fortune cookies!

Happy Valentine's Day!
Here are some fun Valentine's day cookies. These easy to make and you can write you own messages or fortunes on the ribbon. They taste wonderful too, much better than those conversation hearts. They are also good for parties of all kinds. Have a great day. The conversation hearts do have their place though.

danish anyone?

This week I decided to make a Danish Braid. The recipe is from the book, Baking With Julia. The danish took a couple days to make because you have to chill the dough overnight. The making of the danish wasn't hard or really too time consuming and the finished product looked similar to the photo in the book. The cool thing is that the dough can be refridgerated for a while and you can use it for other pastries, the recipe for the braid only used half the dough recipe. The end result is very pretty and impressive even though it is not too difficult to make. The down side is that it taste good but not great. I used a berry filling with pastry creamfor the inside and it tasted like those nutri-grain strawberry and cream granola bars. Then I cut another piece and sprinkled some of the coffee sugar glaze on it and it tasted better. I think the second piece had more of the cream and that helped, the first piece was on the end. My conclusion, make it if you really want to impress with a fancy looking danish but throw away the end pieces and definately pour on the glaze. It was fun and now I can say I made a danish, plus I got to use my food processor I got for Christmas for the first time. Adios!

Mmmmm Chocolate Cake.

This was fun. I made this chocolate cake this week. I went to a chocolate class taught by Alice Medrich, the chocolate queen before Christmas and learned how to make this cake. A friend's birthday was this week so I made it for his birthday, but I really was just looking for an excuse to make the cake. The cake is three layers of devil's food cake with a whipped choclate ganache between the layers and coated with a bittersweet choclate glaze and chocolate fans attached around the sides. I used Scharfenberger semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolates and a little white chocolate on the fans to create a color contrast. The cake was fun and I would meke it again but only for a special occasion. First, it's not a cheap cake to make, between $30 and $35 dollars if you use the good chocolate, and second it is time consuming, you can make it over a few days but the day you assemble it requires a least half a day.
I have to say the cake is worth it. It has so many different flavors of chocolate and melts in your mouth. It is very rich though and a small slice will satisfy anyones chocolate cravings for days.
Adios!