Category: Sweet

  • 3 Day Croissants and Pain au Chocolat

    3 Day Croissants and Pain au Chocolat

    Since culinary school, and even more specifically, since my Intro to Bread Making class, I have wanted to be good at making croissants. However, since they are time consuming and fairly difficult to make, I never really made the attempt. At least, until now.

    I tackled the croissant this week, and I have to say that the results were very very good for a first attempt. For a good croissant or pain au chocolat, you need layers, lots of layers. The more layers the better in my opinion. They need to be buttery and flaky and have depth of flavor.

    You can quite literally see the layer and layer of flaky croissant in these pain au chocolat that I made. Despite the amount of butter, these were light, flaky and absolutely delicious.

    If you want to attempt your own croissants, and have the time to try them out, check out my recipe here.

  • Zoe’s Chocolaty Bacon Eclairs

    Zoe’s Chocolaty Bacon Eclairs

    Eclairs are an amazing dessert. When I was young I used cannoli and eclair interchangeably. Yes yes I know that’s basically sacrilege, but I’m really into desserts and I was too young to know the difference.

    But these are all eclair. I won’t be providing you with the recipe because I will be doing a whole segment on desserts later this year, so if you’re really into it, stay tuned for that.

    These eclairs are the perfect munchie. Rich chocolate mixes with espresso and a touch of chili pepper, a slightly crunchy pate au choux, and delicious bacon jam with caramelized onions. Sweet, savory and umani in all the best ways.

    (and they’re really easy to make into an edible… )

    It’s important to note that eclairs are incredibly time consuming to make if you’ve never made them before.

    BUT! If you’re not about making your own, you could always buy some and add your own bacon mixture to the top of it!

  • Zoe’s Cinnamon Rolls

    Zoe’s Cinnamon Rolls

    I absolutely enjoy making cinnamon rolls. Although they can be time consuming to make if you’ve never made them before, they’re a breeze after making them a few times.

    When we first started this blog, I posted a caramel pecan cinnamon roll recipe that you can find here. That recipe is simply decedent and sweet as hell. While I don’t eat any of these cinnamon rolls I make, I do get a lot of happiness giving them to other people. Also, if they look and taste amazing, that’s a plus too.

    Well, these cinnamon rolls I made recently are my more basic recipe, more classic, with the added effect of bacon, both in the dough and sprinkled on top.

    While I won’t be posting the recipe here, you can get the recipe by subscribing to our email list, where we send our exclusive recipes.

  • Happy National Peanut Butter Day!

    Happy National Peanut Butter Day!

    Today is Peanut Butter Day! We started thinking…what’s better than a peanut butter and fluff sandwich (Fluffernutter, as said in New England)? A fluffernutter on french toast! Then we thought…who doesn’t love Nutella!? THEN with strawberries coming into season in warmer climates…why not that too! That’s how we came up with this French Toast Strawberry Nutella Fluffernutter Club! How will you celebrate today?

  • Ricotta, Pine Nut, and Honey Bread Pudding: Cookbook Review

    Ricotta, Pine Nut, and Honey Bread Pudding: Cookbook Review

    Zoe’s Take:
    6.5/10

    As far as I am concerned, bread pudding is a pretty good dessert when made correctly. I have a fantastic bread pudding recipe that’s basically a dark chocolate dream. For me, this one was just okay. None of the flavors really came forward for me, and the pine nuts were really just a weird addition. I was hoping that the ricotta would have made more of an impact in this recipe, but it didn’t. I guess if you’re a really big pine nut and ricotta fan, this might be for you, but it’s not for me.

    Eric’s Take:
    8/10

    I definitely enjoy a good bread pudding. The Challah I got from my local grocery store was a bit soft and I don’t believe it soaked up as much as it should have. The directions were also somewhat ambiguous. For the bread the instructions were 12 cups of cubed bread. That could vary greatly depending on how large the bread is cut. The pine nuts didn’t add in the crunch I was hoping they would. However, I love ricotta, pine nuts and honey. To Zoe’s point this was definitely for me…so maybe I’m a bit biased. The points were lost on ambiguous directions and taste. Not that this wasn’t really good, it just wasn’t stellar.

  • Absolutely Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge Cookies: Cookbook Review

    Absolutely Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge Cookies: Cookbook Review

    These cookies were made by Chef Marcel Desaulniers for The Trellis: Cafe, Restaurant & Grill.

    Zoe’s Take:
    8/10

    I love a good cookie. If it’s an all chocolate cookie, even better. So when we saw this recipe in The Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher, we had to try it. It’s a good cookie. It might even be a great cookie, but it’s not a 10/10, 5 star amazing cookie because it didn’t live up to the fudge bit. When a cookie describes itself as fudge, I expect melty chocolate chips and a richness. These cookies spread out quite a bit for me and were huge and got a little crunchy. Don’t get me wrong, I still like crunchy cookies, it was just not what I was expecting. Oh well.

    Eric’s Take:
    9/10

    These cookies are VERY good! Super chocolatey and decadent. I thought this recipe was relatively easy to follow. There were a lot of steps and they were blocked in large paragraphs. There were also a lot of timed steps with mixing. I really liked these cookies, but the lost point was with the directions. Because of the steps being a bit confusing it led to inconsistent results between Zoe and my cookies.

  • Spiced Red Wine Poached Pears

    Spiced Red Wine Poached Pears

    I first learned to poach in culinary school. It was not my favorite type of cooking. We learned first on fish, then on chicken (yuck) and finally, on pears! As far as I was concerned, my favorite thing to poach is pears… and then maybe salmon.

    Poaching should only be done on delicate foods, for instance, you wouldn’t poach a rib-eye steak. But pears are perfect. Generally, if I’m poaching pears in red wine, I will serve them with as much chocolate as possible. If they are poached in white wine however, I prefer to serve them with ice cream.

    Get the recipe for my flavorful liquid here!

  • Valentine’s Day Vanilla Rhubarb Scones

    Valentine’s Day Vanilla Rhubarb Scones

    It’s Valentine’s Day, and what are you doing? Maybe going out for dinner or heading to the jewelry store to pick up something shiny.

    In my house, we don’t really do the whole out to dinner thing. Or the gifts, or the jewelry. I normally try to make something new. So this year, I made scones. But not just ANY scones (I also have a deep love for the word scone), vanilla rhubarb scones. Sweet and tart, these bring the perfect flavors to a Valentine’s (or any other day’s) morning!

    If you already have a scone recipe you love, you can just modify it with ease to make them into these vanilla rhubarb scones. Add another teaspoon of vanilla, or crush up a vanilla bean and add that in. Then, cut rhubarb into small pieces and add those right into the scone mixture and voila! Vanilla Rhubarb scones for your Valentine’s Breakfast.

  • Happy National Fondue Day!!!

    Happy National Fondue Day!!!

    Happy National Fondue Day!!! We’re celebrating with some delicious Chocolate-Nutella Fondue. We added 2 Cups of Nutella, 2 Cups of Semi-Sweet Chocolate, 1 1/2 Cup of Heavy Cream, 2 teaspoons of Vanilla and a splash of Caramel flavored vodka.

    Whether it’s Chocolate, Cheese or Boiling Meat, we hope you enjoy some fondue today! Also, this is a super easy dessert for Valentine’s Day. Let us know below if you try it out!

  • Almond Rose Cake: Cookbook Review

    Almond Rose Cake: Cookbook Review

    Zoe’s Take:
    6.5/10

    While this cake is fluffy and buttery with that almond and rose flavor gently coming in for a lovely mild flavor, I just wouldn’t make this cake (other than this review). First, since I know how much butter went into it, I can STILL feel the butter in my pores an hour after eating one small slice. Also, despite the buttery texture and gorgeous crumb, it needs some moisture. The Soframiz cookbook says to pair it with rose petal jam. I made the jam and it definitely added what the cake needed.

    Eric’s Take:
    8/10

    This was a delicious cake. I thought it went well with the rose petal jam. On its own it was definitely lacking something. The almond past, butter and eggs make for a very dense batter that lightens up when baking. However, it wasn’t as light as I was hoping. With over two sticks of butter and six eggs this is also a very rich cake. A half-inch sliver was enough for me. This cake lost one point for complexity of instructions. It was a bit harder to follow than other recipes in the book. The last point was on flavor. Although good, I wasn’t as into it as the other recipes.

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