Chocolate Truffles

These chocolate truffles are SO easy to make, and insanely delicious! 

They're basically ganache chilled, rolled and covered in cocoa powder.

Soufflés

Today in class we made soufflés, which were a little tricky but turned out well.  

The only problem is you have to eat them RIGHT away so they don't store well at all.  

This was a cheese and chive one, which was super sharp and smoky because of the gouda but pretty great.  

This was a classic chocolate soufflé which is never my favorite dessert, surprisingly, but it turned out well.  We poured creme anglaise over it which was delicious. 

Happy Valentines Day

These are a few of my favorite things...

Sweet Breads

Sticky buns, ready for glaze and the oven...

Out of the oven, flipped over... Pecan Cinnamon sticky buns, SO GOOD. 

Chocolate Babka I made in class, it was pretty but not nearly enough chocolate!

I made the Babka again at home with lots of chocolate and hazelnuts and it was much better. 

Marjolaine & Chocolate Soufflé Cake

Today's Pro Pastry class focused on egg-levened cakes.  AKA a lot of beating egg whites and using their fluffiness to structure the batters. 

I had no idea what a Marjolaine was before we made them so I wasn't even sure what it was supposed to look like, but when it came together i was so impressed.  This may be one of my favorite new desserts.  And coincidentally gluten free, for those who need something tasty without flour!  Using almond and hazelnut flours, this cake has an almost wafer-like texture with a delicate nutty flavor.  The coffee vanilla swiss buttercream layers and frosting makes it all melt in your mouth.  Seriously incredible. 

This chocolate soufflé cake, also gluten free, was super easy to make.  Tasted like a flour less chocolate cake but a little drier, less fudge.  The glaze was my favorite part. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a while, but wanted to share these chocolate strawberries I made! I bought huge organic strawberries from Whole Foods and dipped them in 65% dark Cordillera chocolate, some are topped with toffee.  Happy cheat day!! 

Stella Barra Hollywood

I only just discovered the new Stella Barra in Hollywood this week and I think it could be a game changer in that neighborhood.  I haven't tried the Pizzas yet but the bakery section is incredible.  Above is the Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookie.  It was pretty smokey but so moist and sweet.

This is the Flourless Chocolate Chip Cookie with Walnuts.  It's dense and chewy with the perfect crunch. 

And the winner...the Chocolate Chip Rice Krispies Treat cookie.  There was melted marshmallow everywhere!  That RKT flavor leaked through to the already amazing cookie base making it extra sweet.  Such a great combo idea I love it!

Salt & Straw

This Summer I have been craving ice cream more than ever and have discovered so many new companies!  The most exciting one so far has been Salt & Straw, a Portland based artisan ice cream shop. I love the homemade look of the packaging and the changing seasonal flavor options, they are so unique.  Most importantly, the quality of this ice cream is SO amazing.  The flavor shown above is the Sea Salt w/ Caramel Ribbons. So good.

 Clockwise: Ricotta Honey Lemon w/ Walnut Lace Cookies,  Pear w/ Blue Cheese, Freckled Woodblock Chocolate,  Olive Oil.

This flavor was my favorite! Almond Brittle w/ Salted Ganache. It's the perfect combo of creamy and crunchy.

Homemade Raspberry Macaroons

For Passover I wanted to try something new so I found this macaroon recipe in my Martha Stewart Living magazine.  They are super easy to make, and only use a few ingredients.  

The fresh raspberries add an amazing color, and a tart flavor. 

I also made a plain batch which are delicious.  It's always good to have variety.

Of course a macaroon isn't finished until dipped in chocolate. 

They turned out really well! Very tasty and super cute.  

Pastry Class: Cheesecakes

Week Seven of Pro Pastry I was all about Cheesecakes.  This was a little intimidating at first, but it was super fun and not too hard at all.  First we made our own graham crackers to use for the crusts of the cake.  Who knew this flavor comes from using molases?

Passion Fruit Cheesecake

You could use almost any flavor inside the cheesecake, you just have to be careful about how you incorporate it.  Using the passion fruit puree was very easy, just mixed in about 3 teaspoons and it really brightened up the cake. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake

This flavor was a little trickier since it's so dense.  I had to fold it in to a portion of the batter first, and then swirl that into the remainder of the batter. It was good but made the texture of the cake a little tougher, more like a fudge. 

For the Ricotta Cheesecakes we made our own Ricotta cheese which was also really easy.  It's just milk, cream and lemon juice! 

I really liked how these turned out, they are much lighter than the cream cheese version.  These mini cups also are the perfect portion.

I added some left over chocolate ganache, I couldn't resist...

For Recipes Check Out: The Gourmandise School

Pastry Class: Custards

Week four of my Pastry Class was all about learning how to make egg based desserts (I've never used so many egg yolks in my life). It might have been my favorite, and also most successful class yet.  This was the Butterscotch Pot du Creme topped with a little Sea Salt. I love using muscovado sugar to create a butterscotch flavor, it was seriously so good.

Chocolate Put du Creme.  This is always one of my favorite desserts to order at a restaurant, so I was really excited to make one of my own.  We used the dark 65% chocolate (which I also just purchased a ginormous box of), and it came out perfectly.  Dense yet fluffy with a bold bittersweet flavor. 

And for the winner: Creme Brûlée! I've probably eaten ten thousand creme brûlées in my life and never attempted to make it because I was always intimidated by the water bath and using a blow torch.  Turns out it's all super easy.  This was so delicious I ate the whole thing as soon as it was ready. It was silky smooth with such a rich amazing vanilla flavor. Of course the crispy crunchy sugar on top was incredible.  

Look at all the vanilla! Now that I know how to properly spit a bean I can't imagine I'll ever use extract again.  This was SO good, I can't wait to try making it at home. 

For Recipes Check Out: The Gourmandise School

Gourmandise School Pastry Class

  

This month I started the first level of the Pro Pastry Program at The Gourmandise School in Santa Monica and I LOVE it! I have already learned so much not only about baking and chemistry, but also about the history of the food industry.  My teacher is amazing and so far everything we've made has really turned out great.  This photo was from the first class where we talked about chocolate. We tasted several different percentages of chocolate, pure cocoa nibs and even cocoa butter (the white block in the middle) which was revolting.  I think my teacher might love chocolate as much as I do...

 Cheddar & Chive Biscuits, Lemon Poppy Seed Cake, Carrot Cake with Pistachios, Blueberry Muffins

 Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Homemade Toffee

Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dark Chocolate Brownies (severely undercooked and OUT OF CONTROL amazing)

"Lemon Bars" shaped as a cake, with Vanilla Meringue

I never like lemon desserts, ever, but something about this really stood out to me!  Maybe because we used very sweet Meyer lemons, but this was seriously an amazing dessert.  

The crust was salty and fluffy and filling was dense and sweet.  I was super excited to use a torch on the meringue!  

Arlington Club

 

While in New York for the holidays I stopped by the recently opened Arlington Club for some drinks and desserts.  I love ALL of the restaurants by the Tao Group so I was extremely excited to see their new steakhouse.  The space was so beautiful and the food looked amazing, I definitely have to go back for dinner.  This was the Peanut Butter Chocolate Bar which was served with milk popcorn ice cream.  It was so good!  It was like a Reese's version of the ABC Kitchen sundae. 

This Sticky Date Pudding was to die for!! It's not something I would normally order, but it was exceptional.  This blurry photo doesn't do it any justice.  It was served with ginger ice cream, kumquat toffee, and was topped with amazing crunchy candied nuts. 

Sweet! Candy Store

This week I went to Sweet! a candy store in the mall on Hollywood & Highland. It was MASSIVE! It felt like an emporium of treats and toys. I spent a good three hours in there looking around, there were probably ten different rooms to see, it was never-ending.  However, I didn't feel as charmed by it like you do when you walk into Dylan's.  The music, the lighting and the whole vibe was just dull. It was also worrisome how overstocked they are will ALL types of candy. There was everything from nostalgia candy, international treats, strange variations on classic favorites,  they even had rows and rows of regular Snickers.  I hope they sell enough of everything before they go stale.  They still had a lot of kinks to work out, but I do see a lot of potential! 

They had tons of different candy to pick yourself, but all the good stuff was behind the counter so they have to scoop it out for you.  I didn't like that you can't do this yourself, that's the exciting part. However, they did let me sample almost everything, so that was a perk. 

Jelly Belly Marilyn

They had lots of classic cookie jars, like Rosie

Chocolate Oscars

The largest gum ball machine I've ever seen

Chocolate Shoes

Sweet! houses the only Wonka store in the US

There were several artisan collections of chocolates that were all so beautiful. I tried six different flavors, some were good some were very strange. At this high price of $3 - $5 each, I would say skip this and buy the novelty items, like the Golden Egg!

A real chocolate Golden Egg!

Snozzberry Fudge - tastes JUST like Snozzberry

The Yucky Room 

I died

This was the best part of the whole store, and the real reason to go back.  Build your own chocloate bar at the Chocolate Lab.

I chose a dark chocolate bar, Nutella filling, glazed walnuts, graham crackers and toffee bits.  It was INSANE.  The quality of all the ingredients was really impressive.  I'd pay $8 for this one bar again in a heartbeat!