Or cake aux abricots in french! Apricots are plentiful this time of year and this is an easy way to use them to make a cake thats perfect as an afternoon snack.

Ingredients :

• 6 ripe apricots
• 3 large eggs
• 130g softened butter
• 125g sugar
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar
• 250g flour (I replaced half the flour with cornflour as this gives a lighter texture to the cake but just using flour is good too!)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 large pinch of cinnamon

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Wash and dry the apricots, remove the stone and chop
3. Sieve the flour and the baking powder together
4. Use a fork to mash the softened butter until you get a beurre pommade*
5. Mix in the sugar, the vanilla sugar and the cinammon
6. Add in each egg separately, mixing well each time
7. Fold in the flour
8. Add in the chopped apricots
9. Bake in oven for 45 minutes (keep an eye on the cake, it might take less time)

*A beurre pommade is butter that has been let come to room temperature and then mixed with a fork or spoon until you get a spreadable mixture

Flaugnarde  or flognarde is a baked French dessert with fruit and a  thick flan-like batter hailing from the Limousin and Auvergne region in France. It is similar to a clafoutis, which is made with black cherries whereas a flaugnarde is made with apples, peaches, pears, plums, prunes etc. It can be served either warm or cold.

Ingredients :

• 100g flour
• 100g sugar
• 1 table spoon oil
• 300ml milk
• 200ml liquid cream (or liquid crème fraîche)
• 5 eggs
• 6 apples
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Peel and core the apples and slice into circles
3. Mix everything together in a bowl in the following order : flour, sugar, oil, milk, cream, salt
4. Beat eggs well and add to mixture
5. Butter a round oven dish and spread the apple slices around evenly
6. Pour the batter over the apples
7. Bake in oven for 45 minutes at 180°C

Riz au lait is a well loved dessert here in France – so popular you can buy it in ready made yoghurt sized cartons in different flavours – vanilla or rhum and raisin for example. My youngest loves this and it’s so easy to make it has become a staple in our household. Its a perfect dessert or after school snack!

Ingredients :

• 180g short-grain rice (almost oval or round in shape)
• 1 litre milk
• 100g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod

Method :

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the rice in it for 3 minutes.
2. Strain the rice
3. Cut the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds.
4. Heat the litre of milk with the vanilla pod and the seeds
5. When the milk come to the boil add the rice cook over a low/medium heat for 25 minutes stirring occasionally
6. After 25 minutes add the sugar, mix well and continue cooking for another 5 minutes
7. Remove vanilla pods, pour into pudding bowls and allow to cool

A biscuit roulé (literally meaning rolled biscuit) is very similar to a swiss roll and particularly popular at this time of year as a base for a christmas log cake, called a bûche de Noel in french.

The actual base for the cake is called a ‘genoise’ which is a sponge cake that uses whole eggs and is a basic building block of much French patisserie and is used for making several different types of cake.

Ingredients :

• 4 eggs
• 150 g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
• 125g self-raising flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• Jam or nutella

Method :

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C
2. Beat the eggs, sugar (caster sugar and vanilla sugar) and the salt well with an electric mixer until pale, light and fluffy
3. Fold in the flour gently
4. Pour the mixture onto an oven tray that you have lined with greaseproof paper
5. Bake for 12 minutes
6. Prepare a clean, damp tea-towel and place it on top of the oven tray and flip it over so that your cake is on the damp tea-towel
7. Roll the cake with the tea-towel and leave to cool
8. When the cake is cold gently unroll and spread with jam or nutella, re-roll it and sprinkle with a bit of icing sugar et voilà!

*Make sure to roll the cake when it is just out of the oven and still pliable

*You can make a chocolate base by substituting 25g of cocoa for 25g of flour

This is another traditional french cake that is very popular at goûter time and is a real favourite with french kids.

Ingredients :

• 125g butter
• 200g self-raising flour
• 3 eggs
• 6 tablespoons of milk
• 200g sugar
• Vanilla essence
• 25g cocoa powder

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Cream the butter and the sugar together
3. Add the eggs, milk and flour and mix well
4. Separate the mixture in two halves
5. Add a few drops of vanilla essence to one half
6. Add the 25g of drinking chocolate to the other
7. Grease and flour your loaf tin
8. Pour in some of the vanilla mixture, followed by the chocolate mixture and repeat
9. Bake in pre-heated oven for 40 minutes

There is nothing nicer than a good old apple tart – plenty of apples around this time of year and as per usual this is a very simple recipe with a minimum of ingredients but with a great result!

The main difference between apples in France and in Ireland and the UK is that cooking apples don’t exist – eating apples are used which I prefer anyway as you don’t need to add any (or very little) sugar that way.

Ingredients :

• 1 short-cut pastry
• 4-6 eating apples
• Vanilla Sugar
• Butter

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Chop 2 apples into small cubes and place in a saucepan with approximately 2 tablespoons of water
3. Leave to simmer until the apple softens and then mash or use a hand mixer to make a compote
4. Roll out pastry into your tart tin and prick the base with a fork
5. Spread the compote onto the tart base
6. Peel, core and cut your apples into quarters and then slice each quarter3 or 4 times
7. Place the apple slices on the compote, arranging them around in a circle – or anyway you like!
8. Sprinkle some vanilla sugar over the apples and add 3 or 4 small knobs of butter
9. Bake in oven for 30 minutes
10. Enjoy on its own or with some freshly whipped cream or ice-cream

The flan is a firm favourite in France (and especially in this house!) and is similar to what is known as a custard tart in english.  I prefer to make it with a short cut pastry but you could make it with a puff pastry.

Ingredients :

• 1 short cut pastry (pate brisée)
• 1 litre of milk
• 3 eggs
• 160g sugar
• 100g cornflour
• 2 sachets vanilla sugar
• 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 1 vanilla pod

Method :

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. Roll out your pastry and press it into your tin , prick the base with a fork and place in the fridge while preparing the flan mixture
3. Beat the eggs with the cornflour, the vanilla extract and 125ml of milk (taken from the 1 litre of milk in the recipe) together in a large bowl using an electric mixer
4. Pour the remainder of the milk into a saucepan with the vanilla sugar, the sugar, the vanilla pod (cut the pod down the middle and scrape out the seeds, put the seeds and the empty pod halves into the milk).
5. Bring to the boil
6. Pour the hot milk into the egg mixture beating all the time with your electric whisk
7. Pour everything back into the saucepan, place on a low heat and stir continuously with a wooden spoon
8. Allow it to simmer for a few seconds so that the mixture will have thickened slightly
9. Pour the mixture into your pastry base (remember to remove the vanilla pod halves at this point) and bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 180°C
10. Allow to cool completely before cutting and store in the fridge