Baby Shower!

I was so excited to host my first baby shower, along with a couple other of the mother-to-be's friends. I think we did a great job with so many little details! 

The candy containers and table topper toys were so cute!

You can never have too many colorful straws, they add such a nice touch to a plastic party cup.

I ordered in catering from Bagel Broker and Nagila, both which were delicious. 

All the Nagila salads were so fresh and perfect for an early afternoon lunch.

You can never have too many sweets.

I couldn't resist, I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was hilarious.  Ice ice baby. 

Me and the mom-to-be!

Beignet's At Home

While in New Orleans I picked up a box of Cafe Du Monde's famous Beignet mix.

It was not easy, it took several tries to get the beignets to puff the right way, the secret is hot hot hot oil.  When you think its hot enough, wait and let it get even hotter! The oil also needs to be deep enough so the dough can really float around.

They turned out great!! Such a unique treat to make at home, can't wait to buy more mix!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from Cleveland!! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The Bun Shop

Last week I went to The Bun Shop where the desserts are a big part of the experience.  The on the left is the Custard Bun, which is a sweet version of the standard bun, filled with custard and topped with salted caramel sauce, sitting on popcorn. It was delicious, but I could do without the popcorn.  On the right is their Fried Oreos with green tea ice cream.  Its impossible to go wrong with oreos, they're amazing, but I would have paired them with vanilla ice cream. 

Fōnuts

I recently tried another fōnut which was one of their yeast based steamed donuts.  It was cinnoman sugar but sort of tasted like apples... It was great!! 

Milk Jar Cookies

I finally tried Milk Jar after hearing how amazing it was, and I am certainly into it. It still not my favorite cookie, but pretty awesome.  Above is the Rocky Road, my favorite out of the ones I tried - super chocolatey!

This is the chocolate chip walnut which somewhat reminded me of the Levain cookie.

This was the pecan caramel chocolate cookie, super sweet and gooey!

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.  

Sycamore Kitchen

I finally went to Sycamore Kitchen for the first time today and died a little.  I ordered a salad, but couldn't resist just trying a little taste of everything!  I was seriously overwhelmed with how amazing these bakery items all were.  

This Salted Caramel Pecan Babka Roll was insane.  Still a little warm, it was like a Cinnabon on crack. 

I ordered a specialty coffee, the Vanilla Cafetico, which was good but the size of a Dixie cup. 

This Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge Cookie was pretty great - like a lighter, nuttier version of the Ooey Gooey cookie from Milk.

This Mini Chocolate Chip "Stump" Cake was a coffee milk chocolate fluffy cupcake with a marshmallow/meringue type frosting on top.  It was great, and just the right size.

Not a sweet, but out of control!  This Tart layered perfectly roasted tomatoes and cheese on top of caramelized onions on a flakey pastry dough.  I could eat this everyday. 

Pastry Class: Cakes

On my last day of Pastry Class we made two different cakes and learned some very basic decorating techniques.  I am so sad this series is over, and even more sad that I have to wait for Pro Pastry 2 to be on a Sunday again.  In the meantime, I'm really excited about trying new recipes from the CIA book we were given in class. 

This is a Hot Milk Cake adapted from the Miette book.  It's a pretty standard white cake, but using a cup of milk allows the very wet batter to create a spongy cake.

We baked two cakes, trimmed town the tops and layered them with Italian (egg white meringue) Buttercream.  I made two flavors: Strawberry for the center and Almond for the Icing. While I did love how this turned out, I think I prefer regular buttercream to Italian, this was a little over the top, even for me.

I used these heart shaped sprinkles to cover up and imperfections in my side frosting job.  That was not easy!  One trick I learned was to coat the cake in a very thin layer of frosting first and stick it in the fridge to harden.  This will allow the rest of the frosting you put on to spread around more evenly. 

We also made a Chocolate Decedent cake that was pretty amazing.  We practiced slicing the cake in half here, look how well  I did! 

I used a basic dark chocolate ganache as a frosting, which I layered on thick.

It turned out really well.  I could put this ganache on everything. 

For More Recipes and Information Check Out The Gourmandise School 

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