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Here is an interesting restaurant interior.

Sabio By the Sea was designed by The Stripe Collective in Singapore.

I like busy ceiling.  The mix of antler lights, pendant lighting, rope and horse heads (instead of stag heads?!) seem to work together.  Plus the view that opens onto the marina isn’t too shabby as a background for tapas.

Photo Source: 1-4

The making behind today’s post, kept my fiance and I busy for a couple of hours on Saturday morning between the prepping, making, photographing, eating and cleaning.

I had the pleasure of testing out a great Valentine’s day pancake recipe from Norene Gilletz, who I asked to write a guest post for Valentine’s day.  Norene is a Toronto based leading author of kosher cookbooks in Canada. She a real going concern in the food industry and splits her time between being a food writer, culinary consultant, spokesperson, cooking instructor, lecturer and editor.  She also developed an amazing chocolate-chocolate chip pancake recipe, which my fiance and I got to eat on Saturday and that I am going to share with you today. We were truly stuffed after we made them and I would recommend sharing this recipe among friends.

Norene included a lovely introduction about her pancake recipe when we corresponded that I included below.

“Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a heart-healthy breakfast and enjoy these scrumptious chocolate pancakes. You can mix up the batter the night before, then cook them up quickly for a special breakfast treat for your loved one(s). They also reheat in moments in the microwave.

Children (and grown-ups!) love it when you ‘write’ their initials with pancake batter! Pour the batter into the hot skillet to form the desired letters of the alphabet.  For Valentine’s Day, use a heart-shaped cookie cutter and trace the outline onto a piece of waxed paper to form a heart-shaped template. Place the template onto each pancake and sprinkle with icing sugar through a fine sieve. How sweet it is!”

CHOCOLATE PANCAKES

Adapted from Norene’s Healthy Kitchen by Norene Gilletz (Whitecap)

These pancakes taste like brownies – yum!

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
2 large eggs
1 cup skim, 1 per cent or soy milk
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Fresh or frozen raspberries or strawberries, for garnish
Vanilla yogurt, for garnish

Icing sugar, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large mixing bowl or a food processor fitted with the steel blade, combine the flours, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Add the eggs, milk water, oil and vanilla. Whisk together, or process for 8 to 10 seconds, until just smooth and blended. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips.

Spray a large non-stick frying pan with cooking spray and heat over medium heat for 2 minutes or until a drop of water skips on the surface. Drop the batter, using a scant 1/4 cup for each pancake, into the frying pan. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until bubbles appear on the top. Turn pancakes with a spatula and lightly brown the other side for 2 to 3 minutes.

Transfer the cooked pancakes to a plate and keep warm in a 200-degree F oven. Repeat with the remaining batter, spraying the pan between batches. Because chocolate chips tend to sink to the bottom of the bowl, stir batter often.

Serve pancakes warm with berries, yogurt and or icing sugar.

Makes about 16 3-inch pancakes

My notes:  We found we had to add almost another full cup of flour to Norene’s recipe to get the batter to a thicker consistency.  Flour, when measuring by volume, can fluctuate which is why measuring by weight (in grams) can sometimes help you avoid undesirable consistencies or outcomes in baking.  We also didn’t have any whole wheat flour in our pantry in Prague, so we just used 1 cup of all purpose flour.  I cut the heart out of paper and decided to use the negative and positive space of the cookie cut out to get variation on our pancakes.

The pancakes were filling, delicious and tasted great with raspberry yogurt, maple syrup, chocolate chips, and frozen raspberries!  Your Valentine will be happy to wake up to a batch of these tomorrow.  Or, just give them a shot instead of your regular pancake routine.  Chocolate, chocolate chip is decadent but a nice treat. Thank you to Norene for supplying a new pancake recipe topped with an icing sugar hearts.  If you want to see what else I have made of Norene’s, her chocolate chip cookie recipe is another staple of mine.

Given the bitter cold temperatures in Europe this past week, much of the time spent wandering around Berlin was spent in search of a place to warm up.  The most convenient places to warm up, of course, are coffee shops or cafes.  I had done a “bit” of research on coffee shops in Berlin in order to locate where I thought may be worthy of a sit and sip for my travel partners and made sure to have the list on hand as we roamed the city.

What I quickly (re)learned (I know this already) is that all coffee is not made equal. When travelling with a coffee snob aka coffee enthusiast, aka passionate coffee drinker, aka has the OTAKU for coffee, the difference between good and bad tasting coffee is evident and brought to light via long facial expressions, wilde gestures and mentally shutting down- talk about interesting consumer behaviour!

My list of hot, Berlin coffee spots included The Barn, Kaffee Mitte, Bonanza Coffee, God Shot, Espresso Ambulanz, Five Elephant Coffee, and Sloerm.  We siped and sampled in four of the seven place and concluded that the Barn had the best filter coffee and Espresso Ambulanz had the strongest espresso that would put hair on your chest.

The other thing I learned about on this trip was that hard core (filter) coffee drinkers seem to distinguish themselves by the accessories they used to brew, taste, and sip the beverage.  If you are not familiar with the Japanese company, Hario, then wake up and smell the coffee.  Hario has been making specialized glass and metal products (accessories) for coffee, tea and food since 1921.  I only found out about Hario after visiting several “niche” coffee shops/micro roasters around Europe and gazing around while my fiance tasted the coffee and chatted with the barista behind the counter (remember I am a non-coffee drinker).

So what type of coffee accessories do all the cool coffee shops use? I have posted four pictures below to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.  If you see the following items being used or sold the next time you enter a cafe, you know you are out of Starbucks land and into some serious coffee business. Happy tasting.

Photos via 1, 2, 3, 4

I returned from Berlin on Sunday all eager to edit my photos from a weekend of gluttonous dining and instead went right to bed as I came back with a 24 hour cold.  Literally, all symptoms were on deck and then disappeared in 24 hours.  I think the massive 16 quart Le Creuset stock pot of chicken soup, that my fiance made, helped! I’ve consumed at least one quarter of the pot.  Apparently chicken soup is as good as penicillin.

Back to Berlin, I visited four or five new restaurants in Berlin that I can’t wait to share with you, plus some of the greatest baklava you could ever imagine eating (coming soon) and had a lovely meeting and taste-test with a new macaron business in the city (more details to come soon).

Finally, I have been spending a bunch of time on Pinterest, my new favourite inspiration site, and put together some adorable heart treats for Valentine’s Day.

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.

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

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.

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!

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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I have to share this find with you all: Wedge shaped pie boxes!!  So you can serve or gift your pie in an individual, perfectly fitted container with a cute little wooden fork.

I read about these pie boxes on a post from Sunday Suppers (about a beautiful looking chocolate and lavender pie- see photo below) and applaud Petitmoulin aka Stephmodo, on Etsy, for creating these.  I love these things!

If you are looking for some fun projects, recipes or ideas this weekend here are some thoughts that I’ve been looking at:

1. A Chinese New Year themed party from Lorajean’s Magazine

2. Hanging Heart Charms in prep for Valentine’s Day from Made

3. The doughnuts in this picture from Fjellby

4. A vegan soba salad from Scandi Foodie