LU, love you Saturday, Aug 17 2013 

Uncategorized , , ferret 4:52 pm

I promised you a dedicated LU spinoff post not that long ago.

For those of you not in the know, LU is a French biscuit brand. They make all kinds of biscuity loveliness, and as much as I adore the offerings of British biscuit aisles in such fine establishments as Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, the French have their own range of biscuity delights that take me back, in their various guises, to times in my life as various as childhood camping holidays and tea times with the fella who’s now my husband.

So in no particular order, here are my top five LU lovelies:

BASTOGNE

Cost: €2,16 for 260g

LUvliness: Great crunch and a beautiful cinnamon flavour, which combine to make the perfect afternoon snack or cheesecake base.

Where can I buy some? Frenchclick.co.uk sells them for £2.60 a pack.

CHAMONIX

Cost: €2,12 for 250g

LUvliness: The combination of textures here is wonderful. Spongy cookie/cake exterior meets jammy apricot interior and smooth, crackly sugar topping. NOM.

Where can I buy some? Frenchclick’s price? £2.35.

HELLO

Cost: €1,85 for 200g

LUvliness: As well as being my French-camping-holiday equivalent of the Proustian madeleine, the combination of crunchy biscuit, melty chocolate chips and hard nougatine is a winning combination.

Where can I buy some? They’re trickier to get hold of these days, but many (French) supermarkets make their own version. If you’re ordering online, readers in Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium can buy from CGood.fr, who sell at the retail price (although they then hit you with a €14 shipping charge, so you’d better be buying a lot of biscuits). MonFavori.com is flogging them to UK buyers at £3.45 a pack, but shipping is dear there too. Another option could be Nouvelle-Epicerie.fr – they seem to ship to several countries, including the US.

PAILLE D’OR

Cost: €1,74 for 170g

LUvliness: The ‘golden straw’ of the biscuit name is perfectly encapsulated by the pale yellow ‘straws’ of wafer, welded together into wafer sheets and sandwiched with raspberry or strawberry jam. So light, yet so moreish.

Where can I buy some? On offer currently for £1.90 online.

VERITABLE BEURRE

Cost: €1,18 for 200g

LUvliness: A true French classic, this. Can’t be sure that LU invented it (many many brands make their own version), but this vision of the ‘true butter’ biscuit is very good: a generously-sized square that tastes beautifully buttery and salty without being too sweet. Merveilleux!

Where can I buy some? £1.49 from Ocado.

Do you have a favourite LU biscuit that I’ve missed out? Agree/disagree with my choices? Comment below 🙂

 

Les cakes du Jaffa Friday, Jul 12 2013 

Uncategorized , , , , ferret 7:59 am

(I know I seem to spend an awful lot of time blogging about cake and other such non-foods. I am aware that this blog is not called ferretcakeandcookies.wordpress.com. I will try to blog about some proper food soon. Promise!)

Expats often spend time hunting out the silliest little things to remind them of home, even when we are dead busy integrating into life in our new country. Hey – I speak the language every day, shop in my new country’s supermarkets, pay taxes, and even rebuff advances from my new country’s men. I’m sure you’ll cut me a little slack for wanting some Jaffa Cakes every once in a while.

Happily, when it comes to said Jaffa Cakes, I don’t need to spend time ferreting out the dead expensive real thing, because the French already have their own:

These, children, are French Jaffa Cakes. They may be made by LU and not McVities. They may have the suspicious-looking “L’original” on the box. HOWEVER, I can assure you that they are basically one and the same. They certainly taste the same. There are also many supermarket spinoffs which are even cheaper, such as these (which I don’t buy too often…at all…*cough*):

Saving me a whole €0.46. YEAH.

The only problem I have with French Jaffa Cakes is that they come in too many flavours. To me the Jaffa Cake is a classic that is not to be messed with. It has already been shamelessly copied by the French after being invented nearly 100 years ago in the UK. I don’t mind the shameless copying. However, I do mind the messing. There is no real reason for “Jaffa Cakes” to come in such ungodly variants as cherry and white chocolate (this one is, for some reason, insanely popular in France), raspberry, strawberry, pear, and lemon. Even if they may taste nice (although I can promise you’ll never see the cherry and white chocolate love child ever passing my lips), they are just not Jaffa Cakes. The perfect marriage of bitter orange and dark chocolate is simply not to be trifled with. (Or caked with. WHATEVER.)

Nevertheless, in spite of this deviation, I can feel a dedicated LU spinoff post coming on at some point. Their biscuits are just damned lovely. In the meantime, I shall just sit here and carry on dreaming of Jaffa Cakes (French or otherwise)…and marvelling at those who have dared to try and make their own.