Thursday, May 13, 2010

pollenca

it seems such a long time ago but it was only last week that we were in this lovely town, glad of the sunshine after wild storms and floods.

this cafe sold cakes in its nearby bakery. On the corner of our table is one of their ensaïmada, a delicious spiral shaped pastry, eaten at breakfast.

our camera gave up after this photo so i don't have pictures to record our liver enlightenment, braised so perfectly in tapas sized robust stews.

having spent all yesterday grinding star anise for experiments with our christmas stars, i added star anise to braised steak and it was a great sucess! I also loved the cinnamon stick in with the chorizo and chick pea casserole i made yesterday. i always associate these flavours with chocolate since our early cocoa bean days, so think i am a bit beind in experimenting with spices in savoury dishes beyond curries.

and to mise - i added some yeast to chocolate and it was not unpleasant but it was dried yeast in solid chocolate. i imagine live yeast in a fresh , soft, dark truffle is more what you were dreaming up. it's now on my list of things to try. let me know if you have a go at it!

2 comments:

Mise said...

More thoughts on packaging: as well as your flat box, I loved your little wooden box of chocolate discs (also gone?) - the thinner the better for the subtle flavours, I reckon. I sent some of your little bars to a few commentators on my blog a few months ago and they were very popular indeed. The gin and tonic and the sea-salt are my own favourites. I hope the yeast is worth the effort!

Sarah at Cocoa Bean said...

thanks for sending out our chocolate and glad they were well received! the wooden boxes were great - we got them from a little place in england called unirose really nice suppliers who made the boxes on site to a really high standard. it did cost us a fortune to ship them to ireland - if someone started making them in ireland we would definitely consider bringing them back. i agree about thin chocolate and we often make discs for tastings. they have to be well packaged not to break when going out in deliveries - maybe something we could do more of in our factory shop and coffee shop in killarney though...