Royal Wedding Cake

Well hello! Did you all see two of my greatest loves- the British Monarchy and Old Money People doing Old Money Things combine this morning? I did. And while I was at it, I built a 4-tier wedding cake. First I filled it with homemade lemon curd.

Then I topped it with homemade raspberry jam, laced with some Grand Mariner.

Wondering what 19 sticks of butter looks like as swiss meringue buttercream? That's 28 egg whites, 7 cups of sugar, and 19 sticks of butter. And I used almost all of it.

This is currently in my fridge: I was rushed and kind of distracted, I'll do better next time, promise.



PS- Check back tomorrow, I'll have pictures up of the cake decorated and the inside. If it doesn't collapse.

Foie Gras!

After visiting Fauchon in Paris, my credit card company turned my card off because "spending over $200 at a French grocery store" was suspicious. They must not know anything about me. Above is the whole duck foie gras I smuggled home in my luggage, along with some honey, which made me nervous- forbidden animal products! Shhhh, don't tell.

I decided to use more of my Christine Ferber raspberry jam with the foie. I warmed some of the jam up in a saucepan and added balsamic vinegar and Courvoisier and reduced it into a paste, which I then cooled. I served cold slices of the buttery salty meat over a thin slice of baguette and topped each piece with a smear of the jam/vinegar/cognac.

It wasn't the best foie gras, but it was a nice holiday treat.

Hazelnut Linzer Cookies with Christine Ferber Raspberry Violette Jam

Sorry I've been gone so long. Holidays? Anyway. So you know that jam I picked up in Paris. The Christine Ferber for Pierre Herme jam. It has been sitting on my bookshelf. I kept thinking, "What can I do with this jam? What does one do with arguably the world's greatest jam, eat it with a spoon?"

I opened a jar. And, yes. You eat it with a spoon as fast as you can and hide the evidence- throw away the jar in the dumpster, take a shower and brush your teeth and hope your roommate doesn't find out. At least that's what I wanted to do. Instead, I used it for the purpose I had intended it for- the filling of some Linzer cookies.

Now, I am not a big fan of jam cookies. They're gross. So I tried to do this right. First, I attempted to find the best Linzer cookie recipe. I considered Nancy Silverton's recipe, but I couldn't get passed how weird it was to be adding hard-boiled egg yolks to cookies. I also wanted the recipe to have some cream cheese in it. Instead I modified this Good Housekeeping recipe to use hazelnuts instead of almonds.

I didn't have a tiny strainer, and these needed a powdered sugar dusting. I had to use this tea strainer- it worked remarkably well and I think there was a lot less escaped powdered sugar. I recommend doing this.
Jam-filled cookies that are filled with the freshest, most delicious raspberry puree!


Christmas cookie rundown- Red Velvets, Linzers, and Carmel Toffee Chocolate Pretzels.

Multigrain pancakes, Creme de Cassis laced syrup

Pancakes. Who doesn't love pancakes? When I have houseguests for the weekend, I always try to cook breakfast myself at least once. This weekend my refrigerator was laughably out of ingredients and posed a bit of a challenge. Here's what I came up with: The pancakes are Trader Joe's multigrain baking mix- but to the recipe on the box I added plain non-fat yogurt, brown sugar, cinnamon and a ton of bourbon vanilla.



And the syrup. The easiest way to class up boring maple syrup when you have nothing on hand? All you need is jam, and a fruit-flavored liquor. Raspberry jam and cointreau. Blueberry jam and Chambord. In this case, I used blackberry jam and Creme de Cassis- a French blackcurrant flavored liquor. Just warm some maple syrup in a saucepan, throw in a couple heaping tablespoons of jam and finish it off with a splash of liquor. Ta-da!

PS- Only two more days till Paris.

Nice Things from France You Can Have*, Pt. II

* But you still need to find them, and they're still kinda pricey.

Jam! Who doesn't love jam? All kinds of jam! In France, a lady named Christine Ferber is in charge of jam (at least that is what I can tell by my translations). She has her jam in the best shops, and you cannot get it in the US. She even- and this sentence makes me very happy- has a line of jam for Pierre Herme. In France, pastry chefs collaborate on jam. I would one day like to have a jam collaboration.

OMG2 WGSFCB

Double post day! So, Trader Joe's is around the corner from my office, and currently has come up with the best idea in cereal since Cinnamon Toast Crunch (CTC). It is called Whole Grain Strawberry Filled Cereal Bites (WGSFCB). WGSFCB consists mainly of a crunch puffy square surrounding a dollop of strawberry jam. That's right. Jam filled cereal. I've yet to have it in milk, since it is super good for just snacking on.You know who would like WGSFCB? Bears.