Zucchini Clafoutis

The English language probably has more words than any other language in the world, and yet, sometimes it is lacking.  As I write this post I am sitting in the dining room of an old friend who lives just south of Paris.  We met more than 20 years ago when I lived in the same little town.  But “old friend” sounds unwarrantedly negative because Mary is only a couple of years older than I am, and frankly, I don’t know anyone younger in spirit and full of positivity – and she is in pretty good physical shape too.  In French, on the other hand, an old friend - one you have known for a very long time - is an ancienne amie.   An old friend - one that is advanced in age - is an amie ancienne.  We need something like that in English, don’t you think? 

Anyhoo, here I am in Paris, enjoying a couple of days with my ancienne amie, Mary, and we have been cooking and gabbing and drinking wine.  She is a wonderful, natural cook who uses fresh ingredients to make delicious meals.  She and her family have made me extremely welcome and I would like to live here forever, except for the probably-imposing-after-a-few-days thing.  I happened to tell Mary about making zucchini clafoutis a couple of weeks ago and suddenly, we had added it to the menu for the evening, along with a sausage pilaf she had already planned.  I sliced and diced the zucchini in the kitchen while she taught a private English class out on the deck in the beautiful sunshine.  The weather has been GORGEOUS this week.  Then she finished the pilaf and got it in the oven, while we enjoyed a glass of wine.  And some more chatting.  Simple delicious food, lovingly prepared then eaten in the company of good friends.  It doesn’t get better than this.

Ingredients

For the vegetables:

2-3 tablespoons olive oil


1/2 large onion

1 lb 12 oz or 800 grams small zucchini or courgettes

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh thyme
 leaves

Salt and pepper for seasoning the zucchini

For the batter:

1/3 cup or 40 grams flour

1/2 cup or 120ml whole milk

3/4 cup or 180ml heavy cream


1/4 cup or 60ml water


3 eggs


½ teaspoon fine sea salt


3 1/8 oz or 90 grams grated Parmesan (Don’t worry too much about the exact measure.  More won’t hurt. :)

Method

Preheat the oven to 400°F or 200°C.   Grease a 13X9in or 33X23cm baking dish with olive oil and set aside.

Chop your onion and set aside.

Scrub the zucchini and cut the ends off.  Slice in 1/4-inch circles. If you have big zucchini, you may choose to peel them. 

Set a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Drizzle with olive oil and add the zucchini and cook till they brown a little.  Now add the chopped onion.

Season with salt and pepper.  Cook gently for a few minutes and then add the thyme.  

Cook until the vegetables are tender and the water coming from the zucchini has mostly evaporated.  Transfer this mixture to the serving dish and allow to cool.

 To make the batter, whisk together the flour, milk, cream, water, eggs, and the 1/2 teaspoon salt until they are silky smooth.

Pour the egg batter over the vegetables.  

Top with the cheese.

Bake the clafoutis until the eggs are set and top is golden brown, about 30 minutes.

If necessary, brown the top further with the oven broiler or grill before serving.  Can be served hot or at room temperature.

 Enjoy!

S'mores Muffins #MuffinMonday

Graham crackers, chocolate chips and mini marshmallows baked up in a sweet muffin. What else could I call them but S'mores Muffins!

I am so excited because as I write this post and schedule it to go live on Monday for Muffin Monday, I probably should be packing for our weekend on the Sinai Peninsula.  A beach holiday is the best holiday always.  And our girls are here so it will be the four of us at the beach, which makes it the perfect holiday.  But first:  I am making muffins.  And these are wonderful!

S'mores Muffins

The original recipe from Dwell on Joy called for graham crackers and chocolate chips so, of course, the first thing that sprang to my mind was s’mores.  Some of my best childhood memories include making s'mores around a Girl Scout campfire.  Unless you have roasted a marshmallow over an open fire and smashed it between graham crackers with a square of chocolate, you haven't lived!   Because of availability, I had to replace the graham crackers with digestive biscuits but I think that was a good thing! (Especially since I had special digestives with dark chocolate on one side.)  And naturally, s’mores had to include mini marshmallows.

Ingredients
 2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup or 70g sugar
1 cup or 115g of graham crackers or digestive biscuits with dark chocolate :)
1 cup milk
1/3 cup or 80ml canola or sunflower oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup or 90g chocolate chips
1 cup or 50g mini marshmallows

For the topping:
6 squares dark or milk chocolate candy bar about 1/3 oz or 10g each
24 mini marshmallows

Method Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and liberally grease your muffin tin with butter or non-stick spray.

Crush your graham crackers or digestive biscuits with a pestle or drink muddler in a big mixing bowl.  Don’t get them too fine.  You don’t want just powder but some crunchy bits as well.

Add your flour, baking powder, salt and sugar to the cracker/biscuit bowl.  Mix well and set aside.

In another smaller bowl, combine your wet ingredients - milk, oil, egg and vanilla.  Whisk well.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.  You can even leave a little flour showing since you are going to continue to mix as you fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Gently fold in your chocolate chips and the 1 cup or 50g of mini marshmallows. 

Divide your batter between the greased muffin cups.

Carefully score your six chocolate squares with a serrated knife and break them into two even halves.

Decorate each muffin by inserting a half square of chocolate bar in the middle with two mini marshmallows on either side.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until muffins are a golden brown.

Cool for a few minutes and then, run a dull knife around the muffin tin to remove the muffins.  (Sometimes the marshmallows stick a little, even when the tin is well greased.)

Cool on a rack and then serve.  These are great with a glass of cold milk!

Enjoy!

The muffins have cool holes in the middle where the marshmallows have melted into the batter while baking.

Pecan Golden Syrup Bundt Cake

My house has been full these last few weeks, filled with family and good times.  Of course, it has kept me busy but it is a joy to have more folks to feed.  Since I am always looking for new ideas, I am delighted to take part for the first time in Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipe Challenge.  

Here’s how the Random Recipe Challenge works:   Number your cookbooks and choose one randomly.  Or make a big pile of them and pick one out with your eyes closed.  Then make the first recipe on the first random page you open.   Since I belong to EatYourBooks,  this was very easy.  Right now I have 89 cookbooks registered (Don’t ask me how many aren’t yet!) so I asked my daughter to pick a number and she said 11.  I counted down and the 11^th book on my list is Nigella’s Kitchen.  One of my very favorite cookbooks!  The random page I opened to was her Pecan Maple Bundt Cake, which I had yet to make, so it was perfect.  I don’t have maple syrup in Cairo but thankfully the Random Recipe rules allow for substitutions for availability or dietary restriction.  So here goes.

Ingredients

For the pecan filling:

1 rounded 1/2 cup or 75g plain flour

2 rounded tablespoons or 30g soft unsalted butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup or 150g pecans (or walnuts) (I used pecans, of course.) 

125ml maple or golden syrup (I used Lyle’s Golden Syrup.)

For the cake:

2 1/2 cups or 310g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 rounded 1/2 cup or 125g soft unsalted butter

Scant 3/4 cup or 160g sugar

2 eggs

1 cup or 250ml sour cream or crème fraîche

1–2 teaspoons confectioners' or icing sugar, for decoration

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your Bundt pan. 

First, make the filling.  Toast your pecans in a baking pan for about 10-15 minutes in the preheating oven.  Watch them carefully so they don’t scorched.  Chop the pecans roughly.

Mix the flour with the butter using a fork.  You want it to look like small crumbs.  

Stir in the cinnamon, chopped pecans and golden syrup.  This will be very thick, almost solid.   Set aside.

To make the cake batter, measure your dry cake ingredients into a small bowl: the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Mix well. 

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl with beaters or in your standing mixer.   

Then beat in one tablespoon of the flour mixture, then one egg.  

Then add another tablespoonful of flour mixture followed by the second egg.

Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat while adding the sour cream.  The batter will be very thick.

Spoon just more than half of the cake batter around the Bundt pan.  Spread the batter up the sides so that you make a channel of sorts in the middle of the batter.  This is to avoid having the filling leak out while baking.

Use a tablespoon to fill the channel in the batter with your pecan filling. 

Cover with the remaining batter and smooth the top. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.   Check with a cake tester after 30 minutes.  Make sure to get the tester into the cake part because the filling will probably not come out clean, even when the cake is baked through.

Let the cake cool for 10-15 minutes and then loosen the sides with a small spatula or knife.  Turn the cake out.  

Cool completely and then decorate by sprinkling with icing or confectioners’ sugar.  This cake was gone in a heartbeat!  I think they even licked the plate. 

Enjoy!

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