Ling

I'm always on the lookout for new chocolate chip cookie recipes--how is the Olivia one? What makes it different from other popular recipes (i.e. Alton Brown, Tollhouse, etc.)? I've flipped through the Macrina book while waiting in line at the store, but haven't made anything from it.

I was the lucky recipient of one of FWED's mini Exotics! It was delicious!

^The pistachio and white chocolate semifreddo looks and sounds delicious! The garnish on the bottom edge of the dome cake is just candied walnuts. Today's dessert--I tried this butterscotch pudding recipe I found online and it totally sucked. I don't know what I did wrong, I mean, it's just pudding and I followed the recipe exactly. The pudding had a grainy, unpleasant texture from the cornstarch. I ate two ice-cream bars out of frustration. Grr.

^That was an incredible plate of desserts! I can still taste the Exotic Orange cake and chefpeon's chocolate ice-cream...yum yum! The day before, we had dinner at Veil in Seattle. It was a friend's birthday and I made her a Valrhona chocolate dome cake. Here's the cake, and a picture of it plated with the salted peanut butter ice-cream from Veil. The recipe for the ice-cream is in this month's Bon Appetit, and the chocolate dome recipe is from Pierre Herme.

I know you can bake...how about a wild mushroom quiche?

^Sorry, I'm not getting the Whole Foods comment. Are you being sarcastic? You don't think the quality at Pure Seafood or Mutual is any good? If so, please tell me where I can find something better. I know Pure Seafood and Mutual supply a lot of the better restaurants in town, and I've never bought anything that I didn't think was good. I don't want to give Whole Foods any money right now because of the whole "no live lobster/foie gras" issue.

That's really too bad. I buy from Pure Seafood (in Pike Place) almost every week and the selection is pretty good, and the product is fresh. I wish there was a place like Pure Seafood or Mutual Fish up here. I would gladly pay more for good seafood.

^WOW! I'm really excited! I love looking at pastries from around the world! Thanks for the picture of the rugelach too. My rugelach looks very messy compared to the ones in the picture...that is why no one has seen a picture of my rugelach floating around on EG.

I know you said the gingerbread with the condensed milk and nuts was too sweet, but it looks fantastic! I think the flavours would be really interesting together.

toomuchcoffee: the butter beef is just the dish fud was describing in the post above.

Kouign Aman: I'll post the recipe for the Cabrales ice-cream here, since I wouldn't feel right putting it in Recipe Gullet and taking credit for it. This is what I used: -2 cups of heavy whipping cream -1/2 cup milk -1/2 cup sugar -3 tbsp corn syrup -3 tbsp honey -4 oz. Cabrales -4 yolks 1. In a bowl, combine the yolks and sugar. 2. In another bowl, blend the Cabrales, the honey, and the corn syrup together until smooth. (I used an immersion blender.) 3. Heat the cream and milk until a gentle boil, temper the yolk mixture, and add the yolk + cream mixture back to the pan. Heat until the mixture becomes thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. 4. Add the cheese mixture to the cream off the heat. Strain. Chill the mixture until cold. 5. Churn it in the ice-cream machine for an hour, or until the consistency looks right. Pontormo: the Lucques recipe sounds great. Figs are one of my favourite fruits, and I will bake with them as much as possible this season! Chufi: I'll make the Cabrales ice-cream for you when you visit us in Seattle! I don't like this picture very much, but it's the only one I took with the ice-cream on it.

Everything turned out well. I have 2 pictures I've been trying to upload for the past fifteen minutes, but Image Gullet is not working I'll post them later. Several of the diners last night said they had their doubts when they heard I was serving Cabrales ice-cream, but it turned out to be one of their favourite things that evening! I was using a pastry cream recipe from Payard that I have memorized for the tarts, but the pastry chef and the chef thought it was too thick (too much cornstarch). The pastry chef suggested I thin it out with some milk, and the chef suggested I fold in some whipped cream to lighten it even further. The consistency was much better after I did what they suggested. The ice-cream was great...super smooth and creamy, and I rounded out the blue cheese with a few tablespoons of honey. I really liked the consistency. It is an adapted recipe from "The Cheese Diaries" that the person found on EG, actually!

I think they are known for their mile-high cakes covered with (what I assume to be very sweet)frosting, which I'm not really into, so I got the tarte tartin instead. (Apparently, the frostings are very sweet, as I read on EG after our trip.) The tarte tartin was completely burned black and the caramel was really bitter. We each took a bite, but it was unedible. Henry got a plain croissant (which every decent bakery should be able to do well, right?) and it was the driest, breadiest croissant he's ever eaten. The croissants from Safeway are better, seriously. We boxed up both items and threw them away once we got out the store.

^I've seen that recipe, but I don't have the book so I don't think I can do it this time. The combination sounds delicious though, and I'll have to try it in the future. I've decided on doing a Cabrales and macadamia sable crust for the tart, filled with a bit of pastry cream. I got some figs and currants at the market today, so I'll top each mini tart with a bruleed fig wedge and brush some port syrup on the currants. The other side of the plate will have a fig flower with Cabrales ice-cream in the center, rolled in crushed, candied nuts. I have to use Cabrales because the grocery store was out of stilton! But I like Cabrales anyway so it's not a big deal. Now I have to get going on the chocolate dome cake I'm making for a birthday tomorrow...lots of baking today! I'm off to Mistral in about 2.5 hours. Wish me luck! Thanks for all the help...I'll post a picture of the plated dessert for you all when I get back.

^One of my earlier ideas was to fill the figs with ganache (before I had decided on the blue cheese) but I like the mini scoop of ice-cream better! I could roll the little bit of ice-cream in crushed, candied nuts. That would be a really cute fig flower. Thank-you! I am thinking of skipping the poaching in port step, because that seems too "autumn" as well. I think I'll just serve fresh figs with the ice-cream, and then maybe drizzle some port syrup on the plate.

Thanks for all your comments. I love the idea of the blue cheese crust, Pontormo. I have a good recipe for blue cheese shortbread that I could use. phlawless: Yes, one of the things I was kind of worried about was the "autumn-ness" of the dessert...I did think about using goat cheese and another fruit, but goat cheese desserts have been done to death in Vancouver, and I was hoping to do something a little different. I know the blue cheese + fruit idea isn't wholly new either, but it doesn't seem as common around here as the goat cheese cheesecake. KatieLoeb: I like the idea of doing a ricotta or gorgonzola based cheesecake...perhaps I could integrate some of these ideas and make a stilton/macadamia shortbread crust, marscapone cheesecake, with figs + another summer fruit (perhaps plums, like phlawless suggested?) ETA: would a cheesecake even be possible? We are supposed to get there in the afternoon, but the kitchen requested my bf and I make Chinese food for our staff meal, so I don't know how much chilling time I have...unless I do a no-bake cheesecake-like mousse thing.

Pontormo, your words are as evocative as the prettiest picture. Franci: thanks for explaining the dessert! It sounds really tasty. Could you give me the ingredient amounts for the cake?

I read your review and you said Brian thought JG had the best dimsum outside of HK. Has he had dimsum in Vancouver/Richmond? Just curious.

^Yes, I was going to add some pepper to the poaching liquid, just like a Batali recipe I used in the past. Thanks for reminding me! eatrustic: I haven't made stilton cream before, so maybe I should do a test batch at home. I was thinking it would turn out approximately the same colour as the stilton cheesecake...a uniformly pale bluish/green. That's a good idea--bruleeing the poached figs. Thanks!

We took 2 separate trips down to San Fran and LA to eat recently. I scanned your list and we hit some of the places you're considering. You might want to look at this thread, where we chronicled our 2.5 day San Fran/Napa eating extravaganza. San Fran/Napa trip In short, we loved Chez Panisse cafe, Tartine, Bouchon Bakery, Don Giovanni (in Napa) and we also very much enjoyed The French Laundry. We did not like Michael Mina. The Slanted Door was OK, but I'm sure we could have chosen a better place for lunch. In LA, we were less fortunate with our food picks. We only had 1 day in LA, and tried to fit a lot in. I liked Beard Papa, but it is what it is--a good cream puff. I didn't think Boule or Sweet Lady Jane were very good at all. SLJ is probably the worst bakery I've ever eaten at. We didn't think the roast beef dip at Phillipe's was anything special either. I wouldn't go there again. Providence was good, but we probably wouldn't go again because I'm pretty sure there's better food to be had for that amount of money. It is probably somewhere in the Top 20 meals I had this year thus far. A friend recently flew down to have a birthday dinner at Fifth Floor (he is a restauranteur, if that lends him any clout ) and he wasn't impressed with the food at all. He said the service was also quite inattentive.

Sure, I'll post the recipe when I'm done, but I usually do things to taste so I'll have to approximate. I'm now thinking of poaching figs in sauternes or port (with cinnamon, orange zest, bit of honey?) and then laying them at the bottom of the tart, then spooning the stilton cream over top. Garnish with a wedge of fig that's been bruleed. Thoughts?

^Abra, I think that looks delicious. I've also made dishes of dubious authenticity, so I should be cast off before you!

Hi everyone, I have the opportunity to serve a dessert at Mistral for Thursday's service, and would love some help creating something special. I'm sure the pastry chef has some wonderful things she would like to serve for the tasting menu, so I've decided to do a small transitional dessert in between the cheese course and the regular dessert course. My only limitation is that it must not be too labour intensive (I'm only in for the afternoon/evening), or something that needs hours of chilling/setting time. I was thinking of doing an fig and stilton tart, by using some sort of stilton cream and baking it with wedges fig in a macadamia sable crust. I would glaze the figs with port syrup. If I go ahead with this, what sort of garnish should I make? I don't have a recipe for stilton pastry cream, but I was thinking it wouldn't be too much of a problem if I used fewer yolks, omitted the vanilla bean, and substituted stilton for the richness and body. Or, does anyone else have an idea I could use? I am leaning towards a savoury+sweet combination using cheese and fruit.

Yesterday, we finished off the rest of the Basque cake. Today, I made a chocolate sponge cake out of the Pierre Herme Desserts book. I only needed two layers for the recipe (the chocolate bombe) so I ate the third layer with coffee ice-cream.

Thanks for blogging, Alinka. Your photos are terrific and I'm learning so much about Russian food! I don't know much about Russian desserts and pastries. Could you tell us some of your favourites?