Chocolate Sables by Pierre Herme

I tried these sables and they were a huge success. They're super easy to make and you can make really fun shapes! A definite must try.

Ingredients:

• 260g flour
• 30g cocoa powder
• 250g room temperature butter
• 100 g powdered sugar (sifted)
• Pinch of Salt
• 3tsp egg whites

1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius
2. Whisk flour and cocoa. Set aside. 
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and salt. Whisk. 
4. Whisk in the egg whites. Mix well. 
5. Add the flour and cocoa mix. Mix well. 
6. Use a piping bag (star tip) to pipe out shapes on a silpat or parchment paper. Make a W shape. 
7. Bake 10-12 minutes. 
8. Set aside to cool. 
9. Enjoy!

Birthday Cake: Fraisier

I turned 23 a week ago and decided to make my own birthday cake! I made a fraisier. It was YUMMY! A real success! I used the recipe of the "Petit Larousse Patissier".

Ingredients for the Genoise:

• 140g Flour
• 4 eggs
• 140g sugar
• 40g butter

1. Sift the flour. Set aside. 
2. In a bowl, put the eggs and add the sugar whilst mixing. Use the Bain-Marie method and keep on mixing well. 
3. Continue mixing until the mix thickens and the temperature has to be around 55-60 degrees celsius. Remove from the water. Mix with an electric mixer until the batter has cooled down completely. 
4. Melt the butter. In a small bowl, take 2 tbsp of the previous batter and mix it well to the butter. Set aside to cool.
5. Add the flour to the batter and mix gently with a wooden spoon. The batter needs to retain is air-y-ness. Add the butter mixture. 
6. Put on a baking pan and bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes of until golden and until your knife comes out clean. 

Ingredients for the Butter Cream:

• 125g soft butter
• 3cl water
• 70g sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 yolk
• 1 tbsp kirsch

1. Put the water in a pan and add the sugar. Bring to a boil. Let this simmer until it reaches a temperature of 120 degrees celsius. 
2. In a bowl, add the egg and the yolk. Mix with an electric mixer. It has to whiten and make bubbles. 
3. When the syrup is ready, add it to the egg mixture whilst mixing slowly. Continue until this cools down and add the kirsch. 
4. Add the butter and mix well. You will have a nice butter cream. Cool in the fridge. 

Ingredients for the Custard:

• 3 egg yolks
• 50g powdered sugar
• 20g flour
• 25cl milk

1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar. Add the flour. 
2. In a pan bring to a boil the milk and add it to the above batter. Mix well and bring back to the heat and keep on stirring until the mix becomes thicker. Take off the heat. 
3. Once it has cooled down, mix the custard and the butter cream together and set aside. 

Ingredients for the Kirsch Syrup:

• 30g sugar
• 10cl water
• 1tbsp kirsch

1. Mix the sugar, water and kirsch together. 

Building the Fraisier:

1. Cut the genoise in half. You should have one layer for the bottom and one for the top. Both sides should be brushed with the Kirsch syrup. 
2. Take 500g of strawberries and cut them in half. 
3. Put one of your genoises in a dish and put a first layer of cream. 
4. Add the strawberries on the sides and in the middle. 
5. Fill the holes with cream. 
6. Put the top of the genoise and press gently to fix it to the cream/strawberry mix. 
7. Put a sheet of marzipan on top and a bit of powdered sugar. 
8. Decorate as you wish. 
9. Put in the fridge for at least 12 hours. 
10. Enjoy!

Deep Pan Pizza

Yesterday I got a new toy. It is all very exciting. I got a bubblegum pink Kitchen Aid. Its AWESOME. $50 go to research for breast cancer and the colour is just amazing and makes me happy in the kitchen. So of course, I decided to give it a try and made pizza dough with it. So easy! Mess-free and so so so YUMMY! This pizza definitely won my heart, and I will be making it again for sure! Definitely one of the best homemade pizzas I have had... I love that the crust is crusty on the outside and soft like bread in the inside. YUM YUM YUM!

Ingredients:

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 3 cups flour

1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water in your mixer bowl.
2. Add the salt, olive oil and the flour. 
3. Use your awesome pink kitchenaid dough hook and mix for about one minute. 
4. The dough should cling to the hook and not attach the side. 
5. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour. Punch down dough. 
6. Brush your pan with olive oil and press dough across bottom of the pan, forming a collar around the edges to hold toppings. 
7. Add your toppings. I added tomatoes, olives, cheddar, mozzarella, swiss cheese and provence herbs. 
8. Bake at 450F for 18 minutes. 
9. Enjoy!

Challah

I came across a great recipe for Challah and I just knew I had to try making it. I had not had Challah in a while! I made two loaves. One normal and the other with chocolate chips. They both turned out amazing and super moist and delicious!! We really enjoyed having some as snacks throughout the day. Plan to be home for a while, it takes AGES!

Recipe taken from Joan Nathan found here.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 packages of active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp of sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 5 large eggs
• 1 tbsp salt
• 7 to 8 cups of flour (depends on the stickiness of your dough)
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chips (if you want to add chocolate chips in your loaf)

1. In a large bowl (seriously), dissolve yeast and 1tbsp of sugar in 1 3/4 cups of lukewarm water. Use a fork to dissolve. 
2. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading. (You can use a mixer - to your own risk... my dough flew everywhere when I tried.)
3. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Clean out bowl and grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen cloth, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour. (I put mine near the window.. and let the sun work its magic!). Dough should double in size. 
4. Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warm place for another half-hour. 
5. Cut your dough in half. You'll have two loaves. You may knead in the chocolate chips in one of the two doughs. 
6. To make the 6 braid challah, you take one ball of dough (you got two in part 5) and form it into six balls. 
7. With your hands, roll each ball into a strand about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place the six in a row, parallel to one another. 
8. Pinch the tops of the strands together. 
9. Move the outside right strand over 2 strands. Then take the second strand from the left and move it to the far right. Take the outside left strand and move it over 2. Move second strand from the right over to the far left. Start over with the outside right strand. Continue this until all strands are braided. 
10. For a straight loaf, tuck ends underneath. For a circular loaf, twist into a circle, pinching ends together. 
11. Make the second loaf the same way.
12. Place braided loaves on a greased cookie sheet with at least 2 inches in between. 
13. Beat the remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Let rise for another hour. 
14. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and brush loaves a second time with the egg wash. 
15. Bake in the middle of oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden. (If you have an instant read thermometer you can take it out when it hits an internal temperature of 190 degrees.)
16. Cool loaves on a rack. 
17. Enjoy!!

*You can add raisins or cranberries. 

** You could put poppy seeds on top. 

St Patrick's Spinach Soup

Erin Go Bragh! In honour of St Patrick's Day, I made this green soup with plenty of spinach! It was delicious, very easy to make and a definite must try! YUM.

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of cooked spinach (I used frozen spinach) / This is basically half of a frozen spinach bag. 
• 1/3 cup of half and half
• 1/4 cup of milk (I used 1%)
• 1 garlic clove
• 1tsp salt
• 2tsp cayenne pepper

1. Cook your spinach and drain the water. 
2. Add the half and half, and milk. 
3. In your blender, put the mix and add the pepper, salt, and the garlic clove. Blend until smooth. 
4. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Finally! I am all settled in in our beautiful apartment and have gotten reacquainted with a kitchen! Feels good to be baking and cooking again - should I add eating homemade food again too? YUM! Anyhow I made this last night and it was really fun to make. The concept of the pull-apart bread is pretty cool! Charles really liked the bread. Mom and Dad not so much. You win some you lose some. I thought it was good but tasted exactly like a cinnamon bun which is something I was not entirely expecting. So if you want a yummy cinnamon bun with a twist, this should work! I took the recipe from Joy The Baker. Her blog has plenty of cool recipes. 

Ingredients for the dough:

• 2 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp of flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 envelope)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 ounces unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup whole milk (I used 2% and it did the trick)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. In a large mixing bowl whisk together 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Set aside. 
2. Whisk together the eggs and set aside. 
3. In a saucepan, melt together milk and butter, until butter has just melted. Remove from the heat and add the water and vanilla extract. Let it cool down a bit - needs to be warm. 
4. Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Ass in the eggs and stir the mixture until everything is well incorporated. 
5. Add in the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and stir well. The recipe says you should get a sticky dough. I got a dry dough and it worked fine too. 
6. Place the dough in a large greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel. Place in a warm space and allow to double for an hour. 

Ingredients for the filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted until browned

1. Whisk together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the filling and set aside.
2. Melt the butter until browned and set aside.
3. Grease your pan. Set aside. 
4. Once your dough has risen, deflate it and knead about 2tbsp of flour into the dough. Cover with with a kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes. 
5. On a floured surface, roll out your dough as much as you can. Joy says the dough should be 12 inches tall and about 20 inches long. 
6. Using a brush, spread the melted butter across all of the dough. 
7. Sprinkle all of your sugar and cinnamon mixture. Be generous. 
8. Slice the dough vertically, into six equal sized strips.
9. Stack the strips on top of one another and slice the stack into six equal slices once again. You will have six stacks of six squares. 
10. Layer the dough squares in the loaf pan. Place a kitchen towel on top and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes. 
11. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place the loaf in the oven and bake 30 minutes or until the top is very golden brown. 
12. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 20-30 minutes. Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the bread and invert onto a clean plate. 
13. You can invert it back to its right side up.
14. Enjoy!

* I served this with ice cream. 

Will be back shortly

I will upload new recipes in the next two weeks. Currently dealing with a move to NYC! In the mean time, I urge you to try the Ladurée macarons if you have not yet! YUM.