French Cooking

One night after being home for about a day, I found myself dreaming of the food that I ate in France.  We would wake up to fresh, light, airy croissants and baguettes.  I especially loved the croissants.

For lunch, you'd find sandwiches made with baguettes that looked like they could be dry, because the crust was so brown, but they were so soft.  Those sandwiches were wonderful. 

And then dinner with all their meat and wonderful glazes.  Yum!  Let's not even talk about desserts.

So I woke up one night wanting to try to make croissants like the French.  I got on the computer and found a Julia Child recipe and decided I wanted her books and learn to make some things the French way.

I told my husband what I wanted and that night he came home with the surprise for me.

 The recipe in the book was a little different from the one I found online, so I took from both of them.  My croissants weren't quite as light as the ones in France, but they did turn out pretty good.  It's not something you go into lightly, as it takes about 24 hours from start to finish, but only 5 minutes of your time every couple hours.

I'm finding out that proofing temperature is very important.  She lets the dough rise over 3 times it's original size and you don't want it to rise too fast.  I thinks slower and longer is better than quick.

In France, no one bakes breads in their homes.  They all go to the neighborhood Boulangerie to get their breads and pastries for the day.  Fresh every morning.  In fact, they line up to get their bread. Out to the street.

 It was also so good to get back home to my family.  The little ones change a lot in that time.  Eloise is talking a lot more.  She always wants to be read to.

And Juliet is turning over and if you give her a smile she always has one for you.

This photo is one that was sent to me while on my trip.  I just thought it was so nice to see Eloise really enjoying her Grandpa.