"Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!

The flower will bloom another year.

Weep no more! oh, weep no more!

Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.

Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!

For I was taught in Paradise

To ease my breast of melodies,—

Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!

‘Mong the blossoms white and red—[...]"

Fairy Song, John Keats 

Sharing with you pictures from my weekend in Auvergne. This time, I decided to slow down. No Internet (except to study), no (unecessary) "phone time". Naps. Baths. Long strolls. 1-hour breakfasts. All the things I haven't got the time to do here in Paris (Versailles, same thing). Well I did take a lot of pictures with my phone...

It involved lots of trail running, cats and food. And friends. And art (actually only this painting). 

And this kugelhopf. Oh my. It tastes like the real stuff!

We love kugelhopf in my family. It's an Alsatian (Germand and Austrian too) type of brioche with raisins and flaked almonds. Perfect for the holiday season!

This kugelhopf marks the beginning of my new "French series". I would like to post more French recipes on the blog. Traditional recipes that would be vegan and gluten-free. I've put off doing it because the idea of vegan (no butter!) gluten-free food  is still  (unfortunately) very daunting for most French people. I've got a few recipes (only desserts...) on my list and would love to know which ones you would like me to post first. Or if you have any suggestions (especially for savoury dishes), please leave them in the comment section! Here's the list:

Financiers

Calissons

Creusois (hazelnut cake)

Madeleines

Lunettes de Romans

Pompe à l'huile

Clafoutis

Far aux pruneaux

My French recipes so far:

Tapenade

Socca

Palets de dame

Roses des sable

Ratatouille crumble

 on the road

 cats and the twin

 autumn food

trail running

trail running

 trail running

cauliflower crust pizza

trail running and sheep

 trail running, perfect weather

 this view...

November raspberries from the garden (thank you Nature!)

on the road

I've made this kugelhopf with a ready-to-use quinoa sourdough (not sourdough starter). If you can't find that, you can use one packet of GF dried yeast or (if you're very lucky) 20 g of  GF fresh yeast or your own GF sourdough (I've tried buckwheat and quinoa sourdough but I've killed them both...). You can use a bread machine too but you need to use a terracotta kugelhopf mould (no other options here... the pottery mould gives the cake a unique taste).

Kugelhopf
(vegan, gluten-free)

400 g brown rice flour
80 g arrowroot powder
50 g millet flour
20 g flax meal + 40 g water (leave to rest to form gel)
125 g vegan butter
4 g salt
50 g GF quinoa sourdough (I used this one)
40 g raw sugar
20 cl non-dairy milk (I used soy)

100 g raisins, pre-soaked in kirsch
80 g flaked almonds

In a small bowl, dissolve the quinoa sourdough into warm milk. Add 10g of raw sugar and allow to proof for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, sift the flours and mix them well.  Add the vegan butter, salt, 30 g sugar and your sourdough mixture and knead dough for 10-15 minutes. Cover bowl with a towel and let rise for 45 minutes (or more if you've got more time). Fold in the raisins and knead the dough again for 10-15 minutes. Butter a kugelhopf mould and sprinkle with flaked almonds. Place the dough in the mould evenly, cover and let rise for one hour. Preheat oven to 180°C, bake for 45 minutes or until browned. Let cool 10 minutes before unmoulding on a wire rack. Generously sprinkle with powdered sugar.

*20 g GF fresh yeast or one packet GF dried yeast.

Kugelhopf
(végétalien, sans gluten)

400 g farine de riz complet
80 g arrowroot en poudre
50 g farine de millet
20 g graines de lin moulue + 40 g eau (laisser reposer pour former un gel)
125 beurre végétalien
4 g sel
50 g levain de quinoa (j'ai utilisé ça)
40 g sucre complet
20 cl lait végétal (j'ai utilisé du soja)

100 g raisins secs, pré-trempés dans dur kirsch
80 g amandes effilées

Dans une petite tasse, dissoudre le levain de quinoa dans du lait chaud. Ajouter 10 g de sucre complet et laisser reposer 5 minutes.
Dans un saladier, tamiser les farines et les mélanger. Ajouter le beurre végé, le sel, 30 g de sucre et le levain de quinoa que vous avez préparé. Pétrir la pâte pendant 10-15 minutes. Couvrir le saladier avec un torchon propre et laisser lever 45 minutes (ou plus si vous avez du temps). Ajouter les raisins secs à la pâte et pétrir pendant 10-15 minutes. Beurrer un moule à kouglof (en terre cuite svp!) et parsemer d'amandes effilées. Mettre la pâte dans le moule et laisser lever pendant une heure. Préchauffer le four à 180°C et cuire 45 minutes ou jusqu'à ce qu'il soit bien doré. Laisser refroidir 10 minutes avant de démouler sur une grille à pâtisserie. Saupoudrer de sucre glace.

“Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.”

Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer 

I think the reason I never liked ice cream (I know, how can that be?) is that I've never liked dairy. I'm perfectly fine with sorbet and vegan ice cream. Especially this one. The raisins are plump and the cashew base makes it so creamy.

I'd advise you to start with 5 g of maca powder if you've never used it. I found it takes quite a bit to adjust to the flavour that can be overpowering at the beginning. You can use almond flour instead of coarse almond meal, the cookies will look less "rustic".

Rum raisin ice-cream sandwiches
(vegan, gluten-free, grain-free)


Hemp and maca cookies
(vegan, gluten-free, grain-free)
(yield: 8 cookies)

100 g coarse almond meal
30 g hemp flour
5-10 g maca powder
5 g baking soda
pinch of salt

30 g maple syrup
30 g coconut oil

Preheat oven to 180°C.

In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Stir in the wet ingredients and mix until it forms a dough. Roll out dough onto a surface lined with parchment paper and sprinkled with almond flour. Cut dough with a 7-8cm round cutter.  Bake for 13-15 minutes or until edges start to brown. Transfer onto wire rack and let cool completely before freezing them. 

Rum raisin cashew ice cream
(vegan, gluten-free)

280 g cashews, pre-soaked 1 hour at least
85 g raisins
4 cl rum
20 cl water
70 g maple syrup
juice from 1/2 lemon
a few drops of vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
more water, if needed

Soak raisins in rum for 15 minutes. In the meantime, in a blender, blend the pre-soaked cashews with 20 cl water, maple syrup, lemon juice, vanilla extract and salt until smooth. You might need to add a little extra water depending on desired thickness. Add in the raisin and rum mixture and mix well. 

Now two options:

- line 4 ramekins the size of your cookies with parchment paper. Fill the ramekins (up to 3 cm) with cashew ice cream. Freeze for at least 3 hours. Remove the ice cream from the ramekins and place between 2 frozen cookies.

or

- pour cashew ice cream into a freezer container Freeze overnight. Let thaw for 15-20 minutes. Using an ice cream scoop, sandwich a big scoop of ice cream between two frozen cookies.

"   What matters has never been money, or laws. It is people. [...]

    It is people that matter - them, and their hearts. And I leant very slowly. I leant like the stag had done for my hand - gently, and in silence, and with shining eyes, for it is so hard, so very hard, to give all your trust away to another life, to put your nature down and be fragile for a while. I was partly scared. All my life, I had been partly scared. But I was tired, now. I was so hugely tired - in my body, and mind. I thought of the stag's thick fur. I thought of his life of sideways rain, and rock, and how he'd turned upon his hooves, and run. He had also grown tired. I'd seen it - how he'd trodden closer, and closer. I'd seen the half-close of his eyes, as he came towards my hand. His mouth had opened slowly. His breath had been so warm, and like the stag's breath was warm, mine was warm. My  breath was on Alasdair's face, and I held my mouth above his mouth, breathing his breath in. We were frail then. We hovered, sharing breath. We were eyes, and breath, and fear, and need, and that was the moment - the small, bare moment - where it was too late to turn, to pull away.

    I was done with fighting.

    I was done with witch. [...]

    I'd dragged witch all my life. I'd cried from it, and felt alone. I'd been bruised and chased because of it, and spat upon, and my mother had been murdered, and her mother had been. But it had brought me here, to this moment - to being with him. [...]

We are the magick - we are. The truest magick in this world is in us, Mr Leslie. It is in our movements and in what we say and feel. I learnt this from the second son of the twelfth chief on the snowy night their people were slain so cruelly in their glen. His father had died, and his mother, and the Highlands were dying also in their way, and yet still he came to find me. He held my hand, and when we kissed, he made a sound like he could rest, now - like he had imagined it a thousand times. That kiss. "

Corrag, Susan Fletcher

I fell in love with books in early primary school (I was about 7). Our school was a rural school and the library tiny. The librarian, from the village library, would come and read us stories or parts of books. She read to us one day a book from a well-known children's novel writer, Marie Desplechin, called Verte. The story of a young girl named Verte ("Green") struggling with being a witch. My love for books has grown and grown since. A few books have changed me in a way I would never imagine words would do but it had been a while since this sort of magic happened. Until recently. A novel by Susan Fletcher bewitched me. A novel about a witch. Corrag.

Corrag is a gaunt young woman imprisoned for being a witch, condemned to be burnt when spring comes. As the first snowdrops break through the sleet, as she awaits her grisly death, she tells the story of her different lives that have taken her to find love and witness the massacre of the MacDonalds of Glencoe. 

I was drawn to Corrag, I wanted to put a shawl on her scrawny shoulders and watch the sun sets on Glen Coe with her, wash my peat-stained body in cristalline waterfalls, keep spiders in my tousled hair. 

Every scene of the book comes to life through the monologue of Corrag. Every word appeals to your senses: you will see the wild, untamed Highland landscapes, you will feel the cold winter wind on your face while galloping on a horse, you will smell herbs warmed up in milk in order to make a poultice, you will taste mushrooms roasted in garlic leaves, and you will hear. You will hear your heart pounds at the dragging of logs to the pyre.

The sheer beauty of the poetry of this book cast a spell on me. 

Some of the novels that have changed me:

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis

Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

L'Étranger - Camus (The Stranger)

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Lolita - Nabokov

What I like best about this müesli is that the flavours are neutral (well, except chocolate but chocolate goes well with everything, am I right?) so you can add different toppings: spices, fruits, flavoured yoghurt, caramel drizzle, vanilla milk, shaved apple...
I recommend you try mashed bananas + cinnamon or the serving suggestion below!

Quinoa müesli
(vegan, gluten-free)
(for 300 g müesli)

50 g puffed quinoa
20 g corn flakes
30 g buckwheat flakes
60 g cashews
70 g raisins
70 g chocolate chips

to serve:
non-dairy yoghurt
flaxseed meal
raw cacao
agave syrup


Combine all ingredients and voilà!
Store in an air-tight container.
Serve with yogurt (I used soya), sprinkle with flaxseed meal and cacao and drizzle with agave syrup.


Müesli au quinoa
(végétalien, sans gluten)
(pour 300 g)

50 g quinoa soufflé
20 g flocons de maïs (garantis sans gluten)
30 g flocons de sarrasin
60 g noix de cajou
70 g raisins secs
70 g pépites de chocolat

pour servir:
yaourt végétal
graines de lin moulues
cacao en poudre cru
sirop d'agave

Mélanger tous les ingrédients et voilà!
Conserver dans un récipient hermétique. Servir avec du yaourt végétal, saupoudrer de graines de lin moulues et de cacao et sucrer de sirop d'agave.

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”

The Sickness Unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard 

Meet my tea biscuits par excellence. They're slightly boozy and so simple.

Palets de dame
(vegan, gluten-free)

75 g raisins
4 cl rum
12.5 cl almond cream
80 g cane sugar
145 g millet flour
95 g cornstarch

Preheat oven to 190°C.

In a small bowl, let steep the raisins in rum for 10 minutes stirring from time to time.

In a bowl, cream almond cream with cane sugar. Sift millet flour and cornstarch and mix well. Add in the raisins (and what is left of rum).

Drop teaspoons of dough onto a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are starting to brown.

Palets de dame
(végétalien, sans gluten)

75 g raisins secs
4 cl rhum
12.5 cl crème d'amande
80 g sucre de canne
145 g farine de millet
95 g fécule de maïs

Préchauffer le four à 190°C.

Dans un petit bol, faire gonfler les raisins secs dans le rhum 10 minutes en remuant de temps en temps.

Dans un bol, crémer le sucre de canne avec la crème d'amande. Tamiser la farine de millet et la fécule de maïs et bien mélanger. Ajouter les raisins secs (et le reste de rhum).

Avec une cuillère, déposer des ronds de pâte sur une plaque recouverte de papier sulfurisé et cuire 10 minutes.