"You want to switch partners? I know, I tell my wife the same thing all the time. And what does she say to me?"

Well y'all. I am now 23. And I didn't even step into the kitchen ONCE over the weekend. It was an inspiration.
Moozh surprised me by taking me away to a hotel for the weekend, in our city and a fifteen minute train ride away from our house. It could not have been better. We may as well have been in the middle of nowhere.

So here's a recap of what I made while I was trying to figure out my birthday surprise.

We did pate a choux on Thursday, which meant profiteroles (mini cream puffs), eclairs and Paris Brest, none of which are pictorially documented. As I was filling the cream puffs, the 'one for my mouth, one for the tray' situation occurred. Thus, no pictures and serious love handles. We did have to reserve some of the cream puffs, which we dipped in a soft crack caramel, for what would become the St. Honore cake.

St. Honore consists of a puff pastry base with a ring of the caramel cream puffs around the outside. It has pastry cream on the bottom and topped with chantilly cream (aka whipping cream and icing sugar -amiright?!).

We later did pavlova, which kicks the ass off of any meringue you've ever had. Pavlova has the addition of vinegar and cornstarch to distinguish it from a meringue. Meringues are solid and crispy (with an occasionally horrifying texture) whereas pavlova has the crispy outside and a plushy, marshmallowy inside. It. Is. Awesome. As really, if you dignify the instructions (bake at a low temperature for a longer period of time and allow the pavlova to cool slowly while still inside the oven) it's relatively fool proof. And you slather it in fresh fruit and chantilly cream, how can you go wrong? You can't. And it's Weight Watcher friendly! Only 3 points for a huuuuuuge piece. Don't ask me how I know that.

Shortly after this, a large fraction of the pavlova just DISAPPEARED. There were trails leading to the culprits. But I had it all over my hands too so stealth didn't matter.

I'm not going to lie, today was not a success. Today was an exercise in trial and error. And learning to not take your recipe at face value. To begin, we made another favourite of mine, but a distant, bastardized version of it. Clafoutis is a French dessert, often associated with Provencal cooking. It has fresh fruit, usually cherries, arranged on the bottom of the baking dish with a batter similar to a crepe poured over top. It's a gorgeous, simple dessert that comes together quickly and with some powdered sugar and lemon curd, you HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK. It's a feel good dessert, I kid you not. I have talked myself off the ledge of baking-related self-loathing more than once with this thing.
However.
What we made today and it's intention, was a sad excuse for a clafoutis. To begin with, it had a crust. Imagine sandwiching a crepe in between two cookies. Okay that's a bad example. Imagine a creme brûlée in a pie crust. K, also a bad example. What I'm trying to say is that the clafoutis has a really beautiful texture when left to it's own devices. It's really unnecessary to add a crust. Trust me. As you can see, I….omitted the crust. I didn't even ask my partner. Mea Culpa, mea culpa. IT'S BETTER THAT WAY.
Secondly, it had all this shiiii-yut in the batter, like ground almonds and canned cherries. You need a simple batter. You whiz it (whiz is a technical term) in the blender which incorporates a lot of air into the batter, just like you would with a crepe batter or even pancakes. It's light, smooth. If you add a little amaretto som'un som'un, it has this gorgeous almond flavour.
Take this into consideration when examining my clafoutis. (Also excuse the iPhone pictures. Mea culpa, mea culpa)

The cherries came kind of dislodged. If you arrange the fruit in a manner that is in any intentional, POUR SLOWLY. Or else, you will be reading your clafoutis like tea leaves.

Next was the Blueberry Ginger pie, which was supposed to provide an opportunity for practicing lattice-work. When using a delicate fruit like berries, you often use a method in pie making known as the cooked juice method. Instead of the fruit being cooked with the starch that will thicken the filling of the pie, the starches are cooked with just the fruit juice which once thickened is poured over the raw fruit and then baked. I don't think we passed 'go' on any of those steps. So the filling of our pie was somewhat reminiscent of swallowing a gel insole (not that I've ever done that).

Our lattice also looks a little 'alarmed'. The crust is puff pastry, so from less of a bird's eye vantage point, the lattice looks quite pretty. Really puffy. The ginger could have leant a nice kick if there wasn't too much of both sugar and cornstarch. Ah, well. Next time.

Lastly, was our Brown Butter Fruit tart. Now, whenever I see a recipe with brown butter in it, or beurre noisette, I always sigh and turn the page. To me, it always comes across as so much work. "An extra step?! Who do they think I am?…..Don't answer that." But today, I have been reformed. Not only is brown butter easy and quick -it took me probably five minutes including cooling and that was while I verbally berated Chef for cheering for the Giants yesterday, aka I was distracted. Brown butter also lends such a warm flavour to whatever you're making. So, do I understand where you're coming from if you would rather just have regular butter. Totally. Do I want you to try it because you will thank yourself while you buy pants a size larger? Yes I do.
Smitten Kitchen, one of my favourite blogs, has a THING for brown butter. This is why I respect her. She has a toddler y'all. If she can do it we can do it. Nectarine Brown Butter Buckle? I think so.

Sad crust. Again!

Tomorrow I will report on the last thing we made today which was...cheesecake. It was too warm for us to bring home today but tomorrow's the day. I was simply flavoured with lemon zest and vanilla bean (which was hella delicious, don't' get me wrong) but Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake? That's a yes. Cranberry Goat's Cheese Cheesecake? That's also a yes. I've been wanting to try kaeskuchen, which is German cheesecake. It uses quark or a thick ricotta type cheese instead of cream cheese. It comes out like three feet tall. Okay…..not quite. But cheese in a dessert, meaning I can have cheese in all three courses? Win.

We also made rum babas today, which was an excuse to dunk stale buns in a rum syrup. Some Polish king came up with that because he was looking at stale kugelhopf and figured he wasn't done with it yet. Or just wanted to kind of switch up how he was drinking his rum. Either way, I salute him for his brain power.

That's Monday. Tomorrow is Linzer Torte and more croissants! And crepes, or as Chef calls them, 'craps'.
Find a bun. Find some rum. Brainstorm. Repeat.