ever so sweet

Berry passionfruit cupcakes. on Flickr.Berry passionfruit...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:32:20 -0500

Berry passionfruit cupcakes. on Flickr.

Berry passionfruit cupcakes.

And this is a fun day at work. on Flickr.And this is a fun day...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:26:17 -0500

And this is a fun day at work. on Flickr.

And this is a fun day at work.

Minnie mouse cookies and cream cupcakes. on Flickr.Minnie mouse...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:40:54 -0500

Minnie mouse cookies and cream cupcakes. on Flickr.

Minnie mouse cookies and cream cupcakes.

Flavor testing: Chocolate blackberry and red wine cupcake. on...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:15:29 -0500

Flavor testing: Chocolate blackberry and red wine cupcake. on Flickr.

For you wine-os….Flavor testing: Chocolate blackberry and red wine cupcake.

New set of measuring cups! on Flickr.New set of measuring cups!

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:46:55 -0500

New set of measuring cups! on Flickr.

New set of measuring cups!

Vegan pumpkin pecan pancakes! Breakfast for dinner. Happy...

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:48:38 -0400

Vegan pumpkin pecan pancakes! Breakfast for dinner. Happy Halloween. on Flickr.

Vegan pumpkin pecan pancakes! Breakfast for dinner. Happy Halloween.

Donation cupcakes. on Flickr.Donation cupcakes.

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:59:54 -0400

Donation cupcakes. on Flickr.

Donation cupcakes.

Minnie mouse cake. on Flickr.Minnie mouse cake.

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:02:35 -0400

Minnie mouse cake. on Flickr.

Minnie mouse cake.

Dinner: chicken with vegetables and peanut sauce. on...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:58:01 -0400

Dinner: chicken with vegetables and peanut sauce. on Flickr.

Dinner: chicken with vegetables and peanut sauce.

Elmo cupcakes on Flickr.Elmo cupcakes

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:53:50 -0400

Elmo cupcakes on Flickr.

Elmo cupcakes

TRY THIS: An informal afternoon tea party

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 03:33:20 -0400

We decided to have a small tea party at the house one Sunday. If I told you it was planned mainly to dress up, what would you think of that? It was also to enjoy fun finger foods with our hot tea while engaging in stimulating conversations about hot topics, but the food and playing dress up was the main event.

Planning a menu for a tea party, I did some research on traditional tea parties and the typical foods that are on hand. Everything is “finger food” style, pick up, and arranged on nice platters or tiered trays. When planning the menu, I made sure to do a good balance of savory and sweet items. Also a lot of the planning used items that I happened to have on hand as part of my pantry, so I wouldn’t have to spend so much money at the grocery store.

Made some spinach pinwheels. Used low-fat crescent roll dough, as I always keep it around the house, makes great sweet and savory treats when you’re in a pinch and need something quick. It’s very versatile and can really let you use your imagination on flavor combinations when using this semi-homemade item.

Simple as some frozen spinach mixed with cream cheese, hot sauce, garlic powder and salt and pepper to make a filling and spread over the dough to be rolled and cut into pinwheels, these baked to a perfect golden brown with crisp layers and were a crowd pleaser.

What would a tea party be without tea sandwiches? These traditional triangles came in two very common tea party flavors: egg salad and cucumber and cream cheese. Both on honey wheat bread.

For some small pastries and cookies, I baked smaller bite sized versions of vegan chocolate chip cookie dough I happened to have in the fridge, and also took puff pastry that I always have in the freezer to make mini palmiers. Roll out the puff pastry in cinnamon and sugar and roll both side inward to make the heart shape and cut. Press the cut puff pastry in more cinnamon and sugar until flattened and bake at a high 375 degree oven until the sugar caramelizes on the crispy pastry.

And what would a tea party be without scones and jam? I made smaller scones out of a very simple orange and cranberry recipe I have and they turned out great! I also made lemon blueberry vegan tea cakes with frozen blueberries I had in my freezer.

A menu that would make you think I was up all night in preparation of all the items, was done in a couple of hours before the guests arrived. It did turn out to be a less stressful party to plan for, and definitely something I would like to do again.

TRY THIS: Homemade Granola

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:30:38 -0400

Granola is a healthier sweet option as compared to its cookie or cake counterparts, and once you make a batch, you see how simple it is to make as well. The good thing about homemade granola is that you can customize it to suit your preferences.

In this recipe, orange and peanut butter combine with granola and flax seeds to produce a great on-the-go snack for summer road trips or hiking adventures. Granola can be snacked on as-is, sprinkled over fresh fruits, or even ice cream or frozen yogurt as a sweet indulgence!

Orange and Peanut Homemade Granola

5 cups Rolled Oats

1 cup Honey Roasted Peanuts

½ cup Wheat Bran

1 cup Flax Seeds

2 cups Dried Cranberries

1 tbsp Salt

1 tbsp Cinnamon

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

1 Orange, Zest and Juice

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 cup Peanut Oil or any other Flavorless Vegetable Oil

2 cups Honey

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and set aside. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients and whisk together until combined. Mix the wet and the dry ingredients together and mix with a spatula until everything is coated. Spread the granola mixture over two parchment lined sheet pans, making sure everything is in a single layer. Place in the oven and allow to dry out for approximately an hour. Cooking times may vary due to different ovens, but you just want to dry it out until the oats are crispy and no longer chewy. I even turned the ovens off and left the granola in the oven overnight to cool and it worked perfectly. The granola can be kept in an airtight container for about 2 weeks.

Spring Hibernation: Where has Ever So Sweet been?

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:14:23 -0400

My few followers, be patient with me. I’m embarrassed to have to apologize again for having neglected my supposed to be fun food blog. I think the past couple of months had me looking at my drafts folder of the blog like it was a task as opposed to the fun hobby I started it out to be. This is the chronicles of my baking adventures, right? Well I had a lot of them over the past month, it almost feels like I had something going on every weekend, which always turns out to be more than just the actual event….there’s the planning, the prepping and the baking beforehand. Everything has got to be a big ordeal with me, right? It’s just the way I operate. And I kind of like it like that. The planning, not the neglecting, of course.

Food Blogger’s Bake Sale

My friend let me know about the Food Bloggers Bake Sale to benefit share our strength. I was really excited to volunteer for this one, as this was my first event as my own entity. I wanted to step up my game and bake really unique desserts, because I knew, with other food bloggers, that this wouldn’t be a simple bake sale.

I flip through my own collection of recipes and go with 2 very different but very good cookies, I knew that no one would ever have things like this at the bake sale. I decide to go with a Summer Berry Cobbler cookie, and a Mascarpone Cream sandwich cookie.

The cobbler cookies were something that I always made back in the restaurant days. They turned out to be one of those mistakes that went horribly right in the kitchen, which doesn’t always happen out like that, so I was very fortunate. A very rich sable cookie base is topped with a summer berry jam and topped with streusel topping. This cookie is assembled on whole sheets of dough and are cut with a cookie cutter once out of the oven and slightly cooled. They are fun to make when others are around, as the scraps are good enough for onlookers who aren’t allowed to have any.

The mascarpone cream sandwich cookies, which turned out to be a crowd favorite, are a nutmeg laced, sugar cookie dough with mascarpone in it. I think the mascarpone in the dough makes for a very crisp and moist texture to the cookie that everyone seemed to enjoy. I simply filled the sandwich cookie with a simple semisweet ganache. I rolled the outer edges of the cookie in toasted and crushed pistachios.

For the bake sale, I produced so many cookies, it was fun to package them and make labels for them. I was told by my friend that all of my stuff sold, which I was really happy to hear, and the few comments I got from people who bought my stuff was very positive. I also heard that our bake sale did the best out of any other city’s bake sale, which I was proud to be a part of for such a good cause.

Faith’s 2nd Birthday Party

It was my niece’s birthday party the following weekend, and the theme was her favorite children’s show: Yo Gabba Gabba. It was a fun theme to work with in pastry items, as I don’t really get into themed parties and pastries like that professionally, but you do what you have to for the children.

I turn to my trusty sable cookie dough again to make the character cookies. We baked them on cookie sticks for the party presentation. I made a large batch of simple white sugar icing and dye each color of each character. We also cut the fondant eyes and decorations.

Of course, we also made cupcakes of the characters too!

And I made a Brobee (my favorite character) smash cake for the birthday girl. She was too scared to eat him, it was very cute!

Sugar Coma Festival

Was most recently a vendor at the Sugar Coma Festival thrown by the Broke Socialite. It was a fun event to be apart of just to try to get my name out there separate from the bakery I work for, and maybe for the possibility that I will do my own thing in the near future.

When planning for this event, I wanted to make multiple desserts. I had seen a couple of comments requesting that the mascarpone cream sandwich cookies from the bake sale make an appearance, so that was a definite. Since I also had a bulk container of pistachios, I also wanted to make these great chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and dried cranberries.

And since I didn’t want all of my cookie options to have pistachios or chocolate in it, I also did a lemon curd shortbread sandwich cookie, which was admittedly an alternate that was “almost about to be cut from the lineup, but turned out to be so popular” types of things.

I also made individual ginger peach cobblers in foil cups so they could be reheated and served warm with vanilla bean ice cream on top.

And finally I made a summer berry buckle, which is sort of like a cobbler/coffee cake hybrid with the cake on the bottom, the fruits baked in, and my favorite streusel topping on top.

Everyone seemed to enjoy everything at all the events I baked for. I had a lot of fun doing them as well. These are baby steps towards what I hope will be something enjoyed by many soon.

Atlanta Street Food Summit and Urban Picnic

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:32:44 -0400

Street food mania has blown up in Atlanta lately and I’ve been following the latest food trend for a couple of months. It just amazes me the crowds that come out and support these food artisans and I have to admit that I would like to get in on that action as well.

Last week, I was able to attend a Street Food Summit, put together by the Atlanta Street Food Coalition, in a way to bring the people who regulate and enforce the street food community to the people who are already involved or who would like to see the street food vendors flourish in this city.

The panel consisted of: Atlanta City Council member Kwanza Hall, Fulton County Commissioner Joan Garner, Deputy Director Fulton County Health Services Kevin Jones, Major Christopher Leighty and Sargeant Edward Davis, both from the Atlanta Police Department.

Each panel member spoke of their involvement in the street food scene in Atlanta and quickly dispelled any rumors that the city or the county is against this movement. They wanted everyone to know that they are on the side of of the business owners, but also that it is their duty to protect the consumers who consume the food. The rules are strict for a reason, they are there to ensure food safety is never neglected and never becomes an issue.

The next panel to speak was the Young family, owners of the highly popular Yumbii truck, and thought to help bring the movement to Atlanta. The Yumbii truck partners with Hankook Taquieria to bring korean BBQ tacos and sesame fries to the steets. It was a great perspective to have the official city council members and to have the business end represented by the Young family. After being in business for over a year, they offered insight as to lessons they have learned while operating a food truck in Atlanta.

Finally, last to speak and take questions from the crowd was Greg Smith, founder of the Atlanta Street Food Coalition. The Atlanta Street Food Coalition is a main player in helping both the consumers and the business owners of food trucks come together in the metro area.

The yumbii truck parked right outside of the street food summit, so when the crowd poured into the parking lot, a line formed fast. I’ve been wanting to try Yumbii so badly, so I decided that now would be a great time.

The ordering window on the Yumbii truck. The Yumbii truck is the most well equipped truck in the city in my opinion and is literally a fully functional kitchen on wheels.

Glor ordered the pulled pork sliders, and since I gave up meat for lent, I got the tofu taco. We shared an order of the sesame fries.

After the Street food summit was over, we drove over to the Sweet Auburn Curb Market for the Urban Picnic. I never get to take Saturdays off from work, so all of this was a treat for me to be able to finally partake in an urban picnic.

The Good Food Truck.

Glor got the Poodle: a hot dog on a toasted French bun with an apple slaw on top. She was urged both by people in the crowd and the owners of the truck to try it with spicy mustard and maple syrup. She loved the texture of the apple slaw and how the fresh and crisp taste went well with the hot dog.

I had the vegetarian option: the Parmesan cone, that was filled with rice, lentils and butternut squash. I loved how interesting the concept of the food was, for the most part in cones, and everything was delicious as well. My favorite part was the crispy Parmesan cone that held everything.

Jeremy had the Sesame cone, also a vegetarian option, also filled with rice, but had Asian seasoned vegetables on top. I had a taste of his cone with some filling, and that cone was also a hit. I thought that the food the good food truck put out was fun and portable and tasted great.

I don’t think it wouldn’t be an outdoor event in the hot months without King of Pops there. With so many flavor options, there is bound to be something that everyone will like.

Loved the new printed pop sticks! A prefect sweet ending to our first urban picnic!

TRY THIS: Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:29:46 -0400

I cannot say one exact reason why, but I love Martha Stewart. Out of all the culinarians I could look up to, the pastry gods and goddesses, I choose Susie Homemaker’s idol, house hold name, Martha Stewart. I give her credit. Her stuff always looks spot on. Her recipes range from the simplest cookies to the most traditional and skillful French style pastry. She is about technique and being precise. I want to relate to her. And she makes it simple and attainable to do so. So yeah, of course I love Martha. If any business I was apart of was a fraction successful as anything she touches (come short of jail time), I would be a happy girl.

So I buy her cookbooks, especially when they are dessert and pastry related. The Martha Stewart Baking Handbook has always been like a baking bible for me since the year it came out. It always a book I recommend that newbies to baking buy because it covers all the basics for beginners, and the recipes always come out flawlessly. Plus, I’m a sucker for the pictures.

One of the recipes I make all the time from this cookbook are the cream cheese and chive biscuits. They are always a crowd favorite, and are slightly different from traditional biscuits, and the extra work is worth it in the final product in my opinion. Start with gathering the ingredients:

Call it a southern thing, but I always use white lily self rising flour whenever making biscuits even when it has leavener in the recipe already. It hasn’t messed anything up too bad for me yet.

Buttermilk.

Cream Cheese.

A rough guide of the recipe, but this one is a larger recipe!

Start with the dry ingredients, and “cut” in the cold butter and cream cheese similar to regular biscuit making or even pie dough making.

Once the buttermilk is added and the dough is formed, knead gently until everything is incorporated.

The fun difference in these biscuits is they are flaky layered. So when you are rolling them out, its almost like doing a laminated dough like a puff pastry or danish or croissant. To achieve the flaky layers, you need to roll the cold butter and cream cheese into very thin layers of fat in between the layers of dough. We call it 3x3 folds or the letter fold.

It’s very messy, but in between each fold, the dough must go back into the cooler to make sure the fats stay cold. You don’t want the butter and cream cheese to melt into the dough.

To do a 3x3 fold, you roll out your dough like this.

Take one third of the dough and layer it over the other.

And then take the other third of the dough and place it over, just like folding a letter.

You also rotate the dough and roll it out again. When you have repeated this process three times also while refrigerating it in between each fold, you are ready to cut biscuits!

Whenever I make a big batch like this, I cut them out, and place them on parchment lined sheet pans, and I freeze them. They’re great to freeze and take out and bake whenever you need them! They do great over the holidays and the many parties in that time of the year. It’s definitely a lot more work than traditional biscuits, but its worth in in the end product. I know my family loves them.

TRY THIS: Vegan Crepes

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:58:26 -0400

It’s no secret that I’ve been picking up more vegan cooking and baking lately. My real close friend Colin is a vegan and I feel like we have a great time and bond very well when we cook vegan things together. No, I am not a vegan. But I will from time to time, cook and eat vegan dishes just to offset the gluttony I face sometimes.

With that being said, at one of our vegan dinner clubs, I decided for dessert, I wanted to make vegan crepes with a strawberry nutella filling. I’ve noticed in the vegan baking recipes there are two ways to approach it: either substitute dairy and eggs for non dairy options and egg replacer, or totally invest in specialty products and ingredients and change the overall recipe.

I think its obvious which I prefer.

I’ve only made crepes once before, and this recipe was pretty similar to a standard recipe. You place all the crepe batter ingredients in the blender…

And process until smooth.

Once the batter is mixed, the recipe suggested that it rest overnight. Good for pre-planning and prepping many items.

With some vegan earth balance butter, a non stick pan and medium high heat, I was in the business of making vegan crepes.

I even made homemade vegan “nutella” filling. Commercial nutella is made with milk chocolate, so immediately is not really vegan. Simply melting vegan chocolate chips and adding almond butter and you have a new and homemade spread that is animal free.

Slicing the strawberries for the crepes.

Assembling the crepes.

Folding over once.

The final product.

I think this was a hit with the dinner club, as everything was eaten and finished with no leftovers for once! Definately a keeper!

REVIEW: Victory Sandwich

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:32:29 -0400

It’s pretty proven that if there is a new place on the block that many of the foodie’s on my twitter feed will rave about, I make it my priority to try this place out as well. I mean I have to see what all the fuss is about, right??

Cue to Victory Sandwich, the new sandwich shop/bar in the Inman Park neighborhood.

We went late on a weeknight, so I wasn’t surprised that we were one of the only tables dining that late. I appreciate new places to eat for late night dining in the city after a movie or a concert. Walking to the front of the restaurant, you pass by a great patio area for when things warm up. On the inside, everything was nicely lit with a projection of a movie along the front wall. The bar ran across the length of the space and led to a ping pong table in the back. There’s even a punching bag.

The Simple Sandwich menu at Victory Sandwich.

Frozen Jack N Coke.

Chicken Salad and Turkey Club Sandwiches.

Beast on yeast and Reuben.

Just like many of the other reviews have said, the good thing about Victory Sandwich is the smaller size of the sandwiches. They are smaller than a standard size sandwich, but are larger than a slider. You could get more than one sandwich to try different flavors and textures in different breads and sandwiches, but you would have to be a little more hungrier to want that third sandwich. It’s a tough decision sometimes. Both times I went, I enjoyed all the sandwiches I ordered, and I imagine with such a small menu that they have, it will rotate constantly, keeping things different.

Another small detail that I appreciated, which is not even a big deal, was everything is priced with the tax built in. There are few places that are like that. There are even fewer people who even care about all that. Oh well. Point is, I’m sure I will be back in the future. It’s definitely a favorite with my friends and I.

Gluten Free at Fuego Mundo

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:10:00 -0400

Excuse the brief absense. Work got away from me for awhile, and then I look up and it’s been about two months since my last entry. Sorry! I promise to pick back up again. But anyways, back to the food!

Enjoyed another event with the Atlanta Food Blogger’s Alliance at Fuego Mundo. In the fairly new Prado development in Sandy Springs off of Roswell Road and 285, Fuego Mundo translates into “world of fire”. With a wood fire grill and aiming to represent a whole continent’s worth of cuisine rather than just one region, the name says it all.

Owner Masha spoke to our group about their passion for the food and their inspiration for their restaurant. She and her husband used to franchise sandwich shops before wanting to open their own concept. They took a break and travelled before opening their own place. In their travels, the found they loved the simplicity of a grill concept: simply offering chicken, steak and fish in a healthy and simple manner. Masha and the nice staff at Fuego Mundo want your dining experience to be a sensory experiense with the show of the open kitchen and the aromas floating through the room, the only question we have is when more locations will be opening.

In their food, they strive to have the best of the best and like to go back to the basics in their grilling techniques. They strive to have delicious and flavorful foods that still have that homemade aspect and still have a good value. When planning their menu, they wanted to be nutritious for both meat-eaters and vegetarians, as they know that specialty diets are very common these days.

While watching the grill cook, Masha explains to us that their practices keep these specialty diets in mind and are also implimented to keep the menu health conscious. Take for instance the wood for their wood fire grill: it is important to the taste of the meat that the wood be untreated, and they found that they liked oak the best for the flavor exchange in the grilling process. She explains that there is never any dairy with the meat, that all sauces and marinades are homemade and secret recipes. She also explains that most of the menu is gluten free for those on special diets or who may suffer from celiac disease.

Our group was there to help formulate the best gluten free dishes so that Masha and Fuego Mundo could formulate a prix fix gluten free menu. We started with the yucca frites.

We were then able to try two different grain options with two different vegetable sides and either chicken or steak to see which combination we preferred the most and put it to a vote!

When I made my plate, I didn’t even think that I was missing out on any gluten. Even the carrot cake we tried for dessert tasted moist and dense with a tangy cream cheese frosting. Once all the votes came in, the gluten free menu was presented:

90% of their menu is gluten free if you know anyone who has an allergy or special diet around gluten. Even if not, enjoy the sensory experience that is Fuego Mundo!

TRY THIS: Shortcut Tiramisu

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:58:00 -0500

At work, I make everything. I will make my own caramel, my own almond brittle, pastry cream, strawberry puree…everything like that. I choose to take the extra time to make everything in house so that in the end, you will be able to taste the difference.

At home, its another story. I turn into Semi Homemade Sandra Lee all of a sudden, starting with pre-made items. Don’t hate. You tell me your desire to cook when you’ve been in the kitchen for 8 hours. Nonetheless, when I need tiramisu, I still need to make it somehow, so I just start with a simple recipe after a google search.

Only because this is what I have on hand, Kahlua.

Standard mascarpone that you get in the grocery store.

And my semi-homemade trick, pre-made lady fingers.

The tiramisu recipe starts with whipping the egg yolks with the sugar until fluffy and pale.

You can see the mixture is beginning to rise in volume and lighten in color.

The finished whipped egg mixture. Add the mascarpone and whip until combined.

I begin to setup an assembly station in the tiny corner of my kitchen.

I dip the lady fingers in the coffee/kahlua mix for only a few seconds.

Leaving them in too long will cause them to break.

I place a single layer of the soaked lady fingers along the bottom of the pan. (I used a foil pan because I was bringing it to a potluck party.) After the first layer is down, I cover it with half of the egg/mascarpone mix and then assemble another layer of the lady fingers and the top it off with the remainder of the cream. Once everything is assembled in the pan, the tiramisu is traditionally dusted with cocoa powder. The tiramisu needs to rest overnight so that the cream can set and everything can come together. This makes for a nice slice that holds up well.

I wasn’t able to get a final product picture, but I take that as a good sign that there wasn’t any leftovers for me to nicely present for a finally picture.

If it’s semi-homemade or not, I still have to clean the kitchen. And if it tastes good, does it even matter how it was made?

Rolling Out the Red Carpet at PACCI

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:50:14 -0500

Had a great “blog club” event at Pacci a couple of weeks ago, and got to see the kitchen operations in depth for the only kitchen for the Hotel Palomar. This kitchen takes care of the Pacci restaurant, the Alto Rex rooftop lounge, room service for the hotel, and all the events and conferences held in the hotel.

That’s a pretty big feat for such a small kitchen area. Chef Kiera Moritz has to run an efficient and organized kitchen to make sure everything comes out prefect and consistent every time with a carefully selected team that she relies to hold the same standards for food that she does.

The stunning light fixtures in the center of the dining room in the Pacci restaurant.

The luxurious marble lined bar.

Executive Chef Kiera Moritz.

The stairway to the Alto Rex upstairs lounge.

The upstairs outdoor bar at Alto Rex.

We were led to the upstairs to a small events kitchen for the rooftop lounge where Chef demoed how to make staple dishes and items in their kitchen. Chef explains that almost everything on the menu is in it purest form, and tries to have all of her components have 5 ingredients or less.

We start with a grilled Caesar salad.

Chef is whisking quickly to emulsify the extra virgin olive oil in the house made Caesar salad dressing.

The plating assembly line for the grilled Caesar salad. It was fun to watch each chef lay down one component to the simple dish and in a matter of minutes, they were done. This is very similar to how plating would be for a large dinner at the hotel.

Sous Chef Joseph begins to knead the gnocchi dough and roll it out into long strands to be hand cut.

Can you imagine the kitchen having to make 4 full sheet pans of the gnocchi each day? Thats incredible!

House made gnocchi with brown butter and Gorgonzola and walnuts.

Next, we moved onto a dessert, a Pear Crespelle.

The pear crespelle was plated with brown butter and micro basil. The nuttiness from the browned butter with the rich ricotta and the caramelized pears were encased in the thin Italian style crepe. There was a slight crisp on the edge that went well with the textures on the dessert. It was good to see the brown butter in both a sweet and savory application, to see how it can adapt to the dish it is in easily.

We attempted to make smores over the fire pits, but the wind kept on blowing the fire out. Just like any kitchen leader should, Chef took a seemingly impossible task and adapted to the situation. She pulled out a kitchen torch and torched every one of our smores. The pastry chef molded dark chocolate with a little bit of salt, and melted along with the homemade marshmallow squares, this was a delightful mess. We were even provided with hot chocolate with the option of caramel Bailey’s. I dipped my smore in the hot chocolate and it made the cold day warm up for a moment.

Chef was even gracious enough to give all of us a small container of their marinara sauce. It was a nice balance of meaty and sweet. All I can say is that it was amazing over grits for dinner one night. It really hit the spot.

Now it’s your turn to give Pacci a try! Take this coupon and try the simple and fresh cuisine of Pacci in Midtown.