Brownies, French-style

Adapting and converting French recipes into American measures and methods is not straightforward. The same is true in the opposite direction, American to French. American recipes give amounts for most ingredients by volume — a cup of this and a half cup of that — while French recipes specify non-liquid quantities by weight. I don't normally do all these conversions for my cooking at home.

By the way, with all the recipes available on the Internet these days, one thing Americans, Australians, and British cooks need to realize is that a cup is not always a cup. A pint is not always the pint you think it is.

Weighing ¾ cup (U.S.) of sugar...

Specifically, a British cup is 10 fluid ounces, and a British pint is 20 oz. An American cup is 8 fluid ounces, and an American pint is 16 oz. ("American" here means "North American", including English-speaking Canada.) Cups, pints, quarts, and gallons, then, are 20% larger in the British (a.k.a. Imperial) system, compared to American measures. That can make a huge difference, especially in baking.

...and ¾ cup + 2 Tbsp. of cocoa

In the French system, weights are specified in milligrams, grams, and kilograms. When I say "the French system" I'm not talking about the whole francophone world, however. In Québec, quantities that in France would be given as weights are often specified by volume — but in milliliters or decilitres, not cups and fluid ounces. I saw a French cooking show about Québec a few days ago, and the French host was surprised that amounts of flour were given in milliliters, not grams.

About the only way to prepare many French recipes is to use a kitchen scale. Once you get used to weighing everything, it all starts to make a lot of sense. For American recipes, you need a set of measuring cups — a cup, ¾ cup, ½ cup, ¼ cup, and so on — and spoons — 1 tablespoon, 1 teaspoon, ½ teaspoon, etc. In France, these are not easy to find. When a French recipe calls for a teaspoon — une cuillère à café — of an ingredient, it doesn't mean that you need to get out the measuring spoons. You just use a regular teaspoon.

Brownies are good with chopped walnuts or pecans in them.

About the only way to convert American recipes into French terms is to measure out the ingredients in American measuring cups and then weigh the result. That's what I did to translate this recipe for brownies made with cocoa powder, which I found on www.epicurious.com. I've been making it for a couple of years now.

I measured out, for example, 1¼ cups of granulated sugar (sucre en poudre, in French) and then weighed that quantity on a kitchen scale. I did the same for ½ cup of all-purpose flour (farine ménagère) and ¾ cup + 2 Tbsp. — yes, that's the quantity the recipe calls for — of unsweetened cocoa powder (cacao non sucré). I also rounded off the quantities slightly. There's no point in specifying 96 grams of cocoa, for example. Most kitchen scales are not that sensitive.

Best Cocoa Brownies

Here are the quantities I came up for the recipe:

Best Cocoa Brownies

150 g unsalted butter
280 g sugar
100 g unsweetened cocoa powder
a pinch of salt
½ teaspoon powdered vanilla or sucre vanillé
2 cold, large eggs
75 g all-purpose flour
50 to 75 g walnut or pecan pieces (optional)

(Go to the Epicurious web page for the instructions...)

In going through the recipe this way and comparing it to French recipes for brownies that I found on the web, I noticed two things. This recipe has a lot more sugar in it than most of the French recipes do. That's typical. American baked goods are a lot sweeter, overall, than French pâtisseries.

The American recipe also calls for just 2 eggs, whereas most of the French recipes I found call for 3 or even 4 eggs. I'm not sure why there is that difference. Are American eggs larger? I wouldn't be surprised. Or maybe French cooks like eggier cakes. I used just two (French) eggs and I think the result is fine.

One ingredient in the brownie recipe that might be a problem for a French cook is liquid vanilla extract. I can't find that here in Saint-Aignan. You can, however, find what is called sucre vanillé. That's sugar flavored with vanilla, and it's sold in little packets like the sugar packets you get in American restaurants. You could substitute one of those for the liquid vanilla.

At the supermarket in France, you can also buy vanilla powder — the tiny jar I have is called « vanille poudre sucrée ». That's another good substitute for liquid vanilla. You can also buy little vials of vanilla-flavored caramel syrup, and fresh vanilla beans, of course. Some of the French recipes for brownies say to flavor them with rum instead of vanilla.

Cocoa, both SuperU brand and Van Houten's

Finding powdered cocoa — cacao non sucré — is not a problem, as you can see from the picture. There's a name brand, Van Houten, and there's also a store brand at SuperU. I'm not sure why I started making brownies with cocoa rather than baker's chocolate. I'm not much of a "choco-holic"in fact. In reading about brownies, I learned that there are two kinds of cocoa, natural and Dutch-process. That's another complication...

By the way, the brownies are delicious. Sweet, moelleux (tender), and chocolatey.

Here are some French recipes for brownies from Marmiton and a couple of other sites:

Brownies au chocolat avec 4 oeufs
Brownies au cacao avec 4 oeufs
Brownies avec 2 oeufs
Brownies avec 3 oeufs
Brownies avec 4 oeufs

How Sunday became Monday

Here are a few more of the pictures I took Sunday afternoon. It was nice to see the sun, even though by late afternoon there were more clouds than blue patches in the sky.

Sunday afternoon, 16 January 2010
Click on the pictures to see a larger view

Monday morning it was my turn to take the dog out for her walk again. I opened the shutters and realized why it was that it seemed like nighttime at 8:15 a.m. Fog!

The scene as I stepped out the back door at 8:20 a.m.

Looking out the road across the foggy vineyard a few minutes later...

...and looking back toward the house from a few hundred meters out.

It's not as foggy today but it's gray and the weather reports say rain is coming in from the southwest, blowing up from Spain and Basque country.

Air coming from that direction is laden with pollen that makes my eyes burn and my nose drip. Sorry to be so graphic, but misery loves company.

I'm going to the kitchen to make a batch of brownies and convert my American recipe into metric measurements. Then I'll eat the brownies to comfort myself.

A fine Sunday

When we have a day of fine weather, I should acknowledge it. The sun came out first thing yesterday morning and by mid-afternoon the temperature outside had reached 10ºC (50ºF). It felt right balmy.

For the first time in weeks, I was able to go out for a walk with the dog without needing to put on a hat and gloves. That meant I could take some pictures, and there was enough light for that activity too. You'll see a few of the photos just below, in this post.

Sunday afternoon in the vineyard
17 January 2010

In the evening, a long-running Sunday program called Vivement Dimanche, hosted by Michel Drucker on France 2 television, featured the British actor Hugh Grant as a guest. And guess what — Hugh Grant speaks French. He seemed to have no trouble understanding what the half-dozen French people on the show were talking about, and he answered questions in French without too much hesitation.

It always surprises me when people like that turn out to speak French well. Jody Foster does. And Sigourney Weaver. Kirk Douglas used to appear on French TV in French too. Jane Fonda, of course — she had a life in France and was married to the director Roger Vadim. Candace Bergen too — she was married to Louis Malle. I'm sure there are other French-speaking anglophone actors, but not many.

It's very wet out in the vineyard, with big puddles all over the place.

And now for something completely different: I just bought an airline ticket for a trip to the U.S. this spring. I dread the actual trip — the traveling part — which is very long but seems even longer with all the delays and slow-downs caused by security checks. And it's nerve-wracking these days even to think about getting on a transatlantic flight.

A walnut tree among the grapevines

My trip is especially long. Door-to-door it will take about 25 hours. I'll leave Saint-Aignan at 5:00 a.m. one morning to take the train to Paris and the RER out to CDG airport. Three planes later — two connections in two big airports — I'll arrive at my destination in North Carolina at midnight, if all goes well. Midnight on the U.S. East Coast is 6:00 a.m. the next morning in France. That's 25 hours in all.

But I'm looking forward to being there when I finally get there. It will be relaxing and fun — a complete dépaysement, or change of pace. I don't know if you realize it, but it's a different world over there. :^) My last trip was already a year ago. I'll come back re-energized and ready to start work in the vegetable garden. I'll be happy to be back in France.

The sun, setting behind the clouds, was spectacular.

More about endives: I made a salad yesterday with one Belgian endive, one apple, some toasted walnuts, and some cheese, in a vinaigrette dressing. The apple complemented the endive nicely, and the walnuts gave good taste and texture. The cheese filled it out. I had a blue cheese, a Fourme d'Ambert from the Auvergne, in my salad, and in his Walt put a non-blue cow's milk cheese, a Bethmale from the Pyrenees region.

Belgian endive, apple, walnuts, and blue cheese

As for chicory, of which escarole, curly endive, Belgian endive, and radicchio are examples, there are many names for all the different plants in different countries. Belgian endive and radicchio are the plants whose roots are dried and ground to make the chicory that is used as an additive in, or substitute for, coffee in Louisiana, France, and elsewhere. But Belgian endive itself is called "chicory" in the United Kingdom.

In the U.S., I remember when the salads we call curly endive and escarole used to be called "chicory" but I'm not sure if that name is used nowadays. These two chicories are a different species from Belgian endive and radicchio. In France, salads of scarole or frisée are often featured on restaurant and café menus and are always available in the markets and supermarkets. As salads, like Belgian endive they are good in vinaigrette with beets, garlic, walnuts, poached or hard-boiled eggs, or smoked bacon lardons.

Daylight

At this date the sun comes up in Saint-Aignan at 8:32 a.m. and doesn't go down again until 5:32 p.m. That's nine full hours of sunlight — or low, gray clouds, most days. We actually had a visible sunrise yesterday, but it lasted only five minutes. Then clouds moved it and blotted it out.

Yesterday's sunrise (15 January 2010) at La Renaudière

The hamlet called La Renaudière in the pink light of dawn

About endives, they are called just that in French: des endives. In America, the term endive used without modification means what is called scarole (escarole) or salade frisée (curly endive) in France. Americans call endives Belgian endive. In England, as Autolycus said, endives are called chicory and chicorée is called endive. It's all as clear as the mud all these plants grow in.

Endives — 2 kg pour 2,75 €

Belgian endive (a.k.a. chicon or witlof) leaves are also good raw in salads. They are slightly bitter so they are good combined with foods that are sweet, such as beets (beetroot, betteraves), green apples (pommes vertes), or walnuts (noix). They're good with Roquefort and other cheeses too. La salade d'endives et de betteraves is a traditional French combination, with vinaigrette.