Home-made praline / praliné

I'm preparing some special hazelnut sablé biscuits for my son's daycare snacks. Those French biscuits needs some flavoursome praliné paste, which probably can't be bought from NZ supermarkets or groceries. The good news is that it is super easy to make your own praline and once you have tasted this delicious topping or paste, I bet you'll become addict straight away!

The recipe I'm sharing today comes from a world-renowned French pastry chef: Philippe Conticini, so it is a high standard recipe, but you'll be stroke how easy it is. You just need a good food processor and a little bit of patience.

But what's praline or praliné? It's a combination of hazelnuts and/or almonds, but could also contain pistachio or cashew. The nuts are roasted, then cooked in a slightly dark toffee and pulverised finely. After few seconds in the mill or blender, you'll obtain a powder - the praline -, if you keep grounding, then you'll obtain a paste - the praliné -.

The praline is a gourmet topping for ice-cream or custard, crumble and apple pies, and I bet it would be lovely on the top of a pavlova... I'm just saying...
The praliné paste is delicious spread on toasts, combined in crème chantilly for choux filling, or combined in cake, brioches, cookies and biscuits.

My gourmet mango crumble

I won't hold the suspense any longer. Here is the recipe of my gourmet mango crumble!
For this absolute pleasure, you'll need butter cookies or shortbread cookies (see recipe here), vanilla ice-cream (see recipe here), salted caramel sauce (see recipe below) and of course fresh mangoes!
If you don't have the time to make all these elements yourself, you can easily use shortened biscuits, ice-cream and caramel sauce from the supermarket, but let's be frank: it will be much nicer home-made, and you can prepare all the elements in advance so that you just need to prepare the roasted mangoes before you serve. Don't be afraid by these elements; they are all super-easy to make!

Mango crumble (6 servings)

Ingredients

- 2 fresh mangoes, diced into very small pieces
- 1 knob of natural butter
- 1 tsp raw sugar
- 6 butter cookies or shortbread cookies - see recipe here
- 1 or 2 scoops of vanilla ice-cream per serving - see recipe here
- a generous dash of salted caramel sauce - see recipe at the end of this post

Vanilla ice-cream

Tuesday... only... And I wish we would already be Friday! Today was exhausting, taking the bus to the City with bubba in the sling... several meetings and finishing work near to 5 pm! Thanks man, you found something to re-heat for dinner tonight! It's just a shame men can't think forward, in particular of the next day and the lunch boxes of our little ones. So I ended up cooking something after dinner for my boys' lunches tomorrow. The good stuff is that everything is ready for tomorrow night! Yay!!!

Although my bed is insistently calling for me, I promised to share with you the recipes of my cooking week-end. Today, I continue with the dessert... remember my version of a mango crumble... - Yuuuummm, just thinking of it, I want a serve now! - requires vanilla ice-cream... yum yum! Unfortunately there is no more left, already! :/

Sorry I have no picture of the ice-cream on its own and I do not want to reveal my Mango crumble yet, be patient...

Ingredients (~15 scoops)

- 500 ml milk*
- 250 ml cream
- 130 g caster sugar
- 5 yolks
- 1 tbsp natural vanilla extract

Preparation

This ice-cream is based on a classic vanilla custard, which I recommend to make the day before to leave it the time to cool down and set before putting in the ice-cream maker.

1. Pour the milk and the cream in a pot, add the vanilla and heat until it starts boiling. Get the pot straight out of the heat when you see the first bubbling.
2. In the meantime, whisk together the sugar and the yolks until they whiten and double in volume.
3. When the milk and cream mix is hot, gradually mix into the sugar and yolk preparation with a wooden spoon.*
4. Pour back into the pot and put on gentle heat, while stirring gently until the custard coats the spoon.
5. Let cool down in the fridge. The custard will slightly thicken in the fridge.
6. When your custard is cold, the coldest possible, pour it in the ice-cream maker and churn for about 25-30 mins.* No worries if it is still a bit runny, the ice-cream will set in the freezer. Serve after an hour or more, but I definitively recommend to serve it the same day!

Tips

* I used trimmed milk for a healthier option but it works with light or full-fat milk, too.
* The secret to a successful custard is to not whisk briskly otherwise you may split the cream. Do not use a whisk. If the cream splits, no worries, there is a trick to save your custard: when you're happy with the consistence (after step 4), then mix it in a blender and rest.
* The churning time depends on the temperature of your custard as well as of the iced bowl. So feel free to adapt this timing to your particular context.

Chocolate cake and coconut chantilly

Last week-end, we invited our neighbours at home for a pudding. It took only 2 sec to the little girls to notice the chocolate cake sitting on the kitchen bench. I bet they could smell the chocolate from their place, so the cake was rich in chocolate. But because it's never enough for dinodad, I decided to glaze it with a chocolate ganache. And because, dinomum is only a chocoholic beginner... What??! How?... Yes I need to tell you that story.

I never really enjoyed chocolate, never ever. As a child, I would have never taken a chocolate ice cream, vanilla or strawberry instead! I had Easter or Christmas chocolates in horror for the greatest pleasure of my dad and brothers. I much preferred candy and nougat. I would make chocolate cakes only to please the ones I loved. I couldn't understand my partner's addiction for this bitter and quite hardcore treat. I was quite proud of this reluctance to chocolate; it made me feel different than the mass of all those chocolate fans. And last year, when I got introduced to chocolate Fridays at work, I even prided myself that they would be happy to know that I'd leave them my portion as I would never feel like chocolate. No one could believe me.
But short after this, I got pregnant and everything changed (again)! I started to join in chocolate Fridays. I started buying chocolate tabs (for the big enjoyment of dinodad of course!), one per week, then two... or more... I developed an embarrassing chocolate addiction. When dinodad implied that I behaved the same way toward chocolate during my first pregnancy, I couldn't believe. So I kept confident that straight after delivery, this chocolate thing would vanish!
Bubba just turned 9 months-old and I am still fighting the chocolate appeal. My last hope is in weaning my little one off the breast... To be followed later this year... Hopefully this works before I got completely crazy about chocolate!

Well, as I was saying a bit earlier... (after the chocolate cake and the chocolate ganache...) 'And because, dinomum is only a chocoholic beginner', I decided to serve the chocolate cake with a light coconut chantilly to balance a little bit the bitterness and heaviness of the chocolate.
We all enjoyed this pudding very much, although the kids were more keen on the cake than the chantilly cream, but mummy was happy! :)

Stand up ovation! Caramel custard / Home-made Danette

There are many food products that we miss from France when we live here in New Zealand.
Remember, two days ago, I opened a can of evaporated milk for the first time of my life. And when I tasted it, it reminded me one of those missed French pudding: the famous Danette - and now all my French followers are singing 'On se lève tous pour Daaanette, Daaanette!...", from the famous TV ad where everybody stand up for this pudding, creating a stand up ovation for this humble custard.
After more than two years in NZ and one can of evaporated milk opened, I finally decided to give it a go and experiment my home-made Danette. I still wonder why I did not try earlier.
It is actually very easy, easier than I'd thought, and very quick to make. Today, I chose the caramel flavour and it was delightful! And it is gluten-free!!! I may go for another serve right now...

Ingredients (5 servings)

Caramel:

- 150g white sugar

- 1/2 tsp lemon juice

- 5 tbp evaporated milk