jeudi 5 septembre 2013

Baking Challenge n°3

Third edition of Fred&Friends's Baking Challenge !
I'm not gonna tell you to participate, you already know why you should do it ;-)

My August 2013's:

Dessert focusing. Again. I know... I am not even ashamed of it. 

Tarte au citron Meringuée !

Estimated time: 60min // Price: € (normal-ish) // Pleasure: ++++ 

Ingredients for 1 medium pie 
For the dough:
250gr of flour
125gr of butter
70gr of sugar
2 eggs yolk  
Water
 
For the lemon curd:
100ml of lemon juice // juice of 3 lemons + zest if you like it.
1 tbsp of cornflour
3 eggs
150gr of sugar

For the meringue:
2 whites of eggs
100gr of sugar
1/2 tsp of baking powder


Whisk the sugar and the yolk together and dilute with water. Not too much!

With your fingers, mix the flour and the pieces of butter in a bowl to obtain a sandy dough. Make sure that the butter is fully absorbed. 
Pour in the middle of that "sand" the liquid mix that you prepared before.

With a knife, mix everything together, without much precision.

Form a ball with the inside of your hands and push it in the pie mould (25cm large is good, but I think mine is smaller and that good as well!).

Put in the oven (180°C) for 20 min, "à blanc". It means that you cook only the dough. So you'll need to put beans on your dough to avoid it to blow. Myself, I put some baking paper and then little rocks. It works the same!

While it's in the oven, make your lemon curd.


In a pan, mix the sugar, the lemon juice, and the cornflour. Stir well.
Then you have two choices. Either your start to cook your mixture on the small ring of your cooker, and then add the eggs and change to a big ring, either you add the eggs straight away and go directly to the big ring.
There's no big difference really. Be just really careful to constantly stir the mixture once the eggs are in the pan. Otherwise, it will burn.
Your curd is ready when it is thick enough.

Once the dough is out of the oven, pour the lemon curd all over it !


Looks yummy already, isn't it?!
A little more effort... Go on.

In a bowl, whisk up the egg whites with a pinch of salt. When you think they are hard enough, you can add the sugar and the baking powder, and keep going with the whisk until they are firm. Use an electric one, it's not cheating, it's helping yourself out ;-).
Pour them all over the lemon curd and put in the oven (150°C) until the meringue's golden... about 10min.





 



 
Bon appétit !

mercredi 31 juillet 2013

Baking Challenge n°2

Second edition of Fred&Friends's Baking Challenge !
I can't advice you than participating to it. It's nice to exchange recipes and having new ideas from people from different countries. My sister is a very multinational girl, she has friend all around the world, it's quite fantastic !

My July 2013's:

Dessert focusing. Easily and quickly made, you're going to be amazed by the result. Very little effort and great taste!

Chocolate Cup & Banana-Strawberry Smoothie


Estimated time: CC 3h BSS: 3min // Price: € // Pleasure: ++++

Ingredients for 4 cups and 4 Smoothies (size medium)

For the cups:
About 150gr of milk chocolate 
4 balloons (I used water balloons because they are smaller)
Ice cream

For the smoothies:
6 big strawberries
2 bananas
4 big spoons of yoghurt (plain and low fat tested and approved)
2 glasses of orange juice
Honey

Chocolate Cup

1) In a microwavable container (bowl is the best), melt the chocolate. Melt little by little to not burn the chocolate and having a smooth mixture.

2) Blow 4 balloons

3) With a teaspoon, drop a small amount of chocolate on your baking sheet to create a stand. Dip each balloon in the chocolate high up as you want. Stick the balloon to the base on the b.sheet.
Repeat that for every balloon you need.


4) Leave aside to cool down and place them in the fridge for at least 2 hours and more.

5) Just pierce with a needle to get rid of the balloon. If it sticks to the cup, just slowly pull up the rest of the balloon. It is easy but be careful.


6) Fill the cup with ice cream (homemade is the best!) and Enjoy!



___________________________________________________________________________

Bananas-Strawberries Smoothies



 1) Cut the bananas and the strawberries (after washing them!). Put them in a food processor. Add the yoghurt, the orange juice and make two or three circles with the honey on top of everything.

 
 
 2) Mix everything for few seconds. It's better to turn the button several time for few seconds rather than once for a minute. Once everything is mixed correctly, open the top of the food processor, take off the blade, and pour the smoothie into glasses. With a rubber spatula you can avoid any waste!

You obtain a delicious smoothie ! Yummy !


mercredi 24 juillet 2013

Dublin Mountains Way 2 (DMW)

More pictures on a sunnier day :)

 Beginning of Day 2, through Rathmichael Wood.



 

 
 


 



Dublin Mountains Way 1 (DMW)

Did I tell you that I went hiking twice with a friend?

It was unbelievable ! The Dublin Mountains are extraordinary and offer a wonderful view over the Dublin Bay, it is gorgeous!
We did it over two days (two Saturdays, one in April and one in July). The DMW is about 40K walking, but we did more because we got lost a tiny bit each Saturday :). The first time, we did a circle of 4K twice without really noticing it... shame! It was good fun when we realized it!

You can start/finish in Tallaght or in Shankill. A map is a good thing to have, and don't be afraid to ask people around you as the start is not very clear in each town.

Let me show you few pictures:

The official entrance of the DMW


Water reservoir
 
 

My thought when we arrived here: Lord of the Ring.



 




View on Dublin and its area

vendredi 28 juin 2013

Baking Challenge

Fred&Friends vous propose un "Cooking/Baking Challenge" !

What a creative and interactive way of sharing recipes and learning some new ones!
At the end of each month, you write a post on your own blog or send your article to Frederique and she'll post it on hers. That will allow you to discover and try new recipes and share your favorites.

My June 2013's:

You like coconut. You like chocolate. And you want them together, but the famous Bounty® is maybe too sugary or full of preservatives for you... I have the solution!
Easy Peasy, in less than a day you have your homemade ChoCoco bar !



Estimated time: 12h // Price: € // Pleasure: ++++

Ingredients for 11 'mini' Bounty®

100gr of coconut powder
4/5 spoon of yoghurt (plain and low fat tested and approved)
60gr of brown sugar
150/200gr of milk chocolate (dark if you prefer it)

1) In a bowl, mix the sugar, the coconut and the yoghurt together with a fork. Make sure that the yoghurt is completely absorbed by the coconut.


2) Use your hands to shape little ovals and put them on a baking tray covered by a greaseproof paper.



3) Let settle between 3 and 5 hours in the fridge. The more time they spend in the fridge, the best it is!

4) After all that time, melt the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave, and dip each bar into it. Make sure that you cover the whole bar, and let settle in the fridge between 5 hours and a night (I let them a night myself).

The Survivor.
I didn't have the time to take a picture of the whole batch, they were already eaten up!


Success guaranteed !


Fair play to La Super Superette which has plenty of gorgeous recipes ! I wish I had the idea by myself, but I'm not confident enough for the moment. I only start with the random proportions for cakes and that seems to work for the moment most of the time :)

Enjoy that recipe and let me know if you try it.

CHEERS !

vendredi 21 juin 2013

Dun Laoghaire

Warning! The pronunciation of the name is not that difficult ! ['dun leri:]
They kept the Irish name for this town, I think that is something nice actually.


We went to Dun Laoghaire with a friend visiting from France, again! I had the pleasure to have three friends every two weeks from February to March. 25 min from Connelly Station, towards the South this time.

No more words, pictures are way better :)












I love those houses with colours on the front