Petit Riz

I arrived in Brittany just before a great storm. Many were left without electricity for Christmas Eve and streets flooded across the coast. My cousins and I walked around Rennes in the evening under rain and a biting wind. At night we started a fire by burning old egg crates in the chimney. We heated galettes that we filled with cheese, ham, and eggs. There was tomato and carrot soup and a slab of salted butter that lasted only until the following morning. The next day we stayed indoors. We mashed the blackened bananas and toasted nuts on the galette pan. We scrounged for baking ingredients, but all the butter was gone, so we made do with nut oil.

That night my grandfather and I drove through thick rain (he finds it delightful, he says: I’m not like the other old people, I’m not afraid of driving in the dark and in the rain) on a pitch-black country road. We sliced the chicken’s heart and liver for a stuffing as we watched the weather reports. The chestnuts were toasted, the ham diced, and the shallots cooked in butter. The chicken cooked for over two hours at low heat, its belly bursting with prunes and chestnuts. My grandfather handed me a box of bruised apples. I sat in the kitchen peeling and cutting around the wormholes while he searched for his homemade apple compote. We spread the golden-red sauce over the piecrust before adding apple slices. I dotted the apples with butter and sprinkled sugar. My aunt arrived just in time for a slice of pie with crème fraîche.

On Christmas day the storm had subsided and we gathered at my aunt and uncle’s house. We sat by the fireplace and opened gifts while the glowing embers heated our backs. The lamb cooked for seven hours and the meat slid from the bones like a loose dress. I scraped at the citrus-spice sauce with a piece of hard crust and asked for more. My uncle told me about an apple cake he ate when he was in high school. He was sailing with a friend and the grandmother had given them an apple cake. The two boys forgot about the cake and left it in a corner of the boat. They thought it was ugly and unappetizing, but when they remembered it, the following day, they devoured the cake. It was delicious, my uncle said, it’s a flavor I’ve never forgotten, and after that I asked that she make it many times again. I asked if he had the recipe. No, but the one you made tonight is very similar, he told me.

 *RECETTES*

banana bread

Ingredients:
100g chocolate at 52%, chopped
Handful of toasted nuts (hazelnuts and walnuts are a nice combination)
1 1/2 cups flour
3 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup nut oil (I used walnut)
1/3 cup grapeseed oil
3 very ripe bananas
10g baking powder
1 tsp. sea salt
1 vanilla bean scraped

Directions:
In a large bowl, mix eggs, mashed bananas, oils, sugar and vanilla seeds. In another bowl mix flour, salt, and baking powder. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Add nuts and chocolate. Pour into a loaf pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. The banana bread is best eaten when piping hot, while the center is soft as custard, though it is also good the following day for breakfast.

le gâteau au chocolat
(chocolate cake)

In Brittany we bake with salted butter, beurre demi-sel. We always bake with a good quality butter that has a high fat content. We don’t keep butter for more than two to three weeks, so it’s always fresh. My grandparents used to buy 200g of butter from a farm every week. It was yellow with visible sea salt crystals. Why would you ever eat unsalted butter? My cousin asked. It tastes like fat, whereas salted butter at least tastes like fat with salt.

This chocolate cake calls for salted butter. The butter I use has 2% salt content. Because there are very few ingredients (eggs, butter, chocolate, flour), the cake’s success depends upon excellent quality ingredients. The raw batter tastes like a chocolate salted caramel and has the same, velvety texture.

Ingredients:
200g chocolate (I used 52%)
200g salted butter
50g flour
125g sugar
3 eggs

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 375 F.

Begin to melt chocolate in a saucepan, over very low heat, with two tablespoons of water. When the chocolate is half-melted, add the butter and stir until both chocolate and butter are melted. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk sugar and eggs. Add the chocolate and butter. Add the flour and stir until you have a smooth, runny batter.

Butter and lightly flour a cake pan. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until a knife comes out almost clean.

Once it has cooled down, I like to cover my cake with a thick layer of whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

apple cake

This cake is very lightly sweetened, allowing for the apples to truly stand out. It is more apple than cake. The texture is a cross between pound cake and clafoutis. The batter bakes into a dense, almost custardy filling, and the crisp top shimmers from the butter. It is delicious eaten right out of the oven, still steaming, or half an hour later with a dollop of cream, or the following day, at room temperature.

Ingredients:
5-6 small apples
100g unsalted butter melted and cooled
100g flour
¼ cup whole milk
70 grams sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 large eggs
1 tbsp. calvados

Directions:
Peel and cut apples into small pieces. Pieces should be the size of cheddar cheese squares for an aperitif. Soak with the calvados in a large bowl.

Stir flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs with sugar and vanilla until well incorporated. Add milk and whisk again. Stir in flour mixture slowly until well mixed. Add the apples and coat with the batter. Prepare a cake or pie pan with overflowing parchment paper. Pour apples and batter into the pan and bake for 60 minutes. The top should be golden and your kitchen should smell apples stewing in butter. The parchment paper makes it easier to pull the cake out.

The cake keeps for 2 days at room temperature, covered with a tea towel, and then an extra day or two in the fridge, though I doubt it will last you that long. I like to eat it for breakfast. It tastes like an apple pancake. I imagine salted caramel would make for a delightful accompaniment.

la tarte aux pommes
(apple tart)

Ingredients:
Pate brisée (crust)
150g flour
75g butter
Pinch of salt
Cold water (up to ½ cup)

Filling
½ cup apple compote*
8-9 small apples
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter

Directions:
First, you can prepare the crust. To do this, pour the flour into a large bowl and add the butter cut into small squares. Add a pinch of sea salt. With your fingers, crumble the butter with the flour until a scraggly dough forms. This should take one to two minutes. Add trickles of cold water until the dough just comes together. You don’t want to work the dough for too long nor add too much water otherwise it will be hard and tough. There should be pea-sized pieces of butter in the dough. Form into a ball and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside in the fridge.

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Next, peel and core the apples. Slice them into thin slices and set them aside on a plate. Butter a tart pan. Take out the crust and lightly flour a flat surface. With a rolling pin, roll the crust into a large, thin disk. Gently fold in half and carry the crust onto the pan. Prick the bottom a few times with a fork and fold over the extra dough onto the sides of the pan. Mine looked a bit messy. Press fork teeth into the sides to create a pattern.

Spread the apple compote in a thin layer. Then arrange the apples in a tight, circular, overlapping pattern. Sprinkle sugar on top and dot with butter.

Bake the tart in the oven for ~40min, until golden. Cover with foil if the apples begin to burn or color too quickly (check after fifteen minutes).

Serve with a spoonful of crème fraîche.

*To make the apple compote, cook three to four apples (without skin and core) in a saucepan with water for at least one hour. You don’t need much water, just enough so they don’t burn. You can cook them over low heat, covered, and you can add sugar if you want a sweeter compote. Stir from time to time and add more water if they seem dry. By the end the apples will be caramelized. You want the compote to be a little thicker than a sauce, and a golden, almost reddish color.