French Macarons!

Before we ever set foot in Paris, I knew that we would be headed to two famous French pastry shops, Pierre Hermé and Ladurée, to sample French macarons. Just in case you haven’t tried a French macaron yet, they are a meringue based confection (pretty much a cookie) customarily made with almond flour, usually found as two pieces sandwiched together with a flavored buttercream or ganache.

I tried my first macarons in the U.S. a few years ago and it’s hard to resist trying them whenever I go to a new bakery or pastry shop that carries them.  However, U.S. made macarons are rumored to be inferior to the ones actually made in France. And now that I’ve tried the French ones, I can safely say that this rumor is true. The French ones really are better. They’re better looking and better tasting. And talking about them makes me want to jump on the next plane to Paris for a few more of them.

While were in Paris, we were lucky enough to visit the Pierre Hermé shop in the 15th Arrondissement on four or five occasions as it was located just a few metro stops away from our hotel. The croissants and pain au chocolat from Pierre Hermé are fantastic and I tried my very first Canelé there as well – but the real reason any visitor to Paris (or London on Tokyo, since there are shops in those cities) needs to visit Pierre Hermé is to try a macaron. Or maybe to try 4, 6 or 8 macarons. I’ve seen pictures of the lines at some of the Pierre Hermé shops snaking out the door and down the street, but we were fortunate enough to never have to wait in line for more than a few minutes. But I would gladly stand in line in the street for these macarons.

We did visit Ladurée (and I’ve got pictures of those macarons to share later) but in my opinion, the Pierre Hermé macarons are better. The Ladurée ones are wonderful and way better than any you’ll find that were made in the U.S., but the Pierre Hermé macarons were just a little bit superior. And just a little bit more perfect looking.

We bought macarons on two separate visits and tried a total of five different flavors: chocolate, salted butter caramel, chocolate and caramel, milk chocolate with passion fruit and vanilla. Which one was my favorite? Vanilla. It was the most full of vanilla flavor thing I think I’ve ever eaten. The salted butter caramel was a very close second though.

Just to taunt you, here are more pictures of what I think might be the best French macarons in France.

Pierre Hermé Storefront in the 15th Arrondissement

Pierre Hermé Sign

Chocolate macaron: Infiniment Chocolat Porcelana

Vanilla Macaron: Infinement Vanille

Salted Butter Caramel Macaron: Infiniment Caramel

Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Macaron - Mogador

Another Shot of the Salted Butter Caramel Macaron

]]> http://www.boastfulbaker.com/2012/05/06/the-best-french-macarons-in-france/feed/ 2 http://www.boastfulbaker.com/2012/04/18/paris-je-taime/ http://www.boastfulbaker.com/2012/04/18/paris-je-taime/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:18:55 +0000 Melissa http://www.boastfulbaker.com/?p=1342 Continue reading →]]>

Paris in the spring.

I’ve only been back from our vacation in Paris for a couple of days, so I haven’t yet found the opportunity to edit more than a couple of the hundreds and hundreds of photos I took in the week that we were there. I hope to find a little time each night for the next week to edit and post them. And when I do, several blog posts will follow. There will be lots of talk about croissants and macarons and other French food (I took notes for literally every meal we ate on my iPhone) as well as lots of pictures of Paris itself.

Until then, here’s a quick summary of a few things I don’t wish to forget.

Days we were in Paris: 7

Our bedtime on the day we arrived: 5:30 PM, Paris time

Orders of steak frites consumed: 1

People in The Louvre when we were there: 1,000,000 (or so it seemed)

Favorite part of the city that we visited: Montmartre, excluding the streets with all of the tacky souvenir shops

Slices of French bread consumed between my husband and I: 50+

Steps climbed to reach the top of the Sacre Coeur: 300 (and that doesn’t include the steps just to get to the Sacre Coeur)

Cheese courses I attempted to discreetly skip because I have no taste in cheese: 2

Number of times the waiter called me out for skipping the cheese course: 1

My husband’s breakfast each morning: pain au chocolat

Creperies visited: 1

Visits to Pierre Hermé for pastries or macarons: 5

Metro rides we took: at least 50

Time we waited to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower: 30 minutes (we went late at night)

People who exited the Eiffel Tower after us: 0 (other than the staff)

New to me foods: cannelle, clafoutis, cream of cauliflower soup, braised fennel, duck rillettes and skate

Croissants or croissant-type items consumed between the two of us: approximately 14

Coffee of choice in France: café crème, even though I don’t usually drink hot beverage

Days we went to the Champ de Mars to stare at the Eiffel Tower: 4

Famous bakeries located adjacent to stops on the Metro line from our hotel: Poilâne and Pierre Hermé

Number of times I caved and went to Starbucks for a beverage: 1 (and we only went because there was a bathroom nearby)

Number of times we ate escargot: 1

Orla Kiely scarves purchased for myself at Uniqlo: 2

Metro station with the most steps to climb to reach ground level: Abesses in Montmartre

Number of times I accidentally poured water into my wine glass instead of waiting for the server to do it: 1

Macarons consumed between my husband and I: 15

Buildings/structures we went to the top of during the trip: Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Sacre Coeur (we skipped Notre Dame as the line was intensely long)

Jambon sandwiches consumed between my husband and I: 3

Stores I wanted to go to that were open in Paris on a Sunday: 1

I have much more to tell, but that will have to wait until I have more pictures ready!

Blue Bottle Coffee

This is another one of those honeymoon posts I started last year and never got around to posting. Since my first wedding anniversary is very rapidly approaching and my husband and I are taking an anniversary vacation next month, it’s time to get these posts out of the queue.

I love coffee. Scratch that. I love espresso. I don’t actually drink regular coffee. Ever. And when I drink espresso, it’s almost always in an iced latte form. I don’t usually like hot drinks.

But when we were in San Francisco last spring and strolled through the Ferry Building Marketplace in search of morning caffeine, I was drawn to a mocha from Blue Bottle Coffee. I wanted to try their coffee as it was very well regarded. And we had just been on a tour at the Tcho chocolate factory, where they told us about their drinking chocolate and mentioned that it was used by Blue Bottle Coffee.

Mocha from Blue Bottle Coffee

So, I ordered a mocha. And it was the best warm coffee drink I’ve ever had. Full of dark chocolate flavor without being cloyingly sweet, it was amazing. I hope to make it back to San Francisco someday and when I do, I’ll definitely need another one of these mochas. If you ever find yourself wandering around the Ferry Building in need of a warm drink or a pick me up, go order one of these!

This winter, I’ve found myself ordering mochas when we’re out of town and I’m in need of coffee, but they all pale in comparison to this one. I could order some Tcho drinking chocolate and a pound of Blue Bottle espresso beans and try to recreate it at home, but I doubt it would taste as wonderful as this one did.

Mmmmmmocha.

Blueberry Cornbread

For several days this week, I found myself craving cornbread. I’m not sure where the craving came from, but I suspect it came from the menu at a restaurant we ate at last weekend. The restaurant, Maya, is here in Charlottesville and they offer a long list of sides that come with each entrée. I didn’t choose cornbread that night for dinner, but seeing it listed must have made me want it anyway.

I like my cornbread sweet and usually don’t make it as sweet as I want it. As a result, I think I use a different recipe every single time I bake it. This time I used a Mark Bittman recipe that I found online. Bittman’s recipes usually turn out great for me and the recipe touted itself as “easy and forgiving,” which is exactly what I was after for weeknight baking. The recipe also called for a flexible amount of sugar, so I figured that gave me a little wiggle room for making it extra sweet.

And just to mix things up, I threw in some frozen blueberries. It sounds kind of weird, but I had tried blueberry cornbread before, so I knew it was a good combo. Plus I have a LOT of frozen blueberries to go through in the next handful of months.

For the blueberries, I used a trick I learned from a Martha Stewart blueberry muffins recipe. Toss the blueberries in a little bit of flour before adding them to the batter. When you do this, the blueberries don’t sink to the bottom!

The original recipe called for 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar. I used the 1/4 cup of sugar and then added a 1/3 cup of honey. If you don’t like your cornbread as sweet as I do, use just a 1/4 cup of sugar.

Cornbread!

Blueberry Cornbread

Recipe slightly adapted from a NY Times Recipe of the Day by Mark Bittman

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus 1 tablespoon for blueberries
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups milk, more if needed
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce

It’s only 37 days into 2012 and I’ve already successfully cooked several things I had never cooked before and as of yesterday, I finally made a decent batch of bread pudding. In fact, this batch of bread pudding is so decent, that I think it’s possibly the best bread pudding I’ve ever eaten. It may spoil me for all future bread puddings in restaurants.

I’ve previously made bread pudding at least a couple of times and although it was usually edible, it wasn’t great. I think I was trying too hard and adding too many things to my bread pudding. I should have kept it simple. Like the bread pudding currently in my refrigerator.

Boozy Bread Pudding

After my mediocre attempts a couple of years ago, I kind of gave up on ever making bread pudding again. Then my friend Alison recommended a bread pudding with bourbon sauce recipe from Simply Recipes. She liked it enough that she’s made it more than once, so I thought this recipe might be worth a shot.

Fast forward about a month and I finally made the Simply Recipes version. And it is AMAZING. So good that I want to eat it slowly and enjoy every bite. It’s the kind of dessert that makes me yell how good it is while I’m eating it. I’ve already declared it the very best dessert I’ve made in a really long time. I’ve also already decided that I love it so much that I want to make another batch of it as soon as this batch is gone. I think my husband agrees with me on all counts.

Bread Puddings

I’m not going to post the recipe here as I really didn’t do much altering of the Simply Recipes recipe. You should make it as it is.

My notes about my slight changes to the recipe, should you care to take them into consideration:

• I didn’t have quite enough bourbon on hand to make the sauce AND soak the raisins, so I soaked the raisins in a bit of amaretto instead. Why amaretto? Because I love cooking with it. No real reason other than that. My second substitute choice probably would have been rum.
• In the recipe, it’s mentioned that the bread pudding could be made in individual ramekins instead of the 9×13 baking dish. I went with the individual ramekins. My guess was that the individual bread puddings would be less mushy. I was correct and I’ll probably never bake bread pudding in a big pan again.
• The bourbon sauce calls for 1 cup of bourbon. The recipe warns that the sauce is very, very boozy and that the amount of bourbon used can be reduced. I only had a 1/2 cup of bourbon in the house (and it was Sunday, so I couldn’t buy more). So I used the 1/2 cup I had and in my opinion, it was still a bit too much bourbon. Next time I’ll probably use just a 1/4 cup of it.
• Although these were amazing just out of the oven, the leftovers are still pretty phenomenal. Just lightly warm the bread pudding in the microwave.
• Finally, if you don’t like bourbon or don’t like sauce (or don’t want to get sauced on the sauce), these taste just fine with no sauce at all. Or you could substitute some sort of caramel or toffee sauce. Or top it with vanilla ice cream. I think a drizzle of maple syrup would be pretty fantastic, too. Then it would essentially taste like French Toast. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

Homemade marshmallows!

Last week I wrote a blog post stating that 2012 would be a year of fearless cooking. In that post, I listed a number of things I’d like to cook or bake for the first time ever. This week, I get to mark one of those items off of the list: homemade marshmallows.

The process of making marshmallows was kind of magical to me. I’m not much of a science buff, but watching the transparent syrup and gelatin mixture turn thick and white with just the use of the whip attachment on my Kitchenaid was pretty amazing. How does so much air get incorporated into the syrup so quickly and why does it turn opaque white?

If you’ve never tried a homemade marshmallow, you’re missing out on a great thing. While I had never had a marshmallow made in someone’s kitchen prior to this week, I had at least tried some made in a bakery rather than a manufacturing plant. I won’t deny that I like the marshmallows made in a plant, but the marshmallows I made last night are so much better than those. My husband doesn’t particularly care for store bought marshmallows unless they’re toasted around a campfire, but he seems to like the homemade ones. In fact, he likes them more than I thought he would. (Okay, I admit it: I secretly wished that he would dislike them so that there would be more for me.)

Based on a recent Twitter discussion about homemade marshmallows, I came across a Martha Stewart recipe for them that looked pretty easy other than making sure that the sugar syrup was boiled to precisely 244°F.

Vanilla bean marshmallows

Since this was my first attempt at marshmallow production, I stuck close to the Martha Stewart recipe. My only deviation from the recipe was adding a scraped vanilla bean to the syrup. I figured that this was a safe addition that couldn’t possibly destroy my future marshmallows.

In addition (and based on a Pinterest tip from the same Twitter friend), instead of using just confectioner’s sugar to dust the pan, I used a 1:1 ratio of confectioner’s sugar and cornstarch. This seemed to work pretty well: it kept the marshmallows from sticking to the pan and added a little less sweetness to the already sweet treat.

The next time I make these, I’ll probably play around with spices or cocoa powder or something else and make some crazy flavored marshmallows. There’s a peppermint swirl marshmallow picture on Pinterest that tempts me every time I see it, so maybe that will be the next variety (and maybe my husband won’t like those).

One warning: your house will be covered in powdered sugar by the time you’re done cutting these into squares. It’s a small price to pay for marshmallows this delicious.

Marshmallow

Homemade Marshmallows

Recipe from Martha Stewart Living magazine, February 1996

Ingredients

Chocolate Macarons

For the first time in a while, I got to spend all of last weekend at home with no real plans. I love weekends like this every now and again as they’re usually the weekends when I get to cook and bake a lot. Last weekend did not disappoint. In addition to cooking some foods that we eat frequently, I made two things that I had never made before: potato gnocchi and French macarons.

I’d eaten them both multiple times, but I’d never made them from scratch myself until this weekend. Something about making homemade pasta seemed daunting and the macarons seemed completely impossible to me despite my baking skills.

Successfully making gnocchi and macarons over the course of a weekend has made me think about all sorts of other foods I’ve always wanted to make but never have. Some foods I haven’t made because they’re expensive. Others I haven’t made because they appear to take forever to prepare. Some I just haven’t ever gotten around to trying. And others just plain scare me.

As a result of my bravery last weekend, I’ve decided to go ahead and make 2012 the year of fearless cooking. I shall not let a long, laborious recipe hinder my cooking. Nor shall I let warnings of how difficult it is to make an item hold me back. I may, however, let prohibitive costs get in my way every now and again. This year when I want to cook something and think it’s too difficult, I need to remind myself that I’ve made several wedding cakes. And gnocchi!

I made macarons!

I’ve started a list, shown below, of what I want to cook or bake this year that I’ve never made before (or haven’t made on my own in my adult life as I don’t remember all of the things I may have helped my mom make as a kid). I’ll continue to add to the list as I think of more items to make and as suggestions roll in from Twitter and Facebook friends.

In addition, please feel free to suggest any foods that you’ve always wanted to make but were afraid to attempt for one reason or another.

In 2012, I will fearlessly prepare the following items in my kitchen:

1. Gnocchi (completed 01/21/12)
   
2. French macaron cookies (completed 01/22/12)
3. Marshmallows (completed 01/29/12)
4. Crêpes
5. Cream puffs (completed 02/29/2012)
6. Fried chicken
7. Pressure canned foods, like canned green beans
8. Caramels – the candy, not the sauce
9. Puff pastry
10. Lobster
11. Chocolate soufflé
12. Hollandaise sauce
13. Gougères
14. Beef Wellington
15. Fresh pasta – maybe linguine or fettuccine
16. Boston cream pie
17. Charlotte – I can make the ladyfingers, but assembly is my roadblock
18. Ricotta cheese
19. Flour tortillas (completed 03/14/12)
20. Duck confit
21. Baklava
22. Baked Alaska
23. Crown pork roast
24. Madeleines

Tartine Bakery Window

While looking at the admin page for my website just now, I noticed a few blog posts about my honeymoon that I started months and months ago and never posted. These posts were all intended to be photo heavy, so I think I’m going to go ahead and post them anyway. Please ignore the fact that my honeymoon was more than 9 months ago.

A Twitter friend told me that I had to go to Tartine Bakery when we were in San Francisco. So, on our last full day in town, we made a special trip there for lunch. It was well worth the confusing subway ride there and I can’t wait to eat there again the next time I find myself in San Francisco. I liked Tartine enough that I’ve since bought both of their cookbooks in the hopes of recreating something vaguely resembling their baked goods at home.

Anyway, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves here. The light in the window where we ate lunch was pretty fabulous, so I got some great pictures.

A bakery case full of deliciousness.

Croque Monsieur

Turkey Sandwich

Peppered turkey and broccoli rabe sandwich

Frangipane croissant

Mexican wedding cookie

Tartine croissant

Frangipane croissant

Homemade Biscuits and Peach Butter

Hello. It’s been a while, but here I am ready to write about food cooked in a new kitchen in a new home in a new city (that we like a lot thus far). More about that later. And by later, I mean another day.

All I want to do tonight is share a biscuit recipe with you. I was craving bread tonight, but I didn’t feel like leaving the warm house to buy some and I didn’t feel like waiting 3 hours for a loaf of homemade bread. So I made biscuits. They’re easy and ready to eat in less than half an hour from start to finish.

Once the idea of biscuits was in my head, I remembered that I bought a copy of James Beard’s American Cookery a while ago just for his biscuit recipes. I made a lot of biscuits with my mom as a child and the biscuits were almost always from my parents’ well-loved James Beard cookbook. My claim is that I was making biscuits on my own at age 5, but my husband doubts the truth of this statement. Maybe I wasn’t really 5, but I was young. And I made a lot of biscuits.

So, the biscuits I made tonight are the biscuits of my youth and they were as good as I remembered them to be. When I was a kid, we often made these with buttermilk or recently spoiled milk. And when we had it in the house, we often mixed in a little bit of strawberry cream cheese. It might sound weird, but it was actually quite wonderful. Tonight I had a bit of heavy cream that I needed to use, so I threw that into the dough instead of regular milk…but normally I’ll use 2% milk.

Since biscuits need jam, I cracked open a jar of peach butter that I made last summer. If you’ve got a jar of homemade preserves at home, you should use some of it on these biscuits.

Baking Powder Biscuits

Recipe from James Beard’s American Cookery

Ingredients

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup milk (I used heavy cream this time, but normally I’ll use 2% milk.)
• 1 tablespoon sugar (Optional, but I used it.)

Directions

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar (if used) into a bowl.
2. Cut in the shortening (butter, lard, vegetable shortening, chicken fat – what you will). The pieces of fat should be quite fine.
3. Add the milk and stir quickly until the dough clings together.
4. Turn out on a floured board, knead a few times, and pat or roll out to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness.
5. Cut into rounds with a floured cutter 1 to 2 inches in diameter.
6. Place on a buttered cookie sheet, or, if you like biscuits crisp on top and bottom and soft in the center, place in a buttered 9 x 9 inch pan.
7. Bake at 450 degrees 12 to 15 minutes, or until light and brown.

Mountain bound.

After spending the bulk of my adult life living in or around Williamsburg, I’m leaving. My husband, Joel, got a great job offer from UVA and we decided that he should take it. So we’re moving to Charlottesville in early December!

Even though Charlottesville is a mere two hour drive from Williamsburg, it will be the farthest I’ve ever lived from the tiny town I grew up in on the Chesapeake Bay. The nearby mountains will probably take me a little while to get used to since I grew up practically below sea level.

I’m super excited about Charlottesville for lots of reasons (including the just mentioned mountains). Unlike Williamsburg, it’s a bit of a real town. Although it’s not as close to my parents as Williamsburg is, it’s the same distance from my sisters and much closer to almost all of Joel’s family.

And then there’s the food! Charlottesville has a lot of fantastic restaurants (we already have a contender for a favorite nice restaurant) and loads of nearby wineries, farms and orchards and good, healthy local meat. I’ve also heard that their farmer’s market is wonderful and if I’m lucky, I’ll still have a little piece of dirt for a vegetable garden next spring. Plus, for the first time ever, I’ll live close to a Whole Foods!

With the move so close, we’ve got a lot to do. There’s a house to sell and I need to think about gainful employment for myself. Plus we have to actually move (that’s the part I’m not looking forward to at all). So, I’m not expecting to be around the blog much until then. But stick around as I’ll be back with new things to share and hopefully lots of pretty mountain pictures!

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