recipes | loveliness.

Category: recipes
- flourless chocolate
  
  Posted at 9:16 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 8, 2014
  
  I’ve been lusting after this Tartine flourless chocolate cake since I first moved to California, almost 3 years ago. When I bought myself the Tartine cookbook for Christmas this year, the only reason I got it was so that I could make myself this cake for my birthday.
  
  Since I was traveling for almost 2 weeks around my birthday, I didn’t get the chance, but luckily I had four friends with birthdays in the same week and we had a huge joint party for them last weekend, so I was able to make it after all.
  
  It was definitely a bit of work, it’s a souffle cake so it took ages to beat all of the eggs, and I was basically camped out in front of the oven making sure it didn’t stay in too long since apparently over-baking for even one minute immediately renders it inedible, but it came out great, and it was moist and delicious.
  
  The cake itself is chocolatey and delightful, and then you cover it with a chocolate ganache to make it even more tantalizing. I also added some edible glitter since I still have a ton left over from my wedding cupcakes, and it’s so lovely.
  
  I pretty much put it on everything. If you’ve never made glittery fettucine alfredo you’re really missing an opportunity for wonderfulness and joy.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, cake, chocolate, chocolate ganache, flourless chocolate cake, recipes, tartine
- chef
  
  Posted at 12:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 12, 2014
  
  Last week we had an onsite work training that our whole team flew out for from all over the country. At the end of the second day, we did a cooking class as a group for something fun to do together.
  
  It was at Jordan’s Kitchen in San Francisco, and it was amazing. It is a full scale commercial kitchen, but they only do group cooking classes, so we had the place to ourselves. The staff were super friendly, and really knowledgeable.
  
  We arrived, and they had trays of cheeses and smoked meats for us to snack on, and they were handing out wine before we even got our jackets off. We made mushroom risotto, flank steak with fingerling potato salad and chocolate mousse with sea salt for dessert.
  
  Our group got to do everything, they taught us how to chop vegetables, season everything, and prepare, plate and garnish each dish. The food was delicious, mushroom risotto is one of my favourite things in the world. I may have gotten a little too deep into the wine because before I knew it I had nominated myself as the grill master of the group, and was picking up the flank steaks with my bare hands, and expertly (ish) maneuvering them around the flaming grill.
  
  The chocolate mousse was delish, and we had a post-dessert mini-booze bottle pinata, which is not something I’ve done before but may well become a part of my supper routine every night. It was a really fun activity, and we got a copy of all of the recipes we made so we can re-create them at home. Not promising I will, because even though it was delicious it was a lot more work than boxed mac and cheese, but still it’s nice to have the option.
  
  Posted in food, recipes, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged cheese, chocolate mousse, cooking class, flank steak, food, friends, Jordan's Kitchen, mushroom risotto, recipes, risotto, San Francisco, wine, work
- baked brie
  
  Posted at 9:13 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 5, 2014
  
  The first time I ever tried baked brie was about 5 years ago, my mom made a savoury one with onions and bell peppers and cooked it on the BBQ. It was life changing in the way that things sometimes are when they are completely foreign, but immediately make perfect sense the moment you are exposed to them.
  
  Of course melty delicious cheese should be paired with thousands of different toppings and served on bits of crispy baguette. The world made sense again. Since then, it’s become kind of a go-to dish in our family, but we are always mixing it up and trying new recipes. This one was really delicious, and pretty easy, I substituted figs for pears since that’s what I had on hand.
  
  After toasting the almonds, and sauteing the pears in the brown sugar and vanilla, place the fruit and nut mixture on top of a peeled wheel of brie, wrap in Pillsbury Crescent roll dough, and bake for about 45 minutes. You can serve it with baguette, apples, crackers, or just get right in there and eat it with a spoon. There is no judgement here.
  
  Posted in recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged baked brie, cheese, pears, recipes
- tartine
  
  Posted at 10:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 23, 2014
  
  Every year for Christmas my grandpa gives all of us grandkids some money to buy whatever we’d like. I usually save most of it, and buy myself something that I’ve been wanting, or a few things if they are small.
  
  Last year I bought myself a new camera, but there wasn’t anything big that I wanted this year, so I bought myself a couple of things I’d had my eye on for awhile, including this gorgeous cookbook from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.
  
  It came in the mail two days ago, and I’ve pretty much been carrying it with me and drooling over it ever since. The pastries and cakes are so beautiful they are edible works of art, and the pictures are so lovely that I want to frame them and hang them in my kitchen. Or not, because I don’t think mine will look the same and I wouldn’t want anybody to be able to compare.
  
  I will absolutely be making their flourless chocolate souffle cake for my birthday this year, but I’ll probably have to make two in case anyone else decides they would like dessert as well.
  
  They also have a bread cookbook that a friend of mine has, and when I read through it I basically wanted to renounce my entire life so far and move to an Italian monastery on top of a mountain (which I’m assuming is where they learned to make bread?) and do nothing but bake glorious crusty loaves.
  
  I guess the moral of that story is, I like carbs. You can buy both Tartine and Tartine Bread on Amazon.
  
  Posted in books, chocolate, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged baking, chocolate, recipes, tartine
- macarons
  
  Posted at 12:57 am by jasminedesirees, on January 10, 2014
  
  Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone in the world is obsessed with macarons? I’ve been hearing about these dainty little cookies and seeing pictures of them for years, but I’d never tried one until I received a box for my birthday last year.
  
  I had heard a lot about them though, that they are very difficult to make, and as a baker, I’d always wanted to try so I could showcase my skillz (with a z). I decided to give it a try. I found this recipe from CHOW, gathered all the ingredients (almond flour better be secretly made of gold because it is super expensive) and set to work.
  
  It was kind of a long process, just in that it’s a lot of waiting to do things, but other than that it wasn’t bad. I can see how it would be hard to get all of the cookies to the exact uniform roundness, but I have to say mine were pretty good for a first timer (NBD).
  
  They may have been a teensy bit crooked but they were delicious, although truthfully I bet you could put chocolate ganache in between two pieces of cardboard and it would still be pretty good.
  
  The next thing on my baking to do list is chocolate souffle, I’ve wanted to make that for as long as I can remember, which I realized this morning was probably a strange thing for a kid to think about? But then I thought about it a little more and had a flashback to watching Beauty and the Beast with all of the dancing pies and souffles, and my life made a little more sense.
  
  I wonder how many other things in my life I’ve wanted to do solely because of childhood influence by a beloved cartoon character? I realized a few years ago that the likely reason for my choosing Journalism as a university major was because of my undying obsession with April (and her saucy yellow jumpsuit) from the Ninja Turtles.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, macarons, recipes
- joie de vivre
  
  Posted at 1:07 am by jasminedesirees, on December 24, 2013
  
  I recently bought a book on Amazon called Joie de Vivre. It’s written by author and chef Robert Arbor who grew up in France. In the book he describes the simple joys of life in rural France, and how to emulate the attitude of simplicity and find happiness in the mundane tasks of everyday life.
  
  He describes visits to the market, the butcher, and the patisserie, and the small garden plots that many people in rural France use to grow flowers and small amounts of veggies and fruits for everyday use. He depicts traditional meals, idyllic dinner parties, and simple, delicious ingredients.
  
  He also provides simple, delicious recipes, like this one for simple strawberry jam. It’s only fruit and sugar, with a little bit of water added, simmered for a few hours to break down the berries.
  
  I almost never eat jam, I find that it tastes strangely artificial, but this is delicious. It’s a bit more liquid than most jams, but scooping it with a spoon onto a toasted baguette with a cup of fresh coffee, a very traditional French breakfast, was delicious.
  
  I am excited to try this with other fruits, I think nectarine jam will be amazing.
  
  Lovely, lazy day breakfast
  
  Posted in recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, cookbook, cooking, France, jam, Joie de vivre, recipes
- brittle
  
  Posted at 12:50 am by jasminedesirees, on November 26, 2013
  
  My love for pomegranate is both legendary all encompassing, during pomegranate season you can find me eating one almost every day. I was recently the recipient of a gift of the best kind, a box full of huge, juicy pomegranates.
  
  After gorging myself every day for a week, I still had a few left and decided to do an experiment combining my two favourite things. I melted two bars of good dark chocolate, and stirred in half the seeds from a pomegranate.
  
  I spread the mixture onto wax paper, then sprinkled the remaining seeds on top, and threw it in the fridge for about an hour, and at the end I had pomegranate chocolate brittle.
  
  It was delicious, ridiculously easy, and it looks beautiful with the bright red seeds against the dark chocolate. I’d like to try it again with milk chocolate, since pomegranates can be a bit tart and the extra sweetness might be a good contrast.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, brittle, chocolate, pomegranate, recipes
- perogies
  
  Posted at 11:06 pm by jasminedesirees, on October 25, 2013
  
  For Thanksgiving last week I made homemade perogies. I like to pretend it’s to share my culture with other people but mostly I just love perogies. They are kind of a pain to make from scratch and I can’t find anywhere to buy them here so I don’t make them very often, but when I do, they are glorious.
  
  I used this recipe.
  
  this
  
  plus this
  
  plus four pounds of cheese= this
  
  this
  
  plus a rolling pin and a drinking glass
  
  equals these delicious morsels, plus carpal tunnel syndrome from working the dough and rolling it out
  
  finished product and also proof that there is beauty in the world. Let’s be honest, I was too busy eating these to take a decent picture.
  
  Luckily I made way too much bacon and had about a pound left over to nibble on to give me sustenance through this arduous task. Once the perogies are done, I boil them in hot water until they float, then saute them with butter and onions until they are brown.
  
  Serve with sour cream and mushroom soup sauce (canned mushroom soup + water +microwave) and you can even add ranch if you are throwing all sense of caloric decency to the wind. My dad says if you eat too many perogies you will start to look like one. Which is probably true. But there are worse things you could look like, am I wrong?
  
  Posted in food, friends, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged cooking, perogies, pierogies, recipes, Thanksgiving
- gluten free
  
  Posted at 10:26 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 30, 2013
  
  There was a bake sale at my work last week to raise money for the AIDS walk. I am pretty much always open to any excuse to bake, and it was for a good cause, so I signed up to make cookies.
  
  I thought about making peanut butter temptations or fiddle diddles, but I felt like making something new, and I was feeling very lazy so I knew it had to be easy. I found this recipe and decided to try it out, even though I’m not gluten free.
  
  These were super good. They were pretty simple, peanut butter, sugar, chocolate chips, what’s not to like? And they were really delicious. The cooking time was off for me, I had to leave them in almost twice as long as it said to, but I just watched them pretty carefully and they came out great.
  
  One of my co-workers is gluten free and she loved them, and everyone else that tried them thought they were delicious, and didn’t even know they were gluten free. I will definitely be making these again.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged chocolate, cookies, gluten free, peanut butter, recipe
- chocolate chip zucchini
  
  Posted at 5:37 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 15, 2013
  
  My mom has been making me chocolate chip zucchini cake since I was little. Some people call it bread, but let’s be honest, it’s cake. It’s chocolatey and most, and super delicious, but it’s like 50% zucchini, so you can pretend it’s good for you, and eat the whole thing.
  
  These pictures aren’t great, I was making it late at night for my husband’s grandpa’s birthday the next day, plus it was during that ridiculous heat wave where even the thought of turning on the oven made you want to burst into tears, but I still made it. That’s how good this cake is.
  
  I used this recipe, and some fresh zucchini from the farmer’s market. This is actually really quick and easy to make, especially if you have a food processor to grate the zucchini for you.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, chocolate chip zucchini bread, recipes
← Older posts
- Follow loveliness. on WordPress.com
- Follow Blog via Email
  
  Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
  
  Email Address:
- Popular Posts
  - komodo
- Recent Posts
- Instagram
  No Instagram images were found.
- Categories
  Categories
- Archives
  Archives
- Search for: