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. 

Holiday Party

Last weekend my roommates and I held our second annual holiday party, where I overdecorated our tree with Candy Land themed ornaments.

Gingerbread Village

Cozy Decorations

Candy from Dylan's

Champagne with Pomegranate Seeds

Savory Table 

Caprese Skewers

Sweet Table

Snowflake Sugar Cookies 

Funfetti Cupcakes

Peppermint Oreo Balls

Of course we had way to much food, and so many left overs, but it was so hard to limit ourselves we got excited!  Everything turned out great and I can't wait to do it again next year.  

Happy Holidays!

Candy Land Nails

This year's Christmas decorating theme is Candy Land, so naturally I had to get my nails done to match!

My manicurist at Marie Nails did such a great job, they look good enough to eat!

Sotto13

While in New York over Thanksgiving I went to a new Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village called Sotto13.  The food was all incredible. We ordered chick pea fries, brussels sprouts, two pizzas and an amazing butternut squash sage cannelloni.  

This was the flourless chocolate cake with sea salt and olive oil.  It was great, really dense and rich but I would not call it a cake, it was just like a chocolate bar.

The pear strudel was my favorite.  It was perfect for a cozy fall night, and served with delicious cinnamon gelato.

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!