A flan pâtissier is essentially a giant vanilla custard tart but with a French accent!

I have many culinary memories of my childhood in France and I’d like to tell you that this was something I used to make with my mum but the truth is that it wasn’t. My mum was a full time mum in charge of all the household tasks and even though all our meals were home cooked, they were quick and easy. She was also a terrible baker, who tended to burn most things – she used to say it was “well cooked” but really it was burnt… In her defence, why would she have bothered making something could easily have bought in any boulangerie?

I’m the mum now and my boys really love it, especially my youngest, hence why I often make it on his birthday. He went to school with the last piece in his packed lunch today!

Ingredients:

• Shortcrust pastry, you can buy a block, or you could make my basic shortcrust pastry recipe. I think traditionally it is supposed to be with puff pastry but I prefer it with shortcrust pastry; I like the contrast between the snap of the outside and the creaminess of the inside.
• 700 ml milk
• 300 ml double cream
• 1 vanilla pod
• 100 g corn flour
• 160 g caster sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 eggs

Method:

Roll out the pastry the thickness of a one pound coin and place in a Springform tin (mine is 24cm). Trim the excess, prick the bottom and refrigerate – this helps the pastry not shrink while in the oven.

Split the vanilla pod in half, scrape out the seeds inside and place both seeds and pod in a large saucepan. Add the milk and cream and heat up slowly until it starts to simmer. At that point, take off the heat and go off to do something (ideally fun) for a couple of hours. This step isn’t strictly speaking needed but I think it’s worth it. What will happen during those two hours is that the vanilla will infuse into the liquid so you’ll get a deep vanilla scent as opposed to a hint of vanilla – we’re aiming for Madagascar, not just the travel brochure. Given the price of vanilla pods, I think it makes sense.

When your two hours are up, remove the vanilla pod halves but don’t throw them away! Rinse and pat them dry and then place them in your sugar jar; in time, you’ll get vanilla sugar!

When you are ready, preheat the oven at 160 degrees then bake the pastry blind for 15min. Remove the baking beans after that and bake for a further 5 min.

While the pastry is baking, gently warm up your liquid again. In a large bowl, crack the eggs, add the sugar, and whisk. Then add the corn flour and whisk again until you end up with a smooth mixture without any lump.

Slowly add a bit of your warm vanilla infused liquid to the bowl and whisk quickly at the start – you don’t want to end up with cooked bits of eggs in your cake. Repeat the operation until you have added all the liquid to the bowl.

Pour the content of the bowl back in the saucepan and gently heat that up, stirring constantly. When it starts to thicken, remove from the heat and pour into your tin.

Bake in the oven for 45min at 180 degrees – the top of the custard should be brown.

Leave to cool and tuck in.

Shortcrust pastry is a basic to master in my opinion. Yes, you can buy a block in the shop (and I do now and again) but it’s quicker to maker, cheaper and tastier.

I live 10min walk away from a supermarket and (aside from the chilling) this can be done in 5min.

I may sometimes buy a block of pastry if I don’t have that chilling time, or if I have run out of butter and need to make something NOW, but the taste just isn’t the same. There is something a bit acidic about bought dough and it’s not as buttery even if they claim to be using butter, it’s just not the same. Don’t get make started on puff pastry…

I don’t put any sugar in the dough on purpose so that it can be used for sweet or savoury pastry regardless. This really is my go to recipe.

Ingredients:

• 220g plain flour
• 100g lightly salted butter (don’t go posh with crystals, that’ll tear your dough)
• 1 egg yolk
• 40ml cold water

Method:

In a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour until sandlike.

Add the egg yolk and quickly incorporate that. Then slowly add the water (it’s easiest when using a KitchenAid or the likes) until the dough is just combined – you may not need all the water. Don’t work the dough too much or it’ll become tough.

The next step really depends on your recipe but, in all likelihood, you will need to refrigerate your dough before baking it. 

Think baba ganoush but less Lavantine and smoky and more Gallic and garlicky (évidemment).

Ingredients:

• 2 aubergines
• 1 head of garlic (not a clove, the whole head)
• The juice of half a lemon
• Fresh thyme
• Olive oil
• A 4cm chunk of Parmesan (sometimes I use feta instead, roughly 100g)
• ½ tsp. salt

Method:

Slice the aubergines in half, score them and place them sliced side down on an oiled baking tray. Tuck a sprig of thyme under each aubergine half, and place in the oven for 40min at 170 degrees.

Half the head of garlic and add to the roasting tray after 15min.

Leave both the aubergines and garlic to cool – I like doing this at night, so all I have to do is turn off the oven and open the door a bit.

When cool, scoop the aubergines out of their skins and into a blender. You can add the thyme, but the leaves only, don’t add the twigs. Squeeze the garlic in the blender too, then add the lemon juice, cheese, salt and a few more fresh leaves of thyme.

Pulse in the blender, you want to keep some texture. Taste and season some more to your liking.

This works well as a dip but also on toast, like shown, with a range of topping. Here I served it with mozzarella but it goes well with olives, tomatoes, sausages, falafels etc.

This is a salad my German uncle used to often make and I have memories of post-beach families BBQs eating this alongside grilled sardines or cold meat.

You might be surprised by the amount of vinegar, and especially the ratio to olive oil, but it really does work, I promise! Be mindful that this is probably not the salad you want to eat before a date, unless you want to go home (on your own) quicker.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg baby potatoes
• 3 shallots or 1 onion
• 1 tsp. salt
• 4 tbsp. of vinegar (potentially more if you’re like me)
• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• Chives 1/3 bunch
• Black pepper to taste
• Onion seeds optional

Method:

Boil the potatoes in their skins until just cook through. They need to be cooked all the way through but you don’t want to cook them for too long and end up with mashed potatoes.

While the potatoes are still warm, peel them, slice them and put them in a large bowl. Someone on Instagram mentioned it was a shame to peel the potatoes and they are not wrong. I’m just giving you the recipe as I remember it but feel free to do what you want with it. I have to say I quite enjoy the challenge of handling the potatoes while still hot and trying not to burn myself, but that’s probably just me…

Add the vinegar and salt, mix and leave while you’re attending to the rest. This is to let the warm potatoes soaked up the vinegar; this is an important step!

Finely mince the shallots/onions (I prefer shallots in this recipe but I didn’t have any) as well as the chives.

Add the onions, chives, oil and a crack of black pepper. Mix and leave to cool.

Before serving, decorate with onion seeds and chive flowers, if you feel so inclined.

This isn’t a meal in itself but it works great as a side or as part of a BBQ.

This lovely parsnip apple and hazelnut soup would have seemed very atypical to me growing up. That’s because I never even saw a parsnip before moving to the UK. When I first bit into this strange white carrot during a roast dinner organised by friends, I was struck by how nutty it tasted. I’ve loved them ever since.

The apple gives it a little twang that stops the whole thing from being too earthy. Sometimes I use more, sometimes less, I tend to use fallen apples so it really depends on what I get.

This parsnip, apple and hazelnut soup serves four for a light meal but don’t even think of eating it without bread. We had a lovely cheese loaf with it, which I just warmed in the oven for 10min before serving.

Ingredients:

• 500g organic parsnips – you don’t have to use organic but that way you don’t have to peel them
• 250g apples
• 100g almonds
• A bag of 20g sage
• 1 onion
• 1 head of garlic
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1.5L vegetable stock
• Hazelnut oil (optional)

Instructions:

Lightly toast the hazelnuts in the oven in a large roasting tin until golden but not dark – circa 10min.

Chop the parsnips in even chunks. Peel the onion and cut it in quarters. Cut the head on garlic in half and remove the stalks from the sage.

Once the hazelnuts are ready, place them in the blender (keep a few for decorating) and add the oil to the roasting dish. Let the oil heat up in the oven for 5min, then remove the dish from the oven and throw in the sage while stirring. This should be enough to cook them without burning them.

Remove the leaves and pop them in your blender.

Now add the parsnips, apple, onion and garlic (face down) to the dish, stir well and roast gently (150 degrees) for 30min or until everything is soft.

Place the parsnip, onion and apple chunks in the blender and when cool enough to handle, squeeze the garlic out of the head into the blender too. Pour in the stock and whizz away!

You may serve this parsnip, apple and hazelnut soup with some fried sage leaves, a crack of black pepper and a drizzle of hazelnut oil – if you’re feeling fancy.

You end up with a rich, thick and earthy but tangy soup with works wonders on cold autumnal days.

A word of warning though: my youngest point blank refused to eat it after the first mouthful… His brother lapped it all up, so don’t let a fussy child deter you.

Who are these chocolate protein pots for?

First thing first, they are not necessarily the best if you are early on in your recovery. Protein is great but if you are supposed to be eating three meals, two desserts and three snacks, you don’t want tons of protein because it’ll fill you up and make things more difficult for you.

This is for people who are struggling to get more protein in, either because their needs are very high, or perhaps because they are vegetarian.

I’m not vegetarian but I don’t eat a lot of meat or fish and, as a result, my meals can be a bit low in protein. Sure, I could use protein powder but I am yet to find one that I like the taste of.  I don’t like the artificial taste of the sweeteners and I don’t enjoy the unflavoured ones, which are either too “milky”, “grainy” and generally “eeeky”.

Protein bars are not my favourite because they are super processed, sickly sweet and pretty expensive. They can be useful when out and about but they are not something I’d use everyday.

Now, I always tell my clients that a meal is the overall food eaten at one sitting and if your main meal doesn’t contain a lot of protein, you can just add some more by having another course. Make your “dessert” the protein rich part of your meal.

Where is the protein coming from?

The protein in there comes from Greek yoghurt and also peanut powder. This is a bit like a protein powder but without artificial sweeteners (yes, I’d rather have sugar) and without the nasty taste. It’s essentially peanut powder with some of the fat removed thereby concentrating the fibre and protein. Don’t even think of having this instead of peanut butter, it won’t taste nice! If you remove the fat from peanut butter what is even the point? Just see it as a not so processed protein powder.

Of course, I could just use Greek yoghurt as my dessert but I sometimes get bored of yoghurt and I have a bit of funny relationship of English yoghurt, I’m sorry but the French ones just taste better!

Anyway, these chocolate protein pots are extremely easy to put together and even easier to eat, so give them a go a tell me what you think.

Chocolate protein pots ingredients:

• 700g Greek yoghurt (I use Total 2%)
• 100g chocolate (I use dark)
• 60g peanut butter powder (I use PB Fit)

Method:

Melt the chocolate over a pan of boiling water.

Meanwhile, mix the yoghurt and peanut powder in a blender.

When the chocolate is melted, add to the yoghurt, mix and blend again.

I sometimes add ¼ cup hot water to loosen the mixture and make it easier to divide into my pots.

This is enough for six pots chocolate protein pots. Per pot, it will provide you with 16.5g protein while being tastier and much cheaper than a protein bar.

Note: If you don’t like the sound of the peanut powder you could also leave it out but change the ratio: 800g yoghurt and 100g chocolate – I sometimes do that if I have run out of the powder. This would still give you 13g protein.

Tarte au sucre means sugar tart

You asked me for French baking and this is what I shall deliver today. Don’t let the name send you into a panic, there isn’t that much sugar in it all things considered.

This is a French classic at its best, I love it because it’s yummy, very easy and because it makes me chuckle that the name is totally misleading! To me it’s a good example that the French language, and perhaps French people, are more complex than it would appear.

A tarte au sucre is basically an enriched brioche with sugar on top (but not even that much given its name).

It’s more of a snack than a dessert to me. My kids enjoy it after school, I like it with a cup of coffee and I think would work really well as a recovery snack because it’s not very filling actually. 

Ingredients:

• 420g strong flour
• 50g caster
• 160ml milk
• 100g salted butter – cubed
• 1 sachet of dried yeast
• 3 eggs
• 80g caster sugar
• 60g double cream

Method:

Warm up the milk a little, add the sugar and yeast and stir well.

Place the flour in a large bowl and when the yeast has bloomed (swollen up in the milk), place the liquid in the bowl with the flour and mix well.

Add the eggs one at the time and when all the eggs have been added, tumble the butter cubes in the mix. Knead gently for 2 min until everything has been incorporated and then knead more vigorously for 10min. I’m not going to lie, it’s easier in a Kitchen Aid or the likes than by hand.

Leave the dough to rise for 90min, then place it in a greased tin – ideally round and ideally flat (not a loaf tin), just because it’s more traditional that way. Make some holes with your fingers and put your tarte in the fridge covered by a cloth. I like to leave mine in there for a couple of hours but it’s sometimes more convenient to leave it overnight and it’s totally fine.

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. When the oven is ready, pour the cream in the holes and sprinkle with the remaining sugar and bake for 20min.

Leave your tarte au sucre to cool before eating.

This little recipe came about after needing some beetroot juice for another recipe (a Valentine’s Day focaccia, check it out on Instagram if you haven’t seen it yet). I peeled a bunch of raw beetroots, whizzed them in the Vitamix and then passed the lot through a tea towel to extract the juice. It felt a shame to bin the pulp so I started mixing it with other stuff and it was lovely. Don’t worry too much about the exact amount of beetroot, just get a bunch, chances it’ll be fine. 

I’ve just made some again today and I had more beetroots, so I increased the dry ingredients a bit and it still worked.

Ingredients:

• The pulp of one bunch of beetroots
• 3 tbsp. sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp. sesame seeds
• 3 tbsp. oats
• 2 tbsp. ground flaxseeds
• ½ tsp. nigella seeds
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. water

Method:

Mix everything together really well and let it sit for 10min. This is to give the soluble fibre in the flaxseeds and oats some time react with the moisture and form a gel, which will bind the mixture together.

Place the dough in between two pieces of baking parchment and roll really thinly (3mm). If you find the dough doesn’t roll out well, you may want to add another tbsp. of water and leave the dough for another minute.

Score the dough, I like making diamonds because even in crackers form they are a girl’s best friend, right? Bake at 150 degrees for 35min, they should feel snappy. If they’re a bit limp, leave them some more. Once done, snap them into individual crackers and enjoy as you wish. They last for ages in an air-tight box.

Herby ricotta fritters?

Ok, I wasn’t sure what to call these: ricotta fritters, ricotta hotcakes, ricotta pancakes but then I decided it didn’t really mattered what the hell they were called. All I want you to know is that they are delicious, after that you can call them what you want.

Ricotta fritters: staple ingredients kind of meal

Ricotta is a staple in my house because it’s pretty forgiving. I tend to buy it with great intentions but then totally forget about it. And you know what? It doesn’t really matter because provided you haven’t opened the tub, it keeps pretty well. So it’s there like an old friend when I run out of inspiration or food.

You can make tons of stuff with ricotta and the Italians are of course masters at using it. There are countless sweet cakes you can craft as it lends itself beautifully to lemon, berries but also rhubarb and more. A friend gave me the recipe for the most amazing ricotta tart; it is TO DIE FOR, although I’d have to ask her before sharing…

Anyway, back to my ricotta fritters. They are extremely easy to make and a good option when you’re low on supply because all you need is a few cupboard ingredients plus a bit of imagination. I use greens and herbs but don’t feel too constricted by that, feel free to improvise with what you have in your fridge.

Ricotta fritters: the nutritional lowdown

These little ricotta fritters are also great for vegetarians as they contain a non-negligible amount of protein: 11g per 100g – not quite steak but with the addition of the egg and parmesan we’re starting to get somewhere.

Ricotta is also quite low in fat compared to other cheeses, which is why I often recommend it to my clients who are trying to reintroduce dairy back in their diets. Small steps in the right direction are, in my humble opinion, always better than standing still because the step is too high.

Those little ricotta fritters are great for a light lunch and what you end up with are soft little pillows of goodness bursting with flavours.

Ingredients:

• 250g ricotta
• 200g greens – sometimes use spinach only, sometimes courgettes, sometimes I mix them up
• 40g plain flour
• 1 egg
• 20g parmesan
• ¼ heaped tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. lemon zest
• 1 clove of garlic
• 3 or 4 gratings of nutmeg
• A handful of fresh herbs – here I used marjoram and oregano

Instructions:

If you’re using spinach, wilt it first, then squeeze all its water out and chopped it in small pieces. If you’re using courgettes, grate them and place them in a sieve with a bit of salt of half an hour or so, then squeeze the water out. You basically want as little water as possible.

Grate the lemon, garlic, parmesan and nutmeg in a large bowl; add the salt and a good pinch of black pepper. Crack the egg in the bowl, add the ricotta and beat with a fork. Finally sift in the flour and baking powder, throw in the chopped herbs and mix well.

All you have to do now is heat up a tbsp. of olive oil in a frying pan and dollop four or five fritters in. I tend to do several batches, as it’s easier. Cook on one side until the edges have brown. Then flip onto the other side and cook for a further 3 or 4 min.

I like to serve mine with a salad and either a homemade tomato sauce or a lemony yoghurt dip laced with parsley and chilli.