The 2011 Grilled Cheese Invitational

This was the second year I went to the Grilled Cheese Invitational in Downtown LA, and it was amazing. I have so much to share, but I'll keep it simple. While I only voted for a few of the actual competitors, I had a couple winners of my own...

{Click on the Images to Enlarge}

The Vendors

The Dogtown Truck

The California Dog, Avocado, Fried Onion, Arugula, Tomatos, Basil Aioli - My Favorite Hot Dog

Grub

Betty Fraser, from Top Chef and Owner of Grub, Serving her Grilled Cheese


Homemade Ginger Ale, Grilled Cheese with Dill, and Tomato Soup *WINNER*


The Fosse Cookie: Chocolate Chip with Potato Chips

Tillamook

Three Cheese

Campanille

Burrata with Pesto and Cherry Tomatoes


Assorted Spicy Meats


The Feast Truck

Tomato Basil


Turkey, Pepper Jack, Stuffing and Cranberry Aioli *WINNER*


Apple Pie


The Competition
There were several people competing, but it was such a mob scene I was only able to taste a few...














The Scene:


Grilled Cheese Inspired Poetry Contests


Free Water, very necessary


The Crowds


Free Samples


Chef Ricardo Zarate in the Competition, who was just named Best New Chef by Food & Wine


Me with the Tillamook mascot

Brownie Nut Sundae

This Sundae from South Beverly Grill is so good! The problem is, I always eat so much for my meal there, that I usually don't have enough room for this. Anyway, it's so good. The brownie itself is served warm, it's super dense and topped with caramel and nuts. The vanilla bean ice cream is thick and creamy, and the caramel and creme garnish just completes the dish.

The Jewish Macaroon

While French Macarons come first in my book, the coconut kind, or Jewish Macaroon as I call them, are still amazing.



This one from La Provence (ol' faithful), is particularly great. Not only is it covered with fresh chocolate, but it's stuffed with a million chocolate chips. It was so soft and flavorful.

My Jelly Belly Cupcake Challenge

Jelly Belly is hosting a contest for best cupcake decorating ideas, so here is my entry:



First I baked a bunch of mini cupcakes and regular sizes cupcakes, made from Duncan Hines box mix.



We sorted the Jelly Bellys...



... and began to layout the design.



Three pounds of Jelly Bellys later, we completed the "UPcakes"

Please help us win by VOTING HERE!

A Log In is required, but it's super easy. Once you're in you can vote once a day!!

Chocolate Cylinder

This was amazing. This chocolate cylinder from Gordon Ramsey at The London was filled with a chocolate mousse, pecans, bananas and toasted marshmallow. The side of ice cream was salted pecan.



It sort of tasted like a fancy Snickers bar, but way better. With every bite, I needed two more.

Holsteins Cake Pops

While in Vegas we ate at Holsteins for a casual dinner, and I couldn't help but drool over their elaborate "Lollipop" menu. I picked two to try, a chocolate brownie and a red velvet. They were super cute and pretty good, but still nothing top's Sweet E's in LA.

King Cake

My friend sent me this amazing King Cake right from New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I'd never seen one before, so I was so excited!



It's sort of like a giant Cinnabon, but with a slightly more croissant-like texture and with a thin layer of jelly. The fun thing about this cake was that you get to decorate it yourself. The icing was insane, so gooey and perfectly sweet. It came with the three traditional Mardi Gras colors of crystal sugars to decorate the icing.



The best part, theres a little baby doll inside. If you find it, good luck for the year!

A Cookie In A Cookie

WARNING: Fat Kid Alert. I saw this on one of the other many food blogs I read, and felt it was perfect to make on a rainy night. A giant chocolate chip cookie stuffed with an Oreo - what sounds more amazing?!


First take an Oreo and lump about one table spoon of cookie dough on each side. You have to eyeball the right amount.


Too much cookie dough will create a flying saucer effect, which is just a waste! You'll see what I mean below.


Place them all on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 min, until golden brown.


They spread a lot in the oven. This is why you don't want to overdo it on the outer layer of dough.


The end result is insane. One of these is about equivalent to three cookies... but SO worth it. The Oreo inside gets soft, and surprisingly you can taste both flavors of cookies. I really can't verbalize how good this is.

Simple Things Mini Pies

These mini pies from Simple Things are so cute and tasty! I picked up one of each flavor, which included: Blueberry, Cherry, Lemon, Keylime, Peanut Butter Chocolate, Banana Toffee and Chocolate Mud Pie. I love this idea of mini pies, because I always feel overwhelmed by a pie's filling, especially when it comes to fruit pies. This was the perfect portion! Even though they are small, they are packed with flavor. The blueberry was like a fresh muffin, the peanut butter like a Reeses, and the mud pie like a molten chocolate cake. My favorite, however, was the "Banoffee". The toffee creme filling was dense and gooey which was a nice contrast to the crumbly graham cracker crust. Right in the middle of it all, under some whipped cream, were some banana slices. It was SO amazing, that one I would eat in a full size..

Home Made Farm Brownies

For the Oscars my friend's mother made a batch of The Farm's famous brownie. They were so good, and tasted just like the original. However, what I liked better about these was the fact that they were cut into bite size pieces, so I had a few... The real Farm brownies are huge, so I feel guilty eating the whole thing!

Yoko Moko Cigars

I was given these Yoko Moko chocolate cigars as a birthday gift, and they are so amazing! First of all, they are beautifully packaged in a red tin, individually wrapped and placed in between layers of paper.



The cookie itself is like a buttery shortbread, but thin and flakey. It's centered with a creamy milk chocolate. It's so good, you can't just eat one.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

I had never had a sticky toffee pudding before, and this one from Cleo was perfect for my first time. It was a toffee flavored spongy cake topped with candied pecans and vanilla ice cream. Of course the caramel crisp on top was amazing.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

I'm usually never that into bread pudding, but this chocolate one from Comme Ça was much more like a brownie sundae. It was super dense and gooey inside, I would highly recommend this!

Paulette's Again

Until LaDurée opens in America, I'll keep eating Paulette's macarons. I really can't get enough..


And when getting a box of SIX, I have to nibble at them all first so I can figure out which I like best. I'm a passionfruit junkie, but in this box the coconut may have been the winner!

Mini Cupcakes

I know I have written about Vanilla Bake Shop before, but I got these for my birthday and had to share! They are completely assorted, and ALL amazing. Mini cupcakes are the best, because you can try all the flavors!


This is the one that stood out the most to me. It caught me completely off guard! It was a vanilla cupcake stuffed with passion fruit filling and topped with a whipped blackberry frosting. So good.

Reeces Heart

I never write about mass-produced commercial desserts, because that's boring.. But, this year I tried a Reece's heart for Valentine's Day and it was SO good! Reece's holiday treats are always the best because you know they are fresh!


It was so cute and shaped like a box of chocolates!


Due to the massive size of this thing, there was so much peanut butter filling, which made it SO good. The outer chocolate shell was really thick too, which balanced out the salty center perfectly.

Stuffed French Toast

This weekend I ate breakfast at Toast and ordered the world. This french toast stood out by far, it was insane!


Fluffy pieces of bread layered with banana pudding, caramalized bananas and walnuts. It was as if you took the french toast you used to know and smothered it in Magnolia's banana pudding (not a bad idea!..)

White Chocolate Truffle Lava Cake

On New Years Eve I had dinner at Tres, a chic yet cozy tapas style restaurant in the lobby of the SLS hotel. All the food was incredible, but one friend ordered the special truffle preset menu, which included this amazing little dessert. Don't let the size fool you, it was insanely rich. The chocolate lava cake was dense and dark, and it sat on top of a white chocolate truffle cream. It was to die for.

My Homemade Rainbow Cookies

Rainbow cookies are a childhood favorite of both mine and my cousin's, so we decided to make them from scratch over Christmas. It's the perfect treat to celebrate my 100th blog post! Making these cookies was somewhat of an elaborate process, but they turned out great.


The whipped egg whites on the left, and the almond paste based batter on the right, before they were combined.


The batter was separated into thirds, and died a different color for each layer.


Into the oven, and slightly undercooked to keep moist.


Once cooled, raspberry preserves are spread on the bottom and middle layer cakes.


Melted semi-sweet chocolate on the top, and then once cooled, on the bottom too!


The perfect seven layer rainbow cookie!