Blog

Friendship Bag

2010-02-06T14:38:56Z

First off, I would like to give credit where credit is due. I found the tutorial for this very simple (and quick) sewing project on p.s. i quilt. It's a perfect way to pass a weekend afternoon.

I made this bag for my young niece for Christmas and filled it with a small notebook, pen, lipgloss, Hello Kitty coinpurse...all the essentials! I lined it with pink because it's her favorite color. For the outer layer of the bag, I decided to machine quilt a grid pattern using 4 different thread colors -- pink, blue, lime and purple. The handles are embellished with purple grosgrain ribbon.

I really love this fabric -- it's from the Cosmo Chic" collection by Material Girls Studio and reminds me of the Draper's couch, for those of you who watch Mad Men. I'm already thinking about how to best used the leftovers.

Paris à Noël

2009-12-24T22:29:01Z

Above: One of the window displays at Galeries Lafayette. This year's theme is Noël gourmand.

Below: More of the same + the store's exterior decoration.

On the rue Caumartin, not too far from the Paris Opera

Approaching the Place Vendôme And, last but not least, the Champs-Elysées

Upside-down apple cake

2009-12-12T15:46:29Z

Here's a quick and easy recipe for those of you looking to dirty as few pans as possible. I found this recipe in last week's St. Louis Post Dispatch's food section. I had some apples in the crisper and part of a liter of buttermilk that was a few days away from expiring, so falling upon this recipe was perfect timing.

This cake was a hit and tasted as good as it looks. With its warm, caramelized apples, it reminded me a bit of a Tarte Tatin with a cake underside instead of crust.

Here's the recipe provided in the newspaper. If you don't have a food processor, I'm sure a hand-held pastry blender would probably work just as well, while giving you a workout at the same time!

Upside-Down Apple Cake

Adapted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9 December 2009

Yield: 6 large servings

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, divided

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup honey (locally harvested if possible)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet. Stir in brown sugar. When melted, spread evenly across the bottom of the skillet. Arrange apple slices in overlapping circles over the butter-sugar mixture.

2. In a food processor, pulse together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Cut remaining 5 tablespoons butter into chunks; add to processor. Pulse until butter is cut into small pieces and well distributed. Drizzle in honey. With motor running, slowly add buttermilk through the feed tube, processing until dough forms.

3. Using a spoon, drop batter evenly over apples. Spread dough into an even layer, stopping just short of the edges of the pan.

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of the cake portion comes out clean.

5. Place the skillet on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the cake. Use pot holders to handle the skillet, which will still be hot. Place a plate on top of the skillet, and invert. Lift skillet straight up, releasing cake.

Brussels at Christmastime / Speculoos

2009-12-06T20:58:53Z

For those of you who celebrate it, Happy St. Nicholas Day! Speaking of places where this is a major holiday, last weekend we were in Brussels, Belgium, visiting with family. During a stroll in the city Saturday afternoon, I decided to resume my search for a baking tool that has long eluded me but which I know to exist: a carved wooden St. Nicolas speculoos mold. Being the Christmas season and all, I figured that if ever there would be a time to find one, this was it.

Speculoos is a crunchy, stamped cookie made primarily of butter, flour, brown sugar and spices. They are perfect for dunking in coffee or milk, crushed over ice cream or just by themselves. You can enjoy speculoos year-round in Belgium, but they are especially popular on St. Nicolas Day.

Between last Saturday's jaunt and past visits to Brussels, I've searched high and low for a St. Nicolas mold, in kitchen supply stores and department stores, amongst the Christmas market stands and those at the Sablon Antiques Market. Unfortunately, it looks like the search will have to continue. I had no luck last weekend, but did chance upon one of wooden windmill mold and another with a ship and what I believe to be a rooster, which I used to make the speculoos pictured below (recipe at the end of this post).

I may not have found the speculoos mold, but I did take some pictures of the windowfront at Brussel's most well-know purveyor of speculoos, Dandoy. They had some amazing St. Nicolas speculoos on display, with one that must have been at least 3-4 feet tall.

And let us not forget Brussel's most appreciated export: chocolate. I just love looking at all the windowfronts at Christmastime.

And of course no trip to Brussels is complete without a visit to the breathtaking Grand Place. We arrived just in time to see the light and sound display on the Town Hall. I took a short video with my camera but am having trouble uploading it. Here is a link to a video of this year's show.

Spekulatius / Speculoos / Speculaas

Adapted from the 1997 version of the Joy of Cooking

Yield: 1-2 dozen cookies, depending on size

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tablespoon milk

2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg in a medium-sized bowl. Beat the remaining ingredients on medium speed until well-blended. Stir in the flour mixture until well-blended and smooth. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or up to 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Shape the dough by either using a mold or by rolling it out and cutting with a knife or cookie cutters. If using a mold, be sure to dust it with flour between each impression. Space the cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart and bake, one sheet at a time on the center rack, for 15 to 25 minutes until the cookies are tinged with brown at the edges. Remove the sheet to a rack and let stand until the cookies firm slightly. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool.

Daring Bakers 11.2009: Cannoli

2009-11-27T18:44:55Z

And it's round #2 for me as a Daring Baker. And here are the obligatory "blog-checking lines" so they can verify that I've followed the challenge:

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

This was my first time ever making cannoli, or any deep-fried dessert for that matter. When visiting some friends in New Orleans a few years ago, I picked up a box of beignet mix with the best of intentions but never quite got around to making them. Although I thought the frying step of the recipe would be the most daunting part, in reality it went smoothly and with no major problems encountered -- no splattering, no burns.

The trickiest part of the recipe was getting the dough rolled out thin enough and then getting it to stay that way. Above you can see the little cannoli soldiers all lined up and ready to go, waiting for the oil to heat up. Well, after frying the first one, it was clear that they weren't thin enough. I had to re-roll each of them until I reached a thickness that wouldn't cause them to open up (you can see the steady progress below). Cannoli are supposed to have a "blistered" appearance, and I'm afraid mine weren't rolled thin enough for this to happen.

As for the final product, I can only vouch for the shells as anyone who knows me knows I steer clear of anything too creamy. The dough contained wine, chocolate and cinnamon, and I found that the shells not only tasted good, but also smelled quite nice when I was rolling them out. After they had cooled, I had fun dipping them in chocolate and sprinkles and filling them with mascarpone.

Out of sight

2009-11-25T22:15:43Z

Much of the sewing I've done recently has been purely practical in nature. Most of it has been to hide "stuff" or things I'd rather not see from eyesight, such as...

...cat accoutrements...

...a water heater...

...neighbors' stares (hems only and, yes, they are meant to skim the floor)...

There is a certain satisfaction in completing projects like these. They're relatively quick, and they definitely leave your living space looking better than when you started. That being said, I'm ready to move onto something a little more fun!

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

2009-11-13T22:54:49Z

As I already mentioned in a previous post, I hit upon a real treasure trove of recipes when I found the French translation of Martha Stewart's Cookies. I've yet to try a recipe from this book that hasn't turned out perfectly.

When I initially browsed through the book and saw the Earl Grey Tea Cookies, I knew the recipe would be one of the first on my list to try out. Who could pass up a sweet that combines cookies and tea???

These cookies are very simple to make. They are less time intensive than cut-out style cookies and, after rolling and chilling the dough, take no more time to prep for baking than drop cookies. The orange zest complements the bergamot in the Earl Grey really well, and the texture reminds me a bit of shortbread. As a tea lover, I can imagine the variations you could make with other teas, flavored or not, and fruit zests.

Everyone who tried the cookies found their taste unique and was surprised to discover that they contained ground-up tea (so I'm not quite sure what they initially thought the dark specks in the cookies were...). All in all, a very original cookie -- this recipe is a keeper.

Loot from London

2009-11-07T21:41:18Z

Last Thursday and Friday I was in London on a business trip and instead of hopping on the first train out after the workday had ended, I decided to take the last one instead. I had promised a colleague that if I had the time, I would pick up a Westie Shopper Bag from Harrods for her, plus I thought I would do some strolling in the city as well.

Now the only reason she even asked me for this favor is because she knows that I am crazy about these Harrods bags. I bring one with me nearly every day to work. The medium bag is the perfect size for my laptop computer, magazines (ahem, paperwork) and anything else that I can't fit into my purse. And to top it off, they're made of oilcloth (read: waterproof).

So off I went on the Tube to Knightsbridge to the lower level of Harrods, which I can confirm still has the Diana / Dodi memorial, ensuring lots of escalator exiting fun. Of course, after finding the bag I had come for, I just had to take a look around to see if there was anything I couldn't live without. Not surprisingly, I fell hard for one of the current prints they carry -- cakes on a pink pastel background, what's not to love?! -- and decided against my better judgement to get not only the bag but the matching mug and tea cosy as well (I've always wanted one of these and would try to knit my own if I thought it wouldn't take me 3 years).

Now I wish I could say that it stopped there, but I simply can't leave England (or most grocery stores, much to my husband's consternation) without buying some tea. The food halls were calling my name, and I obeyed them. I bought a few boxes of black tea to bring to work as we've recently acquired a tea kettle for our office, and I picked up an infusion for home.

I also forgot that it's impossible for me to leave England without buying some Marmite, Cadbury and winegums. The Marmite I can rationalize -- I can usually only find teeny-tiny jars here in France and they're always expensive because they're imported. I can't really justify buying the candy, but I had a chunk of spare change and, let's face it, its boring waiting for that Eurostar to board.

Unfortunately, I never got to the strolling part of my itinerary. Two stations away from my intended stop, the line was suspended due to a smoking train or something of the sort. I ended up having to take 3 different lines to get back to my destination, leaving me very little time to do anything other than pick up my bags and head to the train station. Which is a shame really, since there's much more to see in London than the inside of a department store.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T15:25:54Z

This was a very fun and quick amigurumi project. I stopped crocheting near the top and added a handle so that it would resemble one of those buckets that children use to collect candy on Halloween night.

You can find the pattern here on the Lion Brand Yarn website. This was my first amigurumi (first crochet project, actually), and I found this tutorial to be very helpful.

I tried to get Simon to pose with the tiny jack-o'-lantern to provide a sense of its size, but I'm afraid he wasn't really in the mood for a photoshoot this afternoon. I thought this next shot was pretty funny.

Daring Bakers 10.2009: French Macarons

2009-10-27T22:11:40Z

In September I decided to join the "Daring Bakers" subset of the Daring Kitchen. Members agree to make a recipe ("challenge") each month and blog about it afterwards on the reveal date, which is always the 27th for the Daring Bakers. The 2009 October Daring Bakers' challenge was brought to us by Ami S. of the Baking Without Fear blog. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course: The Desserts from the Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Living in France, it's hard to avoid macarons (not that you would want to!). Among the most well-known créateurs de macarons are Ladurée and Pierre Hermé, but you can also find them at your local corner bakery or boxed and frozen at the supermarket. On most days, I can even buy some at the café on the ground floor of the building where I work.

I was actually thrilled when I discovered this month's challenge recipe. I'd been wanting to try my hand at making macarons for a long time but just never got around to it. I ended up making two batches. I split the first batch in two and tinted the batter with food coloring paste (orange and brown in an attempt to mimic Fall's colors -- in reality they turned out more peach and beige, yet pretty nonetheless). For the second batch, I skipped the coloring and mixed in finely ground espresso beans. I filled both with a chocolate-espresso ganache.

Anyone who has tried to make macarons knows that they are tricky. And as you can see from the pictures, these macarons didn't quite turn out as they should have. I'm still not quite sure what went wrong. I measured the ingredients precisely and followed the recipe to a T. I let the piped macarons rest before putting them into the oven (check out the picture below of the macarons getting their requisite 30 minutes of R&R). I baked them in two stages, at two different temperatures. Despite all of this, these macarons never developed "feet" and the outer part of the shells are porous when they should have been smooth.

Despite their looks, these macarons still tasted pretty good. Though it's easy to get discouraged when a recipe doesn't turn out as expected, I know that it is just a matter of tweaking, experimenting and, especially, patience before I find a version of the recipe that works. This won't be my last venture into the treacherous terrain of macaron baking.