Celebration cakes with the Once Upon a Time mice

It's been an exciting week for us here at Moulin Roty UK as we see the publication of our 2016/17 Memoire d'Enfant catalogue.

The companion catalogue to our nursery collection catalogue, Memoire d'Enfant includes our toys for older children as well as some truly gorgeous, collectible childhood gifts - many are gift boxed and all are, well, just seriously lovely!

Over the next week or two we will run through the catalogue with you, highlighting the various collections, but for now we've been busy celebrating publication with a bit of cake baking!

One of the most loved collections in Memoire d'Enfant is our fairytale range, Once Upon a Time (or Il Etait Une Fois, in French) and three of the little mice in this collection have been busy baking celebration cakes.

Here they are having fun in the kitchen!

 

 

Oh so simple recipe:

Celebration Cakes 

For the cake:

110 g butter

110 g caster sugar

110 g self raising flour

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp baking powder

For the icing:

200g icing sugar

50 ml warm water

Food colouring

Sprinkles

Put everything in a bowl and whisk like mad until it's light and fluffy. (How easy is that!) Spoon the mixture into a square 20cm cake tin (buttered and lined) and bake for about 15 - 20 mins in a moderate over (180*c) until pale golden. 

Cool on a rack then cut into squares.

For the icing simple sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and add the warm water, a little at a time, mixing well until you have an icing the consistency of double cream. Then divide into portions and add a a drop of chosen food colouring to each batch. 

Ice the cakes and cover with sprinkles. We popped them into paper cases to make them look nice too.

Ta da! 

Moulin Roty in the garden

We are well known for our soft toys and nursery accessories - but did you know we make a gardening and wildlife range too? As it's National Gardening Week , we thought it was the perfect time to highlight some of our outdoor toys.

Have a look through the photos below, and there's a link at the bottom to our gardening area of the French website, where you can flick through the whole range. 

Our garden and wildlife range is not as widely available in the UK as our nursery range, so please drop us a message through our Facebook page if you'd like some help tracking down a stockist.

 

Click here to link to the French catalogue

Banana & Raisin Loaf with Louison

Time for another installment in our series of recipes for Le Goûter, the French tradition of the after school snack (read a bit more about it here) and this time we asked Louison pop on her pinny and bake us something nice. 

Having heard about Nini Mouse's attempt at a sugar free Chewy Oaty Cookies, Louison decided that she too wanted to try something fairly healthy.

She settled on a sweet tea bread - Banana and Raisin loaf. Click here for the recipe.

She enjoyed making this - it was ever so simple, just mixing things up really - and very much liked the loaf. She said it's sweet and filling ("hefty" was the word she used) and she didn't feel guilty eating four slices (FOUR?!) because it's such a healthy loaf. Hmmm.

Louison gives the Banana & Raison Bread 6/10 overall - not bad given there's no sugar in this sweet loaf. And top marks for simplicity, healthy sweetness and satisfying texture.

 

Classic French Madeleines with Apolline Mole

In our latest kitchen adventure, we asked Apolline Mole to show us how to make the French teatime classic, madeleines.

Not many people know this but moles are excellent bakers - their huge powerful forefeet (more commonly used for tunneling underground) are the very thing for mixing, beating and kneading. Transferable skills, you see.

The cake mix - or 'batter' - for madeleines involves a LOT of beating but Apolline never uses an electric mixer, preferring instead to beat by hand (paw). But she suggest that anyone else wanting to have a go uses a mixer - unless, of course, you have the forearms of a mole.

Click here for Apolline's recommended recipe - the results are truly delicious: small, light, delicate cakes with a slightly crisp and biscuity exterior. The very thing for a traditional Le Goûter after school snack.

Bon Appetit!

 

You will need: 

Madeleine tin, lemons, eggs, vanilla essence, flour, butter, sugar

And a mole or an electric mixer. 

 Here she is, using her powerful mole forearms to mix the batter...

 

...and to zest the lemon

 

Spooning the batter into her special madeleine tin 

 

Mmmm! Delicious

 

Bon Appetit!

Sweet Nutty Bars with Jeanne and Sylvain

Time for another installment in our afternoon tea recipe series, and this time Sylvain rabbit and Jeanne goose have been in the kitchen, creating something rather delicious.

Now, last time Nini mouse went for the 'health conscious' option, but this time Sylvain and Jeanne have opted for something altogether different. Something sweet, sticky, gooey and absolutely yummy!

They are ludicrously easy to make, a little rabbit and goose were easily up to the job... 

100g butter, melted

125g Digestive biscuit crumbs

175g Chocolate chips

75g dessicated coconut

125g chopped mixed nuts

400g can condensed mik

Line a nice deep 9" baking tin with baking parchment, then crumble in the digestive biscuits

Melt the butter and pour over the crumbs

Sprinkle over coconut, mixed nuts (use whatever you fancy) and chocolate chips

Pour over the tin of condensed milk

Bake in a 9" tin at 180*c or gas mk 4 for about 30 minutes

Here are the culinary pair hard at work in the kitchen...

 

Bon Appetit!

Chewy Oaty Cookies with Nini Mouse

The first in our series of recipes for Le Goûter (the French art of the after school snack - read about it here) we asked Nini mouse to choose something to make.

Being a health conscious little mouse, she wanted to make something without too much sugar, so after a bit of browsing on the Internet, she settled on a recipe from Deliciously Ella blog and had a go at 'Chewy Oaty Cookies'

You can find the recipe here if you want to try it... (although in the interests of honesty we have to tell you Nini wasn't that impressed with the results. She says next time she's going to forget the healthy eating thing, make a cake and use a whole bag of sugar.)

BUT the Chewy Oaty Cookies do have some big plus points - the sweetness comes from a little honey, grated apple and mashed banana so they're really good and healthy.  And they're super easy to make. Five minutes to mix up the ingredients and that's it!

Nini gives the cookies 5/10 - easy to make and healthy, but manage your expectations. Hobnobs they are not.

 

 

 

What is Le Goûter...? The French art of the after school snack...

What is  'Le Goûter'?

Simply put, it's afternoon tea in France- but it's a little bit more specific that that.

To begin with, Le Goûter is a tradition for children. It's roots are in the idea of an 'after school snack' - usually taken around 4 or 4.30 pm, it's a little something to tide children over until supper (which they wouldn't normally eat until much later - 8pm maybe, with mum and dad).

Typically it's something sweet - a pastry, tart, baguette with chocolate spread (or chocolate cubes - have you ever broken up a bar of chocolate and eaten it in a bit of baguette - its delicious!) or perhaps some kind of bread and jam.

So, to celebrate and highlight the art of Le Goûter..  we're going to start a little baking series and try out some recipes with the help of a few of the Moulin Roty animals.

We'll try some classics (look out for madeleines!) and some healthy options (sugar free, oaty little treats) and we'll share our recipes on the blog ...

Bon Appetit!