Monthly mingle; April in Paris

Alors, j’taime Paris… My love affair with France dates back from when I was a little kid. My parents always went to France on holidays. When we were big enough to ‘survive’ the long trip from our home to Bretagne, we went there every year. I must have been 13 or 14 when I entered for the very first time. We went to places like St. Malo or Boules (it was called differently but can’t think of the actual name now!) as long as it was close to anything resembling water. My nickname in those days was ‘waterrat’; if there was water around, you would find me in it. So any camping we would go to would have to be by the seaside or a large lake (we went to the Dordogne a couple of times too)

In fact, I received my very first kiss in France. I was 15 years old, very tall and very slim (tall I still am, but not sure where the slimness went..lol) and very blond. We went on holiday that year with friends from my parents who had two kids (they had more kids, but only two came on that particular holiday) and both of them were boys. The youngest of the two was my little sisters age but the oldest of the two, R. was a little older then me and quite handsome too.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

I was already feeling those famous butterflies in my stomach every time he walked close to me. At some point we were visiting rather boring caves somewhere close to Paris and R. and I stayed a little bit behind. He suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “Have you ever kissed?” He asked me. I squeaked something that must have sounded like ‘no’. ‘Would you like me to show you how to kiss?’ He proceeded asking, at which I squeaked ‘yes’ and that’s how it happened. I received my very first French kiss in France. How fitting! I can’t say I totally enjoyed the experience but we got to practice that entire holiday so we did get quite good at it.

Of course we never wanted our parents to find out what was going on, so we had a lot of fun hiding our ‘activities’ from our folks. I’m pretty sure that they knew what we were doing behind the tents but at the time we were totally convinced we were being secretive and no one knew we ‘were in love’. It was fun while it lasted and it was really only a holiday fling, but fun non the less.

The theme of this months Monthly Mingle brought back all those memories from years past. Made me think about how I love Paris and France in general. Yes, the french can be obnoxious and arrogant at times, but quite honestly I’ve never had a lot of trouble with that. O I now remember a funny story about my Parisian boyfriend too! I’ll save that for another day!

This months mingle is hosted by my dear friend and fabulous writer Jamie from Lifes a Feast. She is an American but has been living in France for a rather long time, so this theme could have come from no other then her! Check out her post about the Mingle and her own entry here, which looks pretty amazing too. The Monthly Mingle is an invention from my other friend Meeta from What’s for Lunch Honey, where a new theme is picked every month. it’s been too long since I last participated as I love the mingle, but couldn’t skip this one, now could I?

Couldn't resist playing with the lensbaby ofcourse

To fit the theme I chose rhubarb and blackberry souffles with a crumble on top. I originally saw this recipe made during an episode of Masterchef Australia and was planning to make it. So when I saw this months theme I just knew it had to be these babies. What can I say? Totally delicious, fluffy and worth making! I was a little afraid the mixture might be too liquid but it worked brilliantly. I didn’t have icecream and whipping cream but that would be fantastic with this dessert.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	6
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Hot
Region	French
Website	Masterchef Australia

Ingredients

• 500g rhubarb (cut into 2 cm pieces)
• 140g sugar
• 150g black berries
• 4 egg whites
• 75g sugar

Crumble

• 75g flour
• 50g butter
• 50g brown sugar
• pinch salt
• 50g rolled oats
• 50g hazelnuts (roughly chopped)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put the rhubarb with the 140 gr of sugar in a pan, add a splash of water, cover the pan and let it simmer on low heat for a while.

Crumble

Make a crumble by adding the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it with your fingers till it resembles a rough crumble. Put the crumble on a baking tray, spread it out and bake for about 5 minutes until light golden brown.

Butter your ramekins twice. Butter once and then put in the fridge for 5 minutes, butter again and put a tsp of sugar in the ramekin. Turn it around so the sugar coats all the sides of the ramekin well and tap out the excess sugar. Put aside until ready to use.

Once the rhubarb is cooked but still has some chunky bits in it, add the blackberries. You can use frozen blackberries if you cannot find fresh. Add a bit of lemon zest in the pan as well. Put some cornflour in a small bowl, add water and whisk until smooth. Add this bit by bit to your fruit mixture until it is thick enough. It should become a thick puree. Leave to boil for another 1,5 minute to cook the cornflour. Then put your fruit puree into another bowl and stir to cool it down for at least five minutes.

Take 4 eggwhites and add about 1 tbsp of sugar to it and start whisking until it becomes soft and glossy. Add 75 gr of sugar and whisk until it forms soft peaks. Don't overwhisk it.

Put 1/3 of your fruitpuree in a bowl and add about the same amount of eggwhites to it and carefully fold until combined. Repeat this until it's all incorporated. Take your ramekins and with spoon pointing downwards fill all your ramekins up till the rim. Smooth the top with a knife and run a finger along the side of the ramekin to make sure nothing sticks at the sides as that will prevent your souffle from rising.

Put the ramekins in the oven for 6-7 minutes, take them out (they should have risen about 1-2 cm at that stage) and add some crumble on top. Not too much as that will weigh it down but just eough to give it a bit extra. Bake for another 3 minutes and you're done.

Related Posts:

• Creme Brulee – creamy perfection
• Mascarpone raspberry trifle
• Creamy rhubarb tarts and an old story
• Apple sauce
• Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce

Creamy rhubarb delicious

Those of you who know me a little better or those of you that have followed me a little longer, might know that I have not always been in the same profession. Lord knows I have had just about as many different jobs as anyone wants to have when I was younger. I made it my pride to be a job-hopper. The longest position I had been in for the first 10 professional years of my life was maybe 2 years.

However, one of my most memorable jobs must have been starting out as a student nurse all those years back in 1982. I was 19 at the time and as green as grass. My parents have always been fairly strict. I went to parties at our local high school but that was about the experience I had with ‘disco’s, partying and the like”. In that day and age it was a rule that you had to live in the sister-flat if you started your education. It’s all changed nowadays but when I started out you had to study for three months, then do an internship at a hospital, go back to school and then work some more. The majority of the time was spend in the actual hospital that hired you as a student.

Delicious creme fraiche

I was a very shy girl when I went into that sister-flat but I did meet a lot of nice people pretty quickly, some of which are still my friends today. We all had a tiny room of 2 x 3 meters which was our home. Put a bunch of girls together in a house and you’re bound to have mayhem so there had to be rules. No men were allowed in the house after 11 pm. No booze was allowed in the rooms. And we had a very very firm mentrix overseeing us all. Let’s call her mrs. S. She was pretty terrifying and she either liked you or she hated you. It doesn’t take a lot of guessing finding out in which category I was placed.

My friends all had boyfriends and our rooms where situated close to one another. I was – having grown up in a protected environment – still a virgin so it soon became a bit of a joke, me being the ‘eternal virgin’… (hey, I was almost twenty years!) It didn’t really bother me a lot to be honest so I just joked along with the rest of them.

My room was the only one facing the hospital. So if you would be working in the surgical ward we all worked in, you could literally look into my room. Not a good thing when you have someone like Mrs. S watch your every move like a hawk.

The boyfriends of my friends would drop in to the flat to see if there girlfriends were home. Remember this was the age before we all had Iphones to register our every move, so without a phone in the room, it would always be easiest to drop by and see if someone was home. Quite often they were gone, so the guys, whom I had met and got along quite well would drop in to my room for a cup of tea and a chat before saying goodbye again and moving on. This would always happen during the day. Broad daylight so my curtains were mostly open. No reason to sit in the dark, right?

Imagine my surprise one day when I got back from work, still in my uniform and pretty tired, when Mrs. S was waiting for me in the hall. “Come with me young lady.” She said in her usual aggressive and scary voice-tone.

My mind started racing and thinking what on earth I could have done wrong this time while I walked with her to her office. She opened the doors and imagine my surprise when my parents where sitting in her room. I was a little shocked, not knowing what to think but I was gestured to sit down and shut up.

Mrs. S. then proceeded in explaining, in front of me and my parents, that she was very concerned about my behavior. I had a lot of male visitors, I drank booze in my room on many occasions and I sometimes got home at 6.30 pm. In short, she was basically saying I was some sort of whore and she had alerted my parents to this fact. I was completely and utterly stunned. The only part of her story that was true was the last part; I did get home sometimes after having been out really late. We would go dancing for the entire night with friends and come home, well yes, very late. But we were young, living on our own for the first time, so who could blame us right? Wrong…

I stammered and I stuttered which I am sure convinced her and my parents of my obvious guilt. The fact that I blurted out that I was still a virgin was obviously just a tactic trying to get them of my back. I did not drink alcohol at all at that time. I hated beer and thought wine was just mediocre, so I didn’t drink, but I did have the occasional beer in my tiny fridge for when I had visitors. It appears mrs. S was close friends with the headnurse of the ward where I worked who -clearly – could spy and look into my room. She must have seen the guys coming over and having a tea (not whiskey).

One of our fellow students who had a room next to mine, M., was a very timid and weird girl. But she was high on the list of favorites of mrs. S. so I did not have the heart to tell her that M. was the one who brought in all those bottles of booze (which she probably found empty at some trashcan)!

I got a really serious warning that afternoon. If I would not get my act together I would be thrown out of the program altogether. I was so mad you can’t believe it. Being caught is one thing, but being blamed for something you obviously did not do, was beyond me. My parents, unfortunately, believed mrs. S and it is still the reason why they look at the friends of that period with mixed feelings. They still think I did all those things. And they blame my friends for that… Ridiculous but true. Not that we ever talk about it, but I just know.

My friends and I; well we had a really good laugh about it later on and they had something else to tease me about.. Thanks goodness for friends!

And why o why you wonder, does this have anything to do with these lovely and creamy rhubarb tarts? Well, mrs. S was a regular horrible old tart. So guess how I was reminded of this story… So before you’re completely nodded off, have a look at this delicious and simple recipe!

Creamy rhubarb tarts

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	4
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	25 minutes
Total time	45 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
Website	BBC Good food

Ingredients

• 4 sheets puff pastry (we have squares here that are already the right size)
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 tablespoon cane sugar
• 1 tablespoon creme fraiche
• 2 sticks rhubarb (thinly sliced at an angle)
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar

Directions

Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Thaw the puff pastry squares if you have them or if you're using a block of pastry roll out and cut into the desired shape. You can use round or squares

Lay your pastry on a baking sheet, prick all over with a fork and brush the edges with the whiskes egg. If using squares score a border of 1 cm on the inside of the pastry not cutting all the way through. Whisk your creme fraiche and the cane sugar together and spread a thin layer at the bottom of the tarts. Lay out your rhubard slices neatly within the borders of your cuts. Use whatever shape or pattern you want.

Bake the tarts for 20 minutes until puffed up and golden. Leave to rest for a few minutes and eat warm with either some extra of the creme fraiche or a scoop of icecream

Note

Totally loved this recipe. The rhubarb is still quite tart so it's best eaten with something like the creme fraiche so I made some extra as it goes together brilliantly!

Related Posts:

• Rhubarb souffle for April in Paris
• Arretje nof – the simplest chocolate cake
• Slow cooking pears in red wine sauce
• The easiest dessert for christmas
• Apple sauce

Apple sauce

Sometimes I seriously wonder if there is something wrong me. If I was maybe born with that famous ‘hole in the head’… Or maybe I actually think that there are 48 hours in each day (wouldn’t that be awesome by the way??) but noooo, that is all not true. I’m mean; yes I am slightly mad and yes, I am sometimes very delusional and yes I’ve managed to create yet another blog. Tsssk, I can hear you think.. Why would that be of any use?

It’s gone live today and if you cannot contain your curiosity; it’s called Beetroot and Halloumi and the idea is to make this a foodblog but centered around healthy food and healthy living.. BOOORRRRINNNG I can hear you think.. Maybe… I need to get better at controlling my healthy I think and thought this would be a cool way to keep the focus while in the meantime still eat unhealthy different dishes here on Junglefrog Cooking. Obviously there is no way I’m gonna abandon this baby so rest assured that will still be there. And I might over time decide that it was a bad idea and that nothing good has come of it, but for now I’m happy with it. It’s not exactly the way I want it to be yet. I hate having to search for a new theme and then installing it, spending time on it; only to find out it’s not exactly what it claimed to be. O well… it’s up and it’s working more or less. It looks ok-ish too. Still a bit empty since you see a lot of posts on the front page. And even though I think I’m superwoman, I cannot turn out twenty posts in one day.

The recipes will eventually be different from the ones featured here but in order to fill it up a bit I will use some of the recipes I’ve made over the last couple of years. The healthy ones ofcourse only!

Now talking about this delicious and plain applesauce. You would almost wonder why you would even need a recipe for that. Well you don’t really but I’m gonna share it with you anyway. It’s delicious, fragrant and anything a good apple compote should be! For the last bit of winter and now please let’s get on with spring already!

Apple sauce

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	4
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	30 minutes
Total time	45 minutes
Meal type	Condiment, Side Dish
Misc	Child Friendly, Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
By author	Simone van den Berg

Ingredients

• 500-1000g apples (I used a variety of different apples)
• 4 pieces star anise
• 3-4 tablespoons cinnamon sugar
• 1 cup fresh orange juice

Directions

Peel and core all the apples and cut them into chunks. Don't make them too big or it will take too long to cook. Put all the apple cubes in a large saucepan, add a little bit of water and the orange juice to the pan, add the cinnamon sugar and star anise and bring to the boil. As soon as it's boiling turn the heat down to a simmer and leave it simmering for about 20-30 minutes. Check regularly to see how you're apples are doing. If you like the sauce to be smooth leave it fairly long, but if you like bits and chunks in the sauce then make sure you don't boil it too long.

Note

If you do not have cinnamon sugar (which is basically sugar with cinnamon added in it) you can ofcourse use regular sugar and add one or two cinnamon sticks in it.

Related Posts:

• Rhubarb souffle for April in Paris
• Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce
• Mascarpone raspberry trifle
• Spicy cake with persimmon
• Slow cooking pears in red wine sauce

I know I always keep blabbing to you about photoshoots and how that works but I thought for a change to give you a small behind the scenes look at one of the shoots we did this week. In a lot of cases I cannot share the photos with you as it’s for a publication or a customer who doesn’t want the photos to be strewn all over the internet, but this time the photos were for stock and therefore I can share with you whatever I want….

Cupcakes all over

The idea for the shoot was to give the feeling of a girly (kids) birthday party with lots of pink, lots of cupcakes and lots of other sweet treats. We had planned the shoot for a while now and we is Femke (and Eddy in the morning) from sfeercatering Heeerlijk. As guest helpers we had Pauline from Uit eigen streek en Vivian Hulsebosch so it was full house. I think Eddy escaped the girly atmosphere after making us lunch…

I’ve met both Femke and Pauline on twitter and when Femke and I had the first photoshoot together, we got on really well so I’m sure there will be lots more joined ventures in the future. Now a photo shoot like this requires some planning as we wanted to have lots of treats, so I made caramel apples (recipe below), Pauline baked some cake layers and made butter cream and Femke provided the cupcakes, most of the accessories and the other treats.

Table top view of party table!

Styling a large table and making it look fairly natural is not really simple and without a stylist present it posed some challenges. I think we did a lot of different takes before we arrived at the final shot which is above. I’m sure there could be some improvements to this but hey, I like it….!

The table from a different angle

With these kinds of setups I like to work with daylight. Even though I have all the lights in the studio I might ever need, I still strongly prefer natural light. And I have a corner in the studio that is perfect as it has side light and backlight and no direct sunlight so in most cases that corner is my perfect spot for shoots like this. From the right I need a fill still to lift some of the shadows as this shoot was all about light and fun and almost summery feeling.

Table setup with reflector

We usually start with one element and add pieces to it. Because I was shooting from above I had to climb on the ladder everytime to check the setting. Obviously you can also work on the floor and in a lot of cases that is easier except that you have to have a background you want on the floor and since we wanted to use the table that was not an option in this case. I have to collect some larger backgrounds that I can use on the floor. Your light will change if you do that so you have to be aware of the direction of the light.

The team ready to dive in!

Because we had so much stuff we did table settings but also closeups and details on some of the cakes, cupcakes with both the table, another older and darker wooden board and my little white garden table (which is the first shot you see)

Caramel apples

Overall I think we were all pretty happy with the end results of the shoot and we’re already planning the next one! (which is gonna be outdoors and awesome, I’m sure!) Now for the recipe of the caramel apples; there are a lot of different recipes out there and this one is the more simpler one. The trick is to get the caramel right as I found out myself, since the first time went very wrong and the second one could definitely have been better too. I might try a couple more caramel recipes which I will share too.

And I was there too!

Caramel apples

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	6-8
Cook time	15 minutes
Meal type	Dessert, Snack
Misc	Child Friendly, Pre-preparable

Ingredients

• 500g sugar
• 4 tablespoons water

Directions

I guess the recipe is so simple that you can hardly call it a recipe but with caramel it's all in the execution and not so much in the ingredients. Now when making a large batch such as this it becomes critical that you keep a close eye on your saucepan with the sugar in it. What will happen if you have a lot of sugar is the bottom will caramelize and the top will still be solid sugar. In order to avoid this you will need to stir a tiny bit. Stirring too much will results in crystallized and hard sugar (as I found out in try number one) and not stirring will result in half burned and half raw caramel.

Put the sugar on a very low heat giving it the change to start the process slowly. Make sure you use heat proof tools as the sugar becomes very very hot. Make sure you have a bowl of cold water nearby to cool of the caramel once done as it will otherwise keep on cooking and get too far. As soon as the sugar starts to caramelize, very slowly move it a bit around with a spatula (heatresistant one!) and make sure it browns evenly. You can choose to add the water or not. I added water in the first try and did not add it for the second. I think without works maybe a little better but I have yet to give it another go.

As soon as all the sugar is lovely and brown and you can smell that it is the right color. (you can really smell if it is done or not!) cool the pan quickly in your waterbath and then dip your apples in the caramel one by one. Put them on a sheet of baking paper and make sure you do not get in touch with the caramel yourself!

Related Posts:

• Apple and caramel dumplings, I think
• Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce
• Orange and poppyseed bundt cake
• Raspberries with mascarpone cream…
• Apple sauce

Pretty bundt cake

I made this pretty moist and delicious bundt cake this afternoon. It came out of the oven around 4.30 pm, then had to cool and by the time I wanted to take a photo there was no light left whatsoever. That meant having to wait either until the next day or find an alternative solution. I still had this one daylight lamp that I took out of the studio at some point, used once, didn’t like it and tossed it in a corner to get dusty. Enough with the lazy and comfortable daylight! Time to get cracking on some serious stuff..

I’ve received many a question from people desperate to find out how to work with lighting in the night or for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, in the wintertime when light fades after 3 pm. I’ve written something about it before which you find here but thought I could do a little more research myself so why not share? As I said; I never use this lamp as it’s just not the same but in case of emergency, you would have to do with what you got right? So for today I dusted of my daylight lamp, took it into our kitchen and started moving it around.

Position of the lamp

As you can see I positioned the light to come from the right and back and from above a little bit. The lamp has 5 separate bulbs I can turn off individually, so I turned three of and left two burning as it was far too bright, causing burnout and heavy shadows. With a little less light it started to look a little better. I had only one light, so you can see that there is quite a bit of shadow in front of the cake. In order to fill that up a bit I used a silver reflector (you can also use foamboard, aluminiumfoil or something similar) to bounce a bit of light back to the front of the cake. In the two photos below you can see the difference with or without the reflector.

With or without reflector

You can tell that there is a big difference here. You can still tell that these are shot with artificial light but the result is acceptable and you can actually use this. Now what is most important I find when working with lights is the direction of the light. That is also true for daylight but that can be a bit more forgiving. I’ve taken two shots where I changed the position of the lamp and see what happens.

Ok first of all; what I like, might be something else from what you like, so it’s in the end all personal preference but to me the photo on the right is boring and lacks something. I turned the light more towards the table coming more from straight above almost (not quite) which made the light a bit flatter and shadows less pronounced.

I will be doing more tests with other lights that anyone would have in their home. Just to see what the issues are and how to possible solve those (or not). These lights are the easy ones since they are daylight balanced and need limited tweaking when it comes to color. In general for shooting at night, it is extremely helpful to use raw instead of jpeg. It gives you more control over the white balance so you can correct it later where needed. For now I will leave you with this delicious bundt cake!

Apple pear and nut bundt cake

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Serves	8-12
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 15 minutes
Allergy	Egg, Peanuts, Tree Nuts
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable
Website	Epicurious

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks, softened)
• 3 eggs (large ones)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pears (peeled, cored and cut into small pieces)
• 2 apple, Golden Delicious (peeled, cored and cut into small pieces)
• 1 cup Mixed nuts (coarsely chopped)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

In a small bowl put the cranberries with a bit of warm water and let them soak for at least an hour. Drain, discarding the water and set aside. Position rack in the middle of an oven and preheat the oven to 180 C. Lightly butter the bundt tin, then dust with flour, knocking out the excess.

In a large mixing bow or bowl of electric mixer, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Add brown and granulated sugars, butter, eggs and vanilla. Using electric mixer, beat on high speed, scraping down sides of bowl with rubber spatula as needed, until batter is pale and smooth, about 3 minutes for handheld mixer and 2 minutes for standmixer. Stir in apples, pears, nuts and cranberries. Spoon into prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake until a wooden pick or skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake. About 1 hour. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert and unmold onto rack and cool completely. Cake can be made up to three days in advance and stored at room temperature wrapped tightly in plastic wrapp

Related Posts:

• Apple nuts bundt cake
• Arretje nof – the simplest chocolate cake
• Slow cooking pears in red wine sauce
• Apple and caramel dumplings, I think
• How not to style your pannacotta