Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic 四十瓣蒜烤鸡

While I transited at CDG airport Paris when returned from US trip. I spotted a French cookbook in English, so happy and quickly bought this cookbook. The first recipe immediately I try out is this Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, perfect to cook in a lazy Sunday dinner.

Madeleine 马德琳蛋糕

My little son Desmond like Madeleine a lot. It started when both of us watching a Taiwan TV drama together (the story line was about baking and love) the other day. He was attracted by this Madeleine and requested me to make for him. At first,  I was using the recipe provided in the drama which required to rest the batter overnight in the fridge. The madeleine turned out to be hard and quite dry but my son finished them all. I guess this recipe was failed due to no raising agent is added.

Parisian Brioche 法式布里歐修麵包



The other day I told my cooking buddies that I am planning to bake some Brioche. They forwarded to me few recipes to try. And they also told me there are two version of Brioche, Rich version and Poor version. I told them that of course I want to make Rich version (contains of more butter, so it will taste more buttery). While I searching for a final recipe to try. I just recalled I made Brioche few years back ( at that time I wasn't know much about Brioche. I even blamed to that magazine provided a wrong recipe which required so much of butter, sorry..) Anyway, when I re-visited the same recipe, realized that the amount of butter is equal to flour, and more eggs are using. I know I wouldn't handle this type of wet dough well. Finally I settled with another recipe which requires only half of the butter to flour. At the end, my version ended up with Middle class version, LOL!

Canard à l'orange ( Duck breast in Orange sauce) 法式香橙鸭胸

I never know combine duck and orange can be tasted so nice, until I found the answer in Paris trip. We asked the staff from the hotel where we stayed to recommend a good restaurant for dinner. He were suggested us to a restaurant just located nearby. And we had this most yummy orange duck breast in this restaurant (will update in later travel post).

Easy Strawberry Mille-feuille a.k.a Napoleon 拿破仑千层草莓酥

We just came back from a short trip to Cameron Highlands. I bought some very fresh and large strawberries. I immediate thought of this French pastry Mille-feuille or Napoleon which made up using three layers of puff pastry, and alternating with two layers of pastry cream. I made an easy version, using store-bought puff pastry sheet, sandwich with whipping cream that flavoured with strawberry flavours and fresh strawberry from Cameron highlands.

Raspberries Clafoutis 覆盆子布丁蛋糕

Clafoutis, is a baked French dessert of fruit, traditionally using black cherries, arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan (like batter), and once baked, dusted with powdered sugar. I baked this few weeks ago but i used some very fresh raspberries.

Fraisier Eclairs (Eclairs with Pistachio White Chocolate Ganache and Strawberry) 闪电泡芙

An éclair is an oblong French's pastry made with choux dough filled with cream.The word comes from French éclair 'flash of lightning', that's why Chinese also named as 闪电泡芙. And a traditional Fraisier is crème mousseline (pastry cream with extra butter) and strawberries sandwiched between two sheets of heavily imbibed sponge (genoise) cake, you can read more here. When Fraisier and Éclair combine together, it became an awesome pastry !!
When I read this post talking about Christophe Adam (a French patissier who specialises in eclairs) creation of Fraisier Eclairs, I immediately decided to create this pastry at home.