Almond Madeleines

 I found this recipe at the Odense page, and pretty much followed it exactly - well except for slathering them with melted dark chocolate. I had tried another recipe using ground almonds, but it just wasn't right

1-7 oz box almond paste or 8 oz can. grated
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, melted
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar or dark chocolate chips

Madeleine pan

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a madeleine pan or just spray with that spray stuff.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat Almond Paste, butter and sugar until smooth.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each.  Beat on high for 5 minutes or until mixture is thick and pale colored.  Beat in extract. 
4. Sift flour, baking powder and salt (if you use salted butter, don't add more salt) together.  Pour flour mixture into almond mixture a third at a time, folding gently until incorporated.
5. Spoon one tablespoon batter into each mold. Bake 11-13 minutes until light golden and top springs back when pressed. 
6. Cool pan on wire rack for a few minutes and gently unmold.  Cool cookies on wire rack and dust with powdered sugar.  Repeat steps 5-6 until all batter has been used.

What I did differently was to freeze them plain, then when they were defrosted, melt some dark chocolate chips and coat the wide ends with the chocolate.

Made a batch with chocolate almond paste!

2020 - baked at 350f for 12 minutes

Rice Pudding / Arroz con leche

I've been doing research on various sorts of rice pudding - the old version which calls for simply milk, nutmeg, sugar and rice and cooking in the oven for 3 hours - but this often boils when I'm not looking and causes a watery yuckiness ...

I tried a custard version, but the rice was undercooked, well - not undercooked, but not soft enough for rice pudding!

Today I found this version from Smitten Kitchen, made with condensed milk. At first, it seemed a little strange - soaking the rice in 4 cups of water? (which I did for like 5 hours instead of one hour, because I took a nap). I made a few tweaks to the original recipe because I love nutmeg in rice pudding and I love lots of raisins and I didn't have any vanilla - but I often find vanilla can be left out of lots of things with no notice! I didn't use the zest because I never thought of an orangey flavor in respect to rice pudding ... but perhaps I'll try it sometime ...

Anyway, it's cooling now and it seems perfect!! ( put some in the freezer for a quick cooling and I will try not to eat too much tonight ... the only problem is that it does make a great deal of pudding - probably enough for 8 normal servings?

1 cup long-grain white rice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Tiny pinch of ground allspice
4 cups water
1 egg
3 cups whole milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla (optional)
3/4 cup raisins

Soak the rice, cinnamon, lemon or orange zest, nutmeg, and allspice in the water in a heavy saucepan for 1 hour.

After soaking, bring the rice mixture to a boil on high heat, uncovered. When it starts to boil (about 5 minutes), lower the heat to medium and cook for 10 to 12 more minutes or until water is almost evaporated.

While rice is cooking, beat the egg in a bowl. Add the milk and raisins and stir well to mix. Add the egg mixture, condensed milk, salt, and raisins, to the rice and cook over medium-low heat, stirring carefully, until it thickens slightly or until desired consistency (when a spoon stands up in the pot seemed about right) about 25 to 35 minutes. It will thicken a bit more as it cools - so don't overcook it or let it boil.

Pound Cake

Simple cake - old fashioned cake - with ice cream on top, or plain with tea ...

1/2 lb butter

1 t nutmeg

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cup sugar

5 eggs

2 cups cake flour

All the stuff should be at room temperature.

Beat butter for 4 minutes with nutmeg and salt

Gradually blend in sugar, 2 minutes

Beat in 4 eggs, one at a time

Stir in all the flour at once, beat 2 minutes

Blend in last egg, 15 seconds

Place in buttered, floured tube pan

Bake in cold oven, 300F. Bake 1.5 hours

I like this dusted with confectioner's sugar! You could also leave out the nutmeg and add a bit of orange or lemon zest ...

Chocolate Ganache

This is one of those terribly useful recipes that is also extremely simple. It is merely a mixture of hot cream and chocolate. You can pour it over cake for a nice chocolate frosting, cool it and roll into truffles, or spread it between cookies to make Chocolate Filled Cookies That Don't Suck! - which is what I am going to use it for this year. (Actually, ganache is French for idiot. The story is that a chef called an assistant a ganache when he dumped hot cream into a bowl of chocolate. NYT Dec 2007 ... although I think the idiot reference is more likely because it is just so simple to make).

7/8 cup heavy cream

8 ounces semi sweet chocolate (or any other kind of chocolate, but then use about 3/4 cup cream)

Heat cream until it steams, pour over chocolate and stir until it melts. Or add the chocolate to the cream, either way is ok.

If making truffles or as a filling, refrigerate for a couple of hours until it hardens.

Raw Apple Bread

This is another James Beard rip off - with a few modifications - I would rather call it Cinnamon Apple bread, because Raw sounds weird and after all - when the bread is baked, the apples aren't raw any more ...

0.5 cups butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups flour

0.5 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sour milk ( add a bit of vinegar)

1 cup grated apples ( including peel)

0.5 cups walnuts (you don't really need these)

1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (you don't really need this either)

1 teaspoon or less cinnamon


Cream the butter and the add sugar slowly.

Beat in the eggs

Mix flour with salt and baking powder and cinnamon

Stir in the flour alternately with the milk, and stir in apples and lemon peel and nuts.

Place in loaf pan and bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes.