professional baking class - Pate a Choux

time to get fancy! pate à choux is a pastry dough used to make profiteroles, eclairs, and other fun and pretty things. it's made with only butter, water, flour and eggs. it rises because of all the steam! that's why these things hollow out, and then you fill them with delicious pastry cream.

my partner and i made chocolate mousse filled profiteroles, and then we built them into a croquembouche. i took it home with me but since it was warm outside it fell apart. but i ate most of the profiteroles anyway. heh. also notice the pretty swans that another group made!

vegan bake sale

today i donated some vegan goodies to the vegan bake sale that was raising money for haiti disaster relief. it was a really good cause and there was so much food! thanks to everyone's baking and volunteer work, they raised over $2,000 for doctors without borders. which is really really awesome.

i decided to do something different for the bake sale, something i hadn't done before. i've always wanted to try to make vegan cannoli, so i saw this as a good opportunity. but just to be safe i also planned on the always tasty fluffernutter cupcakes.

so i ordered some cannoli forms online, and found a basic recipe for vegan cannoli. it was pretty easy to make these, just super time consuming. first i made the cream and let it chill for a day so it could really firm up. then i had to make the dough for the shell. once i rolled out the dough and wrapped it around the cannoli forms, i had to deep fry. now i don't have a deep fryer (it might be a good idea to get one if i plan on making these again) so i had to heat some oil in a deep pot. i highly suggest using a deep fryer. the mess i created on my stove top, the oil i have to dispose of, and the smell of hot oil for days in my house are all good reasons you should use a deep fryer (outside) for this. but i made it work. so if i can do it then so can you. a few dough rolled forms came un-rolled during frying, so i just ate them. i ended up with 18 cannoli shells, though, so i think it worked out. the next day i melted some chocolate and spread it inside all the shells, then stuck them in the fridge to harden. then i filled with the cream. a little dusting of powdered sugar before packaging, and voila! yummy vegan cannoli!











if you haven't already, do something to help those in haiti. donate money, clothing, food, anything you can. they need our help.

palmiers

so easy and so tasty!

tahiti treats

shojin in little tokyo

for scott's birthday dinner we ate at shojin in little tokyo. it was delicious.

the restaurant was inside the mall at little tokyo in downtown los angeles. the mall is full of japanese markets, shops, restaurants, and there's an arcade, too. it's pretty romantic compared to all the other 'wax food' places surrounding it.



we each started out with some tea. i got a sencha tea, and scott had something like kukicha? i think that's what it was called..



we also got the appetizer sampler which included seitan meatballs, pumpkin croquettes, and barbequed tempeh. i was too excited so i forgot to take a picture, but you can trust me when i say it was yummy.

the menu was page and pages of amazing looking food. i was torn between the bbq seitan with broccoli, or the soba noodles with tempura vegetables. i decided that seitan with broccoli was not exciting enough, so i went for the soup. it was so good.



scott got the bento box. it included a salad, vegetable, bbq seitan, and cristy katsu seitan. the bbq seitan was amazing.



after dinner scott mentioned to our waiter that it was his birthday, so the waiter excused himself and came back with some birthday ice cream, including his name spelled out in strawberry/raspberry jam (we couldn't decide which flavor).



then on our way out the waiter gave scott a cd of the music they were playing in the restaurant, which is some fun lounge-y music i enjoy bopping to. i can't wait to go back and try something new!

french macarons

oh, hi.

things have been busy. i haven't taken many foodographs lately, but here's a little french macaron (from france) to keep you occupied.