Southern Fried French

So Hip, So Urban, So ANTWERPEN

The Stadsfeestzaal Shopping Center in Antwerp, formerly a city banquet hall

 

We had been to Antwerp before, briefly, (the Belgians call it Antwerpen, the French call it Anvers), and  I didn't remember much about it. So when we decided to go there to meet up for a day with some old friends, and then added a few more days onto our trip, I wasn't all that excited to spend time in the city. After all, the French, as you may know, have a sort of ongoing distain for the Belgians, who are the brunt of many a joke. The stereotype is that they are a bit simple and all they eat are french fries.

 

Example:

Q: Comment fait-on pour rentrer douze Belges dans un coffre de voiture ?
A: On jette une frite à l’intérieur.

( Q: How do you get twelve Belgians in the trunk of a car?
  A: You throw a french fry inside.)

 

The Belgians, by the way, can give it right back to them, usually based on the stereotype that the French think they are superior to all.

Example:

Pour devenir riche, achetez un français au prix qu'il vaut, et revendez-le au prix auquel il s'estime.

(To get rich, buy a Frenchman at the price that he's worth, and resell him at the price that he thinks he's worth).

 

But I digress. What I want to tell you is that, in spite of myself, I was totally charmed by this Belgian city, both edgy and elegant. The architecture is fabulous. It seems there are more pedestrian streets than auto ones, all connecting charming little squares.

 

A tantalizing glimpse of a bistro off a narrow alley

 

 

This gorgeous building was on our favorite small square, Hendrik Conscienceplein

 

As far as I can tell, the main occupation of the citizens is DRINKING. Day drinking, night drinking, anytime drinking. The city is brimming with bars and their outdoor terraces,  and they are packed with locals all day. Do these folks ever WORK?

 

 

Primed with alcohol, everyone is quite friendly. This is the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.  The Dutch are a fun-loving group, and some of their esprit seems to have spilled over the border, which is close by. Including the tradition of going everywhere by bike, with the whole family aboard. Amazingly I don't think we met a single person who didn't speak fluent English.

 

It helped that we had a hotel that we loved, the Hotel Franq. The lobby used to be a grand bank, and the vault now holds their wine collection. There was a surprise inside the internal courtyard: a historic Belgian bungalow.

 

The lobby at the Hotel Franq

The walled courtyard, with its little maison

 

 

We dined on the river, climbed to the top of the iconic city museum, visited gardens, and peeked into the luxury hotels that were out of our budget.  Come along for the tour, and you may be inspired to put Antwerp on your travel list too!

 

(There is one other special place we visited on our trip. But that is a post for another day).

 

We started each day at this tucked-away breakfast place. If you go, you must try this Antwerp specialty: a "pecan plait"--basically a croissant with a pecan pie filling.

We had a pecan plait every morning

 

 

First stop, Antwerp's famous MAS museum, with its theme of global connectedness. One can ride a series of escalators to the top, and the views just keep getting better. One thing I liked: pix of Antwerp residents of all ages lining the escalator walls, showing off the things they loved.

 

 

 

A little detour to the Cat Café. Gotta love a city that has a busy cat café on one of its main streets. Take that, JD Vance!

 

 

 

Cat: I'm in your lap, you ARE taking me home, aren't you? Me: How I wish!

 

Next, off to the Botanical Garden. Here are some pix of the statuary, and the tearoom:

 

Man emerging--or descending?

 

Next to the gardens was the Botanic Sanctuary, a new 5-star super luxury hotel in a renovated abbey complete with chapel, which we could only dream over:

 

the Foyer

 

The restaurant

 

The Lobby

 

Street Scenes:

 

The Antwerp cathedral, with a belfry an impressive 400 ft. high

 

Madonnas on buildings were a reoccuring theme; they protect the city

 

 

We passed this restauraneur at the Caramba several mornings, and he kindly became our de facto tour guide

 

 

Pick out your tattoo, from this storefront window

 

Whimsy was everywhere:

In a square, a famous statue of a boy and his dog, from a beloved children's book

 

 

 

Statues climb a building

 

 

 

Bye-Bye! We left from the "World's Most Beautiful Train Station".

I took this photo of the train station from the Grand Duca restaurant

 

Favorite READS: Natalia likes a new book by Jodi Picoult, By Any Other Name. Did Shakespeare write all of his own work, or was a woman behind it? She explores the question in this novel.  A book that's on my list that seems to be closely related is Shakespeare's Sisters, by Ramie Targoff, which follows the lives of four women writers in the English Renaissance--a time when women were not supposed to be writers. By the way, this author will speak at the Charleston Literary Festival in November. Book lovers, you will want to check out this festival! Or if you don't want to leave your armchair, peruse their schedule to discover the hot books du jour. 

 

 

The French Olympic 'Muffin' that Captivated the World

Lynn is baking again! That's always trouble. But here is the deal: if you live and breathe, you have heard about the viral  Olympic Chocolate Muffins. When the Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen posted about them from Paris, the world went nuts. Muffins, which the French don't do at all, are a complete misnomer here. They are actually deeply chocolate baby-cakes. However, with the muffin moniker, you can then justify eating chocolate cake for breakfast. 

 

This swimmer will forever be known as "the Muffin Man" (photo from Honey)

 

It seems every cooking blogger is trying to hack the recipe. Someone in New York actually managed to overnight a batch of 300 of the originals from Paris, and the line at the pop-up to buy them snaked around the block. 

 

In the originals, the French baker bored into the middle of the cooked muffins and spooned chocolate ganache inside. Most copycat recipes skip that step, and we will too, because we are dieting, sort of. Well, except for the breakfast 'muffins'. 

 

So you don't have to, we searched the Internet for the very best copycat recipe. What's interesting is that the ingredients are all over the map. Things like instant pudding, molasses, and powdered milk all make appearances. 

 

The recipe we tried came from an article by a professional baker in which the author dived deep into a dozen recettres before choosing her gold star muffin. We chose this one partly because I related to the name of her site (I Bake Mistakes) and because it has normal pantry ingredients, plus a lot of sour cream, and how can that be bad? Except for the aforementioned diet, but hey. I felt it was important to get you francophiles up to speed on this. Ganache optional.

 

Not having tulip muffin liners, I watched a youtube video by a woman who made own, instead of buying them. She whipped them out beautifully on fast forward. I tried this and do not recommend it, unless you are crafty and have a free afternoon. Here is my pathetic effort (brown parchment paper would be more authentic.). But I have to say, they worked just fine. But our baker has given us alternate baking instructions if you want to make smaller muffins with just baking cups.

My unlovely origami tulip liners

 

Recipe: The Viral Olympic Chocolate Muffins, or nearly

 

The ingredient list is long, but they are actually quick to put together, unless you go the ganache route.

 

This recipe is by Kassie Mendieta, with a few minor simplifications by me. This makes 9 jumbo muffins with the tulip liner, or 12 with regular ones. You'll need to adjust baking time if you make 12.

 

It's optional, but she says they are better if you freeze them overnight before serving. A note on serving: before we ate them, I ran them briefly through the microwave, a few seconds or maybe 20 if you use the defrost setting. This made a HUGE difference--they were more tender and the chocolate chunks became soft.

 

Like any good baker, Kassie weighs all her ingredients on a digital scale. If you don't do this, I highly recommend trying it. It's so much faster, not to mention more accurate.

 

• 200 grams all-purpose flour
• 70 grams Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso or (or instant coffee powder)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 275 grams light brown sugar 
• 100 grams whole milk
• 150 grams  (5 oz) vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs 
• 225 grams sour cream
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 113 grams semisweet or dark chocolate chunks (plus EXTRA for the tops)
• 113 grams ( milk chocolate chips or chunks (plus EXTRA for the tops)
• (MY NOTE: I used one 205 gram dark semi-sweet chocolate bar instead, which I cut into chunks).

Preparation

For the muffins:

1. In a large bowl, add dry ingredients; whisk to combine.
2. In a separate bowl, add wet ingredients; whisk to combine.
3. Add the wet ingredients into the center of the dry ingredients; stir with a wooden spoon until no dry pockets remain — you do not want to overmix the batter.
4. Gently fold in the chocolate chunks with a rubber spatula.
5. Set the batter aside for 30 minutes to an hour to rest before baking, and go do your morning triathlon.
6. Or while the batter rests,  prep the (optional) filling.
7. Preheat the oven to 420 F 

To bake the muffins:

1. 1. Once the batter is done resting, place the muffin liners in every other cavity of the muffin pan. 
   2. Scoop the batter in to the liners. For jumbo muffins, each cup should be filled a little over 3/4 of the way full.
   3. Bake for six minutes. When the timer beeps, do not open the oven! Drop the temp to 350 F and bake for an additional 15 to 18 minutes. Muffins are done baking when the center is set and a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs stuck to it, or when the internal temp is 200-205 F.
   4. Remove from baking pan and allow to cool completely. Add the ganache if desired. To serve: They are so much better if you run them through the microwave briefly, not to make them hot but to soften the chocolate chunks.
   5. NOTE:To make regular sized muffins you’ll need to adjust your bake times. For regular muffins 420F for 6 minutes 355F for 13-15 minutes. Fully set in the center is what you’re going for, and an overall the internal temp of a muffin should be 200-205F when checked with a thermometer.

* * * * *

If you want to make the optional ganache for the center:

• 130 grams water
• 95 grams granulated sugar
• 35 grams Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 20 grams corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 80 grams heavy cream
• 140 grams dark chocolate chips

1. In a saucepot, combine the water, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, salt and corn syrup.
2. Bring this mixture to a boil over medium-heat, stirring often to avoid burning the cocoa powder.
3. Once the mixture reaches a boil, drop the heat to medium-low, cook it while stirring frequently until it reduces by approximately 1/3 of its original volume, 5 to 8 minutes.
4. Add the heavy cream and allow to boil for another 2 minutes.
5. Pour the mixture over the dark chocolate chips. Allow the mixture to sit for a few moments to heat up the chips before whisking to combine. Optionally you can use an immersion blender to really get things nice and smooth.
6. Set aside to cool until it’s time to fill the muffins.

 

Favorite READS: My library finally sent me The Paris Novel, a fun bit of fluff if you are a Paris lover or a foodie. Next up in the Paris category (that name in the title must really sell  books) is The Paris Understudy, a story of two opera singers under the Nazi occupation. Natalia's choice this week is Guillaume Musso's Quelqu'un d'Autre. Natalia, as you suggest--a friend gave me one of his books to read, they are a good choice if you want something very readable in French. And, Natalia has another great tip: go to French Books Online if you're looking for a good place to purchase your French books.