Virginia Drader

This past weekend my Mom and I decided to go shopping at Williams – Sonoma. We both love to browse through all of the interesting cooking appliances, ingredients, and cookbooks in the store.

On this visit we decided to purchase an Ebelskiver Filled-Pancake Pan and Ebelskivers Cookbook. Years ago my mom had a Ebelskiver pan; but it was lost in one of our many moves. For those of you who do not know what an Ebelskiver is, it is a puffy Danish pancake that can be filled with cheese, fruit, chocolate, or jam.

Since my blog is called “Sweet & Savory” I thought it would be cute to make both a sweet and savoury pancake. For the savoury side of things we made a “Mozarella and Basil Ebelskiver” and for the sweet we stuck with the classic “Apple Cinnamon Ebelskiver.” I have to be honest that these were a lot of work but also really fun to make; my Mom and I were able to spend most of Sunday afternoon cooking them up.

Both of the pancakes turned out delicious! Now that I know how to make the batter I am looking forward to being more creative with the filling. I personally think Ebelskiver are the perfect snack anytime of the day; I even had the leftover Apple Cinnamon Ebelskivers for breakfast this morning with maple syrup!

It is my sister’s 22nd birthday on June 16 but since we are flying to Rome on that day we had to do all of the celebrations for her birthday early. Yesterday my cousins, sister, mom and aunt all went to Nectar Desserts for Sunday Afternoon Tea. It was amazing and something I plan on doing again! The restaurant is located upstairs in a historic building in Inglewood. The whole place has a vintage whimsical feel with crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, hats on the walls and mismatched feminine tea cups on the tables. Everyone got to choose their own favorite tea to drink and they served us a cake stand filled with sweets such as lemon macarons, mini red velvet cakes, raspberry chocolate mocha tarts, chocolate cakes, and blueberry lemon tarts. On the savory side of things they served cheese and red pepper quiche, salad greens with a vinaigrette dressing and raisin scones with clotted cream, apricot and strawberry jam. Everything was delicious and so beautifully prepared and presented.

Since we are leaving for our trip in only a day we wanted to keep Nat’s birthday dinner simple. We decided to order pizza and I made a gelato ice cream cake. We ordered the pizza from a new restaurant in Calgary called Famoso. They serve classic Neapolitan pizza that is cooked in a 900 degree oven in only 90 seconds! The crust is very flavourful and chewy, the sauce on the pizza is made of whole tomatoes and their is just the right amount of cheese on top. All of the ingredients are imported from Italy as well as the oven that the pizza is cooked in. If you have been looking for a new pizza place to try I would highly recommend Famoso. For dessert we had a homemade caramel and chocolate gelato ice cream cake as well as a fruit and chocolate covered strawberry arrangement that my best friend Micheala made. It was beautiful and it looked as good as the ones that you order! It was a great birthday party and I know Nat had a wonderful time celebrating her birthday with Micheala, Shane, Riley and Rachel.

I have read a couple great reviews on the new Yann Haute Patisserie in Calgary and have driven by their vibrant yellow house location a couple of times wondering what was inside. Today I decided I would go in and check this place out and see what all the fuss was about. The store itself is very tiny and sells only macarons, bread and pastries. However, you will be amazed by the macarons, the colours are vibrant and almost look to pretty to eat. The bread is chewy and delicious and the raisin buns are sticky, sweet and a definite must try! If you have also walked by this colourful house in Mission next time I would highly recommend going in and giving one of their macarons a try.

It was my birthday today so I decided to use it as an excuse to make my favorite dessert, Red Velvet Cake. Many people believe that Red Velvet is just a chocolate cake but they are wrong, it is a flavour all on its own. There is a little cocoa powder in the cake but not enough to make it taste really chocolaty. Instead of making the cake from scratch I used Ad Hoc Cake Mix. You can purchase the mix at Williams and Sonoma. This cake was super moist with a deliciously rich cream cheese frosting and a great crunch from the candied pecans. I will warn you though this cake is super filling, my sister said it put her into a food coma.

For my birthday dinner we went to my favorite restaurant Farm. It is this great little place that serves family style food and wine. The decor in the restaurant is like a vintage farm house with mismatched cups and chairs and antique chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The kitchen is open to the restaurant so you are able to smell the food cooking while you wait for your meal. I ordered the macaroni and cheese which was amazing, cheesy with panko bread crumbs on top, and it even came with homemade pickles on the side. The restaurant serves fondue on Sunday and Monday is free corkage night! If you have not tried this restaurant I would highly recommend it.

I am going to an Oscar party tonight and I offered to bring dessert. Since I have had a super busy weekend I decided to product test Williams and Sonoma Ad Hoc Yellow Layer Cake Mix and Ad Hoc Milk Chocolate Frosting. The cake mix ended up being just as much work as if I had made a cake but it did turn out really well with a great vanilla flavour. The mix calls for buttermilk but since I did not have any I decided to substitute it with vanilla yogurt. This really added to the vanilla flavour and the cupcakes still came out super moist. The frost is as easy as opening the jar and icing the cupcakes. It has a great creamy milk chocolate taste without being overly rich. I looked at the ingredients used to make the frosting and everything in it is what I would have used if it was from scratch, no artificial flavours, trans-fats or preservatives. It spread easily and was just the right consistency to spread on a cake or cupcake. I would definitely purchase both the cake mix and the frosting again, the cupcakes turned out great and I’m sure they will be a hit at the party!