tartine

Every year for Christmas my grandpa gives all of us grandkids some money to buy whatever we'd like. I usually save most of it, and buy myself something that I've been wanting, or a few things if they are small.

Last year I bought myself a new camera, but there wasn't anything big that I wanted this year, so I bought myself a couple of things I'd had my eye on for awhile,  including this gorgeous cookbook from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.

It came in the mail two days ago, and I've basically been carrying it with me and drooling over it ever since. The pastries and cakes are so beautiful they are basically edible works of art, and the pictures are so lovely that I want to frame them and hang them in my kitchen. Or not, because I don't think mine will look the same and I wouldn't want anybody to be able to compare.

I will absolutely be making their flourless chocolate souffle cake for my birthday this year, but I'll probably have to make two in case anyone else decides they would like dessert as well.

They also have a bread cookbook that a friend of mine has, and when I read through it I basically wanted to renounce my entire life so far and move to an Italian monastery on top of a mountain (which I'm assuming is where they learned to make bread?) and do nothing but bake glorious crusty loaves.

I guess the moral of that story is, I like carbs. You can buy both Tartine and Tartine Bread on Amazon.

macarons

Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone in the world is obsessed with macarons? I've been hearing about these dainty little cookies and seeing pictures of them for years, but I'd never tried one until I received a box for my birthday last year.

I had heard a lot about them though, that they are very difficult to make, and as a baker, I'd always wanted to try so I could showcase my skillz (with a z). I decided to give it a try. I found this recipe from CHOW, gathered all the ingredients (almond flour better be secretly made of gold because it is super expensive) and set to work.

It was kind of a long process, just in that it's a lot of waiting to do things, but other than that it wasn't bad. I can see how it would be hard to get all of the cookies to the exact uniform roundness, but I have to say mine were pretty good for a first timer (NBD).

They may have been a teensy bit crooked but they were delicious, although truthfully I bet you could put chocolate ganache in between two pieces of cardboard and it would still be pretty good.

The next thing on my baking to do list is chocolate souffle, I've wanted to make that for as long as I can remember, which I realized this morning was probably a strange thing for a kid to think about? But then I thought about it a little more and had a flashback to watching Beauty and the Beast with all of the dancing pies and souffles, and my life made a little more sense.

I wonder how many other things in my life I've wanted to do solely because of childhood influence by a beloved cartoon character? I realized a few years ago that the likely reason for my choosing Journalism as a university major was because of my undying obsession with April (and her saucy yellow jumpsuit) from the Ninja Turtles. 

brittle

My love for pomegranate is both legendary all encompassing, during pomegranate season you can find me eating one almost every day. I was recently the recipient of a gift of the best kind, a box full of huge, juicy pomegranates.

After gorging myself every day for a week, I still had a few left and decided to do an experiment combining my two favourite things. I melted two bars of good dark chocolate, and stirred in half the seeds from a pomegranate.

I spread the mixture onto wax paper, then sprinkled the remaining seeds on top, and threw it in the fridge for about an hour, and at the end I had pomegranate chocolate brittle.

It was delicious, ridiculously easy, and it looks beautiful with the bright red seeds against the dark chocolate. I'd like to try it again with milk chocolate, since pomegranates can be a bit tart and the extra sweetness might be a good contrast.

 

chocolat

Probably since the first time I watched Chocolat I've harboured a secret belief that I was the main character in a previous life and that given the right set of circumstances,  the inate talent that I possessed would emerge and all my dreams of being a master chocolatier, dating Johnny Depp, and wearing my hair in a sassy bob would come true.

Nobody likes chocolate more than I do, and I firmly believe that (I am eating some even as I write this), but a couple of weeks ago I signed up for a chocolate making class with Rachel Dunn chocolates in Concord, and let me tell you, if anyone likes chocolate more than I do, it is Rachel.

Rachel has been making chocolate since she was 17, her chocolates are world famous, and she owns her own company that does nothing but make chocolate every single day. They say if you want to be successful in business, you need to do what you're passionate about, and Rachel is passionate about chocolate.

She stood up in front of the class and introduced herself, and you could tell that she was thrilled, absolutely elated, to be sharing the art of chocolate making with a new group of people.

She could barely contain herself as she lamented the lost art of candy making, shared every single thing she knew about chocolate and candy making, and expressed the fervent belief that we would leave the workshop and share what we had learned with all of our friends and family. She truly loves chocolate, and wants other people to get the same joy from it that she does.

The class itself was great, it was 2 hours long and we made about 15 different kinds of candy, including truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries, English toffee, peanut butter cups, and a ganache tart.

It was really fun and informative, and the candy we made was delicious. The best part is that she sends everyone home with recipes for all of the things we made in class, so you can make them at home for your friends and family. Or eat them all yourself when your husband is gone to Mexico for a week. There is no judgement here.

World famous candied applies

I may have gotten slightly carried away with the peanut butter in my peanut butter cups

I am practically a professional strawberry tuxedo applier. That's probably a real job.

buzz

It's such a gorgeous day in San Francisco I just want to go play outside. I find it strange that it is 60 degrees here in July and 90 in mid-October, but that's just one more thing to love about this weird little city.

I am literally don't think I can eat any more turkey, but I feel really guilty going shopping for any other food while we still have so much left because there are lots of people in the world that don't have enough to eat, so there is actually no other food in our house.

As a direct result of this situation, I had a very large coffee and some chocolate for lunch today and it was delicious and decadent but between the caffeine and the sugar rush I am feeling a bit crazy and I might be developing a twitch in my left eye.

It might just be excitement though, I'm off to Vegas tomorrow to see two of my most favourite girls, drink a lot of margaritas and spend all my money. It's not the gambling that gets me, though I do seem to have a unusual talent for craps, it's the shopping.

There is a Zara here in SF, but for some reason when I walk into the one in Vegas I want EVERYTHING! Plus they have a Top Shop. Life is good.

gluten free

There was a bake sale at my work last week to raise money for the AIDS walk. I am pretty much always open to any excuse to bake, and it was for a good cause, so I signed up to make cookies.

I thought about making peanut butter temptations or fiddle diddles, but I felt like making something new, and I was feeling very lazy so I knew it had to be easy. I found this recipe and decided to try it out, even though I'm not gluten free.

These were super good. They were pretty simple, peanut butter, sugar, chocolate chips, what's not to like? And they were really delicious. The cooking time was off for me, I had to leave them in almost twice as long as it said to, but I just watched them pretty carefully and they came out great.

One of my co-workers is gluten free and she loved them, and everyone else that tried them thought they were delicious, and didn't even know they were gluten free. I will definitely be making these again.

 

chocolate chip zucchini

My mom has been making me chocolate chip zucchini cake since I was little. Some people call it bread, but let's be honest, it's cake. It's chocolatey and most, and super delicious, but it's like 50% zucchini, so you can pretend it's good for you, and eat the whole thing.

These pictures aren't great, I was making it late at night for my husband's grandpa's birthday the next day, plus it was during that ridiculous heat wave where even the thought of turning on the oven made you want to burst into tears, but I still made it. That's how good this cake is.

I used this recipe, and some fresh zucchini from the farmer's market. This is actually really quick and easy to make, especially if you have a food processor to grate the zucchini for you.

brownie slut

I'm pretty sure everyone has heard about slutty brownies by now. Cookie dough on the bottom, a layer of Oreos, covered by moist chocolatey brownie mix and baked in the oven. For some reason I'd never tried to make them before, and I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.

I decided not to do the Oreos, as it seemed like it would be a bit overkill, and also would have left me with half a package of Oreos laying around which I would have inevitably devoured, and since it was practically a guarantee that I would be eating most of the cookie dough before it ever made it's way into the bars, it seemed like a good move.

So my brownies were more promiscuous than slutty. But they were still delicious. They literally took 5 minutes to throw together (20 if you add in the time to eat cookie dough until you are feeling ill, before you proceed with the baking) and then 45 minutes of bake time.

If you are feeling super ambitious you could make your own cookie dough and brownie mix and then combine them, but I used store bought. It is definitely a lazy man's dessert, but it's a bit more special than just making cookies, or just brownies to a potluck, and they are really delicious.

Derek was calling me brownie slut the whole night after I made them, but you can't have everything in life.

It came like that, I swear

I don't know why I always want to bake when I'm wearing white

I burnt my mouth trying it right when it came out of the oven, but worth it

Yum

temptation.

My first year living in Hawaii, I was introduced to the South Shore Grill by my boyfriend at the time. The relationship didn't last, but SSG and I have been an item ever since. One of the best things they have there (although everything is delicious) are their desserts, especially their peanut butter temptations.

Now that I'm not living on the island, I don't get these delicious treats every week, and it's quite sad. When I went back to Hawaii in January we took my mom to SSG so that she too might know the joys that are peanut butter temptations. I'd never even thought about trying to make them myself, since I couldn't fathom the wizardry that would be necessary to get the Reece's into the cookies without baking them into a melty disaster.

My mother took one look at the cookies and declared "They probably just push the peanut butter cups in right when they come out of the oven." I'm pretty sure that's why we have parents, for exactly such moments as those.

I was able to find a recipe, and made them last week and they were amazingly delicious, and so simple to make (literally 15 minutes from when I started to when I took the first bite) that I was kind of embarrassed I'd never thought to make them before.

basic peanut butter cookies in a mini muffin tin, bake about 8 minutes

push in peanut butter cups once they come out of the oven

One final tip is to make these on a night when you are home alone, so you don't have to share with your husband. Not that that's what I did. I would never do something like that, especially knowing how much Derek adores these cookies. Obviously.

nanaimo

I finally got around to making the nanaimo bar cupcakes I was salivating over here. They were really good, chocolatey and nutty with that delicious nanaimo bar filling as icing.

Next time I make them I think I will leave out some of the almonds though, I only put about half of them in, and it was still a bit too nutty for me, but if you love nuts then by all means, add them all in.

The icing is sooo good, the situation rapidly devolved into chaos, and we ended up eating most of the bowl with our fingers

truffle

I bake a lot, especially lately. But I have to be honest, these are the best thing I've made in a long, long time. Delicious chocolatey truffles with an Oreo cookie crust and fresh raspberries, these got rave reviews from everyone that tried one. I will definitely be making these again.

they didn't have Oreo crumbs so I had to get creative and crush up Oreo pie crusts

I can neither confirm nor deny rumours of second degree burns from melted chocolate

Oreo cookie crusts with raspberries...

Then add melted chocolate...

And demolish. Seriously, these were amazing.