Traditional French Cake

Today we are bringing you a French cake recipe that has been around for centuries. Hello and welcome to another vintage day. We've had a lot of people ask about our recipes, so I thought I'd bring in my husband who does a lot of the cooking in the house. He happens to be French. And we'd take some of his recipes and some of my family recipes from here in the northern part of the United States and see what we can come up with. And today we decided to try a really old recipe from our neighbors where we lived in France. And it's called Petit Verre Fondant. No, it's not. It's called a Petit Verre Fondant. We're gonna do that. Yeah, it's very good. Really good. The ingredients you will need today are butter, almond flour, sugar, flour, eggs, and a wee bit of rum. What do we need to get this thing started? Okay, it's a very simple recipe. We have some room temperature butter. We're gonna put it in the big pot here. There we go. Nice and easy, it's good stuff. And then we're gonna finish making it really smooth by using a fork. And you make almost like a pomade, I guess, or something, really smooth. So the softer the better? Yes. Can I put it in the microwave? No, you, well, unless you have a very vintage microwave, I guess, from the 1860s. Okay, so that's that. Simple, but efficient. Now, almond flour. We're gonna incorporate that a little bit at a time. And make some humble paste in there, yes. What's your favorite thing about this cake? Well, the final result, the taste is wonderful. I'm a big fan of anything with almond flour in it, so. Now, this was our friend, Solange, that made this, and it was like the best cake ever. Yeah, that with a little hot chocolate or coffee or tea, or, I mean, this is like wonderful. Okay. Is there a reason why you don't use a mixer? Yeah, it was not invented yet, I guess, for the purpose of this show. But, yeah, you could use a mixer. But this way you make it with love, right? Oh, yeah. Hands-on love. And you probably, if you use a mixer, use it on a low speed, so you don't mess up any of the ingredients. You don't want the almond flour to turn into something different, like almond butter that we got. So is this like a Christmas cake, or do you guys make it anytime? You're gonna love it so much, you're gonna do it anytime, all the time. This is extremely yummy, to me, anyway. And apparently to Louane as well. So anyway, oh, the sugar is almost all in there, all together. Okay, now we're gonna incorporate four eggs, one at a time. I thought they were all gonna go. Uh, no. Anyway, so this mix is good from rather tough, and it's gonna be really liquidy very quickly, which is good. Exactly what we need. Fresh from eggs, super colorful, love it. Yes, we're very fortunate to have a place where we can get fresh, free-range, happy chicken eggs. Look at that, it's like mustard yellow. So yeah, so the dough was like super firm before the eggs, and now it's super smooth. Okay, and one more ingredient at this time. Is it one of those recipes, one for the chef, one for the bowl? Yeah, one of those, so three of those. Yeah, rum, any rum you like, you have around the house. We happen to like, we like spiced rum. Very dark rum, light rum, any rum. Could you use something else besides rum, do you think? You probably could. Like amaretto, maybe? Yeah, I suppose, but it's already almondy, so I don't know, eventually. Anyway, so. I didn't think it could get too almond for your taste buds. Eventually. So anyway, it looks like this. Soft eggs, is that soft eggs? Yes. Yes, soft picks, you got it, honey. Soft picks. That's it, so now the next is to put it in a pre-greased, a little bit of parchment, you know, at the bottom, and you just put all that in there. Okay, okay, so here, let me do this, because you're doing the guy thing. I think it has to be a little bit smoother. Sure. Yeah, paint it like, you know, make it flat. I saw you lick your fingers, is it any good? Yeah. Okay, voila. And then we're gonna bake it in an oven at 350 for about 55 minutes. Okay, so it's cooked about, oh my gosh, 455 minutes, but it looks really brown, but I don't know. Does it look good to you up there? Yeah, it is done. No, it's a little cushy yet. It's done. Give it the poke test, if I know. Okay, fine, five more minutes. Five more minutes, five more minutes. Okay, so it's cooked for about 60 minutes, and it looks pretty good, it's still a little warm, and Bear gets the honors of trying to get that booger out of there, so if it fails, it's his fault. Sure. Okay, wanna take it off now? No, that's fine. So, how many times have you done this? What part? You made a cake, you had to do that. Oh, I don't know, it was comfy. Oh, no, be gentle. There you go. It's doing that. Just feel that little tug. I'll give you a go all the way around. Okay. What? I don't know. Sounds good. Ta-da. This is looking good. Really good. So, it's gonna cool off some more? Yeah, we'll let it cool a little bit more, and then we'll put some powdered sugar and make it all fancy. Can't wait. Okay, so we put the cake on a pretty plate, because tomorrow we wanna have a real special day, because it's Sunday, so we're gonna have some fun. And I think we should decorate it, and I don't like icing on my cake, generally. I like the cake part. Scrape off the icing. I don't know about you. It's very American to do that. Yeah, icing is too sweet. Yeah. So, but I do wanna make it pretty, so, to me, the easiest way to do that is to find a doily, because I have a lot of them. Don't die. And then, find a pattern that's gonna work really well on your cake. Maybe not that one. Did it get on? Okay. So, you can just wash these afterwards, so it's no big deal. You wanna do the honors? Sure. Have you done this before? I may have. Tell me when. Wait, when? When? Okay, so then you just gently, well, let's check. I mean, I can't believe it's not, oh yeah, it's a good one. Brush powder. Pa-wa-la! Ta-da! Fancy cake, Christmas cake, here we go. All right. Nice job, babe! You're welcome. Bon appetit. So, we actually let the cake rest last night, because it got so late, we thought it was a little too late for some dessert. So, we're having it today, kind of as we planned. And, I guess I'd like to know a little bit more about this cake. Well, it seems that the Roman, when they invaded France, or Gaul, like 2,000 years ago or so, they brought with them many things, and one of the things they brought was almond trees. Almond trees? Yes. With leaves, trees? Okay. You know, with the almond. I know, but I can't hear so well. That accent. Anyhoo. So, and very quickly, the Gauls, the French, future French, they discovered that they could do a lot of things with almonds. And, that's one of the very first cake recipes that were invented centuries and centuries ago. This is the very basic one, which is the pithiviers fondant, and which is normally glazed with, I don't know. Oh, yeah, like a marzipan-y, or like, well, some type of sugar frosting. Yeah, sugar frosting. Here we go, frosting. It don't need it. It's way too sweet, so we skip that. And then, eventually, when puff pastry was invented, centuries later, they kept this, and they covered it with puff pastry. And then, it evolved into the frangipane, which became the galette des rois, which is eaten. The king's, it's called the king's cake. Yeah, in English. And usually eaten at Christmas? No, after. After Christmas, when the kings come, right? The wise men. The wise guys. The wise men. The wise guys, not the wise men, anyway. So, that's around that time, but it's a different feeling, but that was the origin of it. So, if you want a vintage recipe, that is it. It's a centuries-old recipe. I mean, it's unbelievable. If you look it up, it's amazing how old it is. And if there was one recipe to take by myself on a deserted island, that would be the one. I kid you not, it's awesome. And we translated the recipe, so we will include it in the show notes in the video for you. But we've decided, or I should say, he decided, we're gonna have it with hot chocolate today. Yeah, like when I was a kid. Yeah. So, well, let's get some of this cake cut first, shall we? Okay. All righty. And it's super, super moist. Yeah, it's like butter. Well, I think I need to stand up for this. This is a serious situation here. I really like the design of the butter trigger on it. Yes, you did a nice job, honey. Yes. Well, it's not what I meant by that, but it's really cool looking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Isn't that pretty? And now we have some chocolate with the old French chocolatier. Which we- It's a lot of chocolate, it's super hot. Brought back from the family home in France and traveled with us many miles. Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay, bon appétit. All right. Wait. Take a bite, I want to know what you think. No, ladies first. Ladies first, okay, ladies first. It's all buttery and almond and you don't really taste the, well, maybe you do, a little bit of rum. The rum? Then just fingers. Well, it's very, yeah. It's in the background. Because you can add some more. But it is, it is so moist. And this is a big shout out to our friend in France who really, well, introduced me to the cake. Bear has known it his whole life. Yeah. Plus, Pithiviers, that's a little town that's about a little bit northeast of Orléans, south of Paris. And we lived there an hour away from that town when we had fun making this recipe with our old friend. Very, very close. What, and you never took me there? Nope, because Orléans was a much bigger place to have fun and whatnot. Right. And when you look at the map, Pithiviers was just like, I don't know, half an hour away from there. So next time we go, we're going there. We must go. Check out the local Pithiviers. Hey, I tell you what, when we go there, we will make a video and perhaps we'll search out a place that makes this. Wouldn't that be fun? Oh yeah. So that's the plan. And apparently, there is a third version of the Pithiviers which is a savory one. We may look at- Savory. For those who can't understand him like me. I don't know. We'll look it up and maybe we'll try it. Okay. It's good. It makes a great Christmas cake. Or maybe even for New Year's. Would be lovely. Well, thanks guys for joining us. We had a lot of fun. Like we always do. And we hope to bring you some more recipes. What'd you think? Oh yes. That was fun. Even for a shy French guy that I am. Now that I've got him rubbed into it, I'm going to use him to the best of his abilities. So stay tuned. We'll be bringing some soon. And goodbye until next time. Au revoir.