8 c crème fraiche
8 c whole milk
40 eggs
200 g flour
1 T pepper
2 t salt chopped herbs

Your shell should be pre-baked relatively pale.

Bake at about 400°F until still jiggly, but set.

Notes:   In the shell, we normally put down a layer of cheese, then the actual filling variations like stinging nettle, ham, mushrooms, green garlic and bacon, etc.  then poured the mixture over it all, as full as it would go, without spilling, and then sprinkled a little more cheese on top.  Get creative!

4c milk
4 c cream
20 eggs
1 ½ t salt
1 ½ t pepper
¼ t nutmeg
24 oz stale bread

Whisk all ingredients except for bread together.  Toss bread with caramelized or sautéed onions, ham, cheese, veggies, etc and then stuff into baking vessels.   Pour mixture over bread and let sit overnight.  Top up with mixture again in the morning before baking.

Notes:  Use stale sour dough type or levain type bread.  It has the most flavor and texture and is more absorbent when really stale.  Just like the quiche, you can toss the bread with any kind of additional ingredients.

To test for doneness, poke into the middle with a knife and push back to see if there is still liquid mixture flowing in the center.  Once the filling looks thickened like pastry cream, it is done.  It will still cook a little from the carry-over.  You don’t want it to be totally set in the middle like scrambled eggs. 

Bring milk, butter and salt to a boil. Add flour all at once and stir until it comes to a ball and pulls away from sides. Continue to dry the dough over heat, stirring vigorously, until a film forms on the inside of the pan. 

Transfer dough to mixer and beat with paddle attachment. Add eggs slowly, holding a couple back to get the right moisture content. Add cheese, black pepper and chopped herbs and mix until fully incorporated.

Scoop onto parchment lined baking sheet, spacing out to allow for expansion. Brush with egg-wash and top with a little grated cheese.

Bake at 400° F to 450° F until fully brown.

When scooping out, we used to use the "big gray scoop," like for ice cream. It made fist sized gougere.

The egg-wash is important for shininess and browning. The extra cheese is for crunch. These were baked a shade less than mahogany, pretty brown. That made it nice and toasty outside, but kind of scrambled-eggy inside. Sometimes if we were really hungry, we would stuff them with ham and eat them as breakfast sandwiches.

Form scones by shaping the batter into a log, 1 ½" thick and 4" wide. Brush entire thing with egg-wash and then sprinkle liberally with coarse sugar. Cut log at angles width-wise to form vaguely trapezoidal scones. This should yield at least a dozen.

Bake at 325°F in convection oven or 350°F regular.

Scones should be slightly browned and just cooked through the center.

The zest is best obtained with a micro-plane.

You can use dried or fresh fruit with the scones, but it is difficult to get the fresh fruit mixed in without squishing it all. Perhaps using frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit would be best.

To test doneness, pull a scone apart to see if the inside is cooked. It is best to catch it just as the center is cooked through.

This recipe was used at my tea party.

Assemble toasted brioche slices standing vertically in a loaf pan. Pour mixture over bread to top of pan. Weigh down the bread with a piece of parchment and a sheet-pan. Bake at 400°F until center is set. Slice while hot.

Top with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, sautéed fruit, etc

My favorite during the summer was plain bread pudding, topped with strawberries, sautéed in butter and then mixed with caramel sauce. Banana and chocolate ganache was good too.

Divide eggs and whip each separately with half of the sugar. Add the salt to the whites. 

Temper the chocolate with the whites and fold all together like for mousse. 

Butter and line cake pans with parchment (bottom and sides). Fill and bake at 375°F for 10 minutes or until tops just lose shininess. Chill until set. Can be topped with ganache (provided you have the plastic cake band on the outside to prevent spillover.

And since this cake is really just a baked mousse, it will collapse a bit in the middle. Also, no flour! Perfect for Passover!

Sift all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Alternately add dry ingredients and buttermilk to creamed mixture in thirds. Bake in a buttered and floured or parchment lined pan at 300°F until skewer comes out clean.

This was one of the recipes I used at my tea party.

At the same time, heat cream and butter and vanilla until just simmering. Pour into caramel to stop coloration. This mixture will bubble and spit a bit, just use a pot larger than you think you will need. Once it stops bubbling and spitting, add salt to taste.

We used this caramel to fill cakes, to drizzle over bread pudding, etc. If I refer to a caramel filling for a recipe, chances are, this is the one. I've even filled molded chocolates with it. If you want a cutting caramel, you probably need to cut down on the cream a little, to make it stiffer.

This was the recipe I used to fill the devil's food cake for my tea party.

For instance, one of my favorites is Espresso Caramel. Take a half cup of whole coffee beans and steep them in hot cream 20 minutes. Make a caramel with the sugar and temper the hot cream into the caramel. Strain and then temper into the whisked yolks and make as normal. 

The variations are endless and you can pretty much infuse the cream with whatever you want to make whatever flavor you want. Ginger, orange peels/star anise/cinnamon, black currant tea, etc. etc.

Temper half of milk into eggs and then dump eggs into milk left on heat and whisk as if your life depended on it. Cook to first bubble.

Immediately strain into another container.

Once room temperature, use a stick blender to mount in butter cut into little chunks.

We used this as a filling for all sorts of things, from éclairs to fruit tarts and folded extra butter and whipped cream into it for a beautiful Fraisier cake.

*Recently I substituted milk with buttermilk and made this incredible buttermilk custard.  I paired it with a thick strawberry puree and almost died.  It was very much like a light strawberry cheesecake but no crust.  I guess you could put it in a crust, but just so it's easier to get into your mouth.

While hot, jam in chunks of chocolate and then stick-blend when the chocolate is melted

Strain into container and cool. At room temperature, mount in room temp butter with stick blender and chill.

I used this recipe for the Lemon Blueberry Tarts for my tea party.

Measure out water and chill. In large mixer with paddle or cutter attachment, mix flour, salt and butter. Mix until you have ¾" chunks of butter. Add water and mix just so that all dry ingredients are incorporated. (You may need a little extra water.)

Press dough into sheet pan and chill thoroughly. Once chilled, fold dough 3 times like for puff pastry. This gives the dough great flakiness. Allow dough to rest before rolling out.

667 g bread flour

270 g butter

2 eggs 

200 g sugar

1 1/8 t salt

Press dough into sheet pan and chill thoroughly.  

Before forming dough, work slightly to render pliable.

I used this recipe for the shells of my Lemon Blueberry Tart for my tea party.

1 c butter

2 c brown sugar

2 t baking soda

1 t salt

2 t vanilla

2 eggs

2 c flour

1/2 c cocoa (sifted)

1 - 2 cups chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs and mix thoroughly.  Add rest of dry ingredients except for chocolate chips and mix until fully incorporated.  Stir in chocolate chips.  

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Drop walnut size balls on a nonstick cookie sheet and squash down a bit.  Bake until set and tops lose shininess.

400 g flour

1 pinch baking powder

200 g powdered sugar

200 g butter

4 egg yolks

20 ml water

vanilla 

salt

cinnamon

strawberry jam or your favorite flavor

In a bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients.  Cut in butter or gently rub in to produce a coarse meal or sand.  Make a well in the butter crumb mixture and add wet ingredients, mixing the dry mixture in a little at a time until a dough is formed.  (At this point, you can smear little handfuls of dough on your work surface to insure that the dough is uniform, without kneading it and developing gluten.)

Shape dough into a flat disk and wrap with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate until the dough is firm enough to roll and not stick.  

Roll out on a lightly floured board, to 1/8" thickness.  Cut with cookie cutters.

Preheat oven to 325ºF and bake for 10 minutes or until set and only bottom is lightly golden.

A tea party recipe

4 eggs

170 g sugar

1 pinch salt

10 g honey 

5 g baking powder

180 g flour

200 g butter, melted

Butter and flour your molds well or else the madeleines will not release.  Preheat your oven to 375ºF.  Pipe or spoon the batter into the molds.  Do not fill the molds completely as the batter will spread and rise accordingly.  Once the molds are in the oven, turn down the heat to 320ºF.  Bake for approximately 5-6 minutes and then turn the oven off.  Let cakes stand for an equal amount of time (this causes the madeleines to have their characteristic mound in the middle and not get too brown).  Turn the cookies out of the mold at once.  

1 # butter

4 c brown sugar

4 eggs

1 T vanilla extract

2 t salt

1 T baking soda

5 c flour

chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Add all dry ingredients except chocolate chips and stir until combined.  Add chocolate chips and stir well.

Drop dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, etc. etc.  (Full sheet of 13 cookies, tangerine sized balls of dough, takes about 9 minutes to bake.)