Figs and cheese:
super easy, and delicious!
Dried figs and soft cheese like a young Delice de bourgogne!

Yummm 

Nougatine

This is a French sweet made of hard caramel and nuts.

I only do the almond version as I am not a big fan of other nuts.

Ingredients
1 table spoon of butter
5 table spoons of sugar
1 tea spoon of milk
1 cup of almonds ( grilled is better , they can be full, or other shapes work very well too)

Cookies :






















Ingredients :
250g flour
100g butter ( at room temperature)

65g sugar
1 egg
1tea spoon baking soda

Choc chips
and or nuts
and or nougatine
or what you love in cookies

Pistachio paste
1/2 a cup of raw pistachio

1 and 1/2 Table spoons of almond meal

2 Table spoons of caster sugar

1 Table spoon of water

3 drops of almond extract

1 Table spoon vegetable oil

Instructions:

Bring 1/4 gallon of water to boil. Then  put in the pistachios for 30 seconds. preheat the oven 250 F (150 C).

Take them out and peel them quickly (careful it is hot). Then put them on a tray and roast them in the oven for 15 minutes. 

Then in a pan put the sugar and the Tbs of water and heat them to 121 C. Then toss the pistachios in and mix out of the stove.It should become sandy. 

Then in a blender add the Almonds meal, the drops of almond extract, the oil and the pistachios and mix until it becomes a paste. 

I often have to add one or two spoons of oil though! 

Enjoy!!!  

Strawberry pistachio paste cake

Base:

50g almonds meal

50g icing sugar

10g corn starch

2 egg whites

30 g brown sugar

Heat the oven at 400 degrees F ( 200 celsius).

Whisk the egg white until white snow, and add carefully the brown sugar ( no clusters please) just when they start to get white.

Sift the almond meal , icing sugar and  corn starch.  

fold into the snow eggs, gently but it is ok that it looses a bit of volume. 

spread the preparation on a non sticky baking sheet ( or a silicon sheet). 

bake in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Pistachio cream:

two spoons of pistachio paste (recipe in the next post).

1 box of mascarpone

2 Tsp of creme fraîche

Mix them all together to make a nice cream.

keep it aside

Strawberry cream

1 lb strawberries  (organic is better)

1lb whipping cream ( my favourite is the organic brand that sounds like an Austrian very famous composer, that also name means flower bouquet in German ;-) ) 

gelatine or agar agar ( my favourite)

mix the strawberries in a blender, sift them and keep the rest aside. 

hit the pureed strawberries  with the agar agar or gelatine.

whip the cream, then fold gently the  strawberries in, once it cooled down but not frozen. 

now with a bag, do pipes of pistachio cream on the top of the almond base you made first, that should be totally cold now. on the top of it, put the strawberry cream. Put in the fridge.

Pink shiny icing
To strawberry that you collect before, add  one cup of frozen blueberries , some agar agar or gelatine and cook the whole think. then blend again, and sift again and leave it cool down for something like 15 minutes. when it is just warm but not hot, top your cake with this mixture and flatten it, it should make a thin shiny layer. put in the fridge for few hours to overnight.