dessert « I Heart Dessert

Archive for the ‘dessert’ Category

Dean & DeLuca Wish List

June 20th, 2008

Dean & DeLuca – you guys really know how to make a food loving girl go crazy…I just got the new catalog in the mail the other day and I have NEVER salivated so much in my life. Every page was filled with decadent gourmet food that I could only imagine how amazing it would taste. I totally felt like a poor stray dog staring at the the delicious meat hanging from the butcher’s shop window. This catalog is my new favorite reading material, because I enjoy reading it over and over again. As far as my wish list from Dean & DeLuca…if I could, my wish list would contain their entire inventory, but since that’s not possible, here are a few of my top picks from their Summer catalog.

1. Lobster Rolls – 8 for $135, This by far is the most amazing picture in the entire catalog. Every time I look at it, all I can think is “WOW that looks delicious!”.

2. Wagyu Ribeyes– 2 for $140, So the first time I heard about this kind of beef was during the season finale of Top Chef last week, and apparently its suppose to be the “caviar of beefs”.

3. Crab Bennies – 6 for $75, I love eggs benedict and this just brings it to a whole other level!

Now on to the dessert!

1. Gateau Nuage Cheesecake – $70, Typically, I don’t eat or even like cheescake due to a traumatic childhood experience which involved vomiting and a trip to the ER. But, I must say this picture of cheesecake actually makes me want to eat cheesecake! So, Dean and DeLuca you could possibly turn this cheesecake hater into a cheesecake lover once again!

2. Gavottes – $25, I’ve been looking all over for these! A friend of mine had given me a sample of these lovely cookies when she came back from her trip to Paris and since that day I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a box.

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Torch Time

April 30th, 2008

During my trip to Vegas a few weeks back, I was had some of the best creme brulee. I’m usually not fond of creme brulee, because 1) I’ve never really had great tasting creme brulee before and 2) there’s no chocolate in it & I tend to not order non-chocolate desserts (that’s just the chocoholic in me). But, the creme brulee I tried in Vegas made me see creme brulee in a new light and see how versatile and delicious it could be. The creme brulee dessert I tried, was a duo of creme brulee, one was classic vanilla and the other was deep chocolate. I was surprised to see a chocolate creme brulee, this was new to me and boy was I excited. So, now I’m sort of in my creme brulee phase and craving it more than ever. I’m in the process of looking for a creme brulee torch, so that I can whip it up in my kitchen, but I’m stuck on whether I should invest my money into an expensive professional one or just get one of those dinky creme brulee torch sets. Bed Bath and Beyond, sells a creme brulee torch set that comes with a torch and 4 ramikins for $19.99. This sounds much more tempting than the Williams Sonoma torch for $39.95 which sadly comes with nothing else. Oh, decisions decisions.

Bed Bath & Beyond Torch Set
Pros: $19.99 and I can use the 20% off coupon. Sweet!
Cons: there’s probably a 90% chance that the torch will be a dud

Williams Sonoma Kitchen Torch
Pros: you could probably torch to your heart’s desire with this baby
Cons: $39.95…and this torch probably won’t be used very often in a regular kitchen

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Dessert Heaven

April 23rd, 2008

I went to Vegas this past weekend, and by far it was the best Vegas trip. Not only because of the good company and many highlights during the trip, but also because of all the delicious desserts I had, which probably increased my chances of diabetes in just one weekend. The first dessert I have to rave about was the Boston Cream Pie DeLux at the Grand Lux Cafe in the Venetian. Honestly, it was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had…Creamy Custard Layered Between Moist, Rich Vanilla Cake. Covered with Warm Chocolate and Whipped Cream. I was smiling the entire time I was eating it! Haha. The next thing I have to rave about was the dessert bar at the Treasure Island buffet. It was dessert heaven! I’ve never seen such an impressive array of desserts…freshly made miniature donuts, chocolate dipped banana pops, chocolate dipped strawberries, cupcakes, creme brulee and best of all a cotton candy machine! I think I have to say that it definitely beats the Wynn’s dessert bar.

Boston Cream Pie DeLux

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Eggstatic!

March 19th, 2008

So, to my surprise the Easter Bunny came early this year! My boyfriend was ~~nice~~ great enough to buy me those Bonnat Chocolate Eggs I kept talking on and on about. I was ecstatic when I saw the Dean & DeLuca package right before me. As promised in my last post that upon receiving these eggs I will love the giver forever and so yes I will love you forever! Thank you!!!! You’ve made this girl very happy and also filled with lots of chocolate and hazelnut praline. So about these eggs, how good are they you ask? Because they better be damn good if they cost $55 for six eggs! My answer to that question is they were delicious and everything I expected them to be. Good quality chocolate and the hazelnut praline filling was so creamy. YUM! Now that I think about how yummy these eggs were, I feel silly for ever believing that Cadbury cream filled eggs were the best chocolate eggs. Sadly, I feel a little disgusted by the thought of that overly sweet cream filling and milk chocolate shell. Not only did the Bonnat eggs taste great, but the whole process of getting to the highly anticipated confection was pretty fun. I enjoyed taking the brown egg from its egg crate and cracking and peeling the shell away. To my surprise it was really easy to peel and within a few seconds I was already biting into it. So, here’s wishing all of you a Happy Easter and hopefully some Bonnat Chocolate Eggs in your basket this year!

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Love Treats

March 19th, 2008

I know February is long gone and Valentine’s Day seemed like ages ago, but I finally uploaded pictures of some V-day treats I made for my valentine <3 I found these large pink strawberry flavored marshmallows at the market and decided to make pink rice krispie treats. To make it extra chessy, I made them into hearts and sprinkled some heart sprinkles for some added flare. They turned out pretty well. I was worried that the marshmallows would have a disgustingly artificial strawberry flavor, but the berry flavor was pretty mellow and a nice change to the original rice krispie treats. And how did my valentine like them? Well, let's just say he ate the entire plate of treats in one night.

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Eggcellent!

March 5th, 2008

I MUST have these: Bonnat Chocolate Eggs. Wow, real brown eggshells lined with dark chocolate and filled with hazelnut praline?!? If you filled these in my easter basket I would love you forever. But, who’s willing to shell out $55 for a box of 6 eggs plus the required next day shipping which comes to a total of $65.95! Now, that’s just ridiculous and heartbreaking for me. I’d be willing to buy one egg, but unfortunately that’s not an option. Anyone willing to split a box or buy it for me?

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Happy New Year!

January 4th, 2008

2008!?! Wow, time flies by so quickly! I hope your New Year is starting off nicely, sadly my first day this year didn’t go so smoothly. So, here’s a recap of my New Years Day: I fell down the stairs, but I managed to not injure myself severely (last time I fell down the stairs, I sprained my ankle). So far my whole body has been sore, especially my neck. Later on the same day, I almost got into a car accident because some kid was on his cell phone and tried to merge into my lane without looking. I can’t wait until July 1st…(for those of your who are out of state, July 1st is the official day when California drivers cannot use their cellphones while driving). I really do feel like the roads will be safer, without idiots on their phones all the time and not paying attention.

On to baking news, or well this is news to me. I just found out that dragees (those little edible metallic balls you decorate with) are illegal in California! This completely explains why I never saw them in stores the last few years. I remember looking for them at Sur la Table and a few big name craft stores, but I never bothered to ask. I just assumed you could only get them at specialty baking stores. Apparently they’ve been illegal since 2003, because someone filed a lawsuit claiming that dragees are considered toxic since they contain trace amounts of metal. But, seriously you would have to eat millions of them before anything happens…toxic or not I still want to use them…

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Merry Christmas!

December 24th, 2007

I don’t know what happened this year, but my Christmas baking didn’t go as plan, well actually it didn’t go at all. I guess I just got caught up with all the busyness the holidays bring, and before I knew it, it was almost Christmas. I was even really last minute with my Christmas shopping. My “plan” was to bake my Red Velvet Cupcakes and give them out to my friends, but I just ran out of time and energy. Haha oh well, better luck next year. At least I know what one of my New Years resolutions will be…”Stop procrastinating and do things ahead of time”. On another note, I got the best Secret Santa gift this year! Some goodies from my favorite store Williams-Sonoma. My Secret Santa bought me a lovely tin can of sugar cookie mix and also a nice variety of Christmas sprinkles. I’m a happy girl 🙂

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Fancy Cupcake Wrappers

November 19th, 2007

The holidays are coming very soon, well actually a little too soon. I was trying to think of what kind of xmas goodies to bake this year and I came across these lovely laser-cut cupcake wrappers, which would be so adorable to place my yummy cupcakes in. They’re a little on the expensive side, and I don’t know if I can bare to have people just toss them in the trash when they’re done haha.

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Nutella Cake

October 22nd, 2007

So after hours of research for a Nutella Cake recipe, I finally settled with this recipe from Su Good Sweets. The recipe is a lightened adaptation of Nigella Lawson’s Nutella Cake recipe in her book How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I was happy that I got to use an entire jar of Nutella…the more the better! I also used this recipe for a Nutella Buttercream Frosting from The Urban Housewife. The process was pretty long, which started with the roasting of hazelnuts to whipping egg whites, but overall it was a success. The cake turned out to be more like a brownie, which is how it is suppose to turn out, but I’m still looking for a recipe for a Nutella cake which is moist and fluffy, like a “cake” should be. If you find one, let me know! Otherwise, I may have to do some experimentation.

Roasted hazelnuts – It took awhile to peel of the skin…