Le Cordon Bleu in Paris

Hello fellow foodies!

Last weekend I had the experience of a lifetime, a class at the world known Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

My husband got me the absolute best birthday gift, a 4 hour class on "The Secret of Macaroons".

                                     

I didn't know what to expect upon arrival. The entry way was inviting yet intimidating. Upon entering I was escorted to the coat closet, fancy! And then taken to a waiting area until class begun. The waiting area most have also been the break room for the school because all of the table were filled with eager students going over recipes and ideas and failed attempts at culinary masterpieces. I giggled to myself because in their chef jackets, where most people place pens, they had a spoon and fork. I'm pretty sure people would look at me strangely if I walked around like that but its Le Cordon Bleu, I am certain that is acceptable and judge-free.

There was about 10 people who signed up for the class and we were all escorted up three flights of stairs, gotta burn the calories we are about to eat. We were introduced to the wonderful Chef Oliver and our translator because Chef only spoke french, even more fancy!
  

At each of our work stations we were provided an apron, hat, tea towel and pen for notes. We were given an ingredient list but everything else was done by our own notes, no pressure there!

Chef worked his way through the recipe first and then attempted to copy it ourselves.

I wrote very good notes for the macaroon part and feel like they turned out wonderfully! The hardest part is knowing when you have mixed the batter enough, but not too much. Macaroons are sensitive little buggers!











Once those cooled we began our filling. The filling was pretty interesting because it turned into a slime like substance and I started questioning our Chefs level of competence. But once it cooled and we added the butter, it turned out beautifully! It was a wonderful pastry cream with some rose essence.

We filled the macaroons with the pastry cream and placed a quarter of a lychee inside each one. If you have never had lychee before, they look very scary and you would not want to taste them. But oh my, they are delicious!!! They taste a lot like grapes and have a soft texture. In the end we ended up with beautiful Rose Lychee macaroons. Two flavor combinations I would have NEVER placed together but they complimented each other very well.
















My walk back to the hotel was like I was dreaming. I, Britani Stratton, just completed a lifelong dream. My soul was and still is so happy!

                                                

We also spent the weekend in Paris doing sightseeing as a family and it was the best experience! Our boys loved everything Paris had to offer, and so did I!

We ended our trip with a wonderful breakfast at Laduree. This place was STUNNING! The inside looked like I walked back in time and was living the life of an heiress, I may also be watching way too much Downton Abbey. But either way, I felt like royalty. All serving ware was real pure silver. The boys got REAL french toast and their hot chocolate came with one saucer of melted chocolate and one saucer of hot cream. Um, I wanted to trade my mimosa for theirs! I ordered a lovely eggs Benedict that was superb to the last bite. On our way out we bought some macaroons and eclair for the long drive home.

I am actually heading back to Paris this coming weekend with my dear friend, Ashley Borck from Ashley Borck Photography. Her and I will be doing a 6 hour pastry class at Le cordon Bleu together! It will be a full girls weekend complete with taking the train for the first time, going to Moulin Rouge and a full day of baking. Pretty much, the best month of birthday celebrations ever!

Keep a look out on my facebook page over the next couple weeks because I will be offering up a special for Valentines Day with some special Red Velvet macaroons!

Also, here is the link to Le Cordon Bleu to sign up for some of their amazing classes!

Halloween Monster Mash 2015

I hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween! Our house is always madness around this time of year because it starts the birthday season. We are blessed with three holidays babies, one on Halloween, one on Thanksgiving and one just a couple days before Easter. So saying we have a fun Halloween every year is an understatement! This year I decided to go with a monster mash birthday theme. We had SO MUCH FUN! Now, I will warn you......I took pictures of the cakes, the party favors and then nothing until the aftermath because I was was overwhelmed with 20 children, a face painter and 25 adults that I completely forgot to take pictures! But it was fun and that's all that matters.

The festivities started the day before Halloween when I made a cupcake cake for Liam to celebrate with his little friends at school. He said he wanted a red monster, so he got this...

For Halloween We made favors of "Frankenstein blood",  an awesome slime like substance made with glue and borax, recipe below. The kids loved it and of course the boys are still begging me to make more!

This is a fun and easy slime to make. Make it with white glue for opaque slime, or glue gel for translucent slime.

What You Need:

1/2 cup (4 oz bottle) Elmer's white glue or Elmer's school glue gel

1 tsp Borax (find in the laundry detergent aisle of the store)
1 1/2 cup Water
Two bowls
Food coloring (optional)

1. In one bowl mix 1/2 cup (4 oz) glue and 1/2 cup water. Add food coloring if you want colored slime.
2. In the other bowl, mix 1 teaspoon borax with 1 cup water until the borax is dissolved.
3. Add the glue mixture to the borax solution, stirring slowly.
4. The slime will begin to form immediately; stir as much as you can, then dig in and knead it with your hands until it gets less sticky. (No one makes slime without getting a little messy!) Don't worry about any leftover water in the bowl; just pour it out.

For his cupcake cake he wanted a blue monster and got this adorable little guy!!! I love how he turned out!! I also used some extra frosting to make a few cupcake monsters as well.




















For the party, I made Salsa (Zombie Brains), pumpkin pie dip (Ghoul Guts), little smokies with BBQ sauce (fingers), Fall chex mix with chex, pretzels, candy corn and M&Ms (Monster Mash) and we grilled up some hot dogs. I'm pretty sure everyone liked it because we had NO leftovers! Which I like because we have a tiny fridge and I hate leftovers.

During the party we played a couple games, I printed a monster print out and made "Pin the eye on the monster", then we played the mummy game where the kids were placed in teams and they had to wrap their teammate like a mummy with streamers and whoever finished first won. I'm pretty sure the adults liked that game more than the kids.

Finally we finished with the minute to win it donut game where I placed mini donuts on a string and each kid had to eat them with no hands. That game went by WAY too quickly. Next time I will use full size donuts.






All in all we had a fantastic party and Liam had a fantastic birthday. I did, however, decide that Preston's birthday next month will be at an indoor play place because I don't want to clean my house for 3 days after that madness again! HAHA.

Happy Fall Y'all!

Tiramisu Recipe!

Good morning fellow food lovers! This last weekend was a crazy one! I will do a full blog post about it later today, but I thought it would be fun to share one of my go to recipes for my favorite dessert, Tiramisu!! SO many people love this dessert. however they get intimidated with all the layers that they don't realize how easy it really is to make. Now, I am not going to try to be one of those food blogs that only uses the most expensive ingredients and all that nonsense, but keep in mind that I am here in Germany so my ingredients do vary slightly. Just use what you have and don't stress about it! Also, this dessert needs AT LEAST 6 HOURS TO CHILL. I put that all in caps, did you see it? Are you sure? Because I don't want you to remember an hour before a dinner party that you want to make this and then get to the end to see that you cant even eat it for 6 hours. It's even better to wait a full day and let it chill and harden up.

To start, you will need to separate 6 eggs, place the yolk into your mixing bowl with a whisk attachment and the white in a separate bowl. (yes, i have more than 6 eggs because I doubled the recipe when I made it ;) )

Next, add the sugar to the yolks and whisk until thick and somewhat frothy.

Now, add the amaretto and mascarpone; mix until well incorporated and thick. Once mixed, pour that mixture into another bowl, clean and DRY the mixing bowl and start whipping those egg whites until thick peaks form.

 





While the egg whites are going to town in the mixer, put on a tea kettle with water, warm up the coffee maker or Keurig or whatever you have because we need some STRONG coffee. I used a french press to be sure I got really strong coffee and used my new favorite coffee that I can get at our local Globus.



Once the egg whites are done, carefully mix them into the mascarpone mix until well mixed. But DONT over do it. we want to keep those whites fluffy. Then, pour your coffee into a dish that would be easy to dip the lady fingers into. carefully, and quickly dip the lady fingers into the coffee. I did mine side by side, and then place into a baking dish. Now, those lady fingers soak up the coffee VERY quickly, like really really quick. So keep that in mind because my first one turned into mush and I had to redo it ;).

Once the lady fingers are arranged in a single layer, top with 1/2 the mascarpone filling, add another layer of dipped lady fingers on top and finish off with the rest of the filling. Do not top with the cocoa powder until before serving or it will pretty much melt into the filling and it wont look that nice. TO finish, scrape out the bowl with any left over mascarpone filling and place in small bowl with spoon, sit and it it with a cup of coffee and rationalize  it by saying to yourself, "its not good to waste food'. :) ENJOY!








 

Yield: One 9x13 inch baking dish

 

You Will Need

• 750ml brewed espresso or very strong coffee, at room temperature
• 50g amaretto (I just used one of the mini bottles that you can buy)
• 6 large egg yolks
• 6 large egg whites
• 150g granulated sugar
• 500g of mascarpone cheese
• 2 packs of lady fingers
• 1 ounce (30 g) bittersweet chocolate or cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

 

Mix egg yolks and sugar with whisk attachment until well blended and frothy. Add mascarpone, amaretto and heavy cream and whip until thick. Place mascarpone mixture aside in separate bowl and clean mixing bowl and whisk attachment. Whip egg whites until thick white peaks form. While the egg whites are mixing, start letting your coffee brew and cool. Once egg whites are thick, carefully fold them into the mascarpone filling, being careful not to over mix. Set aside. Dip the ladyfingers very quickly into the coffee, and line the bottom of your dish (You might find that you need to break a few into pieces to fit them in the dish).Spoon half of the mascarpone filling over the lady fingers and spread into an even layer. Then dip the remaining ladyfingers very quickly into the coffee and arrange a second layer over filling. Spoon remaining mascarpone mixture over ladyfingers. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 6 hours.When ready to serve, dust with extra grated chocolate or cocoa powder. Leave out at room temperature about 20 minutes before serving. (Tiramisu can be chilled up to 2 days, but no longer or else the ladyfingers will break down too much).

 

Summer time is over!

Summer time is over!

Wow, what an incredible summer we had!! As most know, I spent the summer in California with our family before making our HUGE move to Germany! We went to the beach, Las Vegas, Knotts Berry Farm, waterparks and so much more! I also went on a girls only trip to Disneyland with my childhood best friend. We had a blast!!! And OMG, the dole whip. Y'all, I seriously ate my weight in that stuff. SO ADDICTING! And incase you didnt know, I am also a Disney vacation planner on the side, pretty much to help fuel my Disney addiction. (insert shamless self plug here.... Britani's Ears of Experience Travel page)

 

 

 

In August, literally the week before we flew to Germany, I flew back to Gerogia for one of my best friends wedding. I had the honor of creating her lovely rustic cake, pies and cupcakes. We decided to do a guiness stout cake with baileys buttercream and it was fantastic!

 

 

 

We have been in Germnay for about 6 weeks now and I can finally say that we are settled. There are just one or two boxes that are still unpacked but majority of our home is put together. I FINALLY got a 220v mixer, because the 110V from america wont work here. Its a smaller version than the one back home but it will do!

 

Here are a few things I have learned while being here:

 

Olives and fresh mozerella are an acceptable breakfast

The bakery down the road doesnt care about my hips and thats ok with me!

The food is made fresh to order. I mean, FRESH.

The grocery stores don't have a large freezer section because they only use fresh

Nutella crepes are to die for

They hardly use sugar and let the true flavors of ingredients shine. YAY for less sugar!

The fresh pretzels.....we are all addicted

Gelato....you have never experinced true European gelato until you have it shaped like a rose

There is some sort of "fest" every weekend for something. But thats ok because it always includes beer, wine and food!

The food is enough to make me never want to leave Europe!

 

Now that we are settled, I PROMISE to be better about writing some posts. The baking bug is hitting me hard this week so look out for some goodies!! For now.....check out the pics below and try not to eat your computer in the process.

 



Disney World Cupcake Crawl 2015

Whisk went on our first trip to Disney World last week and had the time of our lives!! While researching all things Disney through Pinterest and fellow blogs I came across this informative, and drool worthy, post about all the cupcakes that Disney World has to offer from Emma at A Pinch Of Pixie Dust It is a couple years old, from 2013. So I made it my goal to try to get to every location while on our trip and give my own review.

While I didn’t make it to every location, I made it to a few and to be totally honest, what Disney World had to offer was not only disappointing to my taste buds, it was disappointing to my wallet as well. At nearly $5 per cupcake at every location, I learned that I either need to raise my own prices by 50% or move down to Florida so I can cash in on this cupcake robbery!

Downtown Disney

We started our trip at Downtown Disney because we had some time to spare before dinner reservations. I was thrilled for this area because some people make this entire downtown experience their only experience of Disney World. I picked up my map and was ecstatic when I saw some new bakeries listed! I dragged my kiddos in tow and we raced towards them all.

First stop was Goofy’s Candy Company. The name drew me in right away. I could smell the sugar in the air and followed my nose to the sweets display counter. Sadly, I was welcomed with the same old boring flavors of chocolate and vanilla. Don’t get me wrong, I love vanilla and chocolate but my taste buds need more! Give me something I cant get at home, give me something that makes me want more, give me something that screams DISNEY! Honestly, didn’t even taste them at this location because the line was ridiculous and I really didn’t want to waste $10 for two cupcakes that were nothing new or exciting.

Next stop was Erin McKenna’s Babycakes Bakery NYC.

This place screamed bakery before you even walked through the door. Aside from the color choices, my dream shop would be exactly this! It was adorable!! Her main shop is in NY so this is technically a chain. The selection was very good with such items as cupcakes, cookies, cinnamon rolls, brownies and much much more. I ended up buying a “Cookie Monster” cupcake,  “Chocolate Blondie” cupcake and also a cinnamon roll (special request form my mother in law who was with me).

My mouth watered thinking about those cupcakes. I let them sit for a little while because they came from a refrigerated case and I know the golden rule, never eat a cold cupcake!

Once it sat for a while I dove in first with the cookie monster cupcake. I couldn’t even chew the first bite without spitting it out. I know, I sound crazy. Who doesn’t like all cupcakes?!?! But let me tell you, this was HORRIBLE. And just to be sure I wasn’t being a cupcake snob, I had every member of my family try it as well, including my 6 and 4 year old. No one swallowed it. The cake was so hard that I felt as though I was eating month old cookies that sat out on the counter. When you think of frosting you think of light, sweet, creamy deliciousness. This was none of those. It was rock hard. So hard that I could hardly taste it to even decipher what flavor it was suppose to be. The Chocolate Blondie was just as bad. Nothing but hardness. I can promise you that these cupcakes must have been made days ahead, maybe even weeks, frozen and then defrosted.

Bakers will argue one thing to their grave, freezing cupcakes. Some say never, some say always, some really don’t care. I will say that I have never made and then froze cupcakes for my customers. Now, extras for my kiddos, maybe. But NEVER any that I get paid peoples good, hard earned money for. When people pay a bakery for baked goods they expect that payment to be for freshly made goodness from the heart. NOT something frozen weeks beforehand with no care in the world. That argument aside, one thing that should NEVER happen is freezing an entirely made cupcake, including the frosting!!! Frosting will NEVER be the same after being frozen. You loose all texture and creaminess and can never get it back.

After the horrible disappointment of the last bakery I was very excited when we walked upon the Candy Cauldron. 

When I walked in I was immediately enthralled by the smell of caramel! I have to admit, caramel apples are my biggest guilty pleasure!! After drooling over those for a couple minutes I walked to the case to check out the cupcake selection. Don’t let the picture fool you, It may look identical to the one from Goofy’s Candy Company, however this is in fact the Candy Cauldron. Once I saw this it was becoming perfectly clear that there was going to be one theme for the cupcake choices at Disney World, none would be home made, none would be original, and all would be mass produced and more then likely, frozen. Again, didn’t waste my money on some boring flavors so I decided to wait until the last stop for this area.

We stopped at Earl of Sandwich on our way back to the buses to the hotel. It is a cute little sandwich shop with a small dessert menu. 

 I immediately looked in the glass case for the cupcake selection and was disappointed when there weren’t any in it. I asked an employee who then pointed to the little cake stands by the check out registers. Again, I was met with utter disappointment with the only flavor choice being chocolate or vanilla. However, these did look original and somewhat freshly made. The chocolate was moist, the frosting was very hard however. The vanilla was dry and overall lack luster. I definitely wouldn’t spend another $10 on these.

My overall theme for day 1 was sadness. I was so excited before arriving and after today I feel like America in general has forgotten what truly homemade confections are, because if so, none of these places would still be in business based of their cupcake sales. It saddens me to see people wasting their money on not worthy items.

Magic Kingdom

I was most excited for this location because it is where it all begins, the center of the Disney World universe!! I just KNEW that Magic Kingdom wouldn’t let me down. Or so I thought.

The first stop was Main Street Confectionary.

The name says it all, it is the main spot for all things sweet at Disney. The minute I walked in the glaring bright colored frosting attracted me and I raced to the counter. Only to be met with disappointment. They were the EXACT same cupcakes from Goofy’s Candy Company and the Candy Cauldron. My inclination was right and all of these cupcakes must be mass-produced either on site somewhere or at a factory.

After leaving the confectionary I needed a pick me up and was thrilled when I saw my heaven on earth. I know, I know! A small business owner should NOT be supporting big chains like Starbucks but sometimes a girl just needs a dang Tiramisu latte! I usually never get food at Starbucks but while waiting in line I took a glance over and to my surprise there were two adorable, and yummy looking, cupcakes staring back at me!! 

Starbucks. Really?!? Starbucks was my saving grace on my cupcake crawl?!?!? Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing, but either way I knew I was buying both. 

 One was claimed to be a chocolate mocha and the other was vanilla. The Chocolate Mocha one was ok. Just ok. The cake was more muffin like, but completely edible, unlike its predecessors before. The frosting was a little soft but good. However, I tasted no mocha flavor to it. The vanilla cupcake was nothing to rave about. The vanilla cake tasted very much like box cake and the frosting was grainy and overly sweet. But they do get points for being adorable!

Polynesian Resort

We had dinner reservations at the Polynesian Resort and after we

enjoyed an amazing meal I stopped by the café on our way out to see what they had to offer. There were two choices, both plain in flavor but were cute Mickey and Minnie themed. To be fair, I did swing by around 8pm so they very well could have been sold out of all the good ones.

Hollywood Studios

The only real “bakery” at Hollywood Studios was the Trolley Café. 

Cute set up and very retro looking, but once I walked in I realized that this was actually now a Starbucks! Adorable cupcakes, like the Starbucks at Magic Kingdom, but this location did offer some new flavors such as Toffee Crunch and Chocolate Peanut Butter. 
We ended up hanging out in there for an hour or so to wait out the afternoon rain so I decided to try both of those flavors. The outside of the Toffee Crunch cupcake had a delicious candy coating. I was cracking off pieces of it and eating it with my coffee. The frosting however, YUCK! It was nothing but Crisco and sugar, greasy, grainy, just overall bad! The cake was the same chocolate from the other Starbucks. Ok, but nothing special. The chocolate peanut butter was a gorgeous cupcake!! Very modern in décor, which I love. The chocolate curls were delicious. The frosting didn’t have a very peanut butter flavor to it and was hardly noticeable when eaten with the chocolate cake. Again, not terrible but still a little sad that the most decent cupcakes were coming from chains. I was really hoping to see more local and fresh options.

Epcot

Day three started with the continuing theme of my trip. The best, and nearly only, cupcakes were again at Starbucks. 

This Starbucks offered chocolate and a strawberry and cream cupcake. I tried the Strawberry cupcake. It was not very good. Artificial flavoring and you could tell that just from the fake pink color and the frosting was rock hard.

Animal Kingdom

I didn’t notice any stores or restaurants on the map that would have cupcakes so I asked a cast member if they knew of one. I am not joking, this was the response, “No, Starbucks hasn’t opened yet.”. Well. Ok then.

Art of Animation Hotel

We were staying at the Art of Animation Hotel, which is AMAZING by the way, and they offered their own cute line of cupcakes. 

Again with the bland and boring flavors and not so tasty frosting but still cute for the kids.

Magic Kingdom Day 2

We spent our final day at Magic Kingdom hitting up the rides we didn’t get to on day one and finished our trip with what I have been looking most forward to, dinner at Be Our Guest. It is a fairly new restaurant themed to the movie, Beauty and the Beast, a personal favorite of mine. When we walked in we were greeted with an entire cart of desserts just waiting for us to hurry and eat them, I couldn’t wait for dinner to get done fast enough. 

I made it easy for the waitress and just said bring me one of everything! We all took a bite of each dessert, 6 total with 3 being cupcakes, and passed them down. At the end we all claimed our favorites. For the cupcakes, they offered a Lemon Cloud, a lemon cake with meringue topping. The lemon was by far my favorite. Moist cake with perfectly made meringue. Strawberry and Cream, which was a strawberry cake and frosting. It was ok, there was something off about the flavor to all of us and we could not pin point what it was. The final cupcake choice was a chocolate on chocolate. The cake was slightly dry and the frosting was too thick. The frosting was a dark chocolate frosting and as very rich. I think it would have been better if it were glazed on like a ganache because with it piled on it was just too much.

Honorable Mentions

While majority of my time was spent analyzing cupcakes I encountered some amazing culinary and confectionary delights and would love to share them!

First, Dole Whip. Seriously, if you have never had it you are missing out! It is only available at three places in the world, Disney World, Disneyland and the Dole factory in Hawaii. Its delicious and we may or may not have had it three times. Also, my son learned that brain freezes hurt but are sometimes worth it. 

Le Cellier in Epcot was a special dinner for just my husband and myself. Its located in Canada at Epcot and is pretty pricey. Perfect for a special date night though. And since we will be on an entirely different continent from any family we are getting all the date nights we can while we have the chance. I tried poutine for the first time, essentially just some yummy fries and these were topped with feta and a delicious balsamic glaze reduction. The steak for dinner was literally cut with my butter knife!! Best steak I have ever had. And for dessert I got one of my classic favorites, crème brulee. Everything about that restaurant stuck out as memorable and I highly recommend it.

Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie in France at Epcot had so many deserts that I became awe struck while trying to decide. 

All freshly made and actually made my French exchange students!! I tried my favorite again, crème brulee and also a chocolate éclair. If you are a sweets lover, this is the place to go.

And finally my favorite experience of the trip, Be Our Guest. The ambiance, the food, the dessert, and the drinks. All memorable. All amazing.

All in all, I feel disappointed with the cupcake side of the trip. I’m really saddened to see what has become normalized in the confectionary world. As a culture we need to get back to scratch baking. The health benefits alone should make people want to do it, not to mention that the honest and true flavors are incomparable. I hope to make it to Disneylnad this summer while visiting family, we will see what Starbucks there has to offer, haha.