Honey and Vanilla Madeleines

I have turned incredibly jet set these days and after a week of being home in England I headed out to Verbier to start working for a family for 3 weeks, it turned out the weather was again torrential rain, cold and stormy...seems to be a pattern with me at the moment. Anyway we were going to head down to the south of France after a week in the Alps but looking at the two weather forecasts decided that one was much more disirable than the other so left for the sunny Côte d'Azur pretty pronto.

Well its nice and tres chaud here so I'm very happy and I have been testing out some of my frenchy food recipes and here is a yummy recipe for Madeleines. Great as a little tea time treat!

100g plain flour , plus extra for dusting

100g caster sugar

100g butter , melted
1 whole egg , separated, plus 1 egg white
1 tbsp honey or you can use lemon/orange zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
icing sugar , for dusting

Heat oven to 190c. Use a little of the melted butter to grease the madeleine mould and then dust with flour, if you don't have one you could use something small like a cupcake tin.

Mix the flour and sugar in a bowl. Put the butter, egg yolk, honey and vanilla into a separate bowl and whisk with a fork till mixed. Whisk the two egg whites until stiff. Fold the butter mixture into the dry ingredients until evenly mixed, then fold in the egg whites in two batches.

Divide between the prepared moulds and bake for 10-12 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the moulds for a few mins, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

River cafe polenta, almond and lemon cake

This week has been a bit up and down with the weather, lots of rain and then an absolute scorcher yesterday in the 30˚s. Yesterday was an especially good day because not only did I get a little bit less pasty but I also stood up on my surfboard about 10 times!! I did almost die about twice getting absolutely smashed by waves and ended up with my hair looking a bit like a loo brush but very happy!! Since the weather has been crappy I made a huge cake, and I think this could be my newest most favourite cake I have ever made. I have been trawling through my River cafe books and there is so much amazing stuff so since I have all kinds of great ingredients on my door step I am going to go nuts and try loads this month. Serves 12 450g unsalted butter, softened 450g caster sugar 450g ground almonds 2 teaspoons good vanilla essence 6 free range eggs zest of 4 lemons juice of 1 lemon 225g polenta flour or fine semolina 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon of salt Preheat the oven to ...

Simple Supper

I went to Whole Foods today to get a very short list of things for a pie I'm making tomorrow and managed to leave an hour!!! later. Whole Foods is not a place to go when you don't have a plan, it's a bit like Westfield where you get all overexcited with the shops, loose track of time and suddenly you leave and it's dark and you haven't bought anything. After getting the things on my list I realised I had to get stuff for dinner too. My basket got fuller..then emptier while I chopped and changed my mind constantly finding all kinds of amazing stuff, attempting to smell sauces in jars unsuccessfully. Unfortunately Whole Foods is possibly the most expensive place to shop so I have to do a bit of maths as I go and check I'm not spending my weekly budget on one small meal. After 45mins of indecisive supermarket heaven I eventually left with a very simple supper. Homemade fresh taglionini, some delicious looking fresh semi-dried tomato pesto made by Sapori D'Itali...

Smoked trout pate

I have been in the Loire Valley for the last three weeks working for a lovely family with four kids, there has been lots of spaghetti on the walls, wine drinking, chocolatey faces and bum pinching from a certain naughty four year old. We are staying in a big Chateaux and my bedroom in in a turret so I am now calling myself Rapunzel, although no french men have been at my window trying to climb up my hair yet! Here is a nice little recipe from Jamie Oliver for smoked trout pate which I have been doing as a little addition to summer lunches. So unbelievably easy to make, just mix in a bowl or chuck into a magimix for a smoother pate. serves 6-8 125g cream cheese 2-3 heaped teaspoons jarred horseradish 1 lemon small bunch of chives finely chopped 125g hot smoked trout or salmon, skin removed sea salt and pepper Mix the cream cheese with the horseradish, zest from the lemon and half of the juice. Mix in most of the fresh chives just leaving a few to sprinkle on the top when you serve it. S...

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