This Gougère is no Goujat

French vocabulary can get a little tricky.

When is a "g" pronounced like a "j"? When do you pronounce a "t" or "d" at the end of a word? If you're French, chances are you learned all that in school, or never even asked yourself these questions. If you're not French, well, the intricacies of spelling in the "language of love" may seem a little unclear at times.

Here's my tip: if you're having a cocktail or dinner party with people likely to be swayed by great French skills, fake it. The best way to do so? Make them gougères.

Gougères are the masculine, savory version of the extra-cute chouquettes. But as I said in the title, gougères are no goujat. A goujat is a man who acts in a rude manner, especially towards women. This gougère right here does no such thing--trust me. It is small, cute in its own way, and just bite-sized enough to make everyone feel good about having one. But here is the magical side: you can put everything and pretty much anything in or on a gougère. Traditionally, gruyère gets first dibs on topping rights, but feel free to switch things around every now and then.

Last time I had friends over, gougères were the perfect accompaniement to my favorite goat cheese-green fig mix. Feel free to go anywhere with the base recipe for gougères: add some truffle oil, top with poppy seeds or sesame...or stuff them with what you'd like, from an umami-packed tapenade to tomato whipped cream.

Really, girlfriend, this gougère knows his way to a woman's heart. Next time someone quizzes you on some tricky French, stick a gougère in their mouth. They'll shush up and love you for it.

Gougères

makes approx 40 small puffs

1 cup water

1/3 cup (80g) butter

1 1/4 cup (125g) flour

4 eggs

salt

Optional toppings: gruyère, poppy seeds, sesame seeds...
Optional fillings: goat cheese, tapenade,...

Preheat oven to 200°C / 400°F.

Bring water to a boil, add salt, then add butter.

Once the butter has melted, add all the flour at once and stir until you get a dry dough.

Remove the saucepan from heat, and add eggs one at a time, stirring (your arms might hurt a little) until you end up with a nice dough that's not too liquid.

Pipe dough onto a baking sheet, making little pyramids/cones for each. Sprinkle with topping, if using.

 

Bake until golden (approx. 20 minutes), opening oven door as little as possible. Let cool on a rack. Slice gougères open to pipe filling inside.

Ecce! Chocolate Mint Bars

When I talk about high school school activities I participated in, I often mention soccer. In France, playing soccer isn't an obvious choice for a girl--it's even rather strange. People imagine girls with a manly build, a buzz cut, and a strange fondness for kicking other girls in the knees.

Then, they look at me. As of now--and eight years ago--I am none of that. So, to take their mind off soccer, I add that I was part of Latin club. If I'm really feeling up to it, I'll even go as far as saying that I participated in Illinois Latin Tournaments every year, and really enjoyed "chariot races"... with pieces of carpet serving as the actual "chariots". Somehow, everyone tends to think I'm actually a little weirder after that. Playing soccer is one thing...but staging plays about a frog and an ox in Latin? 

Think what you will, but our Latin teacher had a mysterious aura. Mrs. Newman, of Canadian origin, was the kind of wonderful teacher you don't run into very often--incredibly smart but also funny. Oh, and something else.

She made mean nanaimo and peppermint bars.

The nanaimo bars will be for another day--today is all about the peppermint. 

Mrs. Newman's peppermint bars were out of this world, and I'm pretty sure my whole school could back me up on that assertion. They were creamy and smooth, with just the right amount of peppermint. But here's the catch: Mrs. Newman's recipes were a secret...that is, until graduation. Unfortunately for deserters like myself (not desserters, although I would call myself that too), I was across the Atlantic by the time graduation rolled around. Enter Emily, a friend I met with this Summer, who was kind enough to send the two recipes over.

This was like Christmas in recipeland, and I set out to make the peppermint bars at once. Obviously, like all food memories, the exact taste of Mrs. Newman's bars wasn't there. But I think I came pretty close. So close you might even see me don a helmet and climb up on my carpet chariot. 

Mmm: esculentus.

PS: Mrs. Newman, sorry for giving away your recipe.

Mrs. Newman's Chocolate Mint Bars

makes one 9x9 inch pan of bars

Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C.

First Layer

1/2 c. butter

2 eggs, beaten

1 scant c. white sugar

1/2 TS peppermint extract

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/2 c. flour

Melt butter and chocolate over a double boiler. Remove from heat, add beaten eggs and beat well. 

Add sugar, peppermint,  and flour.  Beat well.  Bake at 350°F / 180°C for 20 minutes in a greased 9x9 pan.

Second Layer

1 c. powdered sugar

2 heaping TB butter

1 TB milk (more)

1 TS peppermint extract

few drops green food coloring (optional)

Mix together until smooth.  Spread on first layer and cool until set.

Third Layer

2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate 

2 TB butter

Melt together, cool and drizzle over second layer.  Chill; cut into 24 pieces.

Crisp Weather

Summertime is made for dresses. And skirts, and tank tops. In general, summertime is made for light clothing.

Consequently, I wore light clothing to work at the beginning of the week. Nothing strange up to here, right?

That's until I realized my office had American-level air conditioning standards--actually, the whole building does. Goodbye dresses, hello jeans and sweaters. But don't worry, I found where the air comes from, and it comes from little slits on the floor. I've got masking tape, and let me tell you I won't let this rebel AC ruin my Summer closet plans. No siree. 

So, crisp weather it is, in my office at least. But that's not really the kind of crisp I was thinking about.

When strawberries come along, I get so excited I eat them all the time: for breakfast, before and after lunch, as a mid-afternoon snack, as a before-dinner snack...you get what I mean. One thing I hardly ever think of doing is making a baked good with these lovely red pieces of goodness--but I finally decided to do it. As the French say, j'ai sauté le pas. 

All you food bloggers aren't innocent in this situation, you know. I've been reading about blueberry buckles, cobblers and summer berry pies. I just couldn't resist any longer. 

After psychologically preparing myself for cooking down all those luscious strawberries, I decided that my berry dessert needed to bring out the flavor of the fruit, so preferably not in cake form. I thought back, remembering all the great crumbles and crisps I've been seeing online, and settled for a strawberry crisp.

Obviously, my 500g of strawberries didn't really make it into the oven--my cereal was begging for some, and my mid-afternoon snack as well. Those that did, however, were accompanied by a fresh fig and a crisp topping made with almonds and almond flour. Any hints of sadness I had (letting the strawberries go in the oven sure was a difficult life decision) evaporated when I opened the oven door. The aroma of the strawberries, mixed in with the almonds and a hint of cinnamon made me want to jump right into the oven itself and eat the crisp before it was even ready. Mind you, I'm not the reckless kind--the story of how I dropped a very sharp paring knife, blade pointed down, onto my toe this week isn't the subject here--so I waited until it cooled a little to give it a taste.

Give this recipe a go if you're a fan of strawberries in any form. In a few words, this is what happened to me: "Strawberry crisp, meet Lucie. Lucie, strawberry crisp." And we became the best of friends. "The End"--said between two mouthfuls of crisp topped with plain yogurt.

Fig-Strawberry Crisp 

serves 3 to 4

1 pound strawberries, rinsed and hulled
1 fresh fig, cut into medium-sized pieces
2 TS cornstarch
1/8 c. granulated sugar
1/2 TS vanilla extract
juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 c. + 2 TB slivered almonds
1/8 c. almond meal
1/8 c. all-purpose flour
2 TB brown sugar
1 TB granulated sugar
1/8 TS cinnamon
1/8 TS nutmeg
1/8 TS salt
2 TB butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400°F / 200°C.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix granulated sugar and cornstarch. Add strawberries and fig, lemon juice and vanilla, and delicately mix. Put mixture in a baking dish, cover with foil, and bake 25 minutes until strawberries have released their juice.

Meanwhile, pulse almonds, almond meal, flour, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a food processor until almonds are finely chopped. Drizzle melted butter on top and pulse until a coarse meal forms.

Place mixture in a medium-sized bowl and pinch fingers together to create some pea-sized chunks.

Remove fruit from the oven and give mixture a stir. Sprinkle topping evenly on the fruit. Bake 10 to 15 minutes until topping is golden and fruit is bubbling.

Place baking dish on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm, or cooled with vanilla ice cream or yogurt.

Simple as Ice Cream Muffins

Take a second and look around. What do you see?

I see ice cream. Everywhere: in my freezer, in five different places one block away, and in everybody's hands. If I were to listen to myself, I would bathe in ice cream every single morning. Well, maybe not, because I have to hurry in the mornings and doing that would just take too much time.

Nevertheless, seeing everyone walk around with an ice cream cone has made me realize I may be hungry for fresh salads, but I'm also craving ice cream. All the time. See, I like sorbet, but what I really want these days is something creamy and not particularly light. Every time I hear a truck, I turn around, hoping it's the ice cream man or a Mr. Softee truck. Then, I realize I'm in France.

Toto, we're not in America anymore.

Oddly enough, my first reaction to this summertime craving (I say this because in the winter, I crave peppermint ice cream--different category, right?) wasn't to go out and eat ice cream. My first reaction was to go out and buy ice cream, to make ice cream muffins. Same thing? Hardly. Ice cream muffins are not, contrary to what you might be thinking at this very moment, like ice cream sandwiches. They are something else entirely.

When I was still in Urbana, my neighbor Pat found a recipe that she thought I might be interested in. (thanks Pat!) Sure enough, I couldn't wait to try it. Here's the catch: the recipe has two ingredients. Ice cream, and self-rising flour--which actually becomes a tiny five ingredients if, like me, you don't have self-rising flour. Ice cream in muffins? Sure--the ice cream replaces the traditional fat, eggs, and dairy you would find in traditional muffins.

I gave these a try this weekend, after deciding that the new caramelized almond vanilla ice cream I spotted at the supermarket was the perfect ingredient for these. That's the best part--you could really use any kind of ice cream you want, as long as it isn't anything too low-fat. I had fun with my batch and made one third plain, the other third chocolate-chip, and the last third chocolate-peanut butter-chip.

Verdict? These are pretty impressive. The texture is somewhat dense, but not really in a bad way. They aren't too sweet and might even be a little salty for some, so I reduced the original salt content in the recipe. Not to delve into the sketchy issue of calories here, but the recipe states that (without add-ins, obviously) each muffin boasts an impressively low 118 calories and 3 grams of fat. Take that, Starbucks muffins!

Here's the thing. Picture yourself having a get-together and buying lots of ice cream. You'll obviously--well, maybe, not if you're me though--have some ice cream left. Let it melt out in the sun for a half hour, pull out your flour, and 20 minutes later you'll have tomorrow's breakfast.

Magic? Maybe. I knew the ice cream man had something we didn't.

Ice Cream Muffins

adapted from Midwest Living

makes 6 muffins

1 cup ice cream, melted
1 cup self-rising flour
(or: 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 TS baking powder, 1/4 TS salt, 1/4 TS baking soda)

Optional: 1/3 cup add-ins (chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, nuts, fruit...anything!)

Grease six 2 1/2 inch muffin cups or line with paper baking cups. Preheat oven to 375°F / 180°C.

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix until just blended. Fill each cup almost to the top.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes.

Note: Midwest Living says to serve them warm, but they were pretty scrumptious at room temperature too.


Note II: I doubled this and it worked out great. The original recipe calls for 1/2 TS of salt, which was a little much to my taste, especially if you double the recipe!