Hello, Whimsy! Holiday Rush

I have been so busy preparing packages and cards for the holidays I've barely had any time to blog! So I thought I'd just catch you up with the packages I've been preparing. Some of these are special orders, some are gifts for family friends. These are photos of the stuff I've been doing on my new design blog, hello, whimsy!

Special Delivery: Chocolate Bark Gift Box

A Gift Box Full of Chocolate Pockets!

Chocolate Bark Gift Tin

Full of Pretty Chocolate Pockets

Another Chocolate Gift Tin

Full of Chocolate Bark in Assorted Flavors

So that's what this busy elf has been up to! Working with lots of new chocolate bark flavors too, like White Chocolate & Macadamia, Milk Chocolate & Macadamia, and Dark Chocolate with Walnuts. And lots of candy making and gift-wrapping in the works!

Can you believe it's 14 days to Christmas?!

On Giving Thanks

My family celebrates Thanksgiving in the Philippines, it's a great reason to cook up a huge turkey and have friends over. That was something I truly missed this year.

But Gerard and I were lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving with some members of his family and their extended family. For the weekend, we took a quick trip down to L.A. and got to see the lovely sights of Redondo Beach.

Our contribution to dinner was of course... dessert! Truly a Gerard & Maita collaboration, teamwork at it's best. (It's great having a chef on call to help you with baking goodies!) Please excuse my not so great photos. (Perhaps there is still a DSLR in my distant future somewhere!)

Chocolate Oreo Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. 

There's a whole bag of double stuffed Oreos in that thing!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting.

The fabulous Thanksgiving spread.

The chef carving the turkey.

Family and Extended Family

Aside from the copious amounts of food, Thanksgiving of course was also a time to reflect and remember the many blessings we have. Life often seems difficult and its easy to forget we have so much to be thankful for. Health, Family, Friends, to name a few. And technology! Because it allows me to not feel so far away from home.

Thank you Auntie Nell, Louise, Billy, and Miguel for having us!

Chocolate Calligraphy

This month's issue of Real Simple had me drooling and whining and wanting to try out new recipes. The recipes aren't up on their website yet so no photos but I've been dreaming of a hazelnut ganache tart with sea salt and double chocolate profiteroles. I'll let you know how those go!

In the meantime, this quote in the magazine caught my eye:

I wrote it our for Gerard to put in his office. I did it with sepia ink on parchment paper and I think it sums up how we feel about chocolate pretty well.

Awesome Oreo Cupcakes

Ok so I'm still working on the budgeting entry #2 and trying to figure out the best way to organize all the budgeting tips I've learned. But in the meantime, here's what I think are the best cupcakes I've made so far! I call them the Awesome Oreo Cupcakes.

I started off with the ever dependable Hershey's Chocolate Cake Recipe found here. But before pouring the batter into the baking cups, I carefully twisted some Oreos in half and placed a cookie with frosting in each baking cup. 

For the frosting, I used a tweaked version of the Cupcake Project's Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting found here. But instead of adding cocoa powder, I added the crushed other half of the Oreos (the ones with no creamy center) and added them to the mix. (We don't have a rolling pin so I had to make do by placing the Oreos in a zip bag and running them over with a bottle of wine.)

I still have to learn the fine art of piping frosting but luckily I was able to convince my husband to frost them for me. He used to be a pastry chef after all!

After the first taste, we both agreed that the cupcakes tasted very reminiscent of cookies and cream. The Oreo in the cupcake became a sort of fudgy crust and the frosting had chunks of cookies which added a nice crunch. Success!

Now if only we had cookies and cream ice cream to top them off with instead of frosting, then we could call them the Ultimate Oreo Cupcakes! Mmmmmm...

And now, back to regular programming.

The Chocolate Festival at Ghirardelli Square

A few weeks ago, I got a coupon for 50% for 15 tastings at the Annual Chocolate Festival at the Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. It was a no brainer, we immediately bought the tickets and looked forward to a day full of chocolate in the city.

We got really excited looking at all the different vendors they had, especially Ciao Bella Gelato among others. So on Sept. 11, bright and early, we headed into the city. (Well not too early as we like to sleep in a little on Saturdays and have brunch.) Upon our arrival at our Ghirardelli Square, imagine our dismay at the humongous crowd we saw, with super long snaky lines of people all waiting for their tastings! 

View from afar. I know it doesn't look that packed but wait til you get inside.

These people are mostly waiting in line.

We figured we didn't really want to wait too long for a tiny taste of chocolate so we chose a few that we wanted to try. We got to try pistachio caramel popcorn, a bite of bread, a tiny chocolate pancake, freeze dried fruit, a brownie bite, and I think.... that's about it.

Bread bites, I believe.

We did sit down to watch an R&D guy from Ghirardelli explain how chocolate is made but we didn't stay for very long.

Almond Spiced Popcorn

Sure, we would have wanted to try the chocolate martinis, chocolate infused teas, or mini Ghirardelli sundaes but we felt the portion in ratio to the wait in line just didn't cut it. But it was fun looking at all the different stuff they had on the menu!

And it was nice to spend a day out exploring San Francisco which we ended by having dinner in Chinatown. I know we would have enjoyed it so much more if there hadn't been such a huge crowd and a minimum ten minute wait to get a small bite of something that would fit in the palm of my hand. But at $20 per 15 tastings, I guess the value was ok. (We got ours for $10 though plus we got one more free for paying with visa, thanks to Living Social.) It was an experience in itself, but not something we're looking to repeat next year. 

Maybe the San Francisco Chocolate Salon would be less stressful more up our alley?

Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes! Yes, seriously!

After weeks of toying with the idea, I finally got around to making... Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes! 

When I tell people about Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes, most of them give me mixed reactions like "it sounds like a good idea in theory but I don't know...". Prompted by the fact that I've been super curious about them and that we had a lot of leftover buttercream frosting, I finally got around to trying my own version.

I started off with Hershey's Chocolate Cake Recipe (the same one you get off the box of Hershey's Cocoa Powder) because it's the chocolate cake recipe my chef husband swears by. But of course, our cocoa powder is Barry Callebaut, not Hershey's.

Here's the part that may make you raise some an eyebrow. After frying some 6 strips of bacon, I saved the drippings and substituted it for half of the vegetable oil required in the chocolate cake recipe. Then I chopped up the bacon and mixed it in the batter before baking. I ended up with over two dozen cupcakes (I knew I should have cut the recipe in half.) I don't know how Gerard and I are going to finish two dozen cupcakes!

After frosting the cupcakes with the leftover buttercream frosting, I added some caramelized bacon chips and a sprinkling of salt. Voila! Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes!

Cake-wise, I honestly think this may have been the best chocolate "cake" that I have ever made. It was soft, and moist, and it tasted so good, I could have eaten it without frosting! But the whole point of the bacon is to give you a "sweet and salty" experience all at once and I can say that this cupcake attained that goal. The cake and the frosting weren't overly sweet and the salt and bacon had just the right touch of saltiness. All in all, I'd say my experiment was a success. 

Now to find people to share it with because we're too tempted to finish all two dozen cupcakes by ourselves...

Easy Peasy Chocolate Nut Clusters

I love chocolate covered nuts. I love chocolate covered many things.

Today, I had a craving for nut clusters, something akin to my mom's favorite See's almonds in chocolate so I decided to make a few pieces. I mostly try to make things in small batches so they won't go to waste or so we won't tire of them too easily.

Ever since my husband taught me how to microwave melt chocolate (stop every thirty seconds and stir after) it's been super easy to make chocolate covered things.

For my nut clusters, I started with:

1/3 Cup Chopped Chocolate (I use Callebaut, of course. This time it was a dark chocolate.)

1/4 Cup Chopped Pistachios

And that's it!

I microwave melted the chocolate and it only took 2 30-second intervals to fully melt it so a minute total. For large quantities of chocolate I'd definitely go with the double boiler method but for this, the microwave worked perfectly.

I mixed in the chopped pistachios and spooned the mix onto my trusty Silpat atop a baking tray for three perfectly sized Chocolate Pistachio Clusters. (I told you I liked things in small quantities.) 

Then I put the tray in the fridge for a few minutes just to let the chocolate harden again.

There you go, super simple! For larger quantities, just double or triple the recipe, and you don't even need to be exact with the chocolate/nut ratio. You can even change up the nuts for variety, try peanuts, almonds, macadamia nuts whatever! Next time, I even want to make an almond nut cluster with dried cranberries.

I wish we had some of those individual candy liners to spoon the mixture on to but I'm definitely thinking to get some for when we make these as Christmas gifts. I'm determined to give home made chocolate gift boxes this year. 

So that was my chocolate craving. For now. I'll probably have another Chocolate Marshamallow Tart after dinner. 

Puff Pastry Possibilities

I've recently discovered puff pastry, so easy yet so versatile!

I wanted to do something different with leftovers aside from reheating and serving so this is where puff pastry first came into mind. I had some leftover pork belly, mushrooms, and gravy so I sauteed them all together to use as filling for these babies.

Since the pastries were already pre-made, all I had to do was throw these little flat discs of dough into the oven and watch them rise and turn a perfect shade of yummy, flaky, golden brown. I cut out the top and inside as instructed and filled the pastries with my pork filling, which did make for a very yummy lunch.

While putting away the box (I'd only baked half of the pastries) I came across their website, www.puffpastry.com, which lead me to a myriad of interesting and easy recipes. Since I was craving dessert (when am I NOT craving dessert) I checked out their dessert section and came across even more ingenious, easy, CHOCOLATE recipes. 

I really really wanted to make the chocolate ravioli, but I didn't have the right type of puff pastry or the heavy cream on hand. So I chose to make Chocolate Marshmallow Tarts instead as I already had everything in our pantry.

It was super easy, just spoon some chocolate pudding into the puff pastry, and top with marshmallows or marshmallow creme. The recipe calls for broiling to brown/melt the marshmallows but lucky for me, my husband has a creme brulee blow torch. Oh what fun!

There you have it. Super easy dessert in under five minutes (aside from baking the puff pastry.) And it was so filling, I only ate half of it. I don't know how often that happens, probably cause I was still full from lunch in the first place. Puff pastry is actually very filling!

I'll definitely have to try the Chocolate Ravioli recipe next time. Ooh the puff pastry possibilities...

In Search of French Pastries

I love that my husband loves me enough to give into my cravings.

For the last two weeks, I've had French pastries on the brain and I searched and searched all over the internet to find out where to get the yummy sandwich cookies called French Macaroons. (I think the last time I'd had these wonderfully delicate cookies were in Manila, from my friend Audrey's French pattiserie in Manila, Bizu.)

One place kept popping up: The Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, up in Napa. (Lucky for us, Napa is only 40 minutes or so away.) So one Sunday, without anything planned, I managed to convince him to spend an afternoon checking out Yountville. And while in the car, I read him reviews of this bakery. (Note: my husband is a chef/food scientist so good food is always an awesome topic of conversation.)

So after 40 minutes or so, we found ourselves in the quaint town of Yountville, a starting/ending point for many people who come to Napa for wine tasting and the like. 

I had already read about the bakery being small and the lines being long so that was no surprise. But the line moved quickly enough and my husband was pleased to discover that the bakery was beside the Bouchon, a Thomas Keller restaurant, that he would like for us to try one of these days. (My husband loves checking out restaurants to add to our list.)

But today, after five minutes of waiting in line, we came out with a croissant and three French macaroons. Husband had the croissant. I was more interested in the macaroons.

And they were exactly like how I'd expected them to be. The cookies were delicately crunchy on the outside, wonderfully sweet and chewy on the inside, and the creamy feeling in the middle was pure heaven. The whole thing just left an aroma of flavor in your month. 

In the case of my first cookie, it was blissful hazelnut. The other two I chose were chocolate and pistachio. And since the cookies were huge, (most French macaroons are near bite size, these were the size of whoopie pies!) I tucked the box into my purse and decided to save the rest for later.

The bakery had other yummy looking stuff on display too.

And these are the chocolate Bouchons, brownie bites baked with chocolate chips and dusted with confectioner's sugar but at $2 a pop, we decided maybe next time.

After the bakery, we decided to explore Yountville a bit and it was a pretty cute place. They had some gorgeous shops with glass art, jewelry, and fine art. And at the Bottega store (by the Bottega restaurant of Chef Chiarello Bottego), I had a taste of truffle salt that left me craving for more. I had visions of french fries and popcorn sprinkled with truffle salt... Yum. But truffles are another topic altogether.

We're definitely passing by the Bouchon Bakery again the next time we're in Napa. But at $3 a French Macaroon, that could become an expensive habit if done too often. Maybe just one cookie at a time?

But then again... didn't my husband study French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu? Doesn't that mean he could probably make me some of these at home? Hmmm.... let's go find a French macaroon recipe...

Sunlights

Love the perks of my husband's job.

These are sooo addictive.

Food Tripping

I realize this is fast becoming a food blog and I don't mind! I have a lot of free time on my hands and I really enjoy spending time in the kitchen now. It's becoming a new outlet for my creativity and I'm really enjoying it. (Yes, I admit, I used to only bake sporadically and rarely cook.) 

Here are some highlights of some really great meals we've had at home:

I was really craving something made with tomato and basil so Gerard (the professional chef) whipped this up in the kitchen. Garlic Bread (well, I made that), Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce and Meatballs, and my favorite Pizza Margarita! (Did we overload on the starch? A bit. But it was totally worth it!)

So I reciprocated the next day with this for breakfast:

Poached Egg on top of Garlic Bread (again!) and Applewood Smoked Bacon 

(I wanted to make a Hollandaise sauce to go with it but I haven't learned how to yet.
Maybe Gerard will teach me.)

And this was my piece de resistance for the week:

Chocolate Covered Potato Chips!!!

Royce Chocolate Potato Chips, eat your heart out! 

I'd been seeing recipes for chocolate potato chips a while now and I'd been wanting to make them for a while. I took the super easy route.

I melted different kinds of chocolate chips in a paper cup in the microwave (stirring  them after each 30 second interval until they were all melted) and used a plastic spoon to coat one side of the chips with the chocolate. Usually only takes me about a minute total in the microwave before the chocolate is ready. I used Ruffles Potato chips with less salt cause the ridges make the chocolate stick better.

Then I placed the chips on a foil covered pan and stuck the pan in the fridge to let the chocolate set, before moving the chips to a Ziploc bag.

My Chocolate Potato Chips were a hit! A few people gave me a skeptical look when I said they were chocolate covered potato chips but after biting into the perfect salty sweet combination, they were hooked! Hmmm I love chocolate. Don't you?

My next project: baking cupcakes for a nephews birthday party. And I've got a shiny new cupcake carrier to bring them in!

P.S. I've found the best time to eat Chocolate Potato Chips. While watching a movie!!!

Cupcake Crazy

My accomplishment for the week:

100 something cupcakes for my husband to bring to a work party.

I am now officially a housewife. (Until I can get a job.)

Ready for the oven

Fresh from the oven!

And my favorites, "S'Mores" cupcakes with graham cracker crumbs and toasted marshmallows.

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!