Cooking

T-Minus 1 Day. Getting closer...

Today is Wednesday. Back in September, three of my friend and I signed up for a cooking class taught at the home of our pronunciation teacher. The available dates were a few Wednesday in November so we'd been anticipating our classes for a while. Last week was the first of the four.

We found her apartment after wandering the streets around school for a while and entered her cozy home. After dropping our bags, we got right to work, making Tarte Tatin. Tarte Tatin is difficult to describe - an upside down apple pie? Something of that sort. We began by peeling and chopping up apples, 2 each. We then cooked them in caramel until they were each perfectly "d'oré" (golden). We then put them into tiny pans and covered each with a blanket of pastry and popped them in the oven. While our Tartes were baking, we began to make pear pastries. They were extremely easy to make and took no time at all. After cutting out pastry designs, we covered each with pears and caramel and popped those in the oven, too. The smell was absolutely heavenly.

We tasted our Tarte Tatins, died and went to French Pastry heaven, came back to Earth and began on the next recipe. Tuile d'Amande. My favorite.

Tuile d'Amande is so easy to make and tastes absolutely delicious. A quick mix of flower, sugar and butter, whipped into a paste, spread on a baking pan and left in the oven until golden brown. When it looks ready to you, grab it out of the oven, and quickly cut it up and leave it to cool or eat it while its hot.

If any readers want the recipe, feel free to comment on the blog and I'll gladly post them!

Today, I have my next class. I seem to remember her mentioning something about macarons... I'm overwhelmingly excited.

I asked my host sisters if they wanted to help me make Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Mathilde and Clémence seem really excited and are taking me supply shopping on Friday afternoon. Now to find a turkey...

More details to come on the holiday festivities!

Yours in Dysfunctional French,

-L