Tartiflette with a dose of good news!
Were having a little garçon. My intuitive feelings have been right all along (thankfully so). Just so happy for a beautiful healthy baby and he is growing by the minute. We've been waiting a while to know the sex of the baby just, because we've recently moved in to our house after spending two months in an Air bnb apartment. I just say thank you every night for a house, my bed and a garden.
I know a gender cake is probably such a run down thing to do, but I wanted to surprise once again since we waited so long. My sister and her husband came to visit all the way from Geneva and this made it even more special to have family here to reveal the gender! I baked the gender cake using a bit of a cheat...store bought cake batter, it was not baked from scratch , but still tasted delicious!
Alongside the gender cake, I have been spending a lot of time in my new kitchen. Luckily I have made a new french friend that is introducing me to all kinds of french recipes that I didn't even know existed. Like the Tariflette which is kind off like a glorified potato bake with lots and lots of cheese and bacon.
This dish is originally from the french alpes and is certainly worth trying with the cold winter months ahead. Here the sun doesn't rise before eight in the morning so snuggling in with some comfort food wont be a problem that's for sure. I made the Tartiflette with puff pastry, because when I heard about a Tartiflette I thought "It sounds like pie". So this is just my pie version of the French original.
Ingredients:
1 small sheet of puff pastry (optional)
150g of Reblochon cheese or any cheese with a waxy cover
5 strips of bacon cut in to little pieces
1/3 sliced red onion
1/3 cup crème fresh or normal liquid cream
1/2 cup sliced potatoes
Method:
1. Sauté the onion and bacon together and add a bit of salt and pepper for taste.
2. Cook the potatoes till soft, slice in to slices and set aside.
3. Layer the puff pastry in a baking dish that you prefer, then the potatoes, bacon and onion, creme fresh and the cheese cut in to slices with the waxy edges cut off.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius.
5. Serve hot out of the oven with fresh bread, salad and a glass of red wine. (This is a recipe for a small Tartiflette, just double the ingredients for a bigger serving)
Here are the ingredients I used for our gender reveal cake:
2 x Alsa Moelleux au chocolate cake dough
eggs
Nestle dessert chocolate
Cream
Cream cheese
Butter
Castor sugar
Lemon juice
Funfetti sprinkles
Blue food coloring
Caramel chocolate
How to make the frosting:
Ingredients:
2x Philadelphia cream cheese
250g unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups of icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
Method:
1. Whisk all these ingredients together.
2. Divide the icing in two to colour the one part with either blue or pink.
How to make chocolate fondant:
1 bar of Nestle dessert chocolate
1/2 cup cream
1. Melt the chocolate over low heat on the store in a pot or in the microwave by 30 second intervals till it has melted.
2. Add the cream and whisk well so it does not curd, make sure it is runny enough so it can just melt over the cake when you decorate.
Assembling the cake :
1. Place the first layer and smear the frosting on top, then repeat this until all your layers are done, remember to leave the top part bare.
2. Decorate with the white icing, making sure every bit is covered then pour over the chocolate fondant, funfetti sprinkles and the caramel chocolate shavings.
Hope you have a lovely weekend, I'm going to bake some scones right about now!
M*
