Ling

The food at the dinner party looked great! I love plating dark chocolate desserts with kumquats too...the colours look very nice together.

Good luck on your dinner! Can't wait for your Wolf range pics...I love that stove!

lexy: I love how you layered the apple slices to resemble a flower! Very pretty indeed! I made brownies for dessert.

I love the Wolf range, Deborah! Does it have coloured knobs? Can't wait to see your dinner party pics tomorrow!

Other than the fact that the cream puffs are fresh out of the oven, and the pastry cream is also very fresh (>2 hrs. old, as someone mentioned), what is it about Beard Papa that makes them so good? Are the cream puffs on the drier side, or slightly moist on the inside? Is the pastry cream lighter (made with mostly milk and yolks) or richer...probably made with milk and cream? Just curious b/c I won't be down in San Fran anytime soon, but those pictures are killing me! The pastry cream looks especially luscious.

^That was my favourite bread of the evening too. It is not sold at Bouchon bakery. The waiter described it as a bread with lots of butter in the dough. It's not as rich as brioche...but almost!

That looks beautiful and delicious!

Aren't they great? From now on, you might want to drop hints with all of your Japanese students that you're a big fan of Shiroi Koibito cookies. We discussed them briefly in this thread. ← Thanks for the link. I've had a good selection of the Yoku Moku cookies that were discussed in that thread and I think the Shiroi Koibito cookies are much better.

Those are my absolute favourite Japanese cookies! They're really just langues de chats (sp?) but they're awesome! I was at a Hokkaido Fair at one of the Hankyu Dept. stores in Osaka, and I found they now have regular chocolate fillings (used to just be white chocolate). I didn't get to try them, though. I do have a box of the white chocolate ones hidden away for a rainy day! ← I like the Shiroi Koibito cookies a lot more than the Yoku Moku ones. You can order Shiroi Koibito online too!

^The gin and tonics are the reason I don't remember what I ate.

Yes, I've eaten there. I don't recall the food being particularly memorable, but it was better than restaurant-chain food. I DO remember the $2 gin and tonics though. Strong stuff.

I had chocolate cake (but that was for breakfast), jackfruit sorbet, coffee ice-cream with nuts, and one of my students bought me a box of cookies from Japan--they are langue de chat (cat's tongues) with white chocolate. The white chocolate is not nearly as sweet as the white chocolate we see in N. America, and it is delicious with the crispy cookies! The package says they are from Ishiya Patisserie. The cookies are called Shiroi Koibito, and I liked them so much that I googled them. Ishiya Patisserie history you can order the cookies here

How long does the season last? I was thinking of getting it for dinner on Friday, but if the price drops after a few weeks, I might as well just wait.

^I haven't been to Golden Ocean yet. Is the dim sum good? (Noticed you and Dumpling Girl have been there for dinner...just wondering about the dim sum offerings. Thanks! )

You don't like crunchy yam fries? I do...I guess it's a matter of personal preference. The best yam fries are at Elements in Whistler! Thin-cut, salted, super crisp, not greasy at all. It came with some sort of aioli.

Sunday lunch Take-out from No. 9. The Yang Zao fried rice was not very good, but the Singapore-style vermicelli and the "Goan Chow Ngao Hoa" (stir-fried broad rice noodles with beef) were OK. dinner At Feenie's. Drank a bottle of the Joie 2005 Rose (it said 2004 on the menu, but the server offered to get us something else when I pointed that out. We stuck with the bottle...it was a refreshing.) Started with the charcuterie (duck prosciutto, Finocchiona, and cognac pate,) which came with a nice selection of pickled onions, olives, and a hunk of Parm. Split the duck terrine with cherries and onion jam, which was a lot sweeter than I remember. The mushroom tart tartin was wonderful as always. Also split the mission trout. I had the chocolate fondant with cinnamon ice-cream for dessert, and my bf had passionfruit and Poire Williams sorbet, and the caramel fleur de sel ice-cream. Monday lunch We ate at Traditional Taiwanese Restaurant today and the food was excellent. The dan dan noodles (which I'm pretty sure were handmade, though it doesn't say so on the menu) were very chewy, and the sauce had a nice amount of crushed Szechuan peppercorns. I also really liked the Taiwanese pork sandwich (meat comes sandwiched in those plain Chinese steamed buns), and the BBQ pork rolled in green onion pancake was really good--better than any other version I've had in recent memory. The chive pancakes (pan-fried pockets filled with chive, bits of egg and vermicelli) were also good, but not as tasty as the other three items.

Parmhero: I loved Tartine when I was down in San Fran! Here's a link to the pastries I had there, plus some more of the store. Tartine Bakery

Last night, I had a chocolate fondant (like molten chocolate cake) with cinnamon ice-cream and a honey tuile at Feenie's. My bf had a scoop each of caramel and fleur de sel ice-cream, passionfruit sorbet, and Poire William sorbet, which he generously shared with me. He also bought me a 1/2 lb. box of assorted truffles from LA Burdick's in Boston, and a box of their signature chocolate mice! I've had quite a few of them already...I especially enjoyed the Trinidad (dark ganache with honey, Carribean spices, and chopped hazelnuts), and the Scotch Whiskey truffle. He liked the one with ginger root and candied ginger a lot. The truffles are very nice--the fillings are much subtler than the truffles from, say, Genevieve Grandbois...but that's not necessarily a bad thing, just different. LA Burdick's is quite good.

The edges on your tarts are very neatly done. The maripan tart looks especially good!

^Thanks Klary! Today I made Claudia Fleming's chocolate caramel tarts. They were OK...I think the crust is the best part of the recipe. The caramel is pretty sweet. I made some brittle for the top too. Ate one...I baked them in 4" round rings, so it was quite substantial. Also made a tray of peanut butter cookies. Ate a few of the ones that were a little more brown for my liking, so I could save the ones that are half a shade paler to give away. No pics, as the stuff I made tonight is too similar to stuff I've made before.

I didn't use a recipe for the cashew caramel. I just eyeballed everything...I've made caramel a million times. Just burn the sugar, add more butter and cream than most recipes call for, a bit of fleur de sel, and the nuts. Give it a stir and place it on your ganache. I didn't use a recipe for the bark either. I just burned the sugar, spread it on a Silpat, then sprinkled some cocoa nibs and cashews on the caramel while it's still hot and sticky. It will cool in about 10 minutes, and then you can break it into pieces.

Yes, it's the angle of the picture that makes the tarts look shorter. Those individual tarts were big--I used the entire bar of Valrhona (I think it's something like 9 ounces? 9.07 ounces?) to fill 3 tarts!

I had enough tart dough for exactly 6 individual tarts with a bit of scrap left over. Each tart was quite large...probably a 4" diameter across the bottom, with 2" fluted edges.

Thanks for this recipe. It's my new favourite chocolate tart dough. It's easy to work with, the flavour is great, and the tart shell makes up nice and crisp.

I've never seen a bundt pan with a removeable bottom. Do you mean a tube pan or angelfood cake pan? ← You're right, my mistake. I was thinking of my angelfood cake pan.