biscuit roulé (literally meaning rolled biscuit) is very similar to a swiss roll and particularly popular at this time of year as a base for a christmas log cake, called a bûche de Noel in french.

The actual base for the cake is called a ‘genoise’ which is a sponge cake that uses whole eggs and is a basic building block of much French patisserie and is used for making several different types of cake.

Ingredients :

• 4 eggs
• 150 g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
• 125g self-raising flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• Jam or nutella

Method :

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C
2. Beat the eggs, sugar (caster sugar and vanilla sugar) and the salt well with an electric mixer until pale, light and fluffy
3. Fold in the flour gently
4. Pour the mixture onto an oven tray that you have lined with greaseproof paper
5. Bake for 12 minutes
6. Prepare a clean, damp tea-towel and place it on top of the oven tray and flip it over so that your cake is on the damp tea-towel
7. Roll the cake with the tea-towel and leave to cool
8. When the cake is cold gently unroll and spread with jam or nutella, re-roll it and sprinkle with a bit of icing sugar et voilà!

*Make sure to roll the cake when it is just out of the oven and still pliable

*You can make a chocolate base by substituting 25g of cocoa for 25g of flour

Tarte Tatin is a well known french apple tart. Research shows that it is called after two sisters, Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin who ran a hotel, Hotel Tatin, in Sologne (region about 100km south of Paris).

The most well known story is that one of the sisters dropped the tart after taking it out of the oven and it fell upside down, but she decided to pick it up and serve it anyway with the apples on top and the pastry on the bottom. Apparently on the sisters menu the tart was called a Tarte Solognote after the region they were living in but when the tart became well known and made it to Paris the name was changed to Tarte Tatin after the sisters.

Ingredients :

• 1 short cut pastry – recipe here (add a tablespoon of sugar to the recipe for a sweet pastry)
• 4-6 apples
• 100g sugar
• 50g soft brown sugar
• 50g butter
•  Juice of 1 lemon

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Peel and cut apples into quarters and sprinkle the juice of half a lemon over them
3. Take 100g of the sugar and add in an even layer to a heavy-bottomed saucepan or an oven proof dish suitable for the tart
4. Heat the sugar over a moderate heat.
5. Use a silicone spatula or a wooden spoon to move the liquefied sugar from the edges of the saucepan to the center.
6. Carefully watch the sugar until it reaches exactly the right amber color
7. Add half the juice to the caramel
8. If your pan isn’t oven proof and not suitable to use for the tart pour the caramel into the tart dish (otherwise use the same dish)
9. Place the apples on the caramel (rounded side down), trying to completely cover the base. Add any remaining apples on top of the base layer
10. Cube the  50g of butter and place on apples
11. Sprinkle the soft brown sugar over the apples
12. Cover the apples with the short-cut pastry taking care to press down around the sides of the pan
13. Sprinkle some sugar over the pastry (this will help prevent the pastry from getting too wet from the apples)
14. Bake for 30 minutes at 180°C
15. Remove from oven and using a plate turn the tart upside down but leave in tin/pan for a good 10 minutes before removing (this will avoid any apples sticking to the pan)
16. Serve warm with some ice-cream

The tarte tatin before cooking

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Another loaf cake – this one is perfect for gouter but is also a nice breakfast cake!

Ingredients :

• 125g butter
• 100g sugar
• 3 eggs
• Zest and juice of two oranges
• 125g self-raising flour
• Icing sugar

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Cream the butter and half the sugar (50g) together
3. Separate the egg whites and yolks
4. Add the egg yolks, zest from two oranges and the juice of one orange to the butter and sugar and mix well
5. Slowly mix in the sieved flour
6. Brat the egg whites with the remaining half of the sugar (50g) until stiff
7. Gently mix the egg whites into the cake batter
8. Pour into a greased loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes in pre-heated oven at 180°C
9. Use the juice of the second orange to make a glaçage, mixing it with icing sugar until you get a sweet slightly thick sirop
10. Place loaf on cooling tray and, while it is still warm, pour the orange glaçage over the cake

Yet another loaf cake – my most used tin in the kitchen! Pears are in season at the moment, for this recipe just make sure they are nice and soft before using.

Ingredients :

• 3 pears
• 150g self-raising flour
• 80g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 90g butter (melted)
• 50 g dark chocolate

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Mix the flour, sugar, eggs and melted butter together
3. Peel and chop pears in small cubes
4. Break the chocolate into small pieces (or use ready made chocolate chips)
5. Add the pear and chocolate into the cake mixture and pour into loaf tin
6. Sprinkle some sliced almonds and chocolate on top of the cake
7. Bake in oven for 40-45 minutes at 180°C