Quatre-Quart

Have you ever noticed that when you become interested in something, it is all around you? I am now so obsessed with baking, it is sometimes scary. I often fall asleep thinking of recipes and wake up with more ideas. I’m actually pretty good at not purchasing more cookbooks but I do spend a lot of time on the internet looking at recipes and finding blogs I like.

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This week, I discovered two new ones I’d like to share with you. One is Sweetopia.net. The woman who writes that blog does a lot of things but what impressed me the most was the beautiful work she does with cookie decorating. Some are so sophisticated! She has several tutorials and I cannot wait to try them out.

Another blog I discovered is called “Les mains dans la farine”, written by a Belgian woman living in the south of France. What I find interesting and can’t wait to try on her blog are some basic recipes. I’ve picked one of her recipes for a baking experience for this weekend (coming soon in another post).

A friend of mine recommended I watch the French TV show “Le meilleur patissier” (M6). It’s the French version (with variations) of the British show that inspired the American show “The American Baking Competition”. I have to say, I’m hooked! I can’t wait for the third episode to be posted online!

The first week’s theme was ”travel cakes”, a term used to refer to cakes that can be kept at room temperature for several days, making them ideal for traveling in times when refrigeration was non-existent. The general shape of such cakes is that of a “bread” as understood in American culture (as in banana bread, pumpkin bread...). The top must be crunchy while the inside must be fluffy and soft.

So yesterday, I decided to make my own version of the travel cake. Unfortunately, I cannot attest as to its freshness after a few days as, well, it’s already more than halfway gone, so I doubt it will last much longer. I used one of my tried and true recipes but did add some baking powder, just because I used a smaller and taller mold and I was afraid it would be too thick to rise. I also decided to make just the plain cake, not adding any other flavors but it is easy enough to do, as long as one knows you might have to adapt baking time.

The result was delicious! The top is delightfully crunchy while the middle melts in your mouth. Although it contains lots of sugar, the taste is not sickeningly sweet. This tastes delicious with coffee or hot chocolate. The color is a beautiful golden/light brown. This is a recipe that can easily be modified for large quantities.

Ingredients:

• Equal amount of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. --> Weigh the eggs first, this determines how much of the other three ingredients you need. For this cake, I used 4 eggs, 250g each of butter, sugar and flour.
• 1 tsp of baking powder

Preparation:

1. In a bowl, mix the yolks with the sugar.
   
2. Add the melted butter and mix thoroughly.
   
3. Add the baking powder to the flour, then add the sifted flour to the batter in several times.
   
4. Mix until you get a homogenous batter.
   
5. Beat the whites in firm peaks.
   
6. Fold softly into the batter in batches.
   
7. Butter and flour your pan (5.25”x9”) and pour the batter in it.
   
8. Preheat oven to 350º and bake for 1:15. Check for doneness by inserting a knife in the middle. It needs to come out clean/dry.