Recipe for an Amazing Saturday: Sugar Coma 2010

Take 5 parts sugary sweet places in Atlanta, 5 Cadillac SRXs (2010), a handful of bloggers, foodies, and general sweets enthusists, and a dash of the ingenuity of The Broke Socialite - This will make one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in Atlanta.

Last Saturday Jeff and I took part in Sugar Coma - a bakery tour around Atlanta. We had an amazing time at each of the locations but more than anything enjoyed being out with other people who have so much passion.

We had the chance to go to 5 different bakeries and restaurants in the Atlanta and Decatur area. Here's a little taste of everything we got to see and taste.


1st Stop: No Mas Cantina

This amazing restaurant has so much to explore. No Mas Cantina has a coffee bar/bakery, a full restaurant, and a wonderful shop. A highlight of the stop was getting to wander around and look at all of the amazing glasswork that they have. There are pendant lights there that I'm still dreaming about whenever we finally get a house. In addition to the store, the staff at No Mas pulled out all the stops with an amazing breakfast including eggs, pancakes, bacon, and so much more. The real highlight was the Mexican hot chocolate that they served. It was so smooth with an amazing hint of cinnamon and spice. We could have stayed but we needed to head off to our next stop!


2nd Stop: Cacao
Passion is the key at Cacao. This cute chocolate shop packs a solid chocolate punch. The chocolate maker, Kristin Hard, is truly an amazing individual. Cacao is known for making chocolate from bean to finished product. Kristin shared with us her labor of love of how she traveled to South America to see the farms that she would be sourcing her Cacao from and all of the adventures that come along with being the first bean to bar producer in the US. Someone on the tour called her the Indiana Jones of chocolate and she truly owns the title. The staff was kind enough to provide us with hot chocolate, caramels, and tastes of their Love Bar. Truly amazing chocolate. I hope be able to take the chocolate studies courses that Kristin offers in the near future.

3rd Stop: Joli Kobe
With a quick trip back to Midtown, we ended up at Joli Kobe as it was just starting to drizzle. Wow, what an amazing spread they put out for us! I've been to the Joli Kobe in Sandy Springs a few times for lunch, but now I know I need to head back for dessert. From tarts, to eclairs, to strawberry shortcake, everything was absolutely delish! I also enjoyed their chocolate and raspberry macarons but the chocolate and raspberry cake stole the show.


4th Stop: The Cookie Studio
Cookies with a cause are totally worth the reason for me to head back out to Decatur and soon. Thank goodness for OnStar in our 2010 Cadillac SRX, as our group got split off from the caravan. The Cookie Studio is a cute shop near Agnes Scott with an amazing array of cookies. Their chocolate chocolate chip cookie was amazing, one of the best things I had during Sugar Rush. The other part that I loved about The Cookie Studio is that they provide ongoing support to the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children.  Sweets with a purpose!


5th Stop: Sweet N Sinful

Last but certainly not least, we ended up at Sweet N Sinful. Talk about saving the best for last (and in my case later). We made a mad dash through Sweet N Sinful. The Pastry Chef Layne Whitehead-Lee is absolutely adorable and completely gifted. In anticipation of being completely sweeted out, she had boxes waiting for us to take goodies home. Layne's treats were by far some of the most amazing bites I had that day - the amaretto peach pound cake, the french toast cupcakes with maple frosting, and the chocolate cupcakes were all amazing. But the brownies, oh those brownies... I still dream of those brownies a week later. I will definitely be calling in advance to put my brownie on hold the next time I am out that way.

Lunch: Black Tie Barbecue at La Fais Do Do
To wrap things up, we all ended up at the great event space, La Fais Do Do, in East Atlanta. Never have I been so glad to see a salad in my life! Our lunch was catered by the extremely talented Black Tie Barbecue. Armed with family style plates of strawberry and walnut salad, smoked salmon, smoked chicken breast, rice pilaf, and the star, the bok choy that people are still tweeting about. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.

Once again, the thanks have to go to The Broke Socialite for planning such an amazing day. I can't wait for the next journey that is in the works. Also, a big thanks to Helen of Tartelette for serving as my unofficial mentor for the day. Helen truly took me under her wing with blogging and photography tips during the event and ultimately encouraged me to brush off the blog and start leaving crumbs again.

Here are a handful of the photos from the day - sorry there are not more, I was busy eating!



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Crumbs like Ashes

Today was an amazing day! I have the wonderful opportunity to partake in Sugar Coma 2010 with a plethora of bloggers and foodies all around Atlanta. The people I met were warm and encouraging about starting a blog and have given me the inspiration to pick up the crumbs and pull this blog back together again. Sugar Coma update will be coming soon as well as other fun projects in the future.

Thank you to my Sugar Coma family for giving me the motivation to put myself back out there again.

Daring Bakers Challenge - Bakewell Tart

I am so excited to be posting my first Daring Bakers challenge. For those of you that don't know, the daring bakers choose one recipe a month to try and then post their results on the 27th ofevery month. This month was my first month and was almost a complete fail. The recipe for June was the Bakewell Tart hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict & Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar . Thanks ladies for my first daring bakers challenge! Here is a picture of my final product.


My only challenge with this month's recipe was the crust. My crust came out a bit sticky and would not roll out AT ALL after a day and a half in the coldest part of the fridge. I was about to give up on the crust but decided to try to press it into the pan instead. I also used a 12" tart pan resulting in a much thinner bakewell tart especially as a great deal of the fraginape ended up on the pan I placed below my tart pan. Thank goodness for the cookie sheet under the pan otherwise it would have been an oven disaster. I used a store bought strawberry jam so that I could keep my sanity and it was quite tasty. All and all, it came out well, but not exactly my cup of tea but everyone at my office loved it! Recipe for the bakewell tart is below.

The Challenge: Bakewell Tart…er…pudding

Posting Date: June 27
Recipe origins: Traditional (UK)
Inspirations and References: Allan Davidson, Tamasin Day Lewis, Anton Edelmann, Jane Grigson, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver
Hostess: Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict
Co-hostess: Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar
Mandatory blog checking lines to be inserted at the beginning of your completed challenge post: The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Bakewell tarts…er…puddings combine a number of dessert elements but still let you show off your area’s seasonal fruits.

Like many regional dishes there’s no “one way” to make a Bakewell Tart…er…Pudding, but most of today’s versions fall within one of two types. The first is the “pudding” where a layer of jam is covered by an almondy pastry cream and baked in puff pastry. The second is the “tart” where a rich shortcrust pastry holds jam and an almondy sponge cake-like filling.

The version we’re daring you to make is a combination of the two: a sweet almond-flavoured shortcrust pastry, frangipane and jam.

Bakewell Tart History and Lore

Flan-like desserts that combine either sweet egg custard over candied fruit or feature spiced ground almonds in a pastry shell have Mediaeval roots. The term “Bakewell pudding” was first penned in 1826 by Meg Dods; 20 years later Eliza Acton published a recipe that featured a baked rich egg custard overtop 2cm of jam and noted,

“This pudding is famous not only in Derbyshire, but in several of our northern counties where it is usually served on all holiday occasions.”

By the latter half of the 1800s, the egg custard evolved into a frangipane-like filling; since then the quantity of jam decreased while the almond filling increased.

This tart, like many of the world's great foods has its own mythic beginnings…or several mythic beginnings. Legend has it in 1820 (or was it in the 1860s?) Mrs. Greaves, landlady of The White Horse Inn in Bakewell, Derbyshire (England), asked her cook to produce a pudding for her guests. Either her instructions could have been clearer or he should have paid better attention to what she said because what he made was not what she asked for. The cook spread the jam on top of the frangipane mixture rather than the other way around. Or maybe instead of a sweet rich shortcrust pastry case to hold the jam for a strawberry tart, he made a regular pastry and mixed the eggs and sugar separately and poured that over the jam—it depends upon which legend you follow.

Regardless of what the venerable Mrs. Greaves’ cook did or didn’t do, lore has it that her guests loved it and an ensuing pastry-clad industry was born. The town of Bakewell has since played host to many a sweet tooth in hopes of tasting the tart in its natural setting.

Bakewell tarts are a classic English dessert, abounding in supermarket baking sections and in ready-made, mass-produced forms, some sporting a thick sugary icing and glazed cherry on top for decorative effect.

Enjoy it with a cup of tea or coffee or just eat it sneaky slice by sneaky slice until, to your chagrin, you realise the whole tart has somehow disappeared despite you never having pulled out a plate, fork or napkin with which to eat it.

Is it a tart or is it a pudding?

Someone once said something like “The Bakewell pudding is a dessert. The Bakewell tart is that girl over there.”

It’s a debate that rages on and we aren’t taking sides on this one. But we will say that many people call this pudding a tart.

While we’re at it...
The etymology of pudding is a rather interesting and slightly convoluted one.* The naming confusion may come from the British manner of referring to the dessert course as ‘pudding’ (as well as referring to fat babies by the same name, though we don’t think that is what was the inspiration in this case). And so any dessert is a pudding until another name comes along and adds clarity to what it really is.

* nb: Annemarie had to electronically restrain Jasmine from delving into another treatise, threatening to remove her digital scale, personally autographed copies of How To Eat by Nigella Lawson and A.S. Byatt’s Possession and toss her kitchen footstool into the squidgy marsh up the road (really…Jasmine’s kitchen appears to be designed by a 6’4” fast food-eating engineer named Martin, Chuck or perhaps Buford) Anyone interested in hearing or reading her wax lyrical about puddings should just email her directly.

The Challenge

• Rough Durations: Please see individual recipe elements to see how much time you’ll need. You may pull it together in more time or less—it all depends upon your kitchen’s pace. You can complete the tart in an afternoon, or break it up into a couple of days by making the pastry one day in advance.
• Measurements: These recipes were developed using weight and not volume metrics, so for better results, pull out your scales. We’ve done our best with the Metric to Imperial conversions.
• A giant tart, medium tarts or little tartlettes: We’ll leave that to you.
• Mandatory and Optional Elements
Mandatory element 1: Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
Yes, it’s a pie pastry. Don’t look at us like that. It’s sweet and tender and it’s not scary…and we’re encouraging you to do it by hand and put the food processor away (but if you really want to pull out the gadget, go ahead).

Mandatory element 2: Frangipane
We love onomatopoeia of frangipane: it’s rich, sweet and feels slightly luxurious, and can be used in several confections.

Optional element: Home made jam or curd
We know several amongst us are rather jammy with making their own jams and preserves. Go ahead get wild and creative or simply showcase whatever’s local and in season. If you haven’t jammed before and want some hints or recipes, take a look at Bernardin’s homecanning.ca. If you want to just make some jam for this challenge and not go through sterilising jars and snap lids, you can try a pan jam, similar to Jasmine’s Blackberry Pan Jam. If you do use homemade jam, please include your recipe or the link to the one you used in your post.

Bakewell Tart…er…pudding

Makes one 23cm (9” tart)
Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements)
Resting time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes
Equipment needed: 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges), rolling pin

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)
Bench flour
250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)
One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Jasmine’s notes:
• If you cannot have nuts, you can try substituting Victoria sponge for the frangipane. It's a pretty popular popular cake, so you shouldn't have any troubles finding one in one of your cookbooks or through a Google search. That said, our dear Natalie at Gluten a Go Go has sourced some recipes and linked to them in the related alt.db thread.
• You can use whichever jam you wish, but if you choose something with a lot of seeds, such as raspberry or blackberry, you should sieve them out.
• The jam quantity can be anywhere from 60ml (1/4 cup) to 250ml (1cup), depending upon how “damp” and strongly flavoured your preserves are. I made it with the lesser quantity of home made strawberry jam, while Annemarie made it with the greater quantity of cherry jam; we both had fabulous results. If in doubt, just split the difference and spread 150ml (2/3cup) on the crust.
Annemarie’s notes:
• The excess shortcrust can be rolled out and cut into cookie-shapes (heck, it’s pretty darned close to a shortbread dough).

Sweet shortcrust pastry

Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)
Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Jasmine’s notes:
• I make this using vanilla salt and vanilla sugar.
• If you wish, you can substitute the seeds of one vanilla bean, one teaspoon of vanilla paste or one teaspoon of vanilla extract for the almond extract

Frangipane

Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

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The Chewy Chocolate Cookie

Chocolate chip cookies are one of those amazing treats that brighten almost everyone's day and are one of the most requested cookies in my house. Typically, I use a doubletree style chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I wanted to switch things up this time around.

Martha to the rescue! I found her chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe in her cookie book and they were a hit! Chewy with a little crunch, amazing both warm and cold. While they won't replace my every day cookie, experimenting can be fun!

Recipe at http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies.

The Baked Good for New Beginnings

The past few weeks have brought up a lot of change for me. New job search, new blog, and a new last name. I got married just a few short weeks ago and of course, what is one of the most important parts of a wedding day? The cake of course!

Being from Atlanta, while I had a lot of choices of bakers, we ended up choosing a Publix cake because they are so tasty. With the tasting complete, buttercream icing, chocolate fudge and cannoli fillings with yellow cake chosen, the one thing left was the design. As my about me section states, I secretly (well not so secretly now) think of running off and going to pasrty school. Some people want the circus, I want fresh bread and ganache. Left with a delicious cake, but not a great deal of decoration options, I took on the task of designing my own wedding cake.

I loved my design and was so happy with the final outcome.

Maybe pastry school wasn't such a far off idea anyway.