Party Time is Pastry Time

It's no secret that I love second hand stores.

OK, not the actual store so much as the great deals and buried treasure.

Does that make me a shopping pirate?

Cool.

Back to my story!

Salvation army find.

Vintage aluminum cookie/pastry press. 

Still in the box with instructions.

Never used.

$5.99

Arrrrrrr.

And so with gusto I tried out one of the recipes included in the manual.

Eclairs.

But y'all know I tweaked it!

 Here's what you need to make Vintage-y Vanilla Bean Eclairs:

1 cup water

1/2 cup of butter or margarine

1 cup of sifted flour

1/4 tsp. salt

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 450.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

1. In a medium saucepan, combine water and butter; bring to a rolling boil.

2. Reduce heat to low and add sifted flour and salt.

3. Stir vigorously until mixture leaves sides of pan and forms a stiff ball.

4. Remove from heat.

5. Add eggs one at a time, beating hard after each egg.

6. Transfer to a piping bag or cookie press.

7. Pipe 4" tubes of batter, 2" apart.

I think you could remove the dough from the pan and quickly put it in your mixer to add in the eggs. I did it the way the book said, silly me. I was sure my arm was going to fall off.

Now, I'm figuring that not all of you have a 1950's cookie press....

So you can use a piping bag with a large tip, or even better use a large freezer bag and snip a good 3/4 inch corner off the bottom.

Put in the oven for 15 minutes at 450. Then another 20 minutes at 325.

This worked perfectly!

 Transfer immediately to a cooling rack. Let cool completely then slice in half.

While these are cooling, make your filling and glaze..

Filling:
2 cups of whipping cream
1/2 cup of sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeded
1 tsp. of vanilla extract
 Whip all this until thick and fluffy.

Glaze:
1/3 cup of butter, melted
2 squares of baking chocolate, melted and cooled
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeded
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1 shot of espresso or strong coffee
Mix together until smooth and ribbon-y.

Now for assembly.

I piped the whipped cream onto the bottom part of the eclair, but you could spoon it too.

Top whipped cream with the top half of the eclair.

Drizzle glaze over top.

The last step is to take these to all your friends.

You won't be able to stop eating them.

I sent Ben over to my friends house and to my parents to get rid of them. 

This was after he inhaled 3 in a row!

It's 9:30 at night. Wanna make S'mores?

Ben and I have currently been with watching Discovery's Gold Rush.

If you've never watched it, you're missing out.

Well, if you live for confrontation, constant drama and other peoples failures that is.

I don't like these any of these things really, which is why at 9:30pm I decided to make S'more muffins.

Turns out I had none of the essential ingredients.

But our Mac's store did!

Here's what you need to make S'more Muffins:

2 cups of crushed graham crumbs
1/4 cup of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 cup of milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons of honey

1 bar of milk chocolate
2 cup of mini marshmallows or 6 large marshmallows

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Mix first 3 ingredients together in medium bowl.

In a separate bowl mix next 3 ingredients, then add to dry ingredients. stir until combined.

Chop up chocolate into a chunks and toss into batter.

Add and mix in mini marshmallows. If you're using the large marshmallows, cut in half with scissors and add after the batter is in muffin tin.

 Use cupcake liners people! You do not want to wash these tins.

Line your muffin tins with cupcake liners and fill each one 2/3 full.

Bake for 16-20 minutes.

Let them cool. They're way better completely cool, trust me.

I'm the most impatient person on the planet, and even I managed to wait.

Don't you love a recipe where you can get all your ingredients at a corner store for 9 times the price?!

You just know these aren't healthy.

But they are delicious!

Also, this blog now has it's own Facebook page, YAY!

If you'd like to keep in touch, leave comments or even post pictures of your creations you can do it here ---------> Petite Parisian

Thanks!

Scrub Me Tender.

I'm terrible at math. Did any of you know that? Yeah, so when I made up my list of all the things I wanted to make for my Valentine's count down, some how I miss counted and ended up with only 13. Now, I knew I was bad at math, like say fractions, but counting?! Not to mention counting to 14!!!  wow.

So as of yesterday I was scrambling like mad to think up something cute and easy, with stuff I had at home to make for today's post. I just couldn't let my followers down! 

What I came up with was a party favor I had made for my dear Christie's baby shower. A sugar scrub! Now, to make it perfect for Valentines....HHMMMMM. Chocolate and sugar scrub?! Maybe?

Here's what you need:

Coconut oil

Cocoa

sugar

Vanilla

Now the measurements are not an exact science, here people. I used probably a 1 cup of oil to 1 1/2 - 2 cups of sugar... Now, you remember who is telling you this, right? The girl that can't count to 14. So take those measurements with a grain of sugar OK?

Really I just kind of mixed oil and sugar together until it resembled a thick, grainy, paste. Then just give a little splash of vanilla, and dump in the cocoa. As much as you want, to make it as chocolaty as you want.

Place in a jar that seals, any kind with a lid will do, just to keep out the moisture from the shower. I just happened to come across a super cutie, old fashioned jar at our local Sally Ann for a sweet $ 0 . 59 !

Have a nice hot shower and scrub away winter with chocolate!

Happy Day 11!

Clouds of Chocolate! Day 8 Baby!

If you're here reading this you must be hard-core Valentiners! We've passed the half way mark and are on the down hill! That means I need to amp up the love right? Well these little puppies should do the trick!

Chocolate Chip, Dark Chocolate Cloud Cookies! 

That's a mouthful! (literally too, I totally snuck one from myself)

Once again, easy recipes prevail in my house, no need getting all fancy-smancy when there is a time crunch!

What you need:

1 tube of cookie dough

1 tub of cool-whip (I know you all said that in your head again, pronouncing the H) Thawed.

1 1/2 cups of semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips, depending on your preference.

1/4 cup Milk

Garnish of your choice.

What'd I tell ya, easy-peasy!

I tend to use every dish in my kitchen, even to make the simplest things. Spoon total in this recipe : 5. FIVE. Why? I don't know! I was looking back at the wake of my destructive-ness and counted 5 dirty spoons! How is this even possible? There's only like, 4 ingredients. 

Here's my first spoon. Spoon out a tablespoon into your muffin papers or into a greased muffin tin. bake for 10-12 minutes at 350.

Second spoon. Melting your chocolate chips and milk in the microwave for 30 second. Stirring until smooth. Set aside for 20 min until room temp. 

Post-oven. So golden, yummm.

There are aspects of life that I enjoy, such as the gratifying feeling after vacuuming as dirty floor. There are other that I don't like. Such as folding. Nothing awesome has ever happened to me while I was folding something. Laundry, ick. Folding cool-whip into melted chocolate, double ick. It is actually quite the work out! Honestly I felt like I had just finished some Tae-Bo moves! (Which is perfect for how much 'tasting' I did) 

  With that said, fold (ugh) half of the cool-whip into the melted chocolate mixture. When combined, fold (yep, more folding) the remaining cool-whip. 

I think there was another spoon or 2 used in this step.

Pipe or spoon your filling onto your baked cookies! I piped mine because they are going to our Friendship Factor Valentine's Brunch and I wanted them to look pretty.

I love this little micro heart (generously donated by Stacey from I Wish I Was Martha) that landed right on the top.

This is one of those awesome desserts that are so simple, but look difficult. These little bites are rich, smooth, crunchy and chewy all in one. You can't beat that!

Fall and Cupcakes

Yay! Fall is here! Well, maybe not officially, but it's here in my mind and in our house. Yesterday, Venice and I mad homemade Cranberry Cider and the house smelled AMAZING!

So I decided, with the first Friendship Factor, a women's coffee time (child care provided, WOOHOO!), starting up again on Wednesday at church,  some cider jars would be just the thing to show my appreciation for the committee of women that dedicate precious time to organizing and planning a years worth of Wednesdays.

Just some mini-mason jars from the local dollarstore, 1/3 filled with brown sugar, some cinnamon sticks and a cheesecloth pillow filled with spices. Add this to 6 cups of cranberry juice or apple juice, simmer & serve. Delish!

This morning, with Venice at school, and Giselle having an amazing nap, I decided to tackle the latest recipe from Sprinkle Bakes. Coffee Chocolate Cake with Espresso Swiss Buttercream and mini donuts (insert drool here).

These are the yet-to-be-sprinkled donuts, with a dark Callebeaut glaze. They're delectable by themselves, but they know they have a higher calling...to be cupcake toppers!

Here's the most luscious cake batter I've ever made. Truth be told I usually use the boxed kind (GASP) but there's a lack of time sometimes, forgive me. 

Now these puppies are something else. I'd tasted the batter by itself, and the donuts by themselves, and the frosting by itself, and they were all good. Nothing though, could have prepared me for what it would taste like all together! WOWZERS!!! There really isn't words to describe the flavor combination. You're just going to have to try them. Or come to Friendship Factor ;)

I also have to post that this book has been the reason I haven't returned phone calls, emails and texts. I have already watched the movie and know the plot and ending but I still can't put it down. Thank goodness for synchronized naps! As you can see I'm SO close to being finished (hold your horses mom, it's yours tomorrow), it's almost killing me to be doing this instead of finishing it!