pancake factory

What is a girl to do when she is craving pancakes in Prague?  When palačinky, the Czech Republic’s answer to the pancake, are not enough and you are craving North American-style pancakes that are found flipping on every diner griddle on the continent on a Saturday and Sunday morning?  The solution, is the Pancake Factory.

Last week I was at the gym and was flipping through a Czech magazine that was left on a table and noticed a red advertisement that screamed for my attention.  The small box on the middle of the page contained two words that were heaven to my ears, “American and Russian pancakes.”  I was sold.  I scribbled down the website and went home to Google my find, “Pancake Factory, Prague.”  To my delight, I found the restaurant and it was only located 34 km south of Prague, in the village of Kamenice, which makes for a nice drive on a Saturday morning.

The Pancake Factory specializes in American and Russian style pancakes in addition to offering other non-pancake restaurant items like meat and fish.   This place is part bakery and part restaurant and is open from 11 am to 11pm.

On our pancake-seeking mission, we ordered banana pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, a mint tea and a cappuccino and I have to say, it was all pretty good.  The pancakes were light and fluffy and came with a side of two sauces, a raspberry sauce and a maple-esque caramel sauce.  The restaurant’s interior looks like a cottage with wood panels, samovars and other antiques displayed on the shelves and a fireplace in the back room.  There is also a play-pen section filled with toys for kids.  Our pancake breakfast was a fun experience and a beautiful, quick drive and I would totally recommend it to satiate your next pancake craving in Prague.

Amsterdam the sweet

I just returned from spending four days in Amsterdam touring wedding venues and really enjoyed the city. I have not been in Amsterdam since the summer of 2004 when I went with a friend on a Contiki tour of 10 cities in Europe, Amsterdam being one of them.  I recall being dropped off in the Red Light district and set free to roam the city for 24 hours before being shipped off on the bus to our next destination.  While a good introduction to the landscape of the city, on this trip, now seven years later, I was surprised by how large Amsterdam is and how much there is to see, do and eat beyond the confines of the Red Light district.

For the purposes of not writing a novel, I am going go break up my posts into sweet and savoury which will be easier to digest (don’t mind the pun).

Bakeries are a great way to learn about a city and Amsterdam has plenty of great shops to visit and things to sample.  In my travels, I was particularly surprised to see how many places offered afternoon tea and you know, a city that loves its afternoon tea, certainly has great baked goods to match!

I visited De Bakkerswinkel (multiple locations) by default but was content with my find for their great bread and scones.  The aesthetic of De Bakkerswinkel sort of reminds of Le Pain Quotidien, with long harvest tables, wooden/rustic display cases and beautiful breads, jams, and cakes.   I went twice for breakfast (close proximity to the hotel) and sampled eggs with a great brown sourdough bread with raisins and other seeds, an impressive selection of jams, and their muesli.

via babyccino kids

I loved De Taart Van m’n Tante, a cake shop started by Siemon de Jong and Noam Offer who craft whimsical cakes for any occasion.  If you don’t have an occasion to order one of their beautiful works of art, not to worry, there is a cafe where you can sit down for tea, cake and a little slice of heaven.

via myoutgo

via marianne lamers

I also tried something called a Gevuelde Speculaas, or Dutch Spiced Cake, which can be found at nearly any bakery in the city.  It seems that ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg are a recurring spice blend used in Dutch baking, as well as almonds and almond paste.  The Gevuelde Speculaas cake or cookie (mind came in bar form) that I sampled combined both flavours very well.  To describe the it, the bar had a hard exterior of gingerbread-like cake with an almond paste in the centre and it was very tasty!!

via the boy who bakes

I was told by a friend not to leave with out sampling Stroopwafel (checked off my list), a thin layers of waffel with a syrupy-caramel in between.  Delicious!

Finally, I don’t know if it is acceptable to categorize pancakes into baked goods since they are not in fact baked in an oven, but for the purposes of this post, I am.  Dutch pancakes (Pannenkoken) and mini pancakes (Poffertjes) are the best, especially the sweet ones that are covered in icing sugar!

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The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011

I am super excited to be participating in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, which is being organized by the bloggers behind The Little Kitchen and Love & Olive Oil.  The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap will take place next month, where food bloggers around the globe will busily be preparing three batches of cookies to exchange with other food bloggers.   Originally, the swap was open to North American bloggers, but then I later read that Australia, Italy and the UK were added to the list of participants.  With the help of some new blogger friends in Prague, the Czech Republic now gets to participate.  If you are reading this and are dying to bake, blog, and participate, there is still time to sign up here.  Deadline is Tuesday November 15th, so don’t delay. Stay tuned for my three cookie swap recipes and photos in early December.

foodie sites for all tastes

I am so happy the weekend is here.  I am looking forward to staying home, finishing a couple of art projects I have delayed and cleaning up before hitting the road again next week to Amsterdam.  For some weekend inspiration, I just discovered three great food blogs that I wanted to share with you: Food 52, They Draw and Cook and A Dash of Compassion.

Food 52 is a community food blog that started as a cookbook with lots of great articles, recipes, photographs and a shop.  They Draw and Cook are illustrated recipes sent in by people all over the world.  The illustrated recipes reminds me of the recipes that I used to see published in newspapers in the late 80s and early 90s and A Dash of Compassion is by a friend of mine in Toronto who is an amazing vegan baker.  I can’t wait to try out a recipe from each.  More about Florence (two shots below) next week, as well as ,what’s delicious and modern in Amsterdam.

cake from emil gaigher

Bakeries in Prague rarely disappoint.  On every street, the most marvellous aromas waft out of doors into the noses of pedestrians, luring them in for a treat.  I am all about exploration and trying new things. I had walked by Emil Gaigher,a bakery located in Prague 5,  several times en route to my fiance’s office and had high hopes for this coconut covered, vanilla cake from Emil Gaigher, but to my dismay, it looked better than it tasted (my fellow cake taste testers agreed).  However the cute marzipan mouse on top of the cake photographed well!  I am off to Milan and Florence tomorrow and will report back on any delicious bakeries or fabulous design shops that I find in my travels next week.

Halloween

Happy Halloween from Prague. Belive it or not, Halloween is celebrated here, however not to the North American standard and extreme with crazy decorations and trick or treating.    I had a great weekend visiting a local farmer’s market, shopping around several grocery stores in search of baking supplies and baking up a storm for a Halloween party.  As I was researching what to bake for the Halloween party, I stumbled a cross a couple great recipes that I would like to go back and try such as Chef Dennis Pumpkin Crunch Cake and Sweetapolita Autumn Delight Cake.  Both of these cakes look sumptuous.

I ended up baking two items from classic New York bakeries: Magnolia Bakery Vanilla cupcakes with a lemon butter cream (from cookbook: More from Magnolia) and decorated them with chocolate sprinkles and colourful gummy worms. I also made a batch of Fat Witch Bakery chocolate pumpkin brownies covered in a chocolate icing (from cookbook: Fat Witch Brownies) and my own scary mix of crushed vanilla wafers and fall coloured chocolate covered pumpkin seeds.

Halloween marked my first baking endeavour in Prague and boy did I learn something about the availability of baking ingredients fast.  Apparently, it is IMPOSSIBLE to find food colouring in Prague, hence why no orange frosting on my cupcakes.  It is also IMPOSSIBLE to find vanilla.  Instead I found some gross smelling vanilla extract in 15ml bottle (the size of your pinky finger) and vanilla sugar, which I am familiar with from European cooking shows but I was not about to attempt to introduce a new ingredient to my repertoire last-minute and risk having to throw out two batches of baked goods.  The other thing I found perplexing was the brown sugar situation.  Brown sugar comes in crystal form, not the rich, soft type you can buy in North America.  How am I supposed to make chocolate chip cookies with brown sugar crystals….  I hope someone who is reading this post will have some insight. Anyway, the baked goods turned out great.  The process was good fun and a good adventure. Happy Halloween.