French Fridays with Dorie: Quatre quarts

With only four ingredients (in equal quantities of each), this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe (p 434) was a cinch to whip up.  “Quatre quarts” – four quarters in French – is a French version of the traditional pound cake. Of course, it being January and all, I didn’t think Neil and I needed a whole pound cake in the house, so I divided the recipe up and made two mini quatre-quarts in tiny springform pans

It’s all you really need in a household of 2 🙂

And really, there’s not much to say about these. I was really pleased with how they came out. If you can believe it, I have never made a pound cake before but now I have, I know how easy they are.  This was really good. A reminder of how simple things can sometimes be the best. It was buttery and fluffy and it even tasted great the following day zapped in the microwave for about 30 seconds. It’s definitely best warm.

In fact it was so good we never even added any fruit, jam, honey or cream/ ice cream. But I bet it would have been good.  Next time….

Want to join us cooking through Dorie’s “Around my French Table” in 2012? Join French Fridays with Dorie here.

French Fridays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs, rather, we prefer if you purchase Around My French Table for yourselves (trust me, you definitely want this book!) which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.  Go on, treat yourself and join us this year!

57 thoughts on “French Fridays with Dorie: Quatre quarts”

  1. You are too funny – two mini cakes 🙂
    And thanks for sharing that these take well to a little warming up. Warm cake & blueberry compote is on my brain now…

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  2. What cute little mini cakes. I too find myself scaling many of these recipes down for my household of two, especially the baked goods. In retrospect I probably should have cut this one in half as well since my husband and I found it way too easy to gobble down.

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  3. Love your mini cakes! Great idea! This is the kind of simple cake that I enjoy with my tea in the afternoon. I did freeze mine to eat later when my husband is not on a diet!

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  4. I think I might need a couple of those mini springform pans! Where did you get them, if you don’t mind sharing? I sat out for this one because I couldn’t see myself baking a full cake when I have so many baked goods in the house at this time. I will definitely play catch up with this one as soon as the sweets stock goes down.

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  5. Truth be told, I’ve never made a pound cake. I’m glad that you were so happy with how your first one turned out. By the way, 300-gram cake does have a very unique ring to it Mr. Neil 😉

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  6. This was your first time making pound cake?? Oh my, I am surprise! The mini springform pans look so cute. I used brioche tins and came out with 8 portions. Worked great! The tone of your photos make me think of lemon zest for some reasons….which would of course taste great in this cake.

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  7. I think, given your Australian roots, Mardi that, at some stage, you need to introduce the wider bloggersphere to damper. You know, the typical (Australian) bushman’s breakfast is made up of a [pee] a good look round and damper. Hope this comment not seen as inappropriate.

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  8. Yay for your first pound cake! I make them all the time in the summer when the berries are best. They have the best shortcakes. 🙂

    Yours looks so good! The brown sugar topping on yours looks so much better than mine!

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  9. I was thinking of making this as well as I LOVE pound cake. I am sooooo very afraid to make this, though. Know why? Because I just KNOW that I will be eating the whole thing!! Not good for my diet 😉

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  10. Yep…this one is good all by itself. My girls ate it plain and told me it is a new “keeper.” Nice to find a new recipe that is liked and yet so simple.

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  11. Love the mini cakes. I have to admit in my household of two, one won’t eat a plain cake like this. After sharing the first half with friends that came for tea, I ate the next half myself, though not all in one sitting. This was a lovely simple cake. I’ll definitely make it again.

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  12. LOL, I had to laugh at Mr. Neil’s comment! Yours looks perfect! I just love individual desserts 🙂

    And thanks so much for your kind words and condolences. xoxo

    Reply

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