French Desserts – What Are All Those Creams Anyway?

By Kim Steele

If you are interested in French cooking or if you are traveling in France, you may find yourself confused by the proliferation of crèmes in French desserts. You will find crème anglaise, crème patissière, crème brulé, crème frangipane, and crème fraiche to name just a few.

Here’s a short list to help you tell those different crèmes apart so so that you will know what you are getting when you order dessert.

Crème anglaise – This translates literally as English cream. It is made by heating milk, adding it to beaten eggs, and than reheating the whole mixture until it thickens. It is frequently flavored with vanilla although other flavorings are possible. The result is a a fairly liquid dessert cream that is served cold, usually as an accompaniment to other things. A classic use of crème anglaise is in the confection of Ile Flottante (Floating Island) where you’ll find islands of meringue floating on crème anglaise.

Crème Brulé – Arguably the most delicious of all French desserts, crème brulé is a symphony of contrasts. The cold, smooth, sweet crème, which is similar to a custard, sits under a crackling, hot, almost bitter caramelized topping.

Crème Caramel – The crème portion of this desert is very similar to a crème brulé. Here, however, the caramel is cold and liquid. If the caramel is on top of the custard, it is also known as a crème renversée.

Crème Patissière – This translates as pastry cream. You will find it used in all sorts of fashions in French desserts: as a layer in a cake, on the bottom of a fruit tart, or as the filling in puff pastry. Crème patissière is made in a fashion similar to crème anglaise, but flour or corn starch is added to the crème, so the result is considerably stiffer. This is basically what we call custard in English.

Creme d’Amandes – This is made from butter, powdered almonds, sugar, eggs and flour. It can be flavored with rum. It is used as a filling in various French desserts, notably a Pithiviers, which is a puff pastry pie.

Crème Frangipane – This is a mixture of crème d’amandes and crème patissière. It is used to fill various cakes and tarts, most famously the Galette des Rois, which is a cake eaten on and around Epiphany in France. Note the distinction between a pithiviers and a galette des rois.

Crème Fraiche – This is considerably different from the other crèmes I have mentioned, as it is a specific milk product used as an ingredient in many French desserts as well as other French recipes. Crème fraiche is obtained by skimming off the cream that naturally forms on the top of milk. It has a wonderful feel in the mouth and a taste that you might describe as nutty.

Crème Glacé – You know this as ice cream. The French make the distinction between glace, which is ice cream made from milk, and crème glacé which is ice cream made from cream.

Ready for dessert? I know I am! You can find simple French dessert recipes on my website if you want to get started.

Kim Steele

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Want to try making some easy French desserts? You’ll find lots of easy easy French recipes and fun food facts at Easy French Food. I’ve been living and cooking in France for the past 17 years and would love to share with you my love of simple good food. Don’t forget to enjoy your food today. A bientôt!

Food & Drink Paradise – Chocolate Paradise

By Chang Joan

Chocolate, weddings, birthdays, parties, recipes, cooking tips, food, and drinks. All are here!

Our value of money is getting smaller and smaller nowadays. Ordinary people hardly get a chance to taste all the luxury goodies. Such as attractive chocolate candies, lovely chocolate desserts, classic chocolate ice-cream for private weddings party, birthday party, marriage anniversary party, tea party and so on.

Solution is to create everything by your selves. You have your one and only brand of chocolate candies, the food and drinks carry along with your love, and care. You can have a say about all the ingredients. You can create many lovely gifts according to your own financial budget. Why not?

Try to create something simple in the beginning, and make more and more attractive chocolate goodies for your children and family.

Let’s try first, a simple Chocolate Cake!

Are you ready? Let’s go…

Ingredients A
250g cold and unsalted butter (in pieces)
150g pure chocolate (in pieces)
440g fine brown sugar
250 ml water
80 ml whisky
1 tablespoon instant coffee

Preparation
a. Lay a 23×23 cm baking pan with baking paper.
b. In a medium steel saucepan, place all the ingredients together.
c. Set the pan on low fire, stir until the butter and chocolate are melted.
d. When done, cool the mixture in a clean bowl.

Ingredients B
25g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
250g flour
2 eggs (well beaten)

Action
a. In a bowl, sift all the dry ingredients together, and mix with the eggs.
b. Mix this mixture into A mixture, and put in the prepared baking pan.
c. Bake the cake for 75 minutes in a 160°C oven.
d. When done, let it stand 30 minutes in the baking pan.
e. Sprinkle a little powder sugar, when desired.

Enjoy!

Food & Drink Paradise e-zine is a wonderful gateway to meet all food lovers over the world.

Extraordinary recipes and cooking tips will be given to all my subscribers.

Over this couples of years, I have found many simple, interesting, delicious, excellent recipes, and cooking tips.

I love to share everything I know about food and drinks with you.

Do feel free to explore my work at http://www.allcookmakeeasy.com

Thank you very much, and I love to see you soon again.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chang_Joan

How to Bake Eggless Almond Bread?

By Madhuram Prabhakar

Almonds are excellent source of manganese and very helpful to lower the LDL cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. They provide double-barreled protection against Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease. Almond’s healthy fats may help you to lose weight as well. Twenty years of dietary samples shows that significant prevention of gallstones if you consume 1 ounce of almonds every day. Here is a simple recipe to make eggless almond butter bread.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour – 2 cups

Baking powder – 4 teaspoons

Salt – 1 teaspoon

Sugar – 1/3 cup

Toasted slivered almonds – 1/4 cup (optional)

Milk – 1.5 cups (I used 2% milk)

Almond Butter – 1/2 cup (Nature’s Promise Organic Almond Butter)

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Combine the dry ingredients and nuts. Add milk to the mix and stir well to avoid lumps.

3. Now add the almond butter.

4. Mix well and continuously stir them.

5. Pour into a 8×4×3 inch loaf pan.

6. Top the batter with some toasted almond slices.

7. Bake for approximately 50 minutes.

8. Have this for breakfast with or without jam. Enjoy!

My Notes:

1) The bread was very moist and sweet enough by itself. The almond butter did have a lot of oil in it, may be that gave the moistness to the bread. You can also substitute almond butter with peanut butter.

2) Adding toasted nuts in the batter gave a very nice crunch. But I wouldn’t top the bread with nuts the next time because they get toasted once again and some of the nuts became little bitter. Not topping the bread with almonds will also facilitate easy slicing of the bread.

3) Cool completely before slicing the bread, so that it does not crumble. I would even recommend to 2 to 3 hours of cooling.

The original recipe with step-by-step photos can be found here: http://www.egglesscooking.com/2008/05/20/eggless-almond-butter-bread/

Madhuram, Creator & Author of http://www.EgglessCooking.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Madhuram_Prabhakar

Tropical Getaway Citrus Cream Tarts

By Rachael Rizzo

Every bite of food is an adventure. People wonder why I love to bake so much Chances are if it is my day off they know I am in the kitchen baking up a new concoction. I suppose part of it is that I love to create. But what they don’t know is that every time I am baking, I’m baking an adventure. I barely ever make the same dessert twice (unless by request, of course). The reason is that making a new dessert is like traveling to a place where you have never gone before, in fact it is like a whole different time. What people don’t realize is that when I take a bite of whatever dessert I have made I am on a whole different plane. A lot of times when I eat baked goods it reminds me of a place I’ve been to before, but every once and awhile I get that special dessert that makes me think of exciting lands and new adventures. Another words, I am taken to that spot where everything is happiness and gratefulness.

I made these tarts one day when that white sunshine was shining over the meadow and into the house (it is a rarity in our rainy Oregon weather). It made me feel like making something light and rich. When I saw this recipe I knew it was exactly what I wanted. Once I bit into it, it took me away to a tropical island, a place where you eat fruit all day long with your feet dangling in the Ocean. It’s a great big clear blue ocean, where you can see the fish swimming on the bottom of it. I suppose I could be in Hawaii, or something that closely resembles it. I can hear the sounds of tropical music in the background. It is a place where people are around, but they know you are there just to be and they respect that. This land is one of gratefulness and love. I can even hear the palm trees rustling in the wind….then….then…my fork hits plate. The tropical tart is gone and I don’t have my freeloader fork with me, so everyone else’s tart is out of bounds. Oh well, I still have that feeling with me, the calmness and gratefulness. I will keep it with me always…or until the next dessert.

If you would love another happy thought, just bite down on one of these great tarts and let them take you away to your own topical island. Plus, the recipe is made so you can share with your friends and family as well.

Here’s the Recipe:

Tropical Citrus Cream Tarts*

Ingredients:

1 and ½ cups toasted and chopped macadamia nuts
3 tbs all-purpose flour
3 tbs whole wheat flour
6 tbs cold butter
18 oz softened cream cheese
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
4 tbs sugar
5 tbs Splenda
6 tsp orange juice
3 tsp grated orange
6 tsp lemon juice
6 tsp lime juice
3 tsp grated lemon
3 tsp grated lime
6 slices lemon
6 slices lime
6 slices orange
6 toasted macadamia nuts.

1) In a blender chop the nuts, flours, sugar, and Splenda until they resemble crumbs. Put the butter in there and blend until mixed well.

2) Press onto the bottoms and up the sides of 6 greased (butter cooking spray), 4 in tart pans (the ones with removable bottoms are preferable). Bake at 350 degrees for about 13 minutes (they should be golden brown. Cool.

3) In a medium sized mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Then proceed to put in the confectioners’ sugar, fruit juices, and peels. Beat until blended. Spoon into crusts. Refrigerate for about one hour.

4) Garnish each tart with one orange slice, one lime slice, one lemon slice, and one macadamia nut, before serving.

5) Enjoy your trip!

*Base recipe from “Taste of Home,” then I molded the recipe to my liking from there.

Rachael Rizzo has been acting since she was nine years old. She uses her experience to write about what the things she loves mean to her (mostly movies and baking). She is twenty-three years old and resides in beautiful Oregon.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rachael_Rizzo