Has anyone tried the Gateau Breton from the RHC? There’s a Fall Bake Sale at the French school that my goddaughter goes to and I am volunteering to bake some cakes for them. Requirement is no refrigeration. They are looking for some french baked goodies and I thought this might fit the bill (together with financiers and orange chiffon). Looking for some feedback on this cake.
Another slightly unrelated question. I bought a pint of fresh figs because I’ve never had them before and I wanted to try them. It tastes good, really sweet. But I want to make something with them before it goes bad. Any suggestions? Right now I’m thinking fruit tart because I found a recipe from another book for Fig Wedges: shortdough, lemon-orange cream, fresh figs and mirror glaze (just a clear glaze). I’ve never had them before so not sure how that would go.
I love fresh figs straight up, or with a little prosciutto wrapped around them - Yum! Whatever you do, eat them quickly because they spoil fast (like within 2-3 days).
Hmm…. Those savory options for figs do sound yummy. Kind of reminds me of bacon-wrapped dates which I love. Something to think about. Maybe I’ll use some for the tart and the rest with bacon or prosciutto as appetizers.
If you like salad, I tried a new salad recipe a couple of months ago. It’s basically spinach, fresh figs, peaches, and plums, and shallots. The dressing is raspberry vinegar. I believe you can put fresh raspberries too. I didn’t have any raspberry vinegar at that time so I use a mixture of champagne vinegar and olive oil. It’s very good and fresh. It was interesting to eat figs in salad.
Baby spinach, fresh figs, toasted walnuts and goat cheese with raspberry vinaigrette. That’s one of my favourite salads! I use Rose’s raspberry puree to make the vinaigrette.
Oh! Just now happened upon a recipe for Fresh Fig Tart from Brittany in one of my books. That’s the same region for Rose’s Gateau Breton, so perhaps the figs were a related question after all!!
Let me know if you’re interested. I don’t think there would be any problem typing it out, since the book is from 1976. Probably out of print.
I also noticed a salad recipe including fresh figs in another book last night. It was with squab, which I believe is more readily available in Europe. It said that fresh figs go well with any game. I love a huge salad with some sort of protein!
Delighted to learn about the other options that have been mentioned.
I have seen whole squab at Whole Foods. I’m not sure it’s readily available all year but it might be worth checking out if interested. Hm.. all this talk about fruits, salads, and squab is making me hungry, .
Thanks for all the suggestions regarding figs. I went ahead and made fig tarts. The crust is tart pie dough (pate a foncer), filled with Lemon-Orange Cream, topped with fresh figs and glazed with a mirror glaze. I’ve only tasted the cream and its pretty yummy. Can’t wait to try the tart tonight.
Didn’t have time to make the Gateau Breton today. I’ll probably bake it sometime this week because I want to try it before I make it for the Fall Bake Sale at the French school next week.
I love the salad suggestion with figs! I still have leftover figs and arugula. I’ll probably make a salad with arugula, fresh figs, pine nuts, and orange balsamic vinaigrette. Thanks again!
Thanks, Barbara and Patricia. The tarts were awesome. The sweetness of the figs offsets the tartness of the lemon-orange cream.
And now I know, figs work well with salads. The arugula, fresh figs, pine nuts, with orange balsamic vinaigrette was really good. Thanks for the suggestions!
The Gateau Breton is amazing and very easy to make. I made it this morning for the tea shop. For some reason I do not have a 9 inch tart pan, only a 10 inch, so I baked it in a 9x2 inch pan, turned out lovely. I did not have the dip in the middle that Rose says happens if you bake it in a cake pan instead of a tart pan, but that could be because I had to make altitude adjustments to the batter, which probably made it more stable.
The Gateau Breton is amazing and very easy to make. I made it this morning for the tea shop. For some reason I do not have a 9 inch tart pan, only a 10 inch, so I baked it in a 9x2 inch pan, turned out lovely. I did not have the dip in the middle that Rose says happens if you bake it in a cake pan instead of a tart pan, but that could be because I had to make altitude adjustments to the batter, which probably made it more stable.
Thanks for the feedback, Roxanne. I am also making it tonight, but I’ll use the recommended 9.5inch tart pan. Did you use Euro butter? I am planning on making this using Plugra which she also mentioned in the book.
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