Red for Valentine’s Day: Eating and Buying

We’re in the home stretch for Valentine’s day.  Start your engines for present time.  I am personally a fan of the homemade Valentine’s day gifts, especially homemade baked goods.  You know, something small, a token to say “I am thinking of you,” “you’re sweet,” “I love you so I slaved in the kitchen all day.” Here are some ambitious and adorable Valentine’s day baking ideas that would be perfect for next week such as Martha Stewart’s heart shaped pancakes for a V-day morning surprise or Love and Olive Oil’s Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream or Camille Styles Red White Strawberry Cream cake and finally Joy the Baker’s Chocolate Beet cake with Beet Frosting.  Fiance take note, I will gladly accept any of the aforementioned desserts! 🙂

On another note, it is interesting to observe how V-day crazy, some cities go around promoting gifts, sweets and chocolates for the holiday.  I have noticed a couple heart shaped items in Prague such as cookies and candies but nothing over the top.  Maybe Valentine’s day is not a big here.  Oh well, either way, on the “buying side” here are some more ideas for you all.

Gingerbread Cookie Packaging

This week, I am teaching two classes on products and new product development.  In light of the theme of my class, I wanted to share an example that I found while researching content.

I love the packaging for Kanniston Leipomo’s Christmas gingerbread.  The minimalist packaging demonstrates exactly how effective market research can be in terms of influencing package design and the success of the product.  The package design company took the time to examine the attitudes, cultural meaning and behaviours of the customers toward gingerbread and gingerbread consumption over the holidays.    The result is a simple, luxurious package, where you clearly know what you are purchasing. Additionally, the packaging incorporates elements of Scandinavian heritage represented by the heart shaped gingerbread.

The package design was created by Packlab Partners in Finland for Kanniston Leipomo, a bakery that has been around since 1914 in Helsinki.

both photos via Packaging of the World

Fun Items for a Tabletop

Here are my favourite items for a tabletop right now!  I think they should all be in my house, on reserve so I can access them at whim and decorate!!  Happy Thursday. The sun is shining and I am about to hit the road for Berlin.

Love This: Metallic

I am off to Berlin on Thursday for the weekend to dine on delicious food and take in some more sights around the city.  I look forward to reporting back on my finds next week but don’t worry, still more to come this week.  The temperature has finally dropped in Prague, so I am doing my best to find reasons to hibernate and only come out for air when the sun is shining in the sky for warmth or to take a long walk.

I love the different metallic characteristics seen in the colour pallet of products below.  They remind me of winter, when everything is a bit more muted and less bright outside. The great thing about metal is its wide range of hues such as a mate metallic seen in the spoons and Nordicware baking sheet, to the shinier, bling of the Harry Winston ring, Alessi trivet and the DVF clutch!

I made flat chocolate chip cookies

My cookie making career has come full circle.  In the early days, inspired by the cafeteria cookies in Grade 7, my friends and I used to clamor for flat, gooey, semi-raw chocolate chip cookies.  And the funny thing, is that I remember our cookies that we baked, turned out just like the one’s at school-flat, gooey and undercooked.

Then I graduated to baking mounds of dense chocolate chip cookies that rose in the oven instead of spread out, which soon became my new favourite.  I scooped these cookies out in ice-cream scoops or by the quarter cup and molded the domes on the baking sheet.  However, I came full circle on Sunday when I tried a new recipe out of The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, which was a holiday gift from my sister-in-law-to-be.   When I was organizing my ingredients, for some reason I thought there was a lot of butter and a lot of brown sugar, but maybe it was because I haven’t baked chocolate chip cookies in a while.  It turns out, the batter was a bit on the sticky side and not the consistency I was used to working with so I added more flour.

The result, the recipe produced flat, chewy, gooey chocolate chip cookies (the first batch were semi-raw, a homage to the good old days) and they were tasty. The batch left my house this morning and were sent to the office and were gobbled up according to the reports.

Recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

225 g of butter
350 g of brown sugar
2 eggs (room temp)
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
400 g of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
2 1/2 tsp of baking soda
225 g of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F or 170 degrees C-

In a mixer, mix butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Scrape down bowl after each egg.  Add the vanilla, mix again. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl, mix and then add to wet ingredients.  Add chocolate chips and scoop out onto baking sheet.  I baked mine for 10 minutes and they were golden brown- but of course watch and adjust depending on your oven temperature.

Enjoy with milk!

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