Autumn is a great time for cooking – the warmth coming from the oven and the rich, satisfying taste of something you made yourself. Maison Blanc have introduced a delectible range of cooking ingredients to bring the French cooking experience into your home!
From raspberry red wine vinegar and flavoured sea salts to wonderfully flavoured sugars, jam and chutney – the theme is almost certainly Provencal – Lavender honey and lavender as an ingredient feature prominently. The products are made by artisans in France for Maison Blanc.
Our favourites were the Blood Orange Sugar, Watermelon jam and the lavender honey. There are many adaptations for these ingredients – I made lovely granola bars with the orange sugar, you could stir lavender honey into hot water with some lemon for a soothing drink or make a victoria sponge with watermelon jam layer.
Maison Blanc shops can be found in;
Burford, Chichester, Chiswick, Cobham, Farnham, Fulham, Guildford, Hampstead , Henley, Holland Park, Muswell Hill, Oxford, St. John’s Wood, Winchester
Here’s a gorgeous condensed milk pound cake – adapted to utilise these gorgeous ingredients!
Condensed Milk Pound Cake
Recipe adapted from here.
Makes an 8″ square cake or one standard sized loaf
What I Used:
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tins of sweetened condensed milk
136g brown sugar mixed with blood orange sugar.
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 eggs
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essense
1 pinch salt
Sprinkle of blood orange sugar
Watermelon jam
How I Made It:
1. Sieve the flour and baking powder until well combined. You can also whisk it well in a bowl until combined, if you don’t have a sieve.
2. Beat butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy – 5 mins by hand, 2 mins by electric beater. Then add the condensed milk and repeat for the same time, until well combined.
3. Whisk eggs in a bowl for 2 mins with a fork and set aside.
4. Add the flour to the butter-sugar-condensed milk mixture and mix until just combined without beating too hard.
5. Add the eggs, vanilla essence and salt and combine well again.
6. Transfer to a greased cake tin or loaf pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C/325F for 30-35 mins. Insert a toothpick at the center to test if the cake is done.
7. Cool, slice in half east to west and fill with a layer of watermelon jam
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