This guest post is from Helene, a French mom living in England, who has a great blog with amazing photos: Croque Maman! Her recipe is a new twist on an old French favourite: “la tartine.” Bon appétit!

Tartine aux copeaux de chocolat

When Karen asked me to write a post for her blog I was over the moon.

I have always been fascinated by cultural differences but it is only when I gave birth to my children in the UK that I realised the depth of them.

As a French woman who has always been passionate about food I was keen to understand what French mums were doing versus other mums… I read most books on the topic including Karen’s (and I can’t wait for her new book!) and Pamela Druckerman’s. In the end, I keep identifying/listing differences and I am picking what I think is best in each culture to create my own 🙂

Through my blog, Croque-Maman, I want to share what French mums cook, how they place food at the heart of family life and my journey to pass on my love of food to my children with as much home cooking as possible.

One thing that I loved when being a child was the goûter, the 4pm snack. Yes as Karen’s readers you would know that in France children only have four windows of opportunities to eat: breakfast, lunch, goûter (not for adults) and dinner. It could sound like French parents are starving their children 🙂 but my toddler boys love that routine and as they only have one snack time a day we can indulge a little bit more!

This goûter was a clear favourite of mine when I was a child and as my little ones appear to be chocolate lovers I have no doubt that it will be in their top 5 goûters soon! I always try to include at least two of the followings when I do the boys’ goûter: a dairy product, carbs and/or a portion of fruits or vegetables. As such I would serve a fruit before this. Besides, this is quite a big boys’ portion, as they are currently 20-month-old I would maybe give them ¼ of this.

We would sometimes substitute the chocolate shavings by hot chocolate powder mix and use cream cheese instead of butter, (as I did when I took the picture) which would count as a dairy product then… tick!

Tartine aux copeaux de chocolat (Tartine with chocolate shavings)

Serves: 2

Prep time: 5mn

Ingredients

- a piece of baguette (about 10cm)

- 10g butter (or 35g cream cheese)

- 40g chocolate, shaved

Instructions

1. Half the piece of baguette

2. Spread the cream cheese evenly on both sides and sprinkle with the chocolate shavings

Bon appétit!

Two of my most popular posts so far are the recipe of my saumon en papillote and my second French mum interview: Sandrine and her “tarte” au chocolat. Have a quick look and don’t miss out on all my upcoming French top tricks, tips and recipes by registering to my free newsletter on Croque-Maman’s homepage or by following me through Croque-Maman’s Facebook page.