J'adore Paris: Part Deux

Enjoying the most amazing dessert I've ever had - it was fresh, sweet and delicate.  Joe loved it too and he isn't a fruit fan at all.

 

 The interior of Ladurée oozed heritage and style.  Eating here was a wonderful experience and I feel so lucky to have visited. 

 The view from the top level of the Musée d'Orsay, with the sculptures below.  You aren't allowed to take photos of the art work as you may fade the paintings (hence I have no record of anything else in there) and I was shocked to see people disobeying this rule.  Some of the works of Monet and Vincent van Gogh are featured here.

 

 This restaurant was something else entirely.  The nicest, strangest and most sytlish restaurant I've been in! It has an amazing centrepeice - the clock face at the back wall there. 

 The above two photos are taken from the top of the Musée d'Orsay.

 

 The Musée d'Orsay's exterior, a former rail station.

 

 A lovely view of the Seine near the Musée d'Orsay.

 

 Situated on the Rue de Rivoli, La Cure Gourmande had wonderful biscuits, nougat and caramel.  I could have spent a lot more euros than I did in there! 

 Again, Angelina's is nestled on the Rue de Rivoli and I wish I'd had more time and the hunger for it! We stumbled across this beautiful patisserie after reading about it on the internet, known to be one of the greatest places to eat in Paris.  I had just eaten when we found it and couldn't have possibly stomached more delectable delights.  To be visited next time!

 You can tell how much I spent in Ladurée (I bought a day bag, notebook, a box of their speciality tea and a key ring).  I wish I had an unlimited supply of  Ladurée in my life, their macarons are a delight that you just couldn't get bored of.  Don't you think that even the bags are chic?

 

 A typically Parisian street next to our hotel - tightly packed cars and filigree-esque balconies on the buildings.

 We returned to the Avenue Montaigne on the last day to get pictures in better light (we went there at dusk before).  Carrie Bradshaw fell in this Dior!

 

 One of Dior's windows - high end designers have the coolest visual merchandising.

 Oh Chanel! I will have money for some of you one day!

 Can you spot me? This roundabout is so picturesque.  Why can't ours look like this?

 My macarons are in this box.  How lovely, tasteful and stylish is it?

 Finally took to a garden and shared the macarons. 

 Perfect macarons in my opinion, very different to Pierre Hermé, more chewy and gracefully bursting with flavour.

  My favourite was the purple macaron, which was violet flavour.  My Second favourite was the bold yellow, citron flavour.  

 

 What flavour of macaron to devour next?

Enjoying a glass of champagne in the café across the road from our hotel, on our last day.  Champagne has never tasted so good.  The café experience in Paris is so special.  You have to be seated, waited on and you pay later.  I wish all places were like this because everything would feel like an occasion.  The staff are also extremely respectful.  They take their job very seriously.

J'adore Paris: Part Une

Well it’s been quiet on my blog again! I have no other excuse other than I haven’t been baking ‘just because I want to’, as I need to cut down on cake.  My waist line has been increasing of late and I’ve had to make some cut backs (much to my horror!).  I miss baking cakes just for fun to try a new recipe.  I should fatten up my friends and family instead so I still get to bake.

So I thought I would give you a little insight into my trip to Paris instead of a baking post.  Me and my boyfriend went on 30th July - 3rd August and travelled via train to London and then the Eurostar.  We stayed in a four star hotel just off the Champs-Élysées, with a bedroom view of the Eiffel Tower, which was perfection!  Most sights were about three Metro stops away, so I felt really in heart of Paris.

I felt incredibly privileged to have the Arc De Triomphe so close to us too, which is located on the Champs-Élysées and was around a ten minute walk away from our hotel. I wanted to scream when we casually walked down the road we stayed on, onto the Champs-Élysées and to my left was the Arc De Triomphe in the distance! 

I would also like to make a point of the fact that me and Joe didn't have to pay for any of the sights we saw.  It was free for us as we are under 26 years of age and are from the EU! 

Here are some photos of the beautiful city 

  This is the view of the Champs-Élysées and Eiffel Tower at the top of the Arc De Triomphe

 This shows the amazing work and detail inside the Arc

 

 The stunning, goregous, creepy, awe inspiring, gothic treasure, Notre-Dame.  

 I was incredibly moved by this Parisian gem, the interior is just as stunning as the exterior.

 I saw Pierre Hermé on one of Lorraine Pascale's food shows months ago and knew that I had to go when I was in Paris.  She waxed some serious lyrical about them.  The shop was small, but stunning, with a lot of choice.  The flavours were lovely, some were dusted in lustre and some were speckled, which gave them character.  The texture was more like cake than what I'm used to with macarons - I expected more chewiness.  But some had more chewiness than others!

 I thought this looked very French and was down the extremely affluent Avenue Montaigne (if you're a Sex and the City fan, Carrie spent a lot of time shopping down this street!)

 I really tried to look chic while I was in Paris.  Ray Bans and dark lips every day.

 The breathtaking Eiffel Tower of course! I couldn't get enough of it - taking masses of pictures and trying to lap up the atmosphere and ambience.

 The two photos above are of Les Invalides and the gardens next to it, close to the Eiffel Tower as you can see! A lot of Parisian buildings similar to this have gold on them.  Very regal. 

 Now, this was something else and nothing I've seen compares to this.  The light show was magical. And I never say 'magical' because it's just too cheesy and Disney for me and I don't use it lighly... but it really was! Lots of people gather at Trocadéro to catch this for five minutes on the hour when it gets dark.  The atmosphere here was lovely and there's lots of people offering to take your picture and wishing you a brilliant trip.  The picture doesn't really do the light show justice sadly. 

Vintage Cupcakes

I made a batch of cupcakes for my good friend Tara this weekend.  She didn’t give me a direction or briefing into what she wanted.  We settled on vanilla sponge and buttercream and pretty decorations.  I’m usually not a fan of decorating cupcakes without direction or preferences, but knowing Tara, I felt that keeping it gorgeously simple, elegant and chic was the way to go.  I used pastel shades of yellow, peach and pink.  

 

I used the domed cupcake tutorial from Carina’s Cupcakes, which is brilliantly simple and I think it gives cupcakes another dimension.  Especially when finished with lustre spray, as it highlights the shape, much like a good shimmer powder does to our cheekbones!  The white flower was achieved with the help of a Purple Cupcakes tutorial, demonstrating how to jazz up pretty flowers with non pareils.  Both tutorials can be found on their Facebook pages.

My favourite is the bunting cupcake… I’ve become a lover of it since the Jubilee! I even have some pink cupcake bunting hanging up in my bedroom.  My other love at the moment is embossing and how beautiful and delicate it looks.  It adds a little vintage seduction, perfect for these cupcakes. 

My whereabouts and bunting cake

Wow, I haven’t blogged in a while! I have missed it. Since I last blogged I’ve turned 25, visited Liverpool for my birthday weekend, been to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park (I love animals – the meerkats and squirrel monkeys were my favourite) and attended my friend’s beautiful wedding in Essex.  With a lot of baking in between!

I’m a huge Beatles fan so our weekend in Liverpool was inspired by them.  We went to the Beatles Story Exhibition in the day and to the Cavern Club at night.  Two incredible experiences.  Liverpool is a very cool and friendly city.  People were interested in why we were there and it had a buzzing atmosphere, day and night.  Our hotel was fantastic, so if anyone is thinking about visiting Liverpool, check out Hotel Indigo.  Very fashionable and well located (two minute walk from the Albert Docks and ten minute walk away from the Cavern Club). 

As you can imagine, I baked treats in aid of my birthday (which is also my Dad’s birthday so double the reason for treats!) I made a Maltesers cake and mini Snickers cheesecakes from Iced Jems.  You can find the recipe here.

Over the Jubilee celebrations I made my very first sugarpaste covered cake.  I tried to use skills I’d learned in my cake decoration class and applied the tips I’ve read about in all my books.  I think it went well for my first attempt, apart from a mishaps with small holes in the sugarpaste where it had maybe become too dry and ripped.  However, armed with damage control knowledge (sometimes demonstrated on Ace of Cakes) you can cover up the mishaps by placing articles over them!

The main inspiration for the cake was the cute cake bunting I bought from Ebay.  It was £5.95 from a brilliant and efficient seller.  You can find this gorgeous bunting here.

I used Mary Berry’s madeira cake recipe from her Baking Bible and substituted lemon zest for vanilla extract.  It had a layer of marzipan underneath the sugarpaste.  A very rich flavour, yet so satisfying.