4 posts tagged “french”
Let yourself be guided around Bordeaux. I picked up this little handy guide from the Monoprix supermarket in Bordeaux on my last visit and found it to be very helpful in finding my way around the city and learn a bit more about the city and its buildings, history and the modern everyday Bordeaux. For a holiday visit and to enjoy browsing through at home, I found this 80 page guide a fantastic resource. It is full of up to date photos and the street maps are clear and the important landmarks very clearly marked with a numbered system. It covers all the districts you are likely to come across during your stay. They are as follows. If you like planned walking it gives you ten walks (one per district) and all the walks are easy to organise as they all start from tramstops. The guide was a very reasonable price at 7.90€ and available in English.
Lovely indoor and outdoor shopping centres including traditional butchers, fish products and veg stalls and lots of opportunites to buy and sample the famous wines of Bordeaux and other regions of france.
Spend the afternoon browsing in the independent bookshops in the centre of the city or equally visit Virgin store or FNAC which also have very large selections of books covering all subjects. BDs or graphic novels are plentiful throughout and enjoyed by adults as well as children.
Mad for Madeleines
Recipe for Madeleine cakes
Delicious fragrant little cakes, originally from Commercy in Lorraine.
Prep time. 15 -20 mins + resting
Cooking: 15 minutes
Makes around 20 (generally four moulds.)
125g unsalted butter, melted
125g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
125g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp orange flower water or almond essence.
Icing sugar
Fresh grated lemon rind. One lemon.
Heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Melt the butter and allow to cool slightly, and use 1 tbsp of it to coat the moulds generously. Best applied with a pastry brush.
Sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside. Then beat the sugar, eggs and orange flower water (or almond essence as alternative) together in a bowl until smooth. Whisk in the sifted flour mixture a little at a time, until the mixture is smooth.
Fold in the melted butter until amalgamated, but do not over mix. If you have time, refrigerate the batter for 15 minutes to firm it. If you don’t refrigerate mixture it can prove too liquid to spoon into moulds from my own experience.
Fill the moulds to just under the top and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until puffed up and springy to the touch. Once out of the oven let them rest for a few minutes and then ease out of the moulds and place on a wire rack. Lightly dust cakes with icing sugar and eat while still warm. Great with coffee or ice-cream.
Practical tip: In the UK Madeleine moulds are available at John Lewis stores.
