recipe | A French Collection

French Crêpe Recipe

A crêpe is an easy food to make using batter or dough that is cooked on a frying pan or griddle. A traditional French food and regionally a dish served in Brittany, there are two types of crêpes. Sweet crêpes (crêpes sucrées) or savoury galettes (crêpes salées). Both can be served with a variety of toppings and are delicious. Cider is a popular choice of drink to enjoy with crêpes or galettes.

French Crêpe Recipe

We eat loads of crêpes and galettes living in Brittany whether we dine out, or cook at home. You can add just about anything on top, they are quick to make and are very tasty. Here's an easy traditional recipe for you to try at home.

Ratatouille Recipe

Ratatouille Recipe - A Perfect Autumn Food

Bonjour mes amis, and welcome to another recipe post. Ratatouille is the quintessential French vegetable dish that's colourful, healthy, easy to make and delicious. You may have seen recently on our socials, Instagram or Facebook, that we shared how we cooked Ratatouille to celebrate the arrival of all our new copper pots and the start of autumn in France.

Ratatouille seemed an obvious choice to mark the autumnal equinox with its rich fall colours, pleasingly reflecting in the copper pan, and yummy flavour. I think the colours of courgettes, zucchini, onions, tomatoes and yellow peppers mixed together are reminiscent of autumn. What do you think?

Far Breton – An easy & delicious recipe from Brittany

Far Breton - an easy & delicious recipe from Brittany

Okay, so you want to eat something sweet that's easy to cook, doesn't have fancy ingredients and is very French? Then Far Breton is just what you want. It's the great French classic #2. Far Breton comes in at #2 after Kouign Amann which is the big #1 dessert of Brittany.

Far Breton in its authentic version contains prunes because sailors used to bring back dried prunes from their voyages and prunes added a fruity touch to the cake. You can also add a touch of rum or raisins to add more flavour. This recipe serves 8.

Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake Recipe

Brittany is a region with a rich heritage that is divided into four departments: Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes d’Armor and Ille et Vilaine. It's Celtic past is full of legends including Merlin, Arthur and the knights of the round table in the forest of Brocéliandes. The dramatic coastline, medieval towns, thick lush forests, colourful markets and traditional food draws lots of visitors to Brittany.

Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake

Food our region is famous for includes crêpes and galettes, fresh seafood, Plougastel strawberries, Guerande salt and Saint Malo’s Bordier butter. Pastries that are unique to Brittany are the Gâteau Breton (Breton Cake), Far Breton and the Kouign-Amann. Sweets that originated in the region include Salted Caramels, Niniches (artisanal lollipops from Quiberon), and Gavotte (a lacy golden mini crêpe). One of our family's favourite desserts is Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake. It travels well so is easy to take for picnics or to friend's homes when invited for lunch.

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

Summer time in France is magical with long days, alfresco dining and long beach rambles. It's also the perfect season to enjoy an ice cold sorbet. So with summer just around the corner here's a mouth-watering raspberry sorbet recipe for you.

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

This sorbet brings out the sweet, tart flavour of local raspberries.

You can make a sorbet with any other summer fruit (peaches, nectarines, strawberries, melons etc) by substituting the same quantity of fruit for the raspberries. Don’t forget to add the lemon juice regardless of the fruit you choose, because it highlights the fresh fruit flavour. You will need an ice cream maker for this recipe.

French Béarnaise Sauce Recipe

Béarnaise Sauce Recipe

This Béarnaise sauce recipe goes well with fish, chicken or vegetable but it seems to naturally accompany steak best of all. You'll often get a little dish of homemade béarnaise sauce on the side when you order steak or chicken at a French café, so I thought you'd like to try this elegant version of béarnaise sauce. It's the result of trying a few different recipes and tweaking it to suit my cooking style.

Tapenade Recipe

Sitting at a cafe in Uzès, with a local cat for company, eating tapenade smeared on a fresh baguette with a cool glass of wine, is one of the sweetest memories I have of my time in the picturesque Provincial town of Uzès.

After spending the morning wandering around market stalls taste testing local cheese, smoked sausage and buying bed linens for our home, I found a seat in the sun and ordered a snack of tapenade. I love olives, black more than green, and add them to my portion of salads and pasta dishes. Not everyone loves olives in my home, especially my husband, who gets physically unwell after eating them. So tapenade is one of my indulgent snacks when holidaying or travelling on my own - especially when in France!

Gratin Dauphinois Recipe

Just the other day I cooked gratin dauphinois as part of our New Year's Eve dinner as we celebrated with family and a bunch of friends. We welcomed in the new year with amongst other things, French martinis, baked Camembert infused with rosemary, slow roast pork with vegetables and gratin dauphinois and a 'to-die-for' tarte au citron. Food links people and events together and this New Year's Eve was no exception for me.

Realising that many of the dishes I cooked have recipes on the blog available for you, but that I'd not shared a recipe on how to cook gratin dauphinois already, I thought it high-time that this easy classic French dish got its own post. Also, for all of you who messaged and emailed me asking for the recipe after our Facebook and Instagram New Year's Eve posts, here it is...