San Francisco Weekend
“Kate, when you close, you tap on my door. I’ll have a little surprise for you. What kind of surprise? Oh, a secret surprise! Will you ask the cook to come in as you go by the kitchen? Sounds like a cake surprise.”
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Inspiration
I was delighted to participate in Scharffen Berger’s Bakery Crawl in San Francisco with a group of local food bloggers. The event was an October kick off for the contest: Elevate a Classic Dessert with Scharffen Berger Chocolate. We boarded a Cable Car trolley at the Ferry Building Marketplace and roamed the city to visit four iconic bakeries where we savored amazing chocolate desserts created just for our bakery tour. Anthony Lucas from Anthony’s Cookies shared an exceptional Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie, best enjoyed with a glass of cold milk served right at the bakery. Elizabeth Faulkner of Citizen Cake and Iron Chef fame wowed us with a Chocolate Gelato Sundae with Chocolate Cake Crumbles with homemade Marshmallow Cream. Chef Faulkner magically created the gelato for us with a mixer and liquid nitrogen gas; we were awed with the foggy demonstration! At Kara’s Cupcakes we savored The CandyBar, a caramel filled cupcake topped with a milk chocolate peanut butter ganache frosting, sprinkled with sea salt. Returning to the Ferry Building Marketplace we stopped at Miette for a spectacular Triple Chocolate Cream Cake. This sumptuous cake was a chocolate lovers delight! Our afternoon ended with a cooking demonstration by Yigit Pura, winner of 2010 Top Chef Just Desserts. The demonstration was an incredible way to end our Bakery Crawl. Chef Pura’s Chai-Tea Spiced Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes put us all on chocolate overload! It was my first opportunity to meet other bloggers and even though the event was 100 miles from home I met Athena. She lives close enough to me that we have become friends with our shared interests of photography, cooking and blogging. It’s great to have someone else who is as excited as I am to visit a new farmer’s market, apple orchard or baking demo! This has been a delightful legacy to my weekend in San Francisco.