raspberry dacquoise

I just found a dessert that would look stunning served at an intimate dinner party or event called a raspberry dacquoise.  I first learned about a raspberry dacquoise from my teacher’s wife who used to cater these things to friends and family in Toronto.  Apparently this was her go to cake and specialty.  She was clearly experienced in making this dessert, she had a photo album and busted out several stunning photos of her accomplishments.  When I spoke with her, she was preparing  dozens of sugar cookies for her daughter’s upcoming wedding and told me how she had baked a huge raspberry dacquoise for her daughter and son-in-law to be’s engagement party.   That conversation must have taken place over a year ago and only now, when I read a blog post on Chocolate and Zucchini about a raspberry dacquoise, did I decided to look into this dessert and blog on it myself.  From my understanding, a dacquoise is a layered/stacked dessert made with meringue and whipped cream or buttercream, served chilled with fruit.   This is a general description of the basic components of the dessert but if you think about it, such a general description is wide open to interpretation.  Therefore, there is plenty room for creativity when constructing this dessert. 

Martha Stewart has a recipe for a mocha dacquoise here while the food network has posted a lemon and fresh strawberry dacquoise here.   A dacquoise looks pretty simple to make but that is me talking from absolutely no experience.  My family and I recently renovated our kitchen and were planning on having a big kitchen warming party in a couple months.  Maybe I’ll test out my dacquoise making skills and share with you my experience! Finally some pictures to tempt your senses and to show you how creative you can get with this sweet.

via flying kiwis

via a merrier world

via st phillips bakery

via chefnini

smile chocolatiers

I have a whole bunch of new posts to write and share.  My week last week did not leave me with much time in between teaching yoga, interviewing and organizing an up coming event so I put blogging on the top of my list of things to do this week.  Here is the first one.  I found this company Smile Chocolatier, that produces a tea infused chocolate bar called Choclatea.   I warmed up to Joanie Freeman’s story (the chef and chocolatier behind the Smile Chocolatier operation) when I read the line that changed her career path from Cordon Bleu chef to chocolate maker when her cousin who had recently purchased a chocolate factory asked her”Do you want to play in chocolate?”  Smile Chocolatier was born.  Joanie’s infusions of Belgian chocolate, herbs and tea resulted in a killer product offering 12 different tastes made of four types of fine chocolate.  To read a review of a couple of the flavours, Katrina from Tea Pages has some good words to say here.

vie the dieline

via candysnob

Dos Palillos at Casa Camper

I think the design of Dos Palillos in Berlin is the way restaurant should be designed- with the kitchen as entertainment and center stage so guests’ senese can be aroused by the sights, sounds and smells of meal preparation in an intimate yet lively setting.  Dos Palillos opened this month (Jan 2010) in hotel, Casa Camper Berlin, a luxurious, innovative, friendly/functional boutique hotel chain that has two locations under its moniker.  If you go to the Dos Palillos website, you can see a video of people sitting at the counter eating and being served.  It looks pretty fun, if you ask me!  Dos Palillos also has an outlet in Barcelona.  They serve asian and tapas food at this hotspot and the restaurant was designed by the Bouroullec Brothers, Ronan and Erwan.

via hello design

via design boom

via dezeen

individual cheese boards

If an event budget is on your side, I think serving guests an individual cheese board along with dessert is a beautiful touch to an intimate, decadent event.  Just take a look at what was cooking over at Sunday Suppers.  They even had someone illustrate a cheese board card to let people know what they were eating.

via sunday suppers

A couple tidbits of info to remember when preparing a cheese board keeping in mind functionality and ease of use at a dinner party/wedding/event.  To prepare a cheese board, serving the cheese on a wooden board is best because metal, glass or ceramic surfaces can blunt your cheese knives.  If you don’t care about how sharp your cheese knives are, then let creativity reign and ignore recommendation #1.   There are a lot of great cheese boards on the market and I have even seen some home-made versions where people have cut their own boards out of logs. 

Here is an example of a slate board:

slate cheese board

 Here is a cool looking wooden board:

fruitwood cheese board via multi chic

Another thing to note is that the cheeses should be placed well apart, each with its own knife, slicer or spoon, to prevent cross flavouring.  That is the worst when cheese flavours mix.  The beautiful thing about serving cheese is dazzling the taste buds of your guests with different flavours/textures of cheese.  Think of the cheese board as a mini adventure!  Let the cheeses breathe with distance between each other.

For hard and semi hard cheeses, cheese knives with pronged ends for picking up the portions are useful (see examples of a pronged knife below). 

via fromaggio kitchen

Semisoft cheese can be cut in slivers with a continental cheese slicer (see examples below). 

via hive modern

via uffda shop

via william sonoma

Regardless of which knives you use and how you plate it, don’t forget to label your cheeses.  Thanks to international trade and a growing interest in gastronomy, there are probably hundreds of different types of cheeses at your disposal.  Be kind to your guests and take the guessing game out of eating cheese.  A simple tag with the name of the cheese will do or you can go for something more elaborate and include the country of origin, a bit about the cheese and likely pairings.

cookbook

It’s been a busy couple weeks over in this neck of the woods with the holidays ending and getting back into the swing of life.  This week is my mom’s birthday.  My brother, who has never baked a thing in his life has challenged me to a bake off.  I will give him credit, that he is a fabulous cook.  Not only is he creative and has a good sense of flavours, he can cook and invent dishes without a recipe.  For that, I am jealous.  I am a recipe follower through and through.  Maybe it’s due to fear of making a mistake but I typically don’t stray too far away from recipes when I cook which I why I think I am a better baker.  Baking is a science.  Decorating is an art. 

So to compete in my sibling versus sibling bake-off contest, I immediately turned to my wee cookbook collection.  Correction, my vast cookbook collection and skimmed the pages looking for the perfect recipe.   It’s funny how a person can collect so many cookbooks and yet find nothing to bake.  Sort of like looking at your closet full of clothes and finding nothing to wear.   To remedy this roadblock, I searched my Amazon.com recommendations and found a book called Baking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America (see pic below). 

via la dolce vita

And what a book it is.  This week, I have tried two recipes and both have turned out amazing.  Better than amazing.  The book is easy to read, informative (I finally understand why chilling cookie dough for certain recipes produces a better finished product) and there is step by step pictures for the important concepts the book wants you to learn.  I decided to try a yellow birthday cake recipe with a citrus butter cream for my mom’s birthday cake tomorrow.  I just took the two cakes out of the oven and they are cooling on the racks.  There was no question, that when 35 minutes hit the clock, the cakes were done, springy and high. No cracks, no excessive browning.  Just right.  This cake recipe was a high ratio cake, a method that supposedly produces a denser, sweeter cake.  I’ll let you know when we dig in tomorrow night.  So far, I can’t complain with my library book and look forward to trying a couple more recipes before it is due back. 

Happy baking if you end up checking this one out from your library in the future. By the way, if you don’t want to get the book but want to learn the CIA techniques, they have a blog called the CIA Culinary Intelligence with tips, video demonstrations and recipes.

Martha Stewart Weddings features a same sex wedding

via 100 layer cake

gingerbread teacup

The cutest idea for the holidays/winter- mini gingerbread houses that sit on teacups from blogger Meghan behind Notmartha.  Are they not to die for?  Meghan provides a how to on her site if anyone is interested in attempting such intricacies for their tea parties.

not martha

via not martha

via not martha

Nadege Patisserie

Finally the Toronto baked goods market is being blessed with a touch of creativity and design.  Enter new patisserie shop, Nadege, on West Queen West (Trinity Bellwoods Park area).   The owner, Nadege Nourian, exported here international experience in Paris and London to “compete” in Toronto’s rather drab pastry scene.  While there are some great bakeries in the city, I think creativity, design and a good product is more the exception than the rule in comparison to other international cities.   What is interesting if you want to talk about competition is the location of the Nadege bakery.  It is clustered among some of the better bakeries in the city (Clafouti and Dufflet).  I am all for the business strategy of clustering and keeping your competition close.  It has worked for a coffee company or two.  The Nadege website could not have chosen better words to describe this hot spot, “a playground for the senses, where French pastry meets fresh modern panache.”  I love it. Check it out if you are in the neighbourhood.  I am still waiting to get down there to try some of Nadege’s macarons (the subject of a future post).

In the mean time, some pictures to make your mouth water on this snowy day in Toronto.

via compendium daily

via toronto life

via the top down

via holts contemporary blog

via nothing crazy