Happy New Year!

Happy New Year or BONNE ANNEE as we say in France!

Our New Year started with a trip to the bakery, buying some lovely French croissants, pains au chocolat, pains aux raisins and a nice brioche.

Nice start of the Year! We will start the diet another day! ;o)

If you holiday in France, you have to try the croissants from the bakery. If you go early - around 9am - they are still warm. I bet you won't wait to get to your gite to eat them!

All supermarkets sell the croissants and other viennoiseries too (chocolate croissants (pains au chocolat) and Danish pastries (pains aux raisins) but for a proper one, visit the local bakery! They will taste so much different.
Supermarket croissants are often made with oil rather than butter. Yes better for your diet you may think, but not as tasty! I rather eat the 'proper' stuff.

Some of my English friends tend to cut them in half and fill them with butter and jam. I like mine plain. I have never seen any French people eating the croissants with jam. But then again, i don't know everyone in France! ;o)

In Evran, a small town of 1600 inhabitants, we have 2 bakeries. The third one closed down a few months ago. One is near the church and one near the bridge. You have to visit both and try their bread and viennoiserie. They both offer different produces. Another baker sells bread made with organic flour. He can be found at the local markets.

Bread can also be found at our local supermarket Huit à 8. It comes from our local bakeries. So as you can see, you will never be short of bread in France!

Recipes for the Carnaval celebrations

Carnaval celebrations started on Tuesday 16th (Mardi-gras) this year. Rich foods are usually eaten as a tradition. See my other post here.

Here is the recipe and a photo of the Bugnes I made last week:

Bugnes moëlleuses. They - according to my English friends - test like doughnuts! It is a Lyonnaise recipe.

Ingredients for about 50 Bugnes

- 400 g of flour

- 3 eggs
- 1 sachet backing powder
- 60 g of butter
- 25 cl of milk
- 3 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 or 2 tablespoons of orange water (fleur d'oranger)
- oil for frying
- icing sugar for the decoration

How to prepare the Bugnes:

Mix flour, backing powder, sugar, eggs and orange water with a wooden spoon.

In the meantime melt butter with milk.

Add the butter mixture to the other ingredients with the wooden spoon then by hand. Add flour if needed (I must say I had to add a lot of flour to get a nice dough). It is ready when it is not sticky anymore.

Sprinkle the work top with floor and roll the dough with a rolling pin. The thickness of the Bugnes should be about 5 mm. The proper Bugnes are diamond shaped with the hole in the middle but you can do any shapes you want!

How to cook the bugnes:

Fry the Bugnes in hot oil until they are brown. Put them on kitchen paper so it absorbs most of the fat.

Sprinkle them with icing sugar before serving. They are delicious warm!

You can also cover them with home-made jam or lemon curd! It is Mardi-Gras (Fat Tuesday) after all so enjoy it!