The measurements in this recipe are somewhat slap-dash. But when a jar is used to measure sugar or flour, that jar refers to a 125ml yoghurt pot. Any 125ml container, filled and levelled, will do the trick. Perigordin cooking is not as precise as we're used to...

2 eggs
1 jar of sugar
1 jar of plain flour
a walnut-sized lump of butter
1 tbsp of orange-flower water
a generous handful of shelled and chopped walnuts
butter or oil for greasing

1. Pre-heat oven to 120° C.
2. Beat together the sugar and the eggs. When they are well mixed, add the orange-flower water, the flour, and the walnuts.
3. Use the small lump of butter to bind the pastry.
4. Roll out the pastry till it is 2cm thick (just under an inch), and then cut it into small batons. The actual size is up to you, but they are usually cut to roughly the size of an adult thumb.
5. Put the batons on a greased baking sheet, well-spaced, and bake until golden. I'm afraid the recipe book doesn't mention an actual time, so you'll have to keep an eye on them. It took about 15 minutes in my oven, but your mileage may vary.

2 eggs, separated
75g melted butter, kept warm
75g sugar
75g grated chocolate
50g flour

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Grease a ring mould.
2. In a large bowl, combine the grated chocolate and sugar. Sieve in the flour and stir in the melted butter.
3 Add the two egg yolks to the bowl and stir well.
4. In a separate clean and dry bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.
5. Fold the egg whites into the batter, and pour the mix into the greased ring mould.
6. Bake for 20 minutes, and then turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.

Serve as it comes, or wait for it to cool completely and then frost with a buttercream icing. You can fill the centre with creme patissiere and fruit for a more decorative finish.

Last month, a neighbour lent me her school cookery book from the 1950s.  It is a wonderful guide to the basics of French cooking, and contains dozens of recipes that should be preserved for posterity.

The book builds on previous recipes, assuming that students will work their way through from start to finish. Flipping through, the recipe for friands caught my eye - it requires a portion of puff pastry (covered earlier in the book), some ham, and a half portion of mornay sauce (also covered in a previous chapter). Later in the book, basic preparations for preserves, tarts, pâtés, and stews all build on the skills learned earlier.

To cook your way through the book, from start to finish, is to get an education in traditional French home cooking. Unfortunately, I won't have access to the book for long enough to copy it out - and translate it - in full. I do, however, have time to present some of the greatest hits in the form of forgotten classics.

1 egg
60g  butter, softened
60g sugar
75g plain flour
30g dried raisins
1 tbsp rum

1. Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.
2. Macerate the raisins in the rum.
3. Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and mix well.
4. Sieve the flour into the mix and fold it in with a metal spoon. Once the flour is incorporated, fold in the raisins and any remaining rum.
5. Put teaspoons of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet and bake for around 7 minutes. They are cooked when the tops are a pale gold and the edges are crisp and brown.

Last month, a neighbour lent me her school cookery book from the 1950s.  It is a wonderful guide to the basics of French cooking, and contains dozens of recipes that should be preserved for posterity.

The book builds on previous recipes, assuming that students will work their way through from start to finish. Flipping through, the recipe for friands caught my eye - it requires a portion of puff pastry (covered earlier in the book), some ham, and a half portion of mornay sauce (also covered in a previous chapter). Later in the book, basic preparations for preserves, tarts, pâtés, and stews all build on the skills learned earlier.

To cook your way through the book, from start to finish, is to get an education in traditional French home cooking. Unfortunately, I won't have access to the book for long enough to copy it out - and translate it - in full. I do, however, have time to present some of the greatest hits in the form of forgotten classics.

The title of this recipe loses something in the translation, I'm afraid. In French it sounds poetic, but in English merely strange.

1 litre of milk
1 tsp bitter almond essence
3 eggs
6 tbsps icing sugar
3 tbsps flour
2 drops of aniseed or liquorice essence
1 tsp orange-flower water

1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the milk and almond essence to the boil over a gentle heat.
2. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and flour. Once the mixture is free from lumps, add it to the saucepan (provided the milk mixture has come to the boil while you've been mixing, that is), stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.
3. Continue to cook the milk mixture over a gentle heat for 20 minutes, stirring regularly.
4. Add the two remaining flavours and pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
5. Next - and this is where it gets a bit odd - use a flame to sterilise a pair of tweezers. Once they are both sterilised and very hot, dip the points in some icing sugar. The sugar should melt from the heat of the tweezers. Carefully drop the caramelising sugar onto the surface of the cream. Repeat until the surface of the cream is covered with dots of caramelised sugar.

Every twenty minutes another item of food seems to be declared a superfood. The link appears to be that all superfoods are those that grow naturally - berries, nuts, grains, vegetables - and that non-superfoods are those processed in a factory and covered with spray-on flavour and extra salt.

If your favourite piece of natural produce has yet to be nominated a superfood of some sort, don't worry. Its time will come.

This week's nominee appears to be the walnut, which cures cancer if the Daily Mail is to be believed. The Mail is famous for regularly proclaiming that 'X' causes cancer and then a week later claiming it cures it, so I wouldn't put too much faith in their statement. I am sure that walnuts are good for you in moderation, and they may well have positive effects on blood pressure, brain function, and the like, but the main reason to eat them is because you enjoy them. Be warned - like many nuts, walnuts are high in calories.

The recipe below the jump certainly won't cure cancer, but it will cure a sweet-tooth craving. What more could you want?

The tart
250g plain flour
2 tbsps sugar
1 tsp salt
9 tbsps cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 large egg
3-5 tbsps ice water


The filling
230g walnuts
160ml double cream
125ml water
370g sugar, with 30g held back
4tbsps unsalted butter

1.You will need to make enough pastry to fill a 9-inch loose-bottomed tart tin. Put the flour, sugar, and salt from the pastry section of the ingredients in a large bowl,  and whisk together. Then, using your (clean!) fingers, rub the butter into the mix until the combined ingredients begin to look like coarse breadcrumbs. Beat the egg with 3tbsps of chilled water and stir into the mixed ingredients until fully incorporated. The dough should hold together when you squeeze it. If it doesn't, slowly add more water, stirring as you add. Stop once the dough holds together, and do not overwork. Press the dough into a five-inch disk, cover with clingfilm, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
2. Roll out the dough to a twelve-inch round. Carefully fit the dough into your tart tin, pressing against the sides as you go. Trim off the excess. Refrigerate for another half hour.
3. Pre-heat oven to 220°C.
4. On a baking tray, toast the walnuts for about five minutes. Put the walnuts aside, and put the baking tray back in the oven.
5. Using a small saucepan, heat  the cream slowly. While waiting for the cream to heat, bring the water and 340g of the sugar to the boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. As the pan is heating up, stir constantly until the sugar has fully melted, taking care to wash down any sugar stuck to the sides of the pain. Once the sugar has melted, stop stirring and let the pan come to the boil. The caramel should become amber in colour.
6. Remove the caramel from the flame and slowly pour in the heated cream. It will bubble like mad. It's supposed to. Once the bubble have died down, stir in the walnuts and the butter (1tbsp of butter at a time), and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly, over a medium heat.
7. Pour the filling into the shell and sprinkle with the rest of the sugar. Put the tart in on the pre-heated baking tray and bake for around 25 minutes. If the top looks like it's at risk of burning, cover it with a silver foil tent. Reduce heat to 160°C and bake until the filling is set; this should take about 15 minutes. The tart should be a deep golden-brown with a golden crust.
8. Let the tart cool in its tin for about half an hour. While the tart is still slightly warm, slide the tart - on its loose-bottom disk - out of the tart tin. It is now ready to serve.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this. You stumble off a trans-Atlantic flight, eyes redder than should be possible, and all you want is a shower and a sleep. But your diary says you're booked for dinner that night, and - worse! - you've promised to bring the dessert course.

Fortunately, my wife has a simple recipe up her sleeve that takes a few minutes in the kitchen and a few hours' chilling - just enough time to sleep while the pudding finishes itself.

Last night's dinner was a birthday celebration, so I decorated the chocolate pots with indoor sparklers. They are entirely optional, but a lot of fun, no matter how old you are.

200g good quality dark chocolate
300ml single cream
1 tsp vanilla essence (or substitute with almost anything - I used caramel syrup, but liqueurs would work well)
1 egg
pinch of salt

1. Break the chocolate into chunks and put in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stirring occasionally, allow the chocolate to fully melt. Once melted, put aside for about 10 minutes to cool slightly.
2. Add the cream bit by bit, stirring constantly. I added about 100ml at a time. When you're adding the cream the chocolate might take on a slightly lumpy consistency. Don't worry about it - if you keep stirring, it will all come out right in the end.
3. Once the cream has been added, stir in the vanilla essence (or caramel, or alcohol), the pinch of salt, and the egg. Keep stirring until everything has been fully incorporated and the chocolate has a glossy sheen.
4. Spoon the mix into decorative glasses or ramekins and leave in the fridge to set for at least 3 hours. Just before serving, you can roughly crumble some biscuits over the top for a bit of crunch should you wish.
Serves four.

One of the simpler pleasures of time spent in France is the small pots of vanilla yoghurt you can buy at any supermarket. The 125ml pots are just right for a small snack, and the glass jars have many uses. A few years ago, my wife and eldest daughter had a Blue Peter moment, and spent the day filling empty pots with sand and tealights, and stringing them up in the vines along the terrace.

But until the weekend's feast, I didn't realise that the locals use them as a unit of measurement when cooking.

The French version of the classic English sponge uses a mix of oil and yogurt in place of the butter. The result is an incredibly light cake, with a firm crumb and lots of air. My daughter has vowed to throw away her sponge cake recipes and use this as her basic cake mix in all future baking.

Yoghurt cake is as versatile as it is delicious. The recipe below is for a lemon version, but any citrus fruit could be substituted. Line the cake tin with berries, pineapple, or peaches, and then turn the cake upside down before serving so the fruit sits on top. Make a simple version by cutting out the fruit entirely and adding a teaspoon of vanilla, or swap the vanilla for cinnamon and ground ginger, for rum, for a maple syrup...

The beauty of this recipe is that it's so basic to make, you can let your imagination run wild and eat the versions that didn't work quite as planned.

The original version of this recipe calls for jars, as you can use the empty yoghurt pot to measure out your flour, sugar, etc. But because not all yoghurt comes in French glass pots, I have converted the measurements to mililitres. Americans, 125ml is equivalent to ½ a cup.

125 ml plain yoghurt
250 ml granulated sugar
3 large eggs
375 ml plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp grated lemon zest
125 ml olive oil
juice of 2 lemons
60 ml icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180° Centigrade. Butter a 9 inch cake tin with deep sides (not a sandwich tin).
2. Put the yoghurt, sugar, and unbeaten eggs in a large mix bowl, and stir vigorously, until the eggs have been fully incorporated.
3. Add the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, and lemon zest - and stir well.
4. Add the olive oil and stir until you have a smooth, silky batter. Using a wooden spoon the entire mixing process shouldn't take more than a few minutes, and barely any elbow grease is required.
5. Pour the batter into your buttered tin and bake for around 45 minutes. The accuracy of your over will mean that cooking times vary - the original recipe called for 30-35 minutes, but my daughter's first attempt was in the oven for 50 minutes before it was ready to come out. The last 15 minutes were spent cooking under a tin-foil tend to stop the lovely browned top from burning. Check your cake around the half-hour mark to see if it is ready by inserting a skewer or sharp knife. It's not cooked until it comes out clean.
6. Cool the cake in its tin for 20 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
7. Meanwhile, make the glaze. The traditional recipe calls for lemon juice and icing sugar, but any tweaks you made to the cake will need to be reflected here. Use icing sugar, 50 ml of water, and a glug of booze (rum, Kaluha, and Frangelico would all work well), or pour 2 tbsps of maple syrup over the top. Whatever you do, spoon the glaze over slowly once the cake has been allowed to cool completely.



Recipe adapted from www.orangette.com.

This weekend, the Dordogne was bathed in glorious sunshine, and short sleeves were the order of the day.

At the Saturday morning market, shoppers hurried through their purchases, eager to claim a seat on Faque's riverside terrace for their morning coffee and croissant. The cafe has been packed to the rafters all winter, but seating has been inside only. Now, with this brief taste of sunshine before winter returns, the terrace was a battleground of mesdames and messieurs using their shopping baskets as battering rams, trying to claim the few seats available.While summer is still a few months away, it is worth celebrating every moment of sunshine. And what better way to celebrate than with a scoop of walnut ice-cream? Any local worth their salt will have spent the autumn collecting walnuts. My kitchen counter is currently home to several large bags, some of which have found their way into a selection of cakes and tarts. But some have been reserved for summer days, even those that turn up in the middle of January.

200ml/7fl oz double cream
1 tbsp clear honey
50g/2oz walnuts, shells removed, chopped

1. In a large bowl, whip the double cream (using an electric or balloon whisk) until soft peaks form when the whisk is removed.
2. Fold in the honey and walnuts.
3. Pour the mixture into a container and place into the freezer to set.
4. Serve, preferably accompanied by surprise mid-winter sun.

This ice-cream works well on its own, with walnut tart, or with fresh fruit, especially figs in season. Not suitable for the lactose intolerant or those with a walnut allergy.

For the real Perigord experience, try making this ice-cream with a local walnut honey.

* Recipe adapted from James Martin's Sweet Baby James.

The world-famous St Alvere truffle market - featured in Black Diamond - opened on the first Monday in December.

I will be visiting the market next Monday, 13 December, taking photos and conducting short interviews with the sellers for this website. Make sure to bookmark this page for a return visit next week, when Bruno will feature a host of truffle information for fans of Perigord's famous black diamonds.

If your whistle has already been whetted, the market's French language website can be found here.

Below the jump is St Alvere's recipe of the month, for truffle crème  brûlée. Truffles aren't just for savoury courses...

50 cl whole milk
25 cl whipping cream
1 vanilla pod
1 truffle
1 tsp red port
1 tsp truffle purée
2 apples (preferably golden)
8 egg yolks flavoured with truffles

[Note: to flavour eggs, just put them in a jar with fresh truffles for at least 48 hours.]

24 hours in advance
Put the milk, sugar, vanilla pod, whipping cream, port and truffle purée in a saucepan. Mix well with a whisk. Add the truffle and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat, cover, and let steep overnight.

On the day
1. Peel the apples, core and cut into even slices of half a centimetre. Poach for one minute in a sugar syrup (half water, half sugar), slightly lemony. Drain and reserve.
2. Arrange in the bottom of a ramekin 6 slices of apples rosettes. Retrieve the truffle, cut it into thin slices and use it to cover apples. Put to one side.
3. Separate the egg yolks and whisk vigorously to incorporate the puréed truffle cream you prepared the day before. Cover the apples with this mixture and bake for 30 minutes in a water bath in an oven at 140 degrees.
4. Allow to cool before putting the cream and apple mixture in the refrigerator where it will thicken.
5. Just before serving, cover the surface with a thin layer of brown sugar and grill under high heat until the required burnt, blistered effect has been achieved. Keep an eye on it, as the amount of time needed will vary depending on the heat of your grill.


Serves four.

Fill a clean jar with good quality dried prunes. If they feel hard between the fingers, soften them overnight in 10 fluid ounces (300ml) strong tea then drain before putting them in the jar.

Cover them with port or armagnac. You will need about a bottle and it need not be an expensive make.

Store in a dark place for at least 3 months.

To serve, place one plump prune or two in the bottom of a small liqueur glass. Surround with some of the liquid and top with a heaped teaspoon of creme fraiche. The alcohol in the juice will lightly solidify the cream.