I'm a Lucky Girl

This sweet friend in Paris sent me some Laduree macarons!  How lucky am I?  Here is the lovely box filled with my favorites.  I've yet to try any local macarons that come close to Laduree.  The flavors are amazing and can't compare.  It's just so vibrant.  The texture of the cookie is also so smoothe, light yet very crispy, and full of almond flavor.  Wow!    Thanks Linley!

Came is this cute little box...

Bouchon Bakery in Napa

Here is my second visit to Bouchon Bakery.  This time to the original one in Napa Valley.  

The store has amazing stuff.  The lines were a block long.  Everything was perfect, perfect town, perfect neighborhood bakery, almost too perfect baked goods, almost like Stepford wives town perfect.  The first time I visited Bouchon Bakery in NYC, I thought it was lovely but deep down I felt something was a bit not real.  I figured it's the NYC version, in a big upper crust mall.  When I first read about it Bouchon Bakery, I wanted the small town, neighborly spot feel.  The NYC one was a bit too commercial perfect, so when I saw the outside store front, I was super excited to be at the one in Napa.  

The Napa store did have a charming, old time bakery feel.  However, some of the baked goods were exactly the same as the one in NYC.  Especially the patisseries goods, and I'm sure they are the same ones in Las Vegas.  I realized that they prob don't make or bake the sweet pastries in the local stores but rather in some big factory.  The chocolate tarts were too perfect.  No hands can cut that perfect for all of them.  Same goes for the macrons, and eclairs. This is where my slight disappoint comes from.  I some how wanted to think, it was all made by hand and local.  Perhaps it is but somehow I doubt.  You see, I love neighborhood bakeries.  The one of a kind that bakes everything in house,  and reflects the personality of the things in the neighborhood.

They do bake stuff in house but I think it's just the breads and morning pastries which were good.  They had sandwiches to homemade chips.  Good stuff but still a bit too commercialized. It was a tourist destination and the lines reflected that.  Not the lines of local bakery but the lines to see Thomas Keller stuff.  I was one of them.  I'm good on Bouchon Bakery.  I still love Thomas Keller, now I just see the business side of it.

Here are some of the goods...

A peanut butter cup...again too perfect

The too perfect lemon tart

Fresh baked goods of scones, almond croissant, buns, and more.

Tuna sandwich.  This was nice, with the nice details of super thin red onion, kalamative onions.  They also sold homemade potato chips.  This is the local stuff I'm talking about.  Loved it.

The macrons were a bit larger than others you see, about 3 inches wide, but at $3 bucks each, I guess they had to be bigger.  I love the ones at Honore more but these were good.

Lastly, the eclairs... they were close to the ones from Le Panier.  Very good and phallic.  :)

Le Rêve Bakery

Can a pastry be a little too sweet?  Yes it can!

My friend Anya told me about the new bakery on top of Queen Anne.  In fact we met there for some coffee last week.  I was super excited...a new neighborhood bakery? My kind of place.


Well, this place was okay at best.  We had the Petit Four, Espresso Eclair, French Macaron.  It looks lovely in pic but their baked goods were a bit too "homemade".  When I say that, I mean there was not enough care and had too heavy handed for the baked goods.   Nothing wrong with homemade that but if it's gonna cost you 11.00 for 4 little baked goods...well, they better be darn good.  Also the place is suppose to be a "French" bakery, but the goods like and tasted like Safeway's bakery dept.  You know the birthday cake you get from the grocery store  and it's so sweet because they use commercial grade ingredients.


Anya and I  both agreed, everything was too super sweet.  Even their macaron just tasted like sugar.  The crust was a bit chewy and not crisp of the good macarons I've had.  The eclair should have espresso filling and not just in the fondant topping if it's espresso.  They filled it with just the vanilla cream.  They had 3 flavors like Le Panier, but looks like they make one vanilla filing and just change the top fondant.  Not good.  Need to make the extra effort.  The petit four cake was the size of 2x4.  We cut into to four pieces to eat it but because of the sweetness,  we couldn't even finish.  The little cakes should be the size to fit in your mouth in one bit or so not like a reg piece of cake.


When baked goods are too sweet, it means they didn't balance it with enough salt or other flavorings.  They prob used unsalted butter like most bakers but you have to add salt to balance the flavors.  A good example is when you eat salted caramels from Frans.  Caramels are mostly sugar and some corn syrup but the salted caramels never taste too sweet. This is because the flavor is counter balanced with salt.  I usually want to eat the whole box of Fran's caramels so go figure.


Note to bakers, add salt!

Honore Artisan Bakery - French Macron

Honore is a little neighborhood bakery in Ballard.  It's only about 5 blocks from my house.  I love this place.  Somethings are better than others here, but this place has things that are not available in most bakeries.  Things like Kouign Amann, a salty sweet dense croissant like pastry and Cannles, the dark brown baked custard pastry. 

But I'm here to talk about their Macron.  I think they have the best french ones in Seattle.  I've tried them all available in Seattle...the ones from Fresh Flours, Bakery Nouvoue, and Le Panier.  The ones at Le Panier are good but these are better.  They taste more fresh and the flavors are more vibrant.  The cookie itself is nicely crisp on the outside, full almond flavor, and their fillings are unique.  I've had salty caramel, coconut caramel, chili chocolate, lemon, passion fruit, raspberry, coconut, pistachio, and coffee.

It's divine!


They don't have a website but here is their address.
1413 NW 70th St
Seattle, WA 98127

Macarons From France

My cousins came to visit our family and brought gifts!  Soo Jin went to Paris for an internship and brought us my favorite French macarons.  Yes, real macarons from France!  They are not just any macarons but from Laduree! http://www.laduree.fr/  Laduree is the historic tea shop in Paris.

These were amazing!  I've tried every version I can find in Seattle and those don't do real justice to these. The cookie itself was nicely thin crispy with good amount of air and almond texture and flavor.  The filling flavors were the best I've had.  Yum!

The green one tasted like jolly ranchers.  Fruity and subtle sweetness was so good!  I'm not sure on the exact fruit.  I looked up their website for the flavors but can't figure out this one.

The yellow one was a butter cream of some sort.  The butter cream was so velvety and this one waws not as sweet.  The cream one I think was vanilla butter cream.

The purple one was blackcurrent violet.  I can taste the tart fruity flavor and the subtle violets. Wow!

The pink was a rose buttercream.  Very interesting.

I was only going to try two to savor these and not eat at once but I ended up eating all of them.  Man I need to go Paris for more.  Seattle macarons won't be the same.  I better master making these soon!

Thanks so much Soo Jin!  My mouth wants more!

Bakery Nouveau

My favorite bakery right now is Bakery Nouveau.  It's a french patisserie and boulangerie all in one.  It's a wonderful place.  I discovered this place by accident a couple of months a go.  Originally had a trip to check out Shoo Fly Pie (which I found very disappointing) and parked across from Bakery Nouveau.  My eye caught the word "bakery" and had to drop by.  I couldn't believe I had yet to discover this place.  They've been around for 3 years now!  How late I am?  I could have been enjoying the baked goods for 3 years!  Well, I've been back to this place at least a half a dozen times.  If you love pastries like I do, you must venture out to this place.  Turns out, William Leaman, the owner and head pastry chef/baker is a 2005 World Cup of Baking Gold Medal Winner. Well no wonder...

Here is link to a good article and video of the backgrounds of Bakery Nouveau.  

The best baguette in Seattle!

Twice Baked Almond Croissant.  Once of my favorite things at this bakery.  

Macarons

My Current Obsession

I'm sorry I've been away.  I have been cooking and have lots to talk about but haven't managed to get it on the site.  I'll be doing a "end of year" posting of lots of pics.
My current obsession is macarons.  These are light, airy french cookies.  Don't get them confused with macaroons which are made with shredded coconut. These are made with almond meal. Both have egg white and sugar.  I've attempted to make them last week to give to friends for xmas but failed miserably.  I should have taken some pics but they were so awful l I just tossed them in the garbage.  I think my mistake was over beating them.
I've had some time to recover from the depression of it and will attempt again.  I've been reading many recipes and tips in cookbooks and online.  I've found one person who seems to be more obsessed than I am with these.  He has a great site and tips.  Check out:  http://www.syrupandtang.com/macarons/.
Will post when I get a successful batch. Cross your fingers!  :)