Yogurt Recipes
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A year ago today, my sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy; the next morning, Maxence and I were on a train to visit them at the hospital. He was the freshest newborn I'd ever held, and for weeks afterward, the most mundane display of emotion I witnessed -- in a film, in a book, on the street -- could make me weep. I was an aunt, and not just one in a dozen, either: that baby's one and only au...
I'd been living in California for a few months and thoroughly enjoying the dotcom vibe of my workplace when the big news was announced: we were going to have a company barbecue.
This, to me, was what working in the Silicon Valley at the turn of the century was all about: a lot of fun ideas to make employees happy (water guns! foosball table! free pizza on Fridays!) and therefore more inclined t...
I grew up in a household where le goûter is a cardinal ritual, and I can safely state that I've been eating an afternoon snack practically every day for the past thirty years.
It is so much a part of my food habits that I actually size my lunches to make sure I'll feel a bit hungry around 5 or 6, and in need of something to tide me over until dinner. It is also a welcome alibi to look up from ...
[Blueberry Yogurt Cake]
I seem to have become the official birthday cake baker on the 3rd floor of my apartment building -- should this be added to my résumé you think? -- a mission I am proud and happy to take on.
It was recently Peter's birthday -- Peter who's half Italian half Scottish, and who lives with Ligiana, herself from Brazil, in the apartment to the left of ours. As a birthday gi...
Chicken and Radish Salad with Avocado Green Goddess Dressing
I used to be someone who liked the white meat best in a roast chicken.
This worked out nicely at dinner with my parents when I was growing up, as they would each get a chicken leg while we girls ate the breast happily: it was mild in flavor, there were no bones to wrestle with, and it came with plenty of pan juices that our mother spooned on after we'd cut criss-cross indentations in the meat f...
Chocolate and Candied Chestnuts Coffee Cake
[Chocolate and Candied Chestnuts Coffee Cake]
I wanted to bake a cake for our new year's eve party - what's a party without a cake? -- and this is what I made. The recipe for this cake is originally a Sour Cream Coffee Cake from Bon Appétit (circa 1993), which my mother and I tinkered with a little while ago, lowering the sugar content, subbing yogurt for sour cream and converting the measurem...
Chocolate and Pistachio Surprise Cake
[Chocolate and Pistachio Surprise Cake]
Last week was my sister's birthday. I didn't come as much of a surprise, really, because I have quite the analytical mind, and a careful observation has led me to the conclusion that this phenomenon happens every 8th of December, year in, year out. At least it always has. Of course, just because the sun has risen every morning for as long as we can rememb...
An estimated 62% of my cooking begins with me lying in bed, thinking about some ingredient that needs using, and not being able to sleep because my mind is awhir, trying to devise rewarding ways to do so.
These closed-eye sessions usually yield satisfactory results and, every once in a while, a plain fantastic one. I am counting this ice cream among the latter.
The challenge was this: I had a ...
[Cake marbré au chocolat]
I grew up eating a store-bought chocolate marble cake called Savane. Created in the sixties by a French manufacturer that was acquired by an American company shortly thereafter, it came as a whole loaf cake in an ocher and brown box. The bottom of the loaf was wrapped in a paper liner that you peeled off as you sliced your way through the cake, the crumb was fluffy as...
Green Tea and Red Bean (Matcha and Azuki) Cake Roll
[Gâteau roulé matcha et azuki]
The thing that happens when you buy a big pouch of anko (Japanese sweetened red bean paste) to make strawberry daifuku is that you're likely to run out of rice flour long before you use up all the azuki paste.
I assume it keeps for weeks if well wrapped, but I didn't want to let it sit in the fridge for too long (shelf space is in short supply), so I tried to t...
The yogurt maker (yaourtière in French) is often used to illustrate the concept of an appliance that seemed like a good idea at the time of purchase (back in the seventies), but ends up collecting dust in the dark depths of a kitchen cabinet. It strikes me as terribly unfair a way to disparage a perfectly respectable peace of household equipment.
I grew up on the homemade yogurts my mother m...
I first heard about Rene Redzepi's Copenhagen restaurant Noma when I attended the 2008 edition of the Omnivore Food Festival in Deauville, a gastronomic event during which high-profile chefs from France and beyond are invited to cook live on stage.
He has since received many more accolades as the herald of a refreshing and talented new wave of Scandinavian chefs. His forager's approach seems to...
Raspberry Muffins with Cacao Nibs
[Raspberry Muffins with Cacao Nibs]
Today is the new edition of the world-famous collaborative food-blogging event Is My Blog Burning?. It is hosted this time by Maki of I was just really very hungry, and her theme of choice is cupcakes and muffins. You may notice that while IMBB's are traditionally held on Sundays, Maki thoughtfully planned for us to have time to scrounge around for the ingred...
[Raspberry Yogurt Cake]
Gâteau au Yaourt is a staple in French home baking : it is very easy to make and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't like it. Its particularity is to call for a pot de yaourt (a tub of yogurt), and to use the empty pot to measure out the rest of the ingredients. This no-scale recipe is a notable exception to the French usage, in which quantities are measured by weigh...
Roasted Eggplant and Yogurt Dip
A favorite from the archives, this post was originally published on September 22, 2008.
When I recovered my kitchen after seven weeks (seven! weeks!) of renovation chaos -- and this was just to redo the bathroom, mind you -- the very first thing I made was a yogurt cake, to fortify us through our next mission: the meticulous cleaning of, well, the entire contents of our apartment, which we had ...
Last time I was in London, my primary objective may have been to snuggle up with my nephew, but I still brought a list of food places I wanted to check out, for, you know, research purposes. One of them was Ottolenghi, a deli that offers a daily selection of colorful dishes -- with an emphasis on fresh produce -- and dazzling pastries.
I had received a review copy of their seductive cookbook a ...
[Gâteau au yaourt]
As I've mentioned before, Maxence is a big advocate of the adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it". In other words, when a classic recipe is fabulous, don't meddle with it, and just do what you're told. Obviously I have trouble following that piece of advice, and more often than not I'll surrender to the urge and tweak a little something here and a little something there -- s...
We had friends over for brunch on Sunday. Maxence went out in the morning to the charcuterie shop, cheese shop, and bakery, and came back with an basketload of ready-to-eat goodies -- bone-in ham and duck terrine and eggs in aspic and cheese and freshly baked bread -- that we served with a simple salad topped with toasted pumpkin seeds.
And for the sweet part of the brunch (there must be a swee...
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