(Cup)cake Amsterdam

Did I ever tell you about my cake tasting experience in Amsterdam when I was originally planning my destination wedding?  As a diligent researcher I spent my time finding different bakeries in the city, plotted them all out in Google Maps and reached out to a few who I thought would fit the bill.  In the short period of time I spent in the city I corresponded with a few and only visited one (actually two- but that is part of the story) for a tasting.

Our tasting at the first place was quite standard.  We discussed cake expectations, number of guests and potential flavours.  What I didn’t realize before speaking with the baker was how vastly different Dutch wedding cakes were from North American wedding cakes.  On the outside the cakes look the same, but the type of cake and filling that is used is different.  If you are expecting a spongier, moist consistency with buttercream, think again.  I tried something delicious called (pardon my French) called a “chocolate slut” that was the consistency of a dense chocolate brownie with dried cherries and nuts.  Delicious, but not what I imagine in a wedding cake.  The same goes for the version of carrot cake I tried.  Decent tasting but it was missing all the spices, the spongy texture and the cream cheese icing.  I also sampled a few vanilla cake items with creams and mousses inside.  Not the texture for me.  Fundamentally, there was nothing wrong with what we tasted, it just wasn’t right for us.

On my second last day of wedding planning, discouraged and upset over the thought of not having a delicious piece of cake I could identify with at my wedding, I found Zoe at Cake Amsterdam.  Zoe is a New York City expat living and running a successful baking/catering business inc the city.  When I contacted her, she was nice enough to squeeze my fiance and I in for a tasting (I got hopelessly lost trying to find the shop along the canals of the RLD) and finally, our taste buds were at peace.  We sampled a round of cupcakes in death by chocolate, lemon coconut, carrot cake, red velvet, and Dutch orange (vanilla cake with an orange citrus buttercream).  All flavour combinations were outstanding, the cake was the right consistency and the buttercream was sweet and not too buttery.

We were so pleased that we had found a North American baker living in Amsterdam and had a lovely baking conversation during our tasting in her shop.

Photo Source: Cake Amsterdam

While my excitement may be bordering overkill, if you have lived as an expat anywhere, sometimes when you find something familiar to the palate you appreciate it just a bit more.  We were sorry that we weren’t able to work with Zoe in the end, as we moved the wedding back to Toronto, but we look forward to the next time we are in the city.  Her bakery is not to be missed if you are craving a North American style (cup)cake.

Streamer Love

Have I mentioned I am in love with all things streamer related?  I think streamers may be the happiest type of decor out there, second of course to balloons.  No matter their shape, size, colour, length or style, streamers, bunting, pendants, garlands or whatever you call them, are simply awesome.  If you are looking for some streamer sources, I would recommend the following sellers on Etsy- trust me, I have done my research!  Studio Mucci, Pom + Love, Frances Moulin, and Steph Loves Ben.

Food, Glorious Food

What I enjoyed most about walking the streets of Paris, was browsing the produce stands at the neighbourhood green grocers.  I returned home a little upset, wondering why I couldn’t have produce and green grocers like this in my neighbourhood?  I would eat so well every day.  Not that I”m starving or going without, but produce like this makes me happy.  It is simply next level produce and not every city can deliver.  C’est dommage, mais c’est la vie.

We bought a big box of cherries and ate the entire thing.  They were soo good.

What are these interesting tomatoes?  Look at their funny shape?  I am not a fan of tomatoes.  I am one of those weird people who prefer tomatoes cooked instead of raw, but these tomatoes in the picture below are intriguing.  I may be enticed to take a bite.

Have you ever seen a fresh almond before?  I haven’t, so I took a picture.  How do you eat these things?  Where is the nut?

Rose Bakery- Finally!

Have you ever owned a cookbook that was published by a restaurant or bakery where you have made several of their recipes but have never visited the company itself and then finally get to go?

I just had that experience with Rose Bakery.  My fiance and I went for breakfast at Rose Bakery on the weekend and finally got to see and taste, first hand, the source of what I have been cooking from their cookbook, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, since 2008.

Photo Source: 1

My fiance and I arrived at 10 am, just as the doors were opening in their 9eme location, to make sure we snagged a table (it is a small space).  Had I not been on a schedule that Sunday morning, I would have been more lax about timing my arrival. However, this special breakfast stop was high on the priority list and timing was essential.

Fast forward to looking at their menu and trying to decide what to order.  If you are well acquainted with a cookbook and by extension, a business, how do you choose what to order when you have been working with a version of their menu for almost half a decade?!

We kept it simple.  I ordered a pot of  jasmine tea (predictable me), a bowl of granola (predictable me) and their gateau aux fruits rouge.  He got a latte, a bowl of muesli and a slice of streusel cake.  The meal was worth it. I loved eating breakfast at Rose Bakery.  It is what I had imagined: Quaint, homey, with a local community feel-good space, an active, roll up your sleeves type of kitchen to the point that they were using the back room in the restaurant to make their tarts, and mini pizzas for the day right on the table tops and a farmer’s market mini grocery section, all packed into the front entrance.

Rose Bakery 46 Rue des Martyrs

Paris

Popelini Choux: Move Over Macarons

I am cheating on my beloved macarons.  I have written numerous posts over the past four years of blogging about my love and devotion to the colourful, sweet, half crunchy-half chewy, flavour bursting mouthfuls.  Everywhere I travel, I sample macarons.  I have probably eaten macarons in over 25 different countries.  I digress; back to my story of how I cheated on macarons.

It happened this past weekend while visiting family-to-be in Paris.  Here is how it started.  Like most of you, I keep old issues of magazines in my house like prized trophies.  I had an old copy of Marie Claire Maison laying around and decided to brush up on my French before venturing to France.  While flipping through the magazine, I came across one of those page-stopping articles where you are compelled to read the entire thing, word for word, instead of just eyeballing it- you know what reading on the Internet does to reading patterns these days.

This 250 word blurb on Lauren Koumetz’s growing choux business, complemented by a big picture of round, fluffy looking balls topped with a circular disk of sugar, hooked me. I had to find time to get to Popelini to see what these mysterious desserts were about.

Before the family lunch on Sunday, we snuck out to the 9eme where we timed our breakfast at Rose Bakery followed by some choux at Popelini, perfectly.  The choux experience was surreal.  Much better than the macarons I had sampled the day before at Laduree in Printemps.

I should ask, do you know what a choux is?  It is a cream puff!  Gasp.  That’s right, a cream puff.  If you roll in my circles, you know I hate creamy desserts – it’s the texture that gets me.  This means, no mousse, no eclairs, no cream puffs.  No offence to Beard Papa’s in Hong Kong which kind of cemented this no-creamy dessert thing for me. Completely sworn never to eat another cream filled pastry, I turned to macarons for the past eight years.

However, I am an open minded person and partially due to my lazy French brain, I actually forgot what choux was when I read the article.  Fortunately for me, I let my cream puff guard down and bit into a heavenly dark chocolate choux.  Unreal!  We ended up purchasing a sample of 12 flavours to bring to the family lunch for dessert. I think they were a hit.

I feel like it is almost sacrilegious to make this claim but macarons, you have met your match with choux, specifically choux from Popelini.  While savouring my choux, the other idea firing off in my brain was, why does this not exist in Toronto? Hello choux bar at my wedding?  I would love to have a choux bar at an event.

These things are so much fun to pop into your mouth and eat.  Not only do they come in all different flavours {salted caramel, vanilla, pistachio, praline, rose & raspberry and milk chocolate with passion fruit} and colours, but also, they neatly fit in the palm of your hand.  In other words, excellent as a cocktail format food item.  Leave me a comment if you have tried or love choux.

Here are some other people who apparently share my sentiments on Popelini + choux:

1. New York Times Travel Magazine/Blog Let Them Eat Choux

2. The Puff List – Popelini Paris

3. Paper Blog Addict aux choux a la creme Popelini (with interview with Lauren -in French)

French Country in Dresden

To wrap up my finds from my last day trip to Dresden, I am going to share with you a secret store that has a phenomenal assortment of items for the home.

I ventured off my typical day-trip grocery shopping route and found one more gem of a lifestyle/home accessory store called Schach Casa Colonial.  I would describe Schach Casa Colonial‘s merchandise as predominantly French country with a mix of Scandinavian modern, vintage and Asian items.   The company has been open for six years and has two stores in the city; I visited the one at Bautzner Landstrasse 7.

I have never been one to gravitate towards the French country look as I prefer a more contemporary style, but I kid you not, I could have purchased one of everything last week!   Don’t worry I didn’t do that.  I am already out of room in my narrow flat.  🙂

From the store’s product mix of candles, glass and porcelain plates, serving dishes, tableware, planters, frames, lighting fixtures, buddha sculptures, jewelry and furniture- I give this place the Lamb411 seal of approval. This store was awesome.

Photo Source: 1-5

I mostly browsed the “outlet” section of the store as I wasn’t looking for anything in particular but I did finally cave for one of those oil fragrance things.  I have been looking at the one’s by Ritual ever since I returned from the Lone Hotel in Croatia – see brands, it does work to put your products in hotels so customers can experience them!- but simply have not gotten around to picking one up.  Finally, I noticed my fiance smelling a wall of these and found a scent we both liked.  Sold.  Our fragrance is now Hommage St. Jacques by Ipuro which is a muskier smell combining Brazilian tonka bean (which smells like vanilla, almond, cinnamon and cloves mixed together), Madagascar vanilla, star anise, caramel with a hint of tobacco.

Photo Source: 1

This is the second “keeper” store that I’ve found in Dresden this past year.  There is another store on the other side of the river close to the main square that is two floors of eclectic home ware and furniture.  I am blanking on the name, but next time I return to Dresden, I’ll be sure to stop in and take the name down.  I recall the first time I stepped into this nameless store, I was referring to, I remember walking up to the sale associate and asking “Do you ship to Prague?”  It’s that good!

Have a lovely weekend.

More fun things coming your way next week.

Dining A La Jar at Lila Sosse

One of the interesting, yet enjoyable dining experiences I had on my most recent trip to Dresden was the opportunity to experience German tapas, aka German comfort food, served in Weck jars at restaurant, Lila Sosse, located in the funkier, more artsy part of the city (Antonstadt).

The entire concept and menu at Lila Sosse centers around offering food in jars.  (It was the jars that drew me in)  I like Weck jars and I know the dessert in jar trend is pretty hot these days, so I thought to myself, how bad could German food in jars be?

Like any other restaurant (the type that serve food on plates) Lila Sosse’s menu is broken down into the usual appetizers like soup or salad, hot and cold items as well as a list of desserts. Their menu boasted dishes such as roast beef with celery and carrots (in a jar), beef cheeks with potato, rosemary and beans (in a jar), cold dark beer beef with horseradish (in a jar) and a wild herb salad with strawberries, mozzarella and apple balsamic vinegar (in a jar).

Unfortunately we arrived at the restaurant a bit too early for a full meal so we each ordered one jar as a late afternoon snack.  Our order consisted of the goat cheese and beet salad jar and a panna cotta jar.  

I was satisfied with my salad jar and had a fun time looking at the stacks of jars being carried out of the kitchen to other diners sitting on the patio and dining inside.

To be quite honest with you, I don’t know how many jars I could eat for a full meal as this one jar was filling on its own.  Nonetheless, it looked liked tables were ordering several jars to share (it is tapas after all).

If German cuisine is not your thing, I think trying out this restaurant purely out of curiosity might be fun (and the food is decent).   Who knows, Lila Sosse could be on to something in Dresden and you might see more jar-dished restaurants popping up globally, or has this trend already gotten started?  What do you think about the idea?  Leave me a comment below.  Have you dined a la jar?

Here are some other people who seem to be catching on to the dining a la jar movement!

1. The Grid TO: Canned Eats

2. The Kitchn: Have Jar, Will Travel

3. LunchitPunchit: Food in Mason Jars

4. Chicago Tribune: Food in jars clearly pays homage to the past

Bean & Beluga

Dresden never struck me as a city I would go to dine.  Of course every city has their fair share of fine dining establishments and interesting restaurant concepts, but the dining scene in Dresden (in my opinion) is polarized between touristy-chain restaurants, and traditional German beer halls.  Oh, I forgot- you can also find great  curry wurst joints in Dresden that are a local treat, but theses are in a category of their own.  The point is, I would not purposely drive to Dresden to dine.  It is simply not one of the great dining cities of Europe.  However, that does not mean that it is impossible to find a gem from time to time.   This past time, was one of those times where I stand corrected by restaurant and take-away deli, Bean & Beluga by chef Stefan Hermann.

I don’t remember how exactly I found Bean & Beluga.  All I knew was that it was located on “the other side” of the river, in a hilly, villa area on the north side of the Elbe river.  I wanted to check this area out because I remember driving through it once (by mistake) and recalling how beautiful it was with the houses and trees and views over the river.

We arrived at noon to an empty restaurant (not always the best sign) and after a quick look at the menu, decided it was too upscale for a lunch and decided to leave after our effort to find the place.  What we really wanted was a sandwich and a salad, something fast as we were going biking later on.  The waiter who greeted us picked up on our dissatisfaction and assured us that we could order a chicken club sandwich off menu and the kitchen would be happy to accommodate us.  I was blown away.  I think we both were by his excellent customer service and reassuring response, so we sat back down out of curiosity.

Not too long after sampling their bread platter with olive oil and specialty flavoured salts, we received two delicious chicken club sandwiches with a juicy chicken breast served on fresh olive bread, homemade that day.  We found out the restaurant makes all their own bread and desserts daily and would return just to sample another slice.  It was to die for.

Stuffed from our sandwich, we let the waiter talk us into tea, espresso and a plate of cookies to accompany our drinks.  I think the waiter phrased the up-sell something to the effect of “who wouldn’t want fresh chocolate chip cookies to go with tea (Kusmi) and coffee?”  It’s true? How can you debate with that question?  Who wouldn’t want chocolate chip cookies, baked today, with tea?  We got the cookies and they were good.

Bean & Beluga also has a deli at the front of its building that has a lovely selection of take-away food *yet no sandwiches* jams in Weck jars, olive oils, spices, wines, balsamic vinegars and candies.  Adorable!

The other standout part about Bean & Beluga is the washrooms.  I’m not one to comment on washrooms, but this one was on a level.  It was the rock star of washrooms with pink lights, and stag heads and electronic sinks.  By electronic sink, I mean you push a button on the sink to make the water hotter or cooler as well as to turn it on and off.   I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.  What a pleasant surprise. I am happy we were talked into staying and didn’t leave.  Next time, I would like to try their dinner.  As we were feasting on our sandwiches the lunch crowd filled up the room and I saw some impressive looking dishes come out of the kitchen, including a couple who were sharing an entire bottle of champagne at noon!  Gotta love the European lifestyle.