[UPDATE: Citizen Cake is now closed.] I feel like I deserve a majority of the credit (or blame…depending on how you look at it) for the cupcake craze. I was eating them decades ago, when no one gave them a second thought. And now, as someone who teaches baking told me, making and selling cupcakes in America is like printing money. I’m not much for…
If you want to see a normally unflappable Parisian go into a little bit of a crazed frenzy, you don’t need to watch their reaction to me mercilessly butcher their beautiful language. One just needs to utter a single word — cheesecake. As soon as I took the cream cheese out of the refrigerator this morning, my French other-half started circling the kitchen counter, to see what was…
Although I’ve often been critical of the French trend towards putting food in silly little glasses, called verrines, once again, I find myself eating my words around here. On a recent trip to Ikea (I know…I know what I said…) I saw these great little glass candle holders and thought they’d be perfect for servings of something…like, say…individual portions of Tiramisu. Which are great for…
The first time I ever really tasted chocolate, it was from a man I’d met in a dark alley. Actually, it wasn’t really a dark alley, but in a barren parking lot in a scruffy section of San Francisco. I had taken a tour of an industrial bakery with a group of local baking enthusiasts, and afterward, a strange man sided up to me, pulled…
It seems like there’s a wave of macaron questions that are sweeping my way. Unlike les brownies or le gâteau weekend (poundcake), successful macarons are more the result of the technique, rather than following a mere recipe. There’s lots of tips and tricks around the web that will help you out with these little devils, including some interesting recipes, too. You can find my chocolate…
Yet another friend is moving back to the states (woosies!) and she had a going away party last night on one of the bridges over the Seine. Since I’d stashed a few clandestine bags of marshmallows, which were getting a little long in the tooth, I thought it time to use ’em or lose ’em. In fact, they were a prominent staple on my Too…
Earlier this year I was sent some of the new chocolates from Valrhona to play around with. While I made quick work of the rest of them, one stood out in particular: Xocopili, smooth balls of chocolate flavored with a myriad of spices, including a heavy dose of cumin. Frédéric Bau, a professor and head chocolatier at the fantastic Ecole de Grand Chocolat Valrhona, developed…
Of course, I picked the hottest day of the summer to make popsicles. After the success of my Vietnamese coffee popsicles, I thought it’d be fun to try something dipped in chocolate. In retrospect, am I insane? Our summer in Paris has been uneven; some cool days, and a few nice warm ones. Unfortunately the day I decided to make chocolate-dipped popsicles was the one…
Rochoux’s caramel-filled chocolate bar. At the shop, they advise you that after you’ve started it, to store it upright to prevent the caramel from running out. That is, of course, is based on the assumption that there’s going to be any left over in the first place. John-Charles Rochoux 16, rue d’Assas (6th) Tél: 01 42 84 29 45 (Map) Related link: John-Charles Rochoux; Parisian…
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