prosecco cake with grapefruit curd & vanilla bean icing

Sometimes working at a bakery and also baking at home proves to be a challenge. It’s hard to separate the two environments from a creative perspective. I want to be innovative at work and produce goods that will excite customers and do joyful justice to our industry. But as an at-home creative, I don’t want to exhaust it fully there. I want to test things and try things from my own kitchen, hopefully to eventually share here or with friends. And I don’t want those to overlap, for the sake of my work’s integrity. So in some senses, it feels like my personal endeavors have been limited.

Cake, Fruit, Dessertellyn hopperFebruary 16, 2016 Comment

grapefruit curd

Grapefruit curd has been gloriously haunting my thoughts for weeks. Something about the grapefruit seems native to my family. My mom (i.e., Suz) loves it, from childhood days spent at her grandma’s Florida house. And somehow the grapefruit was always mysteriously in our house… Whether in juice or raw form. My mom eats it like candy. And she’s a purist. Back in the days when I thought it was too tart, I’d add some sugar and show it to my mom as if I was the front runner of the Enlightenment, insisting that it was way more delicious and how could she not want it that way. “Nope,” she’d shake her head. And then walk away, leaving me in a state of pure shock.

Now I understand.

Fruit, Spreadsellyn hopperFebruary 1, 2016Comment

swedish chocolate goo cake

It's gooey. It's warm from the oven. It's dusted in sugar. It's crispy and fudgy all at the same time. It's pretty much a circular, underbaked brownie that you get to call cake and can serve for the fanciest meals. In fact, I would like to test the theory that this cake, in all its messy and delicious chocolatey glory, would unravel even the tightest of dinner parties. Pursed lips splitting with laughter, uncomfortably straight backbones swaying with chatter, and previously clasped hands waving with expression. That's how great this brownie-cake is.

Cake, Chocolate, Dessertellyn hopperJanuary 26, 2016Comment

an ode to Mexico and my husband

I can’t stop dreaming of Mexico.

It comes in waves, this reminder of the first sweet escape with my husband. Especially on these short, cold days, all I want is to be back on the warm sand. In the moment I didn’t see how wonderful it was because of small obstructions in my line of vision. Our room was annoyingly hot. There was a strange incense smell wafting throughout the whole resort. We didn’t know how to vacation all-inclusively. I had set too many expectations. But as I think back on those days, the most prominent memories are of good things. And the not-so-good things? We laugh at them now. What a glorious thing that is.

Travel, Thoughtsellyn hopperJanuary 15, 2016Comment

creme patissiere, aka pastry cream

Friends, I'm no expert. I don't pretend to know everything about anything when it comes to baking. I'm self-taught, a piecemealer. My dad, a former chef, taught me the basics, like knife skills, making roux, and how long to cook a chicken. But anything sweet went unmentioned. Don't get me wrong, everything food-related in my life has come from him. But the baking, that had to come from Grandma- queen of cookies. Christmas at their mountain house meant stacks on stacks of cookies, all different varieties. Magic cookie bars, brandy rings, chocolate covered cherries, date nut balls, holiday jingles, peanut butter blossoms, mexican wedding cakes. It was all there, and it was all the best thing I've ever seen to date.

From then, I’ve taught myself. I’ve scoured blogs. I’ve watched shows. I’ve flipped through cookbooks. I’ve examined pictures. I’ve eaten. And eaten and eaten. And I’ve loved every bit of it. I love learning the history behind a certain food, and wondering how the original chef even thought of such an idea. I love reading a recipe and decidedly winging it and later tasting the mind-blowing result. I love it all.

Dessertellyn hopperDecember 1, 2015Comment

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