Bonjour,

Now that you have been bombarded with Valentine's advertising from hardware stores, to pajama companies, to florists, it is my turn to tell you why you should stop at Douceur de France to surprise your loved one.

We have the most unique sweets in Atlanta, from cookies to chocolate candies to pastries, meringues and a lot more (http://douceurdefrance.com/valentine.htm).

It is unique because all of those sweets are made here in our kitchens, made from scratch with quality ingredients.

And what is unique this year, is that we will give each one of you who comes for breakfast or lunch this coming Saturday a chocolate truffle and if you have seen the movie "Chocolat" you know what virtues chocolate can have.

Just perfect on a Valentine's Day.

A bientot et Bonne St Valentin.

Luc

 

Bonjour,

A quick reminder, even though Epiphany was the 6 of January, we will continue to bake our galettes des rois as well as the New Orleans king's cake until Mardi gras (the 24th of February).

So let your Cajun and Creole friends know about our bakery, merci beaucoup!

Also after tremendous pressure we made a change on the menu. We brought back the original Tartines, which was the Corsican.

And finally we want to thank you for voting for our bakery on "Atlanta Hot list". We are the number 1 bakery in Atlanta and very proud of it (http://cityvoter.com/atlanta-hot-list/winners/3320/food/bakery).

Merci, merci beaucoup.
Luc

Happy New Year! Bonne Annee!

From Douceur de France's dream team we wish you "une Bonne Annee 2009", and we want to take the opportunity to thank you for your 2008 business. 2008 has been a crazy year and in one way or another we all have suffered from the impact of the economic crisis and more than ever we are submerged with negative news locally, nationally, and worldwide.

That is why we are very glad, even if it is a small contribution, that we are part of the positive in your life and very glad that our desserts were on your Thanksgiving and Christmas table.

To finish the year, we have created a New Year cake made with chocolate bavarois garnish with apricots baked with honey and a sable Breton as the bottom of the cake. It is a little bit complicated to describe but a lot easier to eat.

Take a look on our website and imagine that it is as delicious as it is beautiful: http://douceurdefrance.com/newyear.htm

Again we wish you all "une Bonne Annee 2009" and do not decide to cut down on your dessert for your 2009 resolutions.

Merci à bientot et Bonne Annee.

Luc and his dream team.

Bonjour,

Thanksgiving is one week away, Douceur de France is looking like a beehive and Danielle, my queen is making sure that her bees are staying busy making our new famous pumpkin crème brulée, pumpkin breads, pumpkin pies, and so much more.

I won't give you a list of all the Thanksgiving specialties, chocolates and cookies but if you have time to go on our website on the Thanksgiving page you will see it all there but please once you know what dessert you will serve for Thanksgiving, give us a call to place your order, so it will help us to get organize and to keep my Queen happy…

This year, with the help of Brigitte our newest bee we did put a particular attention on our gift baskets, we feel that we are making so many unique HOMEMADE specialties like our soups, preserves, chocolates, cookies and more, that putting together they make a nice composition in the baskets. Very soon, we'll have pictures on our website.

P.S.: Danielle is reminding me that she made some "rillettes de porc" and we also are serving them on a baguette as a sandwich.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all and again a big "merci for your business".

Luc

Bonjour,

Unless you are living under a rock or too busy following the elections, you haven't realized that this Friday is Halloween. As usual we are loaded with cookies, meringues, chocolate, lollipops, and pastries to make your Halloween a complete festival of treats.

After years of Danielle's request we finally decided to serve crêpes. Like everything else we do in our bakery we make the "crêpes" batter from scratch, they are dessert crêpes. My favorite is a crêpe filled with chocolate ganache and garnished with bananas and whipped cream, mmm just delicious!

We have done some change, in our lunch menu as well. We have replaced the Tartines Provencales with the Tartines Alsacienne (check our website for a description: http://douceurdefrance.com/menu_today.htm).

The lentil salad is replacing the Taboule and the "Blanquette de veau" is replacing the "boeuf mode".

Now the Blanquette de veau if you are not familiar with it, is an old French classic dish. It's a veal stew. The veal is cooked slowly in a light creamy sauce with a variety of vegetable such as leek, carrot, mushroom, celery, and we serve it over steamed rice or with slices of country bread. I hope I made your stomach gurgle so now you have to come to visit us very soon.

Luc

Bonjour,

Great news in the web world, our webmaster has just redesigned our web site, easiest to read, new pictures and yes, a new recipe….

But there is more, Rodrigue, who is one of our waiters on Saturdays, and is currently going to school to become a Big Time Movie Director, made a documentary on Douceur de France. It is already on youtube and for your convenience we've also added a link on the website..

And finally, the webmaster has a poll frenzy (must be the elections), but don't worry, no politics. It is a poll on line to know what your favorite patisserie is, so please vote !

We have already been working on our Halloween sweets but I will tell you more later.

Au revoir,

Luc

Bonjour,

It's been an all summer since I have sent you our newsletter, so that means I have a lot to catch up with you guys.

First of all we want to welcome two new members in our team:
Brigitte, a nice French lady from Roswell, who with Chantal, Benedicte and Samantha (of course we are not forgetting our part-time Gabrielle, Lauren, Rodrigue and Hien) is now part of the best waitress staff ever (at least we try….),
and Tony, a young pastry chef who is just coming from Nimes, a city located in the south of France, in the Languedoc Region exactly.

This year, it rains a little bit more than usual, just enough for the fig trees to produce their very tasty fruits and give me the opportunity to make Figs preserve and figs Bourdaloue (a tart baked with almond cream and fresh figs) and I had a lot of compliments for those 2 items already.

We also have 2 new pastries:
the "Chocolat mousse and banana tart"
and the "Cocopassion" mousse cake.

If you haven't try those, please do it and I promise you will be impress how tasty those pastries are.

And finally we have 2 new dishes for our breakfast menu: a dish with our marinated chicken covered with a creamy spinach and 2 baked eggs and that is replacing the panini Florentine, and a new panini benedict made of fresh tomato, smoked salmon, 2 poached eggs covered with a Hollandaise sauce.

So more opportunities for you to meet new people at Douceur de France while you are trying our latest creations.

Enjoy and bon appetit!

Luc and Danielle

Bonjour,

Finally some news from Douceur de France, It's been a while since I sat down to give you an update of our bakery….

Time is flying but I want to take the time to thank you for your business "specifically", the one for Mother's day and Father's day. We know that thanks to you, we made a lot of Mom and Dad happy those days, so thank you.

Now as far as pastries, "La Peche bourdaloue" (peach bourdaloue tart: peach and almond cream) and "The Tropical" (mango fruit passion mousse, garnish with bananas sautéed in a caramel sauce and decorated with a chocolate Palm tree and fresh fruit) are back.

The "Baba au Rhum" also is making a come back with a new recipe which makes the Baba "spongier" of course.
Rhum lovers, this one is for you (do not give that one to a child)!

And a new one called "Cocopassion" which is a coconut mousse filled with chocolate ganache and a sponge soaked with passion fruit puree, Mmm very good, perfect for this hot summer.
We have a few things in our lunch menu that are making a come back as well, like the taboulet salad, the fresh Mozzarella and Tomato salad and starting next week the beef mode will replace the beef bourguignon.

The tartine Corse also has been replaced by the tartine Provencale and we make those with our baguettes spread with olive oil, tapenade (olive spread) and garnish with tomato, fresh mozzarella and sprinkle with a little bit of Herbes de Provence. The baguettes are baked crispy and served with a salad and a few Kalamata olives.

So now I just gave you more reasons to come and visit us this summer.

A bientôt

Luc and Danielle

Bonjour,

Mother's day weekend is here and let me tell you, we really went out our way to make sure that every mom would be please to receive one of our creations.

You could think that I am bragging too much about our desserts and chocolates but since all 3 moms working here, Benedicte, Chantal and Danielle were impressed with our creations this year, and believe me it is not easy to impress them, I can honestly say that you will be impressed too.

As far as chocolate we did what we call Mommy's purse and it really look like a purse entirely made of semi-sweet chocolate and milk chocolate. It is garnished with 4 heart shaped linzer cookies. We also have "Mommy's high heel shoe" and that is entirely made of milk chocolate and garnished with an assortment of cookies.

Please take a look at our website: http://www.douceurdefrance.com.

As far as dessert we are making a fresh fruit tart with a amaretto cream rose in the middle, very pretty and we also have our traditional Mother's day hat made of white chocolate vanilla cream, genoise and fresh strawberries.

Don't forget all the other cookies, desserts that I can assure you will be a Mommy pleaser.
See you soon and Happy Mother's day

As Danielle is reminding me, St Valentine's Day is coming in just a few days. Now I don't know if it is a reminder to get something for her or just to send out my newsletter.

But as you can imagine we all have been working very hard here at Douceur de France so you can find something sweet for the person you love.

From our chocolate candy to our linzer and sugar cookies and our pastries of course….

You have got to check out the "French Kiss" with a vanilla bavarois, fresh raspberries and the genoise; or "les amoureux": two hearts shaped individual pastries sitting on an elegant almond cookie.

Our Chef Sebastien has come up with a "Verrine," which is a pastry served in a glass. We named the Verrine "Mancelle" and it is filled with a layer of chocolate chantilly, a layer of raspberry caramel coulis, and a layer of vanilla sabayon plus our Valentine decorations: it is just delicious.

We have also changed the Croissant Monsieur to a "Croque Monsieur": it is pretty much the same except we switch the croissant to a bread called "pain de mie," and it is a lot closer to the real Croque monsieur that you can have in France.

Of course everything in our bakery is made from scratch and with love, so where else would you go to get something sweet for your Valentine…

And do not worry; I will get something for Danielle as well.
Happy Valentine's Day

Luc

Bonne Année!

I know it is late to wish you a Happy New Year but better late than never.

I really want to say we appreciate your support, your nice comment and your business.

2007 was a tremendous year and even if you hear me complain all the time because I work too much, I really mean "Thank you for the opportunity to bring a little bit of France in your plate".

As usual every beginning of the year, our main work is "la galette des rois", the King's cake and the New Orleans King's cake and we sell them from Epiphanie (1st week-end of January) to Mardi Gras which is the 5th of February this year (http://www.douceurdefrance.com/kingscake.htm).

Chef Sébastien made very flavorful "guimauve" knows as marshmallow, some with raspberry purée and some with a mix of mango and passion fruit purée and those are delicious.

We also work on our Valentine's chocolate, Valentine's cookie and we have a lot of surprise for your Valentine's dessert as well…

I will write to you soon to tell you more about it.

Merci

Luc

Bonjour,

I know, it's been too long since our last "newsletter" but we went through this hot summer like none other.
First of all, on a personal note, Danielle and I organized a big party in France on July 7th to celebrate our 15 year anniversary and our 40th Birthday. So we had our families and friends (about 250 guests) to celebrate with us. It was very tiring but a lot of fun to see everybody at once.
Now for everybody who knows Danielle, you all know that being married her for 15 years had to require me a lot of strength, being a yes man is not that easy and I don't want to elaborate too much on what I have to go through to keep that marriage together but next time you see me, just shake my hand and wish me good luck for the next 15 years.

As far as our bakery goes, we have been blessed with the media this summer, specifically from the Atlanta Magazine who ranked us in their top 100 restaurants: it is always nice to be recognize for our work by food critics (http://www.douceurdefrance.com/mdj.html).

We also have a new French pastry chef, his name is Sebastien Sauvage, he is here for a year: and even though he has a very loud laugh which can be annoying at times, he seems to have a lot of good new ideas for our pastries and cookies,… be ready.

We are already working on our Halloween specialties and are making change on our menu for this fall and winter. And I promise, you won't have to wait as long for the next newsletter.

Merci beaucoup.
Luc

Bonjour, 

This week-end is Maman's day and if you ever get short of ideas or if you want to add a complimentary sweet gift to your Mom, or yourself, Douceur de France is the place for your final surprise.

We have our traditional Maman's hat, made of genoise, vanilla cream, fresh strawberries and white chocolate, we are also doing a strawberry tart filled with almond cream, lemon curd and strawberries of course and the heart linzer cookies, the chocolate truffles and many, many other sweets…:http://www.douceurdefrance.com/mothersday.htm

As far as the lunch menu goes, the beef mode and the taboulé are back and we will also be serving our "assiette de charcuterie" which will be composed of pâté de campagne, rillettes de porc and rosette de Lyon (dry sausage): http://www.douceurdefrance.com/menu_today.htm.

As always we want to take the opportunity to thank you for your business and Happy Mother's day. 
 
A bientôt, 
Luc and Danielle

Bonjour,

I know, it's been a while since my last newsletters, and I hope everybody is doing fine. It's been so long that I didn't thank you for all the extra business you gave us for Valentine's day.

But enough of the past, this weekend we are celebrating St Patrick's day and the luck of the Irish "our almost next door neighbor". You can check on our website what we have done to celebrate St Patty.

Last month, my parents came to visit us. As usual my dad spent a lot of time at Home Depot and my mom spent a lot of time in the kitchen, and add a new preserve to the shelves, a "peach and raspberry preserve" and she also made something unique "les rillettes de porc". They are made by cooking the meat slowly in a lot of fat until it's very tender, at least four hours, shredding it, and then mixing in enough of the cooking fat to form a paste and you add different spice to it. Once cold you spread it on slices of baguette, and it is delicious. So they are gone now but she left her recipes and the jars of rillettes are available for you.

If lately I see a lot of rabbits in my dreams, it is not because of my mom delicious dish called "rabbit with Dijon mustard" but because we are getting ready for Easter. You can see already some of the creations we have done so far but I will tell you more later.

Merci et a bientot.

Danielle & Luc

Hot news from DDF!

After years of demanding, begging, pleading and dying to get the "Baba au Rhum", it's finally available at Douceur de France.

Danielle won again and our Chef Frédéric came up with a perfect recipe. He is the "Baba Master….". For those who don't know what "the Baba au Rhum" is, let me explain. It is a classic French pastry. This individual pastry is a cross between sponge and a brioche, and delightfully soaked with a light Rhum syrup and topped with light whipped cream, and it's one of my favorites. Now it is up to you to come and try it. It definitely will be a nice addition to your Christmas goodies.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Danielle and Luc

Bonjour,

This is just a reminder. Do not forget to place your order for Thanksgiving!

We will be closed Thursday the 23rd.

Oh yes, Betty made me buy dishes to bake the crème brulée in it. So we will no longer serve the crème brulée in a crust, but come try the new version. They are now done the way they are supposed to be.

Go check our Thanksgiving specials on our website: http://www.douceurdefrance.com/thanksgiving.htm

Enjoy your Holidays.

A bientot (see you soon) and Happy Thanksgiving.
 

Danielle and Luc

Bonjour, And you all thought I forgot about you…..
Well, thanks to the webmaster's pressure, the newsletter is back and back with a lot of news.

I don't know if you have been here lately but we have changed few items in the lunch menu: . the beef bourguignon is back and we are doing a lentil salad topped with ham, bacon and parsley; . we also replaced the T.M.B. Panini by a Turkey Dijon Panini;

you got to try all of these!

Since spring I have been experiencing with preserves and I am not shy to say I am quite happy with the result, thanks to my mom. So you can see on the shelves different flavor like " peach and lavender", "strawberries rhubarb", "4 berries" and last but not least: "cranberry orange and ginger". Oh what a perfect timing for your thanksgiving dinner!

Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie and pumpkin crème brûlée are back of course. We are doing the stollen already and a tart we haven't done here before the "Linzer". We are also doing our chocolates candies, sugar cookies and Danielle came up with nice gift baskets.

Anyway plenty of reasons to do a little trip to Douceur de France so, "A bientôt !".

P.S: Please write us back if you have any suggestions or critics.

Merci

Danielle & Luc

Bonjour, I hope you are enjoying the summer as much as I do. We have a lot of new items on the lunch menu some that made a comeback like the Panini T.M.B., "the Taboulé' and "the tomate mozzarella" and others totally new like "the Beef Mode" and the sandwich "Crudités".

But we also have new pastries to go along with summer like the Tropical, a mango passion fruit mousse, the Exotic Island, a coconut and lime mousse and the very new "Fraicheur" a strawberry and mint mousse. Oh I almost forgot we're also starting to serve a French classic, "the Profiteroles", puff pastry filled with vanilla ice cream covered with a hot chocolate sauce and sliced almond roasted.

So now I am sure you will enjoy summer as much as I do.

Au revoir et à bientôt. Danielle et Luc

Bonne année, Happy new year !

We are not yet in 2006, but our King's cake and New Year's cake are already available,
check our website to have a look:

King's cake: http://www.douceurdefrance.com/new.htm#king
New year's cake: http://www.douceurdefrance.com/new.htm#new

Have a wonderful new year's eve,

See you soon,

Danielle and Luc

Bonjour, et Joyeuses Fêtes!

We are finally ready with our Chrismas specialities: of course, the "bûche de Noël" is available, Christmas chocolate lollipops, chocolate truffles, Christmas cookies, Meringue Santa Claus, petits fours, ...
And this year, our young Chef "Cap'tain Flam" Gregoire came up with some neat chocolate moldings.

You can see all these specialities on our website: http://www.douceurdefrance.com/christmas.htm

We are also working on a "new" new year's cake which will be followed by the traditional French King's cake and New Orleans King's cake.

We have a new lunch item inspired by "hair in the wind" Betty (you've seen her serve you) called " Les tartines Corses (Corsican tartine)" and that is pretty, pretty good: http://www.douceurdefrance.com/new.htm#corse

All this to tell you also that Danielle and I are very proud of the work of our team, they are the ones who really make Douceur De France a decent Bakery.

So un grand merci (a big thank you!) to them and a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you,

See you soon,

Danielle et Luc

Bonjour,

Can you believe it? Thanksgiving will be here in less than 2 weeks….
This year we have created a new cake for Thanksgiving that we call “autumn leaves” and I’m very proud of it. More because of the design I guess (see picture) but it is a good one filled with supreme vanilla cream and cranberry coulis. You got to try it.
We are also doing the pumpkin crème brulee; we’ve been doing it for the past 6 years and always had a lot of success with it.
I just finish my first batch of Stollen, even if it is traditional bread offered during Christmas time in Germany. This sweet bread will fit perfectly on your Thanksgiving table. Ask for a sample when you come to the bakery….
What else? Yes different chocolate candies, pumpkin bread, sour cream pound cake, croissants, and breads.
I think we have a complete line of desserts for your Thanksgiving and all those products are made at Douceur de France from scratch.
Oh, almost forgot Danielle came up with a gift basket. I called it “The people you like very much gift basket” and she liked that name. And I asked her if she would do a “The people you don’t like as much gift basket” and she looked at me as if I was crazy. I didn’t insist and went back to work…

See you soon,

Danielle and Luc

Bonjour, (Part 2)

As promise I wanted to tell you about some changes with our lunch menu.

First of all we are serving the "Beef Bourguignon". This stew is a well-known French classic, slowly cooked in Burgundy wine with bacon, onions and mushrooms, and so far we had a lot of success with it.

We are also serving the "real" Salade Niçoise. I insist on the word "real" because I must have asked at least 10 peoples from the city of Nice what the real Salade Niçoise was and I had 10 different answers and a lot of fight about who had the real one or not.

So I decided to do my own "real" Salade Niçoise with olives, tuna, green beans, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs and red onions.

We have the "Veggie Panini" with roasted portabella mushrooms, roasted zucchinis, tomatoes and provolone cheese.

After some request we started to sell the homemade "strawberry and rhubarb preserve" that we served with the omelets for breakfast.

As always we appreciate your business. We have more and more customers coming for breakfast and lunch, and we know that a big part of our success is "YOU" spreading good words about Douceur de France, so………

Merci beaucoup.

Danielle et Luc Beaudet

Look for our Thanksgiving special, bientôt (soon)

Revoilà le temps des Citrouilles…… (part 1)

Yes, pumpkins are everywhere, and Douceur de France is no exceptions. Even if we couldn't make up a Pumpkin Patch in our parking lot (there is no room for that…), there are some new pastries, cakes, chocolates and cookies made around the themes of Halloween and the pumpkins.

Here is a list:

* pumpkin meringue (lemon flavor)
* Pumpkin Happy face (big cookie)
* Pumpkin sugar cookie
* Halloween assorted sugar cookie
* Halloween chocolate coffin (filled with different chocolate candies)
* Halloween chocolate pumpkin (filled with different chocolate candies)
* Pumpkin bread
* Pumpkin crème brulée
* And the classic Pumpkin pie.

Oh la la, that was a long list to write but believe me it took longer to make all of this. But we like what we do and hopefully you will like them too.

Some pictures of those items will follow soon on the web and also the part 2 of the newsletter will be more dedicated to our lunch menu. Some changes are coming soon.

A bientot.
Danielle et Luc

First, Danielle and I would like to take this opportunity to tell you how proud you make us feel by coming back to our bakery and showing your appreciation for our food and baked goods.

Every July, we take some time off to go visit our families in France. This also gives us a chance to spy on our friends who own pastry shops as well. This year we bought some new molds to have new variety of pastry shapes in our showcases.

Also, our "Macaron de Paris" is back! In Paris these hamburger "look-a-like" cookies are seen in every reputable pastry shop, crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle, these Macarons come in different colors and flavors.

Since, It is the season of delicious peaches, we have started the "Bourdaloue Peach Tarte". This tart consists of fresh peaches cooked in a sugar dough crust and almond cream. Yum!

And the latest and our webmaster favorite "the Tarte Tatin". This tart is a French classic pastry baked with a whole apple soaked in caramel and butter over a period of an hour.

Ask for "the Tarte Tatin" to be served warm with whipped cream….. I will tell you, it will melt in your mouth.

We would like to have any input and opinions on the format of this newsletter, and what you would like to see at Douceur de France.

Merci beaucoup.

We think that the next newsletter will be shorter.

A bientot.
Danielle et Luc