traditionally, religieuses are filled with crème pâtissière (pastry cream) and dipped in chocolate ganache. the chocolate coating is thought to resemble a nun's habit, hence the name religieuse, which means nun in french. these look more like a courtesan au chocolat — a fictional pastry from mendl's bakery in wes anderson's the grand budapest hotel [...]
scroll through the pictures again, but this time imagine that the frosting is stitched thread. it could totally pass for embroidery, right?! especially the bird with both of its wings spread (fourth from the top). otomi-style patterns come from the otomi people, who live in the sierra madre oriental mountains in hidalgo, mexico. the prints' figures are said [...]
i made this cake in honor of claude debussy! two days ago would've been his 154th birthday. debussy is amazing. his work is breathtakingly beautiful, and his nontraditional use of dissonances and intervals sculpted music's impressionist era and hugely popularized chromaticism. not only was debussy an incredible musician but he was also extremely eloquent. this is an excerpt [...]
while stuck in the sweltering reality of durham's 98 degree heat, i've found myself entertaining reveries of winter days spent in minnesota - what i would give to be taking a long walk through freshly fallen snow, or climbing up the first few icy rungs of a grain silo's ladder! i've built a little fantasy farm with gingerbread [...]
nick jr. usually stops showing peppa pig around 3 am, so if i'm still awake, i turn to infomercials to keep me entertained. early one morning, bleary-eyed after enduring a two-hour long ad for hip-hop abs, i was about to switch the tv off, when suddenly.......big letters and boldly colored fruits flashed across the screen! a hallucination? an [...]
hotline bling [drake on cake]: pink lemonade cake, lemon buttercream wild for the night [a$ap rocky road]: brownies, chocolate buttercream, marshmallows, walnuts lose yourself [eminem]: chocolate cake, vanilla buttercream, m&ms trap queen [funfetty wap]: funfetti cake, cream cheese buttercream
instead of going the pumpkin route to celebrate the october season, i decided to convert my favorite halloween candy - almond joy - into a cake. i filled two 6-inch rounds of flourless chocolate cake with creamy coconut and frosted them with sweet almond cream cheese buttercream. if you're a diehard fan of Everyone's Favorite Squash, [...]
Have you ever had a chocolate covered orange? Back when my family hung up stockings (thank you so much to my parents for not depriving my brother and me of the joy of waking up to a stocking even though we're J E W I S H), I'd always find a big, round, shiny foil-wrapped [...]
LENA'S LUNCHBOX 