Biscuits and Papa Haydn

I made biscuits for the first time in my life the other day (minus helping mom when I was a wee one). I find this very strange since I love baking... and I love biscuits!

I found a super easy recipe during my online food hunting at 'and now for something completely delicious'. It took about 5 minutes to prepare (partly thanks to the butter moosher my mom gave me - its actually almost the same one as in the pic of that blog) then like 10 minutes to bake.

I made mine a bit smaller and ended up with 12, I also did the milk + lemon thing since I almost never have buttermilk on hand.

mmmmm - topped with home made strawberry jam from a friend.


And now for the Papa Haydn portion!

This was mom and my 2nd stop for our Treat Tasting. I already knew one treat I liked at Papa Haydn's, but I hadnt actually tried anything else.

They also serve food so when we got there we were very nicely greeted to be seated but let them know we were only on a mission for the treats!

The guy behind the nom case was very pleasant and patient. We looked at everything. One thing I LOVE is that the treats in the display case are the ones they serve, so most of the time they are already cut into so you get to see all the inner goodness.

I asked if I could take a picture and he said 'of course!' It was pretty sunny so theres some glare. The treat we decided on isnt in the picture because just as we made up our minds another person ordered it so he had already removed it.



All the goodies have little name-tags with the price on them.

We decided on:
Autumn Meringue
Swiss meringues layered with rich chocolate mousse and pot de creme, wrapped in ribbons of chocolate.

(image from their website)

The grading was hard... because I already have love for another one of their treats which I'll mention later...

So I gave it a B

It tasted great! The mousse was a wonderful smooth texture and the meringue (I only like the crunchy kind) was ACE. I dont know if I wasnt feeling like chocolate or if my other love was intruding in my taste buds. So I just couldnt give it an A. (plus I gotta give room for future sweets!)
My favorite part was the meringue... so I saved most of it for the end!

mmmm


Papa Haydn's gets an A+
The setup is perfect (I basically already mentioned all the good stuff)

I do realize that I'll probably have to recap when I have quite a few and may have to re-grade! Thinking back I dont know if I would still give Piece of Cake a C-!
Maybe I'll re-review in clumps of 5 and assess in my afterthought and other experiences.
I also see I didnt give pricing, so I'm adding that now
Piece of cake: $5.75
Papa Haydn: $8.00
Mom and I are splitting all the treats we get (if possible) so we are actually only spending 1/2 of whats listed.

My Papa Haydn love....
Boccone Dolce
Swiss meringues drizzled with semi-sweet chocolate, layered with fresh fruit and chantilly cream.

(image from their website)

When we walked in I didnt see it... then as I said "its not here!" it was put back into the case *phew!*

Mom and I had already decided a slice was going home with each of us... how could we go and NOT get one?!
Its not always the same as they use fresh fruit so it goes by what is available. This time (I havent actually eaten it yet I just nibbled a few bits and took pictures) it looks like theres banana and strawberry.
This one gets an A+ every time and is also $8 per slice. This is one I wont share!
may not be the prettiest treat... but that doesnt stop me!

*sigh* ily

We havent decided where we'll go next, or when! But I'm excited! (ok some of that excitement may be from knowing I have amazingness in my fridge waiting to be consumed)

9/50 - Cupcakes!

WOOO CUPCAKES!

Now, I normally wouldn't count a cupcake as a 'project' but I used the stove for a couple things making it a whole new world for me! And as I said in my first post about projects... new things in the kitchen are going to be projects!

I used the recipe from 'What's For Dinner' - Its a Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Buttercream (a whole new-to-me kind of buttercream! made with Granulated Sugar!)

While I was at my moms last weekend we were watching Cupcake Wars and I was like "UGHGGJUHGRFJ! I WANT TO MAKE CUPCAKES!" she said "WE SHOULD!!" and then it happened!

While she went to the store to get milk and liners I started what I could. I got the cocoa mixture ready and started the dry ingredients... She got back right in time!


I got everything together and was about to add the cocoa when...

THIS ISNT LOOKING RIGHT!

Then I realized "Crap! I added the butter! oops!" (butter was supposed to be for the frosting, NOT the cupcakes)

So I started the batter over and it looked great so I was able to add the cocoa mixture


messily fill cups


and bake!

(dont they look nice?!)

So while they cooled I made the frosting... You have to mix the milk and flour until its kind of the consistency of brownie batter, add vanilla, then let it cool to room temp. While it was cooling to room temp you beat the crap out of sugar and butter. With exception of scraping down the edges sometimes I literally had it mixing the entire time it took the flour/milk/vanilla to cool...

I read the comments on her blog and some had problems with mixing so much it then separated... so I dont know what I did but it worked!



NOMMM


So the cake part is very moist, exactly how I like it, light and very cake-like. The frosting is SUPER light, like whipped cream light! and its got a very light taste, not very sweet, but enjoyable. My personal preference is more sugar but it was def. nice for something new!

Also Mom and I decided we're going to try some bakeries around and just share what we get... so we went to a place today and got some kind of raspberry chocolate cake.
The cakes frosting tasted EXACTLY like this, except it had a raspberry flavor to it.

I guess I should take pics of what we get from now on cause we totally graded it.

We went to Piece of Cake in Sellwood
I guess this is what we got:
Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream Ganache
Layers of chocolate cake filled with raspberry, iced in buttercream & topped with dripping ganache.
We gave the bakery a C-
It was very cute inside, you can see the whole kitchen, but the only things that had labels were the cupcakes. So we had to ask about each cake... which was difficult because the woman there had an accent and talked SUPER soft. I literally leaned into her and had her repeat herself, even with no accent I would have had to have her repeat herself.
She gave us a menu but there are no pictures... so it was very hard to decide, and they kept the cut cakes out of sight, so you couldnt even get an idea from looking at them. It kind of killed the experience.
She also didnt ask if we were eating there or taking it, she just put it in a to-go box... so we brought it back and ate it. We didnt even see what it looked like til we got back!
We both agreed if we saw the cakes inside neither one of us would have decided to get it, a very unexciting looking cake.

The cake itself got a C
It was ok tasting but super boring. The raspberry flavor was too faint.

So I dont know that we will go back again just because the way its set up was too difficult to be visually stimulated. (Which is how I pick what I want!)
This was very disappointing cause I always pass this place and was very excited to finally try it... WOMP WOMP...

WHEW LONG post!