Culinary Adventures with Camilla

On Friday I shared my Cannelés de Bordeaux for our French Winophiles blogging group. You can read my post - Definitively Bordeaux: Cannelés + Crémant without the Champagne Price Tag . Then, yesterday, I hopped on the Twitter chat for the group and Jeff, from Food Wine Click! , asked if anyone knew the history of Cannelés. I didn't.  One of the many reasons I love being part of different blogging groups is what I learn about food and wine. In this case, Jeff, being one of the coordinators of the French wine group and a well-traveled Francophile, taught us all about these little pastries. He posted a little Cannelés quiz... "Cam, what is the ratio of egg yolks to whites in your recipe? What does the shape of the cannelés remind you? What is a traditional agent for fining wines in barrel?" I failed miserably, by the way. "Two egg yolks and two eggs. So four yolks and two white. 2:1 ratio. A hat?!? And I have no idea." Thankfully Robin o...

This month the French Winophiles are exploring Crémant de Bordeaux with Pinny Tam of Chinese Food and Wine Pairings .  You can read her invitation here . Actually, she ended up broadening the topic to any Crémant since some were finding it difficult to source Crémant de Bordeaux specifically. If you are reading this early enough, feel free to join a live Twitter chat on Saturday, March 21st at 8am Pacific time. You can follow along with the hashtag #Winophiles. And if you decide to chime in, be sure to use that tag so we can see it. In the meantime, here are our posts; they will go live between Friday, March 20th and early Saturday morning, March 21st... Camilla at Culinary Adventure with Camilla shares Definitively Bordeaux: Cannelés + Crémant without the Champagne Price Tag. Linda at My Full Wine Glass enjoys Date Night During a Pandemic with Crémant de Bordeaux . Lynn at Savor the Harvest introduces Crémant de Bordeaux, Sparkling Wine From the Land of Big Reds ...

Cannelés have long been a family favorite. Whenever we go to our favorite French bakery, the boys order these custardy treasures.  I've long been intimidated by them because I thought I needed the copper molds (about $30 each!) and beeswax. Yada yada. It seemed so complicated...and not worth the effort when I could just spend $3 and have someone else make them for me. But, when I was talking to R's French teacher - who is an incredible baker - about them, she offered to lend me her silicone molds while she was in Europe this summer. And she even sent me a recipe. The recipe was in French; she told me that R could translate. I assured her that though my French was extremely rusty, I could manage. I also compared a few other recipes and incorporated them into this test. When I emailed her to ask about the difference in letting batter rest for two days (another version) versus one hour in hers, she also wondered what the difference would be. For these first two, t...