Thursday, March 31, 2011

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!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

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.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

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!

Monday, February 21, 2011

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!

Friday, February 18, 2011

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.

Monday, February 14, 2011

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.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

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.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

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!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Ice Cream Sandwiches


After eating lunch at The Meatball Shop, we ordered four Ice Cream Sandwiches so we could try all the combinations of cookie and ice cream flavors. There was Chocolate Chip with Mint Ice Cream, Chocolate Chip with Vanilla Ice Cream, Peanut Butter with Chocolate Ice Cream, and Chocolate Fudge with Oatmeal Ice Cream (this was my favorite!). They were all so great, and it was fun to be able to mix and match your picks!

Chocolate Pears


Another gift box that I took from my Father was this set of Pear Chocolates from Harry & David. They are best known for their fresh pears, so these chocolates perfectly represented their company. Each one is centered with a different filling, such as Pear Brandy, 5 Spices, Raspberry Creme.. They were all delicious.

Payard


Payard is one of the great French bakeries of New York City, and since they just opened a small cafe in the Plaza, I had to try something...This was a very decadent triple chocolate mousse. Despite the high price, it was one of the best things I've ever had. First of all, anything topped with a mini macaron has me sold, but the actual quality of all the chocolate layers were beyond amazing.


In the center of all the mousse was a thin caramel crisp, a mini cookie and an mini brownie. This brownie alone was incredible! It was all topped with a chocolate ganache. YUM.


One of the best things about the Holidays is gift baskets of food! My father received this as a gift, so clearly I needed to claim it as my own. I tried every flavor, which ranged from Cinnamon Ganache to Earl Grey to my favorite Praline... Can't go wrong with any of them!

Momofuku Truffles


When I saw a Momofuku bar opened uptown I had to try just a little taste of something.. These truffles were perfect!


They were very similar to my own Funfetti cake balls, but these were a little more crumbly, like coffee cake.

S'Mores Cupcakes


A friend brought these cupcakes over from Gotta Have S'More and they were such an unusual treat!


The cake part is made of graham crackers, the consistency is very much like the bottom of a cheesecake - very crumbly. The base is dipped in some kinda of green candy melt, to hold it all together. In the middle of the cake is a layer of chocolate, much like a Hershey bar. And finally on the very top is a torched marshmallow. It was delicious. Plus, nothing beats Christmas decorations.. I ate that part too...

DeLuscious


I've been hearing a lot about these DeLuscious cookies, so I was glad when I was finally able to try one!


It is very similar to the Clementine chocolate chip, in the way they are both bendy, but this was thicker. It was pretty good.. There are so many more flavors I need to try!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Macaron Café

I think I can officially say French Macaron's are my favorite little treats, so when I stumbled upon the Macaron Café I was very excited.

It's a very small but adorable space, fully decorated in pink and white.

They had one of the largest varieties of macaron flavors I'd ever seen.

I loved all of their boxes and packaging, it's very girly, and their modernized Marie Antoinette is the perfect logo.

These macaron's are not as amazing as Ladurée's or even Paulettes, but they were great! I liked the raspberry a lot.