love, sweet love (happy valentine's day)

Well, friends, this is Valentine's day and love hangs sweetly in air. When thinking about the cooking challenge for arguably the most romantic day on the calendar, I kept coming back to one thing. I wanted to make a dish perfect for lovers to share. Something light and fun yet somehow sensual too. And something traditional and really, really special. What better gift for my valentine then than a Croquembouche... for two. This is often times served as a french wedding cake, and is essentially a delicate pyramid of little pastry puffs stuffed with rich, silky custard, drizzled with sticky toffee to hold it in place. Some bakeries will pour the profiteroles into a cone, then drizzle the candy, however I much prefer a more higgledy piggledy look.

And by now, I suppose you must know that I can never stop at just one meal for a Saturday night. So, here's the photographic history of our foody Valentine's Day. Recipe for the croquembouche coming tomorrow (too much lovely champagne to try to type it accurately tonight!). Here's a hint though: If you're planning a wedding and are on a budget, you really can't go past a croquembouche as a low cost, super high effect wedding cake. The choux pastry (literally "cabbages" in French) is easy peasy and can be prepared in advance, and while the custard takes practice, once you've got the recipe under your belt I don't think you'll regret having it in your repertoire. The assembly needs to be done on the day but is the easiest part of the sweet. Remember, what I made tonight is seriously mini - for two to share. For a big wedding, you would use a cone, and frame the profiteroles around the exterior to make it really tall and elegant. Oh, and it tastes absolutely fantastic.

For lunch, we started with moules mariniere and frites. I love my le creusset love heart dish.



Our entree for dinner: Roast beetroot with goats cheese, caramelised endives and balsamic reduction. I love, love, love the choggia beetroots (the pretty candy stripe ones).


For main course, parsnip and potato gratin with a fennel and asparagus veloute and organic scottish salmon fillet. The veloute was really, really yummy.



And then came the croquembouche.....




To serve it, I broke the croquembouche into profiteroles and made a toffee sauce (used yoghurt instead of cream to break through the sweetness) and added fresh berries.


Finally, just when we thought we would never eat again.. for petit fours, I picked up this divine heart shaped camembert. Ironically, it's from France, and I'm pretty sure they're disdainful of valentine's day. Nonetheless, it was a cute gimick. I also made dark chocolate love heart "freckles" because dark chocolate is my valentine's favourite.

And that was it! Recipe for croquembouche coming tomorrow but if you want recipes for anything else, just email or message me.

Wishing you a very loving and lovely Valentine's day,

dd.x