Biscuit au Beurre

When I finally opened Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. One and got cooking, I couldn’t stop with just one dish. I wanted a dessert from the book to serve after our meal of coquilles st. jacques. I looked through the desserts and cakes chapter and paused at the flan des isles but decided I’d rather try a cake. The babas and savarins I will definitely come back to in the future, but they weren’t exactly what I wanted for this meal. Then, I arrived at the biscuit au beurre described as a “fine, light spongecake [which] may be served with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and goes well with tea, or with fruits.” A nice, simple cake with fresh, summer fruit sounded perfect. At the end of the recipe, there are three optional toppings. The first, which I chose, is to simply shake powdered sugar over the cake. The second was an apricot glaze with almonds, and the last was a buttercream icing which could be made chocolate. There are actually suggested variations for serving all of the cakes in the chapter which shows how versatile they are.

This is a classic sponge cake and contains only egg whites for leavening. You begin the recipe by melting butter and letting it cool. Sugar and egg yolks were then mixed together, and vanilla was added. Egg whites were whisked with salt, sugar was added, and they were whisked to stiff peaks. Then, the folding and sifting began. Some egg whites were added to the yolk mixture and some cake flour was sifted on top. This was folded until partially blended. Then, the same process was repeated with more egg whites and more flour. It was repeated once more, but before completely blending everything together, the melted butter was added. That seemed odd to me. I wanted to add that butter much earlier, but it went in at the end and I’m not sure why. The cake baked in a ten inch pan for about half an hour and then cooled on a rack. It was a little difficult to wrangle it out of the pan, but I managed to do so without destroying it.

As promised, it was light with a springy airiness about it, and the butter and vanilla gave it nice flavor. The sprinkling of powdered sugar was just enough embellishment. I served the cake with fresh cherries, and that was a happy combination. It’s also mentioned that this cake works well as strawberry shortcake, and I’ll definitely use it that way too. Like so many recipes in this book it’s simple, classic, versatile, and most importantly really good-tasting. Why did I wait so long to start cooking from this book?

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Coquilles St. Jacques a la Provencale

My copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. One and Vol II have been sitting on the shelf, waiting patiently for years for me to cook from them. I’ve referred to The French Laundry Cookbook as kitchen scripture belonging on a pedestal, but I think I had mentally placed Mastering the Art on an even higher perch. A month or so ago, I read My Life in France which tells the story of the making of Vol I. The hard work and dedication involved in creating that book, not to mention the patience with getting it published, was staggering. This book contains the first published recipes for hollandaise, mayonnaise, and beurre blanc. No one had written them down for the home cook before. Reading about Julia’s life was just a treat, and after finishing that book I had to finally crack open Mastering the Art. You may have heard about a little movie that’s coming soon to every theater near you, Julie and Julia. With news of that popping up everywhere, and with Bastille Day this week, I was inspired to prepare some French cuisine. I chose a couple recipes that seemed pretty straightforward for my first time with this book, and scallops gratineed with wine, garlic, and herbs was one of them.

Now that I’ve actually cooked from this book, I realize how well-written the recipes are. I appreciated how the ingredients are grouped for each step of the preparation. Rather than looking back to the top of the page for the quantity of an ingredient, it’s right there next to the instruction for using it. I should point out that although I have the utmost respect for the book, I of course made a change to the dish. The scallops were supposed to have been cut into one-quarter inch thick slices. I couldn’t do it. I love a nice, tall, plump scallop like nothing else, and I left them full-sized. Other than that, I followed the instructions nearly exactly and resisted the urge to garnish with some parsley or something at the end. I cooked minced onion in butter and added shallot and garlic and then set it aside. I seared the (whole, unsliced) scallops but removed them from the pan to prevent over-cooking. They were to have remained in the pan while the sauce was prepared. I made the sauce with white wine, half of a bay leaf, and some thyme and added the reserved, cooked onion mixture. I returned the scallops to the pan, topped them with grated Swiss (Gruyere) cheese and pieces of butter, and gratineed them under the broiler.

To sum up the flavors, there was butter, onion, shallot, garlic, butter, scallops, wine, herbs, butter, and a little cheese. Delicious. It was somewhat rich, but I kept the portions small and served a simple salad on the side. The sauce was nicely put together, and the intention of pre-cooking the onion mixture was, I believe, to prevent the scallops from cooking too long in the sauce. I have a thing about scallops and wanted to completely avoid an over-cooked situation; hence, I didn’t cook them in the sauce and waited to put them back in the pan before broiling. The cheese and butter topping was extravagant both in taste and calorie-count, but I’m so glad to have followed the instructions for that. This dish was just a pleasure to experience. I think that Julia Child might have known a thing or two about cooking, and I’ll be learning more from her and both volumes of the book.

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