Dark Chocolate Molten Cake & Le St André Café in Bonnieux

One of the desserts we saw all over Provence was beautifully presented individual servings of dark chocolate molten cakes. The one above is from Le St André Café in the gorgeous perched village of Bonnieux.

Bonnieux is one of the beautiful villages of Provence. As early as 972 AD, it was a fortified village and has an interesting history. According to the website Luberon.com, Bonnieux started off lower down the hill, but inched its way up the slope as events got harrier in the 13th century and barricaded itself against invaders and attackers with ramparts, which sometimes kept them out and sometimes did not.” Hmm, just when I thought those perched villages were safe from the invaders during the Middle Ages.

Today Bonnieux is one of the most impressive villages in the Luberon. Here are a few of the pictures we took while we strolled around before lunch.

The French adore their dogs and take them everywhere, including restaurants. This man kindly allowed us to take his picture with his cute little pooch.

On the day we visited Bonnieux we decided to have lunch, or dejeuner as it is called in France, at Le St André Café.

Before we ordered our lunch, Meakin went inside the restaurant and found some of the staff, including our server and the hostess, both pictured below, enjoying their own lunch before the noontime rush.

As it turns out, they were eating an omelet and a chef’s salad. He thought it looked so good and, as yet, we hadn’t eaten an omelet on this trip, so he asked them if we could order the same meal as they were having. The hostess looked over to a gentleman (we presume to have been the chef or owner) of the restaurant and he nodded in the affirmative, so you’ll see below our chef’s salad and omelet, customized to our request.

For dessert we both chose the dark chocolate molten cake sitting atop a crème anglaise sauce, served with a scoop of pistachio glacée and a dollop of whipped cream sprinkled with a few miniature chocolate chips.

I could not wait to get home and try a version of their dessert myself.

I chose this particular molten chocolate cake recipe (there are a lot of recipes out there) because cookbook author Peggy Knickbocker had adapted her recipe from the Russian Tea Room, an iconic restaurant in New York City. One evening in the late seventies Meakin and I stopped into the Russian Tea Room (next door to Carnegie Hall) prior to attending a Frank Sinatra concert at Carnegie Hall and ran into to Gene Shalit, famed New York movie and television critic. It's just another reason this recipe is special to us. Funny, you never know when old memories related to recipes can crop up. Below is how dark chocolate molten cake turned out.

Try as we might to find a similar pistachio glacée or gelato, which to us seems very similar to a French glacée, we were unsuccessful. I found pistachio gelato, but unfortunately it wasn’t very green, so we settled on quality mint chocolate chip ice cream. We skipped the crème anglaise sauce, but it was a very nice addition. If you don’t want to bother with making your own crème anglaise sauce (we didn’t) and want to cheat a bit, you can melt some vanilla ice cream and swirl a little underneath the cake to take its place. We’ve done that in the past and it works great. All in all, the molten chocolate cake was easy to make and we were pleased with how it turned out. If you want it a little runnier, remove it from the oven a minute or two before the recipe calls for. I really like the fact that you can make the majority of the recipe in advance and cook it right before you plan to serve it.

The mint chocolate ice cream is very pretty with the dark chocolate, but a bright raspberry gelato would be equally stunning.

Here's our version of Le St André Café's molten chocolate cake.

Dark Chocolate Molten Cakes
Adapted from Simple Soirees by Peggy Knickerbocker, serves 6
Printable Recipe

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, plus additional for buttering the ramekins
10 ounces good quality dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus additional for flouring the ramekins
¼ cup sugar
4 large eggs, beaten
Powdered sugar

Optional toppings:
French glacée, ice cream or gelato
Whipped cream

In a double boiler (or set a bowl tightly over a pot of simmering water), melt the butter, then add the chopped chocolate to the hot butter, stirring constantly until all of the chocolate has melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 30 minutes. If desired you can place the bowl in the refrigerator briefly, but do not let the chocolate harden.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Butter and lightly flour six 6 ounce ramekins, making sure not to miss any spots or the cakes will stick. Place them on a sheet pan (lined with Silplat if available to keep the ramekins from sliding.)

Combine the flour and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Whisk in the eggs until well blended and there are no visible lumps. Whisk in the cooled chocolate mixture until combined completely. Divide the batter evenly among the ramekins. They should be two thirds full.

At this point the recipe can be made in advance and refrigerated for up to 6 hours. Bring to room temperature before baking.

Bake in the middle rack of the oven until the cakes have puffed up a bit and the cakes still jiggle slightly when shaken, about 10 to 12 minutes. (I advise checking them at 9 minutes.) The cakes will be slightly fluid at 10 minutes and a little more cakelike if baked for the 12 minutes. If you like the centers very solf, taken them out at 9 minutes. Let sit for 1 minute.

Carefully remove the ramekins for the sheet pan. Place a plate on top of each ramekin and, with a potholder to protect your hands, carefully invert the cake onto individual plates. Let it sit for 10 seconds, then lift up each ramekin off of the cake. Alternately you may serve the cakes in the ramekins if you wish. Sprinkle the cakes with powdered sugar and if desired, a scoop of French glacée ice cream, gelato, or sorbet and/or whipped cream.

We highly recommend the food and the quality of service at Le St André Café in Bonnieux. For more information on the cafe, visit their website here.

Friday is Market Day in Bonnieux. If you plan to have lunch afterwards, we suggest that you call ahead and reserve a table no matter where you dine. If you are planning to have lunch at Le St André Café and you find yourself parked too far away to comfortably walk, call ahead and they will send the cute French golf cart above to fetch you.

Photo courtesy of Le St André Café website

Le St André Café Bonnieux

1 Freedom Square

84480 Bonnieux

Phone: 04 90 75 11 72

For better viewing, click photos to enlarge.

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm and Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Market Day in Saint-Remy-de-Provence & a Provencal Tomato Tart

Wednesday is market day in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, an old Roman village just south of Avignon nestled in the hills of Les Alpilles mountains where vineyards and olive groves flourish. The current site of Saint-Remy was probably first built in the 1st century AD and the town was created around its first church, built in the 6th century. It is the birthplace of Nostradamus, a 16th century author of prophecies and was once the home of French Impressionist Vincent van Gogh, who spent the last year of his life in the psychiatric center at the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole. Although its history runs steep, it is one of the most lovely and stylish villages in Provence.  

Markets such as this one have existed for centuries in Provence and have changed very little in modern times. Scenes such as these are repeated throughout Provence day in, day out, year after year, in sun, rain, snow, even on holidays. It is a traveling carnival that goes from village to village, attracting locals and tourists alike.

The main food market is in Place Pellissier where local farmers bring in their fruits and vegetables, fresh from the fields and set up their stands. More of the market, including clothing and fabrics, flows into the Place de la Republique across the street.

There’s a wide variety of other vendors including a huge selection of French cheeses,

freshly baked breads, fish & shellfish right out of the water from Marseille,

a wide variety of Provencal olives, brightly colored spices,

vin de pays wines and regional olive oils,

colorful olive oil soaps,

beautifully carved wooden spoons and bowls,

kitchen implements, prepared foods of all kinds, regional specialities, local goat cheeses, foie gras,

and quite a nice selection of clothes,

table linens

scarves, and brightly colored straw market bags.

As you can see you can buy almost anything at the market. On market day the village is bustling with locals as well as tourists. I recommend that you arrive early as the locals do in order to avoid the crowds of tourists, especially in the summer months.

These gorgeous tomatoes are perfect for a Provencal tomato tart. For today’s tart I chose puff pastry as a base, but in a previous post (photos directly below) I used pastry dough, post and recipe here. That particular tomato tart had a more dense cheesy egg filling than the one with puff pastry that I made for today, as you can see in the photos below. Actually I made that tart two different ways – one resembled more of a quiche

and the other a deep dish tart.

But today’s tomato tart uses puff pastry and I was quite pleased with the results below. It was crunchy and light and perfect for lunch with a simple green salad, dressed with a French vinaigrette, recipe here.

In Provence tomato tarts are often served in small slices with aperitifs during cocktail hour. Every cook has her own unique version. I was surprised at how easy the puff pastry was to work with. If you can find heirloom tomatoes, especially several different colors, by all means use them, but garden tomatoes work just fine as well.

Provencal Tomato Tart (Tarte aux tomatoes)
Adapted from A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan, with puff pastry instructions from Epicurious, serves 6
Printable Recipe

Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F. Defrost 1 sheet frozen puff pastry (preferably all-butter pastry) from a 14–17-oz. box according to package directions. If the package contains 1 sheet, cut the pastry in half; if the package contains 2 sheets, just use 1. Roll out the dough slightly on a floured surface to smooth it out.

Place the pastry sheet on a parchment-lined, rimmed baking sheet and use a paring knife to gently score a 1/4” border around the edge. Using a fork, prick the pastry all over inside the border to release steam while baking.

Spread the bottom of the dough with a thin layer of Dijon mustard, and then cover with a single layer of snugly packed tomato slices, preferably heirloom tomatoes in several colors, that have been sprinkled with sea salt and drained on a paper towel to remove excess moisture. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and chopped fresh thyme. Top with grated Gruyere cheese. Bake until the crust is golden and the tomatoes have collapsed. It should take about 20 to 25 minutes. Check at 20 minutes and continue to cook until pastry is golden. Remove the tart to a rack and let it cool for 20 minutes or so before slicing it into wedges.

Variations: Add slivers of kalamata olives over the cheese before baking. Or sprinkle the cooked and cooled tart with torn bits of fresh basil right before serving.

For better viewing, click photos to enlarge.

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm and Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Café de la Poste Bistro in Goult – Part II

Café de la Poste, as most bistros in France do, posts their daily plate du jour on a chalk board displayed prominently in the front of the restaurant. A stroll around the picturesque village is a must after lunch. so before we talk about our second lunch, here are a few pictures of Goult's beautiful old homes of stone and ochre.

Notice the olive trees in their yard

I was fascinated with their pretty doors and the attention to detail the French pay in their decorations and flowers. Someone had a sense of humor when they named the one above. It would be interesting to know how old it is.

This cute group of young French school doors approached us while we were shopping at the market and asked if we were Americans. As part of their school's celebration Armistice Day, they had written a poem thanking the Americans for their part in liberating their country from Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany and asked if they could read it to us. It was ironic that the French celebration of Armistice Day was only a few weeks before our own visit to Normandy. Paying our respects to the troops who had served and fallen in Normandy was something Meakin has always wanted to do. It was a long drive from Provence, but well worth it. We stayed in Bayeux and visited the American, British and German cemeteries as well as Omaha Beach. The residents of Bayeux love the Americans and will come right out and tell you that their village was the first to be liberated.  The loss of so many young lives and all of the crosses in the cemeteries were very sad to see. More on the trip to Normandy later.

The menu for our second dejeuner (lunch) at Café de la Poste is shown on the chalk board in the beginning of the post. We were pleased that our lovely waitress from our first visit greeted us warmly and said she remembered us from our first visit. This is just one of the charming things about small villages and bistros in Provence. They appreciate your business.

For our entree, we both chose the crème brûlée with salmon, caramel balsamic and roquette (arugula) salad.

For the main course we chose le tartare de boeuf (raw beef French style) or what we call steak tartare. As you can see it is raw beef served with condiments on the side. Beef tartare has been a favorite in the Hoffer household since Meakin was a boy and the recipe for his version is below. It is very popular in France and we saw le tartare de boeuf on many menus during our stay.

Raw beef is not for everyone, but those of us who love it, really, really love it and consider it a treat. If it’s not your thing, you might want to skip this part and scroll down until you see the photo of Cafe de la Poste's pretty little individual pear clafoutis for dessert.

Steak tartare is very finely chopped raw sirloin or filet of beef mixed with onions, capers and seasonings served on toast or a crispy baguette. It is imperative that you use the finest and freshest steak available since it’s eaten raw. I know we all talk often about the quality of ingredients, but in this case it is essential with no exceptions. Steak tartare is a bistro dish in France and is traditionally served with frites and a salad. Sometimes Meakin chops his own meat by hand as Anthony Bourdain suggests in his Les Halle’s cookbook, but if you’ll tell the butcher that you plan to serve it raw and you know the store and the quality of meat they sell, the butcher can chop it for you. Never, and I repeat, never use the food processor. It turns the meat to mush.

Be sure to take the meat home promptly, don’t let it get warm in the car, and eat it right away. Serve it on slices of a (buttered) crunchy baguette or lightly buttered toast points along with fries (I made oven fries), a fresh green salad dressed with a French vinaigrette (recipe here), and pour a nice glass of red wine. We like a good French Cote du Rhone. An ice cold imported beer is also excellent served with steak tartare. Select your guests carefully, because steak tartare tastes way too good to have someone throw it away.

In the US in forties and fifties steak tartare was served as an appetizer at cocktail parties on party rye. I’ve found that a crunchy lightly buttered French baguette or crisp buttered toast points are a far superior companion to the raw beef than the soft party rye bread. The contrast in texture of the crunchy bread with the soft spicy meat allows your mouth to taste a distinctive texture difference and the crunch is a much better carrier of the seasoned raw meat than combining two soft textures.

Meakin’s Steak Tartare
From My Carolina Kitchen – serves 4
Printable Recipe

Place one egg yolk in a bowl and add ½ teaspoon prepared horseradish, 2 anchovy fillets, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce, 3 good shakes of hot sauce such as Tabasco, and mix well with a fork, mashing the anchovies as you go. Add ¾ of a pound of top quality freshly ground sirloin, ½ of a small white onion, finely chopped, 2 teaspoons drained small capers (chop if large), a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped parsley and mix well with a fork. Season the mixture with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve immediately on lightly buttered (use really good butter) slices of a crunchy French baguette or buttered toast points. If you like, top with thin slices of French cornichons or serve them on the side.

Cook’s notes: There are several ways to present the tartare – with the raw egg yolk on top, with the egg mixed into the meat along with the condiments, and with the condiments on the side for the individual dinner to incorporate into the meat.

Never ones to turn down clafouti (according to Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking it is also spelled with a final “s” in both singular and plural) for dessert, we both choose the individual pear clafoutis, lightly brûléed on top, sprinkled with almonds and served alongside crème  fraiche sprinkled with brown sugar. I don’t think Julia Child’s recipe for a clafouti can be beat, so I’ve adapted her recipe and added the brûlée and almonds for My Carolina Kitchen's version of Café de la Poste’s Le Clafoutis Poire with Amandes.

My Carolina Kitchen’s version of Café de la Poste’s Le Clafoutis Poire with Amandes
Adapted from Julia Child’s Clafouti aux Poires, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child – serves 6
Printable Recipe

3 cups peeled, cored, and sliced ripe pears (1 ¼ to 1 ½ lbs pears)
¼ cup sweet white wine, kirsch, or cognac
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Batter:
Liquid from the pears plus enough milk to equal 1 ¼ cups
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sifted all-purpose flour
An electric blender
A 7-8 cup lightly buttered, fireproof baking dish or Pyrex pie plate

Garnishes:
Sugar to brûlée the top of the clafoutis
Toasted almonds, optional
Powdered sugar
Whipped cream or crème fraîche, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Use fresh pears in season and let them stand for 1 hour in the sweet white wine, kirsch, or cognac and sugar.

Place the batter ingredients in your blender jar in the order in which they are listed. Cover & blend at top speed for 1 minute. Pour a ¼” layer of batter in the lightly buttered baking dish or pie plate. (If you are making individual clafoutis, divide the batter between 6 to 8 small ceramic ramekins, depending on their size and proceed with recipe.) Put in the oven to let the batter set. Remove, spread the drained pears over the batter, then pour on the rest of the batter and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon.

Place in middle position of preheated oven and bake for about an hour. (If you are baking the clafouti in individual ramekins, I would check them at 45 minutes to see if they are done.) The clafouti is done when it has puffed and browned and a needle or knife plunged into its center comes out clean.

Sprinkle the clafouti with a little sugar evenly on the top and heat with a kitchen blowtorch until the sugar caramelizes evenly. Allow to sit at room temperature for a minute until the sugar caramelizes and hardens. Sprinkle with toasted almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar. It need not be served hot, but should still be warm. It will sink down slightly as it cools. If desired, serve with whipped cream or crème fresh sprinkled with brown sugar on the side.

Cook’s notes: Many other fruits are great in a clafouti, including cherries (recipe in this post), peaches, blueberries, or raspberries.

I thought you might get a kick out of seeing these whole pigs being delivered to Café de la Poste's kitchen, where they will butcher and cut them up in house themselves. It’s just one more reminder that there's no doubt you’re in France.

We highly recommend Café de la Poste when you visit the Luberon area of Provence, information below. I’m certain that you won’t be disappointed.

Café de la Poste

Rue de la République

84220 Goult

+33 4 90 72 23 23

For better viewing, click photos to enlarge.

This will be shared with Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm and Miz Helen’s Country Kitchen Full Plate Thursday.

Have a great weekend everyone.