Notes about Recipes in this book

• Green bean salad with pecans and dry-cured ham

  • wester on September 18, 2018

    A good salad. I prefer red wine vinegar to cider vinegar here. I would also cut the ham in much smaller bits.

• My grandmother's apple cake

  • wester on October 05, 2013

    Easy, tasty and very pretty. Baking longer at a lower temperature is better - at 350F the top gets really brown while the inside is still wobbly. Baking for 10 minutes longer at 320F/160C gives a cake that is done but not overbaked.

  • vickster on June 26, 2010

    Quick, easy and very good

• Lemon butter cookies

  • wester on September 03, 2010

    Very basic recipe, but very nice. I found it quite difficult to roll the dough into a round log. I preferred them as rollout cookies, using wodka glasses to cut them out. The amount of glaze given is much too much: I used one third and I still had some left.

• Very chocolate cookies

  • wester on March 28, 2018

    The children (both 11) loved this, my husband really liked it. I was a bit worried that the dough might not hold together well, but the cookies were crumbly but not overly so. Time in the oven and yield were spot on. And a good way to use those half-forgotten cocoa nibs and fleur de sel.

• Apricot and pistachio ricotta cake

  • Reemski on July 09, 2010

    Beautiful cake. I substituted walnuts for pistachios and pears for apricots, and lemon for orange

• Chocolate & zucchini cake

  • lorloff on July 29, 2023

    This is the chocolate zucchini cake by staff who had it at my dinner party are still talking about years later

  • usingSpoons on August 07, 2011

    This recipe makes a lovely moist chocolate cake, and no-one will guess that it has courgettes in. I have baked this in loaf tins, as a round cake and as muffins, and all were successful and lasted quite a few days without getting dry.

• Lamb tagine with pears

  • DKennedy on August 18, 2015

    I've heard this is wonderful.

• Cumin cheese puffs

  • usingSpoons on October 17, 2011

    Really lovely cheesy gougeres. The tip about chilling the dough makes them much easier to pipe or spoon onto the baking sheet. I replaced the cumin with a little paprika and cayenne pepper.

• Curried turkey sandwich

  • ecasey830 on January 21, 2018

    I omitted the raisins and ate this with baby spinach in a whole wheat wrap. Had more dressing than needed and if I make this again I would lessen the curry powder as it overpowered everything, even the goat cheese!

  • Rutabaga on August 19, 2014

    In an effort to use what I already had, I took the essence of this recipe - namely, the curried turkey salad - and served it on whole wheat sandwich bread with tomato and avocado. I also used thick sliced pre-cooked deli turkey, but am sure it would be even better with the fresh cooked turkey cutlets Clotilde recommends. The raisins were omitted, as we're just not raisin fans in our house, but the turkey salad itself was delicious (my three-year-old devoured it), and something I'll definitely make again.

• Broccoli and apple quiche

  • ecasey830 on February 06, 2018

    Very tasty but I would actually use less goat cheese in the future (and I'm someone who loves goat cheese!) as it was a little overwhelming.

• Mustard chicken stew

  • Bloominanglophile on March 12, 2013

    This recipe is just fine for a weeknight dinner, but I don't think it is something I would make for a dinner party. I am also questioning what the mashed garlic really brings to the dish served on the side--I am wondering if it would be better to just stir it in to the stew to add a fuller flavor. I did increase the simmering time by 10 minutes as my chicken thighs were still leaching blood after 40 minutes.

• Quinoa, bacon, and mushroom cake

  • Rutabaga on October 06, 2014

    I have made both variations of this recipe (the suggestion for summer calls for tomatoes and goat cheese rather than bacon and mushrooms), and enjoy both. It's something different for dinner, as the savory cake holds its shape, but keeps the texture of quinoa. It's not bad leftover, either. Unfortunately, my three-year-old is not currently into quinoa, so I don't make it as often as I otherwise might.

• Nectarine, peach, and ginger tart

  • Rutabaga on September 24, 2015

    I love the addition of crystalized ginger in this tart; it's surprisingly subtle and a good match for the peaches and nectarines. For my tart, I used an eight inch pie plate, which may be why I only needed one peach and one nectarine for the filling (or maybe our peaches and nectarines are just much larger than their French counterparts).

• Blueberry amandine tart

  • Rutabaga on August 19, 2014

    This was so, so good; my husband and I savored each bite. Thick with blueberries, the delicate flavor of the amandine, and sweet, tender sablee pastry, this was possibly the best dessert I have eaten all summer. I was concerned that I had made the sablee dough too wet (not to mention messy; mine was definitely a "rustic" tart), but it was perfectly crisp and golden, with a wonderful shortbread texture.

• Culinate

  ..gives us a good sense of contemporary French cooking. Writing intelligently of ingredients she finds and techniques she learns, she conveys a genuine affection for food and everything related to it.

  Full review

• New York Times

  Dusoulier’s voice is boisterous, spirited, delightful and entirely forgiving...Yet for all her playfulness, she’s serious about food. Her take on the classics is modern and original...

  Full review

• Simply Recipes by Elise Bauer

  Unlike most cookbooks, Clotilde’s book reads more like an adorable memoir, something that you could just curl up with in bed and take delight in the enjoyment of every word.

  Full review