Baking time

I have to confess that I have not baked anything "homemade" since coming here (except for one pumpkin pie last year).  I know, it's awful, but with all of the tempting delights at the patisserie, how can I compare?  But when invited to a few Christmas get-togethers, and a call to bring home-baked goodies, I thought I better give it a try.

Baking cookies is not the easiest thing here.  Honestly. There is the hunt for specific ingredients not so available in France, as well as the right cooking utensils.   And when you live in a furnished apartment, you have to take what is there or go out on a hunt for it.

For example, I wanted to make my mother's delicate sugar cookies, the thin kind that melt in your mouth.  I have so many good memories of making them with her when I was young, and even did it a few years ago with my mom and  Ava, our first granddaughter.  I was actually surprised I had brought the recipe here from home, but also disappointed when I remembered I had to roll out the dough.....THIN....that is the secret to these cookies.  We don't have a rolling pin and when I looked at the Monoprix yesterday, there were none to be found there.  I suppose I could have gone on a hunt, but I decided to make my  mom's molasses-ginger cookies instead. But that was a recipe I didn't have, so after searching on the internet, I settled for one that sounded similar (and was rated 5 stars!)

  Of course, that meant hunting for molasses.  That is not something sold in the neighborhood grocery store, nor the market.  After asking some friends, I was directed to the giant epicerie (grocery goods) at the downtown department store, Galleries Lafayette.  After searching the aisles, I did find it, although it was the British version called "Lyle's Black Treacle".  How would anyone know that is molasses? When I opened the can, it was very thick and rich, a bit different from American molasses. But it would work, I hoped.

The flour is another crazy thing here.  It is numbered, certain flours for certain things.  I happened to have #55, which is for bread, cakes, and pie crust.  You are supposed to use #45 for cookies.  Oh well, I was not going to buy another sack and drag it home, so #55 would have to do.

And then there is baking soda.  That is something you get at the Pharmacie.  I thought I needed baking powder, which is single acting here and not double-acting, but was glad that this recipe didn't call for it.. 

My three questionable ingredients.....

But, for all the trouble to get it all assembled, I have to say the cookies turned out great....just like I remembered them.  Of course, why wouldn't they, with the freshest ingredients (real butter and had to grind my cloves).

So those are for tomorrow.  Today I am bringing my grandmother's rice pudding.  That is another story, but briefly.....I had to research about rice because the recipe calls for short grain rice.  They mostly sell long-grain rice here, so I thought I would have to settle for that.  However, I discovered that I had bought some "round grain rice" which I had not used for a long time because it was always goopy.  Ha...that is the kind you are supposed to use for pudding!

After boiling the rice in whole milk in a make-shift double boiler,  the rest of it was easy.  I even had a pot that I could put it in to brown the meringue, which I had brought back from Strasbourg.  It is now cooling in the fridge, and the next challenge I have is how to bring it without spilling when I walk to my friends' get-together this afternoon, about 10 blocks away.