We specialize in special mail-order gourmet products!

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

How to successfully prepare chocolate icing like Delices & Gourmandises raspberry biscuits’ topping

Several small but exquisite pastries prepared by Delices & Gourmandises are coated with a delicious icing, among which are the raspberry biscuits. Here is a quick and easy-to-follow recipe to make your own chocolate icing.

What it takes to make the perfect icing


Basic ingredients for chocolate icing are chocolate (dark, bitter, white or milk), powdered sugar, butter and water. Proportions must be followed carefully to avoid the preparation being too thin or too thick.


You will need 50gr of chocolate, a little more if you use dark chocolate, 100gr of caster sugar, 50gr of butter and a glass of water (about 200ml).

How to prepare your icing?


The preparation is very quick. Heat the sugar and water in a saucepan until you get a rich-textured syrup; however, it should not be too thick when you dip a spoon in it. Be very careful not to boil the preparation.

Chop the chocolate and add the pieces to the syrup to melt. Stir regularly so that the mixture does not stick to the sides and bottom. Cook for about 5 min on low heat, then remove from heat. Add the butter while the preparation is still hot and mix well to obtain a homogeneous cream. Spread it on your pastries before it cools.


To vary the taste, you can flavor your icing with vanilla or citrus or a teaspoon of cognac.

Delices & Gourmandises raspberry biscuits



Delices & Gourmandises raspberry biscuits are delicately raspberry flavored cookies which are coated with a light milk chocolate icing. You can offer them to your kids for snack time or serve to your guests with a hot or cold drink, or ice cream.

Monday, April 18, 2016

The “moules marinières“ recipe from Delices & Gourmandises

The “Moules marinières“ are mussels cooked with white wine. They are as famous as the fried mussels form the north of France and Belgium, and are awesome with a glass of white wine from Delices & Gourmandises.

Delices & Gourmandises tells you the story of the farmed mussels


The mussels’ beds or “bouchots” on which they are grown are those big wooden sticks used for fixing the nets in the sea, net that are used to catch fishes when the tide is low. It was totally by chance that some fishermen from the northern seaside of France noticed that mussels stay fixed on the sticks and on the nets. That is how the growth of mussels on the “bouchots” began. The shells are left to fix on the sticks at high tide and they are harvested at low tide.


Nowadays, farmed mussels are still grown on those “bouchots” that are placed as a V, from the Saint-Michel bay to the Aiguillon bay. They are classified as STG (Spécialités traditionnelles Garanties) from the EU and could have been proposed in Delices & Gourmandises catalog if only they were sweets or delicacies.

How to cook the “moules marinières”? Delices & Gourmandises offers you the recipe


The traditional recipe of the “moules marinières” is very simple. Just take one liter of farmed mussel per person. Tidy them perfectly. Cut some shallots thinly and let cook in some butter in a pan. Add some smashed garlic and chopped parsley. Add about half a liter of a white wine that you have chosen from Delices & Gourmandises cellar. Put the mussels in the preparation, mix well and cover the man. Stir gently sometimes until all the shells are all well opened.

Serve with French fries and a soft white wine, always form Delices & Gourmandises, as the Riesling Moulin de Dusenbach or a Bordeaux white wine Duc des Peyrières.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Delices & Gourmandises introduces to you the Chartreuse

Used to aromatize chocolate, and in many cocktails recipes, the Chartreuse are also part of many delicious recipes. Delices & Gourmandises presents you this famous flavored liquor.

The story of the Chartreuse by Delices & Gourmandises


The Chartreuse is made of a mix of 130 plants that are macerated in alcohol, and in which is added distillated honey and sugar and sugar syrup. No chemical product is added. The macerated beverage is aged in oak barrels before it is put into bottles. A longer ageing helps to optimize the quality of the drink, for it to gain the appellation “V.E.P”.


It has probably been created in the 17th century when the Maréchal d’Estrée entrusted an elixir that was supposed to help having a very long life to the Chartreux monks in Paris. But it was in Grenoble, in 1737, when a simpler method for producing it was discovered that the 55° green Chartreuse won its fame.



Despite many problems as the French Revolution in 1789, the ejection of the Chratreux from France and the destruction of the main distillery in Fourvoirie, the monks kept the recipe as a secret and opened a new distillery in Voiron where the beverage is still produced until nowadays.

The Chartreuse, a main ingredient for several cocktails


There are many versions of the Chartreuse as the traditional green chartreuse, the yellow chartreuse of 40° that has flowers scents, the “Génépi”, etc.

Drunk “on the rocks”, mixed with tonic or several fruits juices (as lemon or apple juice), or with other alcoholic drinks, the chartreuse gives many possibilities of cocktails. You can so make your own mixes, as long as your imagination works.

This beverage is ideally served fresh or iced as liquor. But it can also be used for aromatizing pastries and desserts as pancakes, ice-creams, apple pastries. Try it with iced melon, it’s delicious. It is included in many recipes of Delices & Gourmandises products. Used in cooking, it perfectly accompanies smoked fishes and poultry sauces.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Coq au vin prepared with Delices & Gourmandises’ wines

Coq au vin is a French cuisine and a must-eat for all fine gourmets and choosing the perfect wine to cook it is the key. Delices & Gourmandises’s wine cellar offer a wide range of well-bodied wines to successfully prepare a tasteful dish following below recipe.

Ingredients needed to prepare coq au vin for 6 serves


- 1/2kg cock already cut into pieces
- 1l of full-bodied red wine. The Chapinière Cuvée Rousseau or the Merlot les Estampilles from Delices & Gourmandises’ cellar are ideal.
- 5cl of cognac
- 200gr of bacon
- 150gr of button mushrooms
- 1 red onion
- 2 carrots
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 bouquet garni
- 5gt peppercorns
- 15cl of oil
- Salt, pepper
- 1 tablespoon of flour or starch


How to prepare your coq au vin?


Start with the marinade: pour the wine into a large glass bowl; then add the chopped bouquet garni and peppercorns. Place the cock in the marinade, cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, strain the meat. Filter the marinade and set aside.

Heat the oil in a casserole and fry the pieces of meat until golden brown. Remove the meat from the pan. Now, place the sliced carrots and chopped onion in it. Let simmer for 5 minutes and pour the flour or starch and mix well to perfectly coat the vegetables.

Add the pieces of meat in the casserole. Crush the garlic cloves and add them to the preparation. Heat the cognac, pour it into the pan and flambé.

Pour the wine marinade into the preparation, salt and pepper to your convenience. Boil then reduce heat. Cook for about 2 hours and half.

Bask sliced mushrooms with the bacon and add them to the coq au vin 15mn before the end of cooking time.