Brioche Pasquier and Tots 100 have laid down a seasonal challenge to bloggers to create an autumnal family feast with a French flair using some lovely Brioche Pasquier goodies. I love their range of delicious French bakery products, as they bring back memories of wonderful family holidays spent in France where we have enjoyed breakfasting on croissants, brioche and pain au lait. The products are authentic and made to traditional recipes.
Brioche Pasquier also have a lovely kid friendly brioche, called Pitch, which comes in individually wrapped portions, and are filled with delicious fillings or studded with choc chips. They are great for eating on the go, as a snack or for popping into lunch boxes.
With a brioche loaf and some Milk Chocolate Pitch, the kids and I set about preparing a family feast of seasonal ingredients that we could enjoy together. The Pitch, as well as being a great snacking product, also makes a great base for a Chocolate Brioche Pudding. We sliced the brioche and arranged them in a pyrex dish before pouring over a chocolate custard made with eggs, sugar, single cream, milk and cocoa. We sprinkled dark chocolate chips over the top and it was then baked in the oven at GM 4 until set.
Our main course consisted of some wonderfully French baked Camembert cheeses to make an indulgent cheesy fondue. You simply remove the plastic wrapper and put the cheese back into its wooden base and bake for about 20 minutes at GM5. One of the cheeses had garlic cloves pushed into the skin to add a bit of a kick of flavour.
Baked Camembert is one of the children's favourite meals. It is a really fun experience, using wooden skewers to pick up the bite size chunks of food and dip them in the molten cheese.
To dip in the gooey cheese we served boiled baby potatoes, Quorn sausage pieces, veggie meatballs, carrot sticks, French stick and oven toasted squares of Brioche.
It's a very interactive and sociable way to enjoy a seasonal feast. It's a great way to get Freddy, who can be quite fussy, eating as he cannot resist the lure of the cheese or the fun of stabbing his food. He loves it!
Having Mason jars of apple juice, really added to the seasonal feel of our very French autumnal family feast. Ian and I may have uncorked a nice bottle of French red wine to go with our meal to add to our theme!
This meal would work brilliantly well as an al fresco dining experience if you get some nice autumn afternoons, but right now with this cold, wet and windy weather, we chose to dine indoors in the warm!
The oven toasted Brioche squares were a great accompaniment to the Camembert. Being cut them toasted, they held their shape and structure enough to make perfect dippers. The slightly sweet taste of the bread was delicious when eaten with the creamy cheese.
The warm Chocolate Brioche Pudding ended the meal. Kizzy was not a fan as the wobbly consistency put her straight off. So she had an intact Milk Chocolate Pitch instead! However, Ian and I enjoyed some served with vanilla ice cream. It was a very chocolatey, comforting and warming dessert.
All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our Seasonal feast with a French flavour. It is a lovely way of eating together as it is so much fun and so hands on. The Pasquier Brioche products were the inspiration behind the menu and they really are great kitchen staples for snacking or for using as a part of a meal.