Want to eat unusual pancakes… with a spring flavour…

The elderberry flower will give a very light sweetness to the crêpes. And hurry… the season of flowers elderberry flies (a good month of May and June).

You need two to three large clusters of flowers to put in the dough.

Ingredients
250 g flour
250 ml of beer (the same amount of flour)
500 ml of milk (the double )
4 eggs
Salt
Some alcohol of your choice
Mix everything and let it rest a bit.
Add the flowers in batter. Heat the pan. With some oil on a tissue, grease the pan each time you make a crêpe. Pour a ladle of batter. When the edges turm brown, turn it. Let cook a minute.

Place on a plate, sprinkle with sugar (which will melt with heat) and add so on your pancakes. Eat them when they are cold (the flavour of flower is light, when eaten warm, it does not taste as much !).

The elderberry flower gives a very nice and light sweet taste to pancakes. Season of flowers elderberry goes so quickly… then hurry ...

You need two to three large clusters of flowers that you will shell in the dough.

Ingredients

250 g flour
500 ml of milk (the double of flour)
250 ml of beer (the same amount of flour)
4 eggs
Salt
Some alcohol of your choice

Mix the ingredients and let rest the dough. Once the dough rested, shell flowers in batter.
Put on your stove. With an oily tissue, grease the pan. You will reuse it for each new pancake. Pour a ladle of batter. When the edges of the pancake turn brown, it is time to return it. Let cook a minute.

Place on a plate, sprinkle with sugar (which will melt with heat) and add so on your pancakes.

Read it in French : Recette de crêpes aux fleurs de sureau

In Brittany, depending on where you are, crêpes and galettes are not made the same way. There are differents types of crêpes: made with wheat or with buckwheat, and eaten salty or sweet. The breton pancakes made of buckwheat are called galettes in French and eaten in crêperies. But there are local differences ; the farther west you go, the thinner they are and they are made with wheat and the same batter is used for salty and sweet ones. Farther east they are prepared with buckwheat (in french we say black wheat because the flour is brown, galettes de sarrasin or de blé noir) for the salty ones, the pancakes are thicker and the sweet ones are made with wheat (crêpes de froment).




In Rennes and surroundings (Ille et Vilaine, Haute Bretagne), one of the specialities is the « galette saucisse » or even better « galette sauc’ » which is a sausage wrapped with a buckwheat’s pancake. You can eat it plain, wrapped with a double galette, with mustard, with grated cheese… it’s a breton hot dog !!!




You won’t find it in crêperies but at markets fairs and festivals.

In Rennes, during the famous marché des Lices, market that takes place on saturdays, you’ll see the residents of Rennes queuing for half an hour at lunch time to eat it.




A good « galette sauc’ » is made with a lightly grilled sausage wrapped around a smooth and warm galette.




You can also eat on those caravans at markets a « galette complète » which is also traditional : it is a buckwheat’galette filled with egg, ham and cheese. As a dessert take the traditional « beurre sucre » butter and sugar which is the best one.




Read it in French : la galette saucisse une spécialité bretonne à Rennes au marché des Lices

Everybody knows the french crêpes ! And what about the crispy dry ones ?

This crepe is extremely fine, crisp to perfection. Without preservatives or additives. Ideal for ice cream and water ice this summer.

The gavotte has changed since 1920, date of the beginning of its fame. It has different tastes : milk and dark chocolate, caramel with salted butter ...



As very often in the kitchen, the food's great discoveries are due to an error of the cook... who forgot an ingredient in the dough or cook it too long ...

The gavottes are part of those great culinary mistakes ... Here it is not a cook but a woman of Quimper, a Madame Cornic, who at the very end of the 19th century cooked too long his pancakes and the gavotte is born...

The crepe industry began at Quimper, (100 crepes an hour) in 1920. Success !! 30 years later 1500 pancakes were produced in 60 minutes. And as the success continues, a factory is created in Dinan.

Today the group Locmaria includes several brands of biscuit in Brittany. The company signed the Pact of the United Nations for sustainable development ... respect for human rights and environment. In short, a product in accordance with our planet ...

Read it in french : Gavottes ou crêpes dentelle : une spécialité bretonne

Here is a recipe for a cookie that crumbles... at least it did for my first try...

Germans do all sorts of small cakes and biscuits for Christmas. The second recipe, Linzer torte, can be kept longer, at least 8 days before being eaten. But it is hard to keep it that long. At your calendars to be ready for Xmas !

Here are two recipes for sweets, recipes brought from my last stay with my German friend. real ones from natives, easy to do. Exclusive! And still without pictures ... My computer is still out of order with pictures.

Ingredients
50 grams of dark chocolate
50 grams of walnuts
60 grams flour
30 grams sugar
60 grams butter
1 teaspoon of spices (clove and pepper)
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Finely chop the chocolate and nuts into pieces. Put in a bowl. Flour, sugar, butter cut into small pieces and spices are to be added to the nuts and chocolate mixture.
Put your hands and mix until a smooth dough, which held together.
Roll the dough into rolls 2, 3 cm.
Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
After the break, preheat oven to 200 (6 / 7)
Cut into pieces and cook 15 minutes.
Leave it to cool down and dry before serving.

(which is originally an Austrian recipe!)

Ingredients
170 g butter at room temperature
170 grams sugar
1 egg (white and yolk separated)
100 g crushed hazelnuts
200g flour
1 packet yeast
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 to 2 tablespoons brandy
120 grams of rosehip jam (but I have made it with raspberry jam)
1 tablespoon milk
Icing sugar
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Melt butter. Mix sugar, flour, egg white, yeast, chocolate and spices. Add butter. Then the alcohol. If the dough sticks, add a little flour.
Cover and let stand one hour in the fridge. Not too much because after it was very hard to spread.
Preheat oven to 200 (6 / 7).
Take half or a little more dough and roll to put it in the pie dish. Spread generously with jam. Leave the edges without jam and cover with dough.

With the remaining dough make strips and lie them on the jam.
Brush with milk mixed with egg yolk.
Bake 30 minutes. I burned my first torte, be careful it cooks fast.
Sprinkle with icing sugar out of the oven, wrap and try to keep fresh for several days. To be able to enjoy it during the Christmas week ...

Read this article in French : Recette de Noel : sablés chocolatés aux noix et Linzertorte

2 differents steps... Ratatouille is easy to make but needs time to be good.

1 - Preparation of vegetables ratatouille
2 - Crumble and cooking
1 – Ratatouille with summer vegetables
In summer, the ideal is to make a French ratatouille. The secret is to cook it a long time. Better to make a big one that you can freeze.The recipe is for 8 people.

Ingredients for 8 people 2 garlic cloves
An onion
2 peppers
2 eggplants
5 zucchini
8-9 tomatoes
Olive oil
Garlic in olive oil for 5 minutes. Peel the onion and add to garlic (15 minutes).While the onion and garlic cook. cut into small pieces peppers. Add and cok fr 15 minutes. Continue with the other vegetables (15 minutes each). Then cook over low heat for one hour (no cover). Let cool a few hours and again cook for an hour. It's done

2 - Crumble
Ingredients for 4
100g flour
50g butter
50g Grated Parmesan
Cut butter into small pieces and add to flour and grated Parmesan. Mix until small balls. Pour the ratatouille into a baking dish. Add the crumble top. Oven for 20 minutes to 7.
This winter you can do the same thing with carrots, leeks, potatoes and mushrooms ... Or any other vegetable that you will cook in the oven before proceeding.

Read it in French : Recette du crumble salé aux légumes de saison

My regular readers may have noticed that my last posts have no picture ...
And yes that's the mystery of the computer system, my PC has some shortcomings, a failure ... A screen full of colored stripes... Horror, all my photos are in, in my computer (and many other things too). How to fix my computer? Calls here and there, tips but no solutions that work for now ... I dare not even imagine if I must take it to repair ....
So, I use my little one.... And I make notes without pictures!

For these two activities watch the weather forecast and be a little prepared in advance, waiting for the winter and rain in Small Britain.
You need some material ... straight branches, rather thick (1.5 cm diameter) and nuts you did harvest in September.

For the rest, wait for a good winter weather forecast and a nice rainy weekend ... Wait for THE sunday until you hear "what we do, it's raining ..." .

So what do we start with : recipe or branches?

Free activity for kids with branches of hazel : dwarfs and other colored snowmen

This DIY needs :
Secateurs
A long branch of hazel
A knife without tooth
Markers
Cotton

Cut your branch into pieces. Cut the heads and hats. Paint and draw faces.
You can also make another craft such as a family, a small dwarf with a beard, a dress ...


Hazel can also be used to make a bow, it is flexible ... but I do not know yet how to make the arrows ...



In Germany for the Christmas period, very different cakes, biscuits and shortbread cookies are made. It is a recipe from my girlfriend living in Freiburg.

This recipe has a nice taste of chocolate and are similar to gingerbread cakes topped with chocolate... The good ones for this Christmas period.



Ingredients
60 grams of dark chocolate
60 g butter
3 eggs
80 g sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
60 g flour
60g hazelnuts coarsely crushed

For the frosting
80 g chocolate
Icing sugar to sprinkle
Baking time : 30 minutes
Preheat oven to 180 ° (6).
Coarsely grind nuts.
Melt butter and chocolate.
Meanwhile, mix sugar and eggs. Add flour, cinnamon and nuts. Then the chocolate-butter mixture. Mix well.
Cover your dish (square or rectangle) of a baking sheet.
Pour your dough and spread on a regular basis (thin layer). Bake for 30 minutes.
Once baked, melt chocolate and pour over the square cake and spread. Sprinkle with icing sugar. Wait to cool and cut into small pieces.
Read this article in French : Activités pour les jours de pluie

It is a recipe that tastes good and smells my childhood. A nice mixture between my dad'pissaladiere with my Mum'puff pastry.



A pissaladière with Breton onions... The pissaladière is a type of pizza, a white one without tomato sauce, done with onions on a bread dough. Usually anchovies are also part of this pie.
The way I do it is a bit different : I use Breton onions, the one from Roscoff, called oignons rosés or may be the Johnny'onions.
They are quite good for this onion pie... because they're sweet. Like South European onions. You need to cook them a really long time... I don't use bread dough but puff pastry instead. It's not "the real one" but it is good !

Time: two hours for the onions and cook about 45 minutes for the onions'pie.

Ingredients
2 to 3 kilograms of onions (it has to become pureed)
A little olive oil
Black olives

One to two hours of gentle cooking.
The tart should be well covered with a thick layer of onions ... more than one centimeter ... au moins. At least. Onions reduce very slowly until it becomes very soft, almost like a puree and the colour becomes khaki brown.

Ingredients for the puff pastry (pate feuilletée) to a 30cm pie
wooden spoon
160g flour
half or 80 g butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
a small glass of very cold water

Cut butter into pieces (2cm to 1) in the flour. Pour the oil. Mix. Add water little by little and mix (no fingers but with a wooden spoon) until dough is held (not necessarily very well but it does not matter).
Avoid putting too much water, your dough will be hard. And do not touch the dough with fingers. These are the two secrets to succeed for a pate feuilletée !
Pour your dough on the table and with a rolling pin, spread roughly.
Fold it again and spread...with rolling pin. Repeat this operation 5 to 6 times. Fold one last time and store at least 15 minutes in refrigerator. The more you've folded your dough, the better the puff!
When the time expired, spread the dough and pour over your onions and black olives. For 45 minutes ... Your puff pastry is done.
Enjoy with a green salad.

Read it in French : Tarte aux oignons rosés de Roscoff sans anchois

You can do it salty or sweet… It is an easy recipe, nice to do with children.
Several ways can be done : vegetarian with vegetables thinly sliced, with crumbs of tuna fish or sweet with fruits.

Ingredients :
50 g flour
2 yolks and 2 whites
150 ml milk
25 g melted butter
A large pan

Mix the ingredients. Add the whites softly.
Slice thinly your vegetables. Add them with a bit grated cheese.
Pour into a frying pan. 10 minutes for each side.
Eat it with a green salad.

The sweet recipe

Add 25 g of sugar to your dough. Slice thinly the fruits.
Add them. Same cooking time.

Read it in French : Recette de matafan végétarien à la mode de Bretagne

On the French side of my blog, I wrote a post about what it meant to be Breton in Brittany... But it is not really interesting for non French people...
So, I'll do it on my English side more worldwide : What does it mean to you being French? Lots of clichés, for sure... Same things about French manners ! How French man or lady act in society ?
Wide question !
Are you intested in learning more about the real way of life of a French or of a Breton... If you travel by car, you must cross Brittany, our small Britain. And you want to understand more about this wonderful place for sure...
By the way, as you probably know, Bretagne in French is either Britain or Brittany. Britain is for us the Great one (Grande Bretagne, Great Britain) and Brittany (Bretagne) is the French one. And Breton can be used for British and for Breton.
So, while travelling around, investigate the French way of life and the one of Brittany's people ! and compare ! French clichés for beginners ! !!!

About French table manners
French people like to remain at table for hours
If you don't sauce your dish with bread, you're out !
One hamburger is eaten while 9 baguette sandwich are tasted
365 cheeses on the French territory, one a day... with green salad !

The French way of life in the Breton cuisine
- Bretons feast in a creperie
- They buy only cauliflower "Prince of Brittany" (and produced in Brittany , not in Britain!)
- They enjoy oysters on the port of Cancale (and during good months ...)
- They only eat Plougastel strawberries ... (Plougastel is a city in the west of Brittany)

French feel French when
They speak loud
They criticize their administration
They strike all the time
The national sport : to steal tax

Bretons feel Breton when they ...
- dance in the Fest Noz! (fest noz is a breton word meaning night party where you dance to Breton music).
- swear that their grandmother wore a cap in the last century!
- punctuate every sentence with a Kenavo (thank you in breton language)!
- wear a sticker "A l'aise Breizh" on the car (means be confortable, man)

How French Parisians look at Bretons
- They wear wooden clogs
- They have discovered the frigde in the 2000's
- They're narrow minded,backward.... in short stubborn like a Breton
- Brittany, it is "province", there's nothing to do there...

How Breton look at Parisians
- Look how slow he is driving... Must be a Parisian on holydays...
- Look at those Parisians with their yellow raincoat and boots... Ah, Ah, Ah !
- Don't know how to eat pancakes : just two ingredients, more you won't taste the galette, ignorant !
- I do love Parisians ! No, no way, they're too arrogant and do not know anything about anything ...

See how the love story goes ! French unions are perfect !
I could go on (LOL) .... !!!! but I leave the pen! For Your opinion! About French manners, acting, speaking, eating...
And don't act wrongly now !

It is a really easy recipe.

Ingredients for 8 blinis (10 cm) :

A yoghurt (used as a measurement)
1 egg
Flour (one yoghurt…)
Half a yoghurt water
Baking powder
A small frying pan (10 cm)

Preparation time : 10 minutes and leave the batter one hour before frying.

Mix in a bowl the ingredients one after the other. Leave the batter for one hour.
When the frying pan is warm enough, brush it with oil or butter. Pour a small ladle into the pan and wait till it makes holes. Then flip it over and cook it on the other side.



You can add chocolate chips, pieces of dried apricots, sultanas to the batter before cooking…

Read it in French : Recette de facile de blinis à la farine de châtaignes