Updated new website at http://gregoiremichaud.com

Finally, for the convenience of everyone, we’ve moved to http://gregoiremichaud.com !
The blog continues, and I will post everything at http://gregoiremichaud.com

Thank you for updating your links, thank you for your support and see you there!

“Got Cheese?” Exclusive preview of Gregoire’s new dessert book!

Here it is finally!

The dessert cookbook “Got Cheese?” will be released at the very popular Hong Kong Book Fair on the 21st of July. (Click here for the details of the fair)

The book is about the usage of cheeses in dessert making. Using fresh cheeses like mascarpone, ricotta, quark, but also a few other matured cheeses making the desserts really interesting to discover.  The recipes are easy to follow and simple enough to reproduce at home, even for the beginners!

Amongst others is a beautiful cherry cheesecake (made from your own cream cheese!) and a good dozen of warm desserts so dearly loved by children (and grown up too!)

The book has five recipes for making your own fresh cheeses to be used in dessert making. For example, you can produce your own ricotta to make a beautiful warm Ricotta and Orange Pudding (one of my favorite!!).

There is a general reaction from people when they know the book is about cheeses in desserts. People are afraid of smelly cheese taste in desserts, but rest assured that these dessert will not deceive you!

The book is fore-worded by Bernard Antony (Cheese Master in Alsace, France – supplier of cheese to our 3 michelin stars French Restaurant Caprice) and from Jeremy Evrard (Cheese expert and Caprice Restaurant Manager)

Here are a few photos from the book, for your eyes only!

Griotte Cherry Smooth Cheesecake

Apple Tart Tatin and warm Gratinated Goat Cheese

A smooth cream of green apple and quark cheese.

Conference pear, souffleed with Parmesan.

The famous Ricotta Orange Pudding!

Enjoy the book and more so, enjoy the desserts!!

What’s for dessert? New regular column on womguide.com

Check out

http://www.womguide.com/meet-the-contributors/whats-for-dessert

To read my regular column about the pastry world!!
Thank you and enjoy!

A rare sight: the birth of a new vine plant

Another strong memories I have to share with you is a very rare sight. The “birth” of a new vine plant. Our family owns a wineyard for the past 50 years or so (yes, that’s a lot of wine to drink! ) and we’re cultivating and vinifying two major kinds of grapes which are growing particularly well in the sandy stone soil left by the Rhone glacier centuries ago. Indeed, the valley where I come from is the birth place of the Rhone river. So the two kinds of grape are Gamay for the red (perhaps doesn’t ring a bell, but it’s the grape used to make Beaujolais) and Chasselas for the white, the latter being more of a local grape, but is also grown in the Loire region and often blent with sauvignon blanc to produce the “Pouilly-sur-Loire” wine. We also grow some plants of Johannisberg, Pinot Noir and a few hybridal experiment that we use to blend in some of our wine, just to test it out.

Most of the vine plants in our wineyard are old, they were already there before my Grand-Father bought the properties. Most of them are 40 to 50 years old. And once in a while some plants die naturally and so we replace them. You have to know that to start producing wine, a new plant need 3 to 5 years before the characteristics of the grape are starting to be good for wine making. We talk about sugar level and terroir. The deeper the roots go in the soil, the better your wine will be.

Our wine yard in the spring

My Father preparing the soil...

Pushing back the soil...

We gathered some stones around the new plants to keep the heat from the sun.

Clement inspecting the yard

The planting process is rather simple, we dig a hole of about 30 to 40 cm in the ground (that was my job!), lay some compost in the bottom, place the young plant that we bought from the shop (i’ll explain why…) add some more compost, add a little argile water, fill the hole with the original soil and finally add a good liter of water. That’s it!

The reason we don’t grow our own vine plant from scratch is simple. It’s technical and here is the story: The base wood of the vine plant ( a stick of about 30 cm in lenght with roots) comes from the USA (yes, me too, I was really wondering what’s the catch…) and the actual sort of grape (in that case Gamay) is a little bud transplanted on that main root. This is where it begins and you have to be very knowledgable in doing this to do it yourself.

So, if we planted those in 2010 and for the next 50 years they’ll do the job, we probably won’t be there to see the next round, but the good thing is that we have all that time to enjoy the good wine it produces!!

Cheers!

A little taste from home

Vacation at home, in Switzerland, are always about family, friends and food. And unless you’re really sick, there is no way to escape any of my family’s delicious cooking – the problem? Weight. You just keep on gaining weight!!

Of course, I was also very happy to join the efforts and for example, I had prepared this great carrot cake. I glazed it with a nice lemon glaze (lemon juice with icing sugar) as it exits from the oven, so with the heat, the icing impregnate the cake and creates a perfect thin layer around the whole cake. Wow!! I just think that lemon icing is more pleasant to eat than the old style heavy cream cheese frosting.

The carrot cake amongst my mother's beautiful spring tulips...

And since we were eating from morning until night, I had the privilege to eat (every morning) for breakfast my mom’s black cherry jam that she had made last summer with the cherries from our own cherry tree. We had the luck to be there when all the cherry tree were blossoming – it was spectacular as there was quite a lot of cherry trees in the area.

My Mom's black cherry jam with our garden's cherry blossom.

I will always miss home’s food, but for the sake of my weight, I am happy to be back in Hong Kong!

Baking Class at L’Atelier du Gout – March 2010

Johnny's great drawing on the black board

For 2 half days, we had the luck to host yet another great baking class at the fine l’Atelier Du Gout facilities. With the help of Selena, Johnny and all the team – Mark and myself really had fun doing the class.

We baked four kind of breads from scratch, including 2 sourdough breads. We also started a culture of sourdough over the 2 days course. It was a lot of information on baking for the student and I hope it wasn’t too much! The challenge was really to achieve the expected results over 2 days. The course showed everyone that baking is a science and an art that require a lot of care in order to achieve the best results. For us, we realized how much efforts it took to produce bread outside our “comfortable” working place! (where we have a huge oven )

To bake artisan bread takes more than 5 minutes!  (Yes… I am referring to some popular book ) The breads we baked were made according to a specific process in order to reach what we wanted. Crust, flavor and conservation. Of course, you can bake for the sake of baking, or you can bake because you’re passionate.

The students attending the class were an amazing bunch of people, from all walks of life, that all had one common point, and it was the love of baking. It really felt great to be surrounded by such people, as every one of them were so enthusiastic about learning. Below are some photos of the class.

The class room with 10 working station.

At work...

The day's programme...

Flour & cider to start our culture!

Olive and sea salt flaky dough

Johnny's helping with the baking!

The olive rolls baking...

Lots of technical information

Mark and I, enjoying our day off!

Some final products!

Easter is back!

Easter is approaching fast with its load of goodies… This year, with the trend, we are going “green” Easter is always a great moment to let our mind boggle on creating new chocolate display or sweet treats. Quality Madagascar vanilla beans, 71% criollo dark chocolate and homemade strawberry jam were used in the making of the below few items amongst our first creations for 2010!

Delicious Strawberry Cupcakes

Stating the obvious is an art form.

Vanilla shortbread lollipops freshly done...

...and it made the cover page of TVB magazine!

Wood fire oven bread baking outing in Fan Ling

On March 14th, 2010 – we gathered 25 passionate foodies ranging from professionals to amateurs. The result of the day was simply awesome.

We had possibly some of the best chefs in their own field in Hong Kong to bake bread, pizzas, roasted meat and the great apple tart. The people participating at the outing were on a lucky strike for great food. All of this of course with the trimmings such as cheeses, farm vegetables and jam – a truly great day for any foodie. There was no high-tech equipment and techniques. It was all back to basics, as simple as simple gets, and the results were just sensational. All the kids were helping Mark to knead the dough. On that day we produced a rosemary batard, pizzas and whole wheat bread. After having baked several pizzas and roasted a few pieces of meat, our oven wasn’t hot enough anymore, so we re-heated it and finished to bake the succulent bread thereafter.

Moreover, Teresa and her friends at the organic E-farm, Fan Ling (next to the Lavender Garden) were amazingly friendly and helpful. They even started a culture of sourdough following my book, which I thought was an excellent initiative with such an oven, they’ll be able to produce really high quality breads!

Below are some photos of the day…

New Baking Class at ADG – March 26,27

On March 26 and 27, I will be holding a 2 days baking class for up to 20 participants. We will prepare sourdough breads and direct dough breads with different textures, shapes and very intersting flavors using top seasonal ingredients such as fresh black cherries.

More info at http://www.atelierdugout.com.hk/ or http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/adg-hk

See you there!

New Dessert Book!

Hello!

I am pleased to announce the upcoming release my new dessert book!

Indeed, we are currently working very hard on that new dessert cookbook with the topic of using fresh cheeses in the making, such as mascarpone, creamcheese, quark, ricotta and many more excellent and surprising dairy products!

With excellent desserts, cakes and treats to please everyone, the new book should be published (hopefully )  in July 2010! The final title is not confirmed yet, but i’ll post it as soon as it is official. So, keep posted

Thank you!