We have been working hard over the Easter holidays in the upper tower room over what soon will become La Chambre Etoile. If all goes as planned it will be available for booking in late summer. I’m very much looking forward to the decorating bit, for now it was mainly stripping down old paint, restoring the boiserie (the woodwork), and patching old plasterwork, a frightfully grime occasion. We still do almost everything ourselves, relying on a select crew of artisans for certain works (aka everything that’s dangerous, plumbing, electricity, structural stuff and so forth) step by step, preferring our liberty in choosing how we want to restore the castle over lavish government aid. This means the restoration goes on a slow pace with basic planning that allows us to take in surprises, change our mind as we go, and take meaningful breaks if things feel stuck. A red string running through everything we do is keeping the traces of time, this mostly means that the works are totally not straightforward.
Anticipating that we needed something sweet to make amends for the stinky dusty and generally very tiresome part of the works I did some baking before the holidays so to be well stocked on treats. I baked this plain sponge cake with griottines in an old copper mould that I bought at the brocante the other day, I think it looks a bit like an egg.
We were very lucky because our darling neighbour was around so we had very nice aperos after the day’s work done and sometimes made dinner of it, throwing together what we had. I brought along a spring leek salad for example, and a staple dessert that’s a classic at home called Gentlemen’s Cream. I’ll add the recipe later, it’s very simple and involves cherry brandy in our version.
We also had a stash of Nougatines de Nevers that we brought home from our recent trip through France, they are crazy good and unfortunately the brand we bought is not available online. It was gone very quickly. We also brought home a culinary revelation, a Pineau de Charente, that we had for apero at the gorgeous couple’s place where we got the vintage window fittings. Pineau is a mix of raisin juice and cognac that has aged for some time, very much like our own ratafia in Franche-Comté. I normally am not very much into Pineau but I thought while being in the Charentes region it’s the natural thing to have for apero. And wow! What a corker! It’s called Très Vieux Pineau des Charentes and happy us, it’s available online.
What you’ll need
- 150g of fresh farm butter at room temperature
- 150g of normal sugar
- Half a vanilla bean
- 4 eggs at room temperature
- 1.5dl fresh fat milk, heated to 25°C
- 175g of flour, finely ground for patisserie – I use a T45 wheat flour
- 8g of baking powder (half a bag)
- 4 tablespoons of tipsy cherries (I use my own but griottines work well too)
- A pinch of fleur de sel
- A teaspoon of corn starch
- Icing sugar for dusting
How to make it
Before you start, make sure your bowls are warm, you may even heat them a couple of minutes at low temperature in the oven. Work in a warm room that’s not exposed to currants of air.
Mix the butter for 4-5 minutes, then add the sugar, continue mixing. Split the vanilla beans and scrape out the seeds, add to the batter. Separate the eggs and add the yolks one by one while continuously mixing. Then slowly add the milk so the batter amalgamates well. If it goes all flaky heat it to over 25°C and continue mixing. The batter should be smooth and creamy.
Pre-heat the oven to 160°C no fan (I’m using a gas lit oven here – which is entirely different from modern ovens as bottom heat only – and baked it on thermostat 5). Butter the baking mould and dust it with flour so the cake will come out alright.
Add the flour and baking powder to the batter and make sure it’s well incorporated. Press the tipsy cherries softly so to get rid of any excess liquid and add to the batter.
Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt and the corn starch until it gets firm, this may take a couple of minutes, then patiently fold under the batter in order to keep it airy and fluffy. Transfer to the mould and bake for one hour. Let cool in the open oven.
As soon as it’s possible to touch the mould without getting burnt, reverse the cake on a nice plate and dust with icing sugar.
How to eat it
On one of those beautiful spring afternoons, coming in from a long walk through fields and forest picking twigs to put in a vase inside to see them blossoming after a few days. These afternoons when one just makes it home before another downpour. Nibble away at the cake cosily sat in a corner at the fireplace, with a nice glass of Very Old Pineau, waiting for the sky to clear and the night to fall.
Les Poissonchats 