Recap: LA Cake Club April Meetup

This past Saturday, I went to my first ever LA Cake Club at littlemeatsLA. LA Cake Club is a monthly meetup started by my gal pal, Sara Tso of Matchbox Kitchen, where a bunch of dessert lovers get together and just eat a bunch of deliciousness. The only criteria for attending is that you must bring a homemade dessert (no store-bought here!). For me, it was a super fun reason to try out new recipes.

Kevin's mom recently bought a puff pancake pan from her coworker for a fundraiser, so I took this as an opportunity to put it to work. I found this recipe for ebleskivers (Danish puff pancakes) with lingonberry jam from Serious Eats that totally did the trick.

Everything looked so good that this little dude wanted to join us.

Licorice

This tres leches cake showed up late and I knew I was in trouble. I LOVE TRES LECHES!!! I went back for multiple servings and took quite a bit of it home.

Loquat Cake

A few more cakes at shown up but I was too busy stuffing my face to continue taking photos. I had lots of fun and I'm looking forward to next month's meetup.

Weekend Wind Down

It's been pretty crazy around here lately. Between the multiple client projects and the back-to-back bulk orders, I barely get any time for myself these days. And if I do happen to have some free time, I spend it knitting new accessories in preparation for holiday. This upcoming Monday, I'll find out if I'll be a vendor at Renegade Craft LA & SF for the holiday season and from there, I will have two months to prepare from both shows. I feel like I just got back from Renegade Craft summer and if I'm in, I'll have to do it all over again.

Being that I'm my own boss, I decided to take tonight off and just chill out for a bit. And by chill out I really mean eating a bunch of desserts while making lists of goals and things I would like to achieve in the coming months. Kev and I just went over to D'odici and to our surprise, they make macarons now! And they're actually really good! (I hate it when cafes start offering macarons because they're trendy but they end up being mediocre or totally suck!)

We got rose, earl grey, and pistachio. The rose was light, sweet, and not too floral, which is just perfect. Their macaron cookie is just the right texture; they were light and airy. I hate when places make them too chewy. They went perfectly with my lavender latte. I've been on this weird lavender kick for months…I LOVE lavender lemonade! And honey lavender ice cream is my new favorite thing!

Macarons & Lavender Latte

We also got a creme brûlée because in all our previous trips to D'odici we got there later when the dessert case was bare. I didn't think they would actually top it with berries because it was looking awfully plain in the case. But I'm so glad they did. Their custard was already the perfect texture so the berries were just an added bonus.

Creme Brûlée 

Once Monday rolls back around, I'll have to get back to work on a new client project from one of my favorite clients, start designing for Fall 2014 for another client (which I think is CRAZY EARLY), and then tackle two really big bulk orders. I find myself constantly asking "When do I actually get to work on my stuff?" but hey, I gotta pay off my college debt somehow. I have a few new things made for the cooler weather season. I just need to photograph everything. So I'll have a few more sneak peeks soon!

Bread Pudding Time!

Tonight we're heading over to our friend's place for a Friendsmas Party. It's been a long time since I've made anything for a potluck dinner, so I decided to make Nutella Bread Pudding using King's Hawaiian rolls. The last time I made this delicious dessert was about 3 or 4 years ago for the Nucleus Christmas Party. As you can see below, my iPad mini is my new favorite companion EVERYWHERE. It makes looking at recipes while baking super easy. Target was all out of the classic King's Hawaiian rolls so I just got the mini sub sandwich buns and split them in half.

This bread pudding is actually really easy to make. Just lightly toast some King's Hawaiian rolls, slather some nutella on them, layer a baking dish with them, pour on a custard mixture, then pop them in the oven.

Then it comes out of the oven looking mighty delicious.

You can find the recipe here on CHOW. I just substituted their bread of choice with King's Hawaiian.