In the second April installment of #BakingWithBeth, the all things California theme continues and we’re going with a farmers market special – rhubarb and strawberry almond crumble bars. California has an abundance of produce and farmers markets, so I wanted to highlight all that natural goodness. The state nut is the almond so it seemed nice to give […]
Academy Awards 2017: Red Carpet Cuisine Themed Oscar Menu
For the 2017 Academy Awards, I was commissioned to cater an annual Oscar party. No, not the Governors Ball but the coveted invite-only Jewels & Jammies 2017. A themed Oscar menu was planned to represent all nine Best Picture nominees. As with an good themed menu, puns were involved. Following pastry school, I’ve been hired here and there to create dessert bars […]
Homemade Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas
As a child I had a job as a cookie salesman, which is surprisingly not all that dissimilar from today. In grew up in the US in the eighties and nineties so by cookie salesman, I of course mean Girl Scout. For this weeks #BakingWithBeth recipe, we’re making one of the most famous cookies in America […]
Chocolate Covered Alfajores
For this week’s #BakingWithBeth, we’re recreating one of the most delicious cookies encountered in my travels – chocolate covered alfajores. We first discovered chocolate covered alfajores in Pichilemu during our two week stay at a family run hostel in Chile. The town of Pichilemu is known for the black beaches and waves. One of the many […]
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie
In my life PPS (pre-pastry school), I had two goals that I never waivered from. Get a turkey in bowling and create the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. I suppose something as subjective as making the best chocolate chip cookie isn’t an ideal goal, but there are few things in life better than a delicious, warm chocolate […]
Pastry School Diary: Week 18
Week 18 of pastry school was a really up and down week. The week started with an exam, included a mild nervous breakdown in class, afternoon tea at The Ritz and delicious cookies. The week ended on a high note with great news that some of my best friends from college booked their flights to London […]
Pastry School Diary: Week 17
I can’t believe I just finished week 17 of pastry school. It really seems like the month of January flew by. The week was filled with tarts, ice cream experiments, cookies, chocolate motifs and an exam. Tuesday: Dark Chocolate Coffee Caramel & Walnut Tart, French Apple Tart and Lime & Raspberry Tart On Tuesday we had a […]
Pastry School Diary: Week 7
Week seven of pastry school began our intermediate part of the course. We’re beginning to move at a lot faster of a pace and starting to work on more technical products. Tuesday: Mille Feuille, Palmiers & Cheese Straws Tuesday we used our puff pastry to make mille feuille, palmiers and cheese straws. We used half of […]
Pastry School Diary: Week 6
Our sixth week of pastry school began with our first round of practical exams. It was a veryyy long week. Looking back, there were some really good lessons in learning to be okay with making mistakes and making the most of those mistakes. Not always the easiest concept to master, and likely something that will […]
September Inspiration: Yellow
Peach was an easy and obvious theme to start with for August. I thought September might be tricky, but I as I was watching the first half of the Georgia Tech vs. Georgia Southern game, I realized it ought to be yellow. It was perfect…football season is back and my teams, the Georgia Tech Yellow […]