How to Make Mendl's Courtesan Au Chocolat

Raise your hand if you like Wes Anderson! If you don't know what I am on about, run to your nearest cinema and go and watch 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'…. Ok, now you have done that I am sure you are just as in awe of Mr Anderson's wondrous brain as I was. If you liked this film be sure to check out his other films too, they are all awesome.

One of the most magical things in Grand Budapest Hotel is a delicious looking pastry, the 'Courtesan Au Chocolat'. When I discovered that Anderson's team had made a tutorial video on how to make it, I decided we had to give it a go ourselves. Especially since I had a special Wes Anderson fan in mind that this would make the perfect surprise gift for!

It was a fairly detailed recipe, and there were several points where I and my sous-chef Jess thought things were going terribly wrong! But in the end they turned out pretty darn well, even if I do say so myself! And yes, they were delicious, and they disappeared just as quickly as they did in the film!

I also found an Etsy shop that sells downloadable printouts of the boxes, which was the icing on the cake, (as it were) so we were able to present them very authentically indeed! 

If you want to have a go at making a Courtesan Au Chocolat yourself you can watch the tutorial below, and it is super cute! If you do I'd love to see how it turns out!

The exact recipe for the Courtesan au chocolat has never been published or publicly disclosed as per the conditions of Herr Mendl’s will. However, the following has been collated and adapted from a several “pirate” sources in the Nebelsbad archives (including a 1963 recipe from the kitchen of the Grand Budapest Hotel using powdered eggs that was printed in the Lutz Daily Fact).

Laura xXx

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Cake Decorating with Tala

I had another wonderful post day last week because the lovely people at Tala sent me one of their products to test out! A beautiful, vintage style icing syringe!

I was really excited to give this a go! Although I love cooking I don't often bake, but I would really like to learn a bit more, and if I can make the cakes look pretty all the better!

I was also sent 3 additional types of nozzle, so I have lots of experimenting to do!

First of all I needed to bake some yummy cakes, for which I used this cake recipe. They were delicious, but I always find that my cakes don't rise enough. I don't know if it is because I am not putting enough mixture in, or perhaps it is because I am using an Aga instead of a conventional oven, but either way, they were never going to look as pretty as the pictures of the cakes in the recipe I followed! Perhaps one of you will be able to tell me where I am going wrong?

Next came the challenge of the icing sugar.  Tala have a very helpful guide on how to make your icing and use the syringe, so that was really handy! But, it is still a bit tricky getting the icing the consistency that you want it. In the end I think it might have had a bit too much icing sugar in it, next time I will try it with a little less.

I was excited to get my food colourings out again! I figured I would just have a bit of a play and see what happened. Lets just say I need a little bit of practice. Here is a picture of my best effort...

Ok, I went a little crazy with these ones. We will be consuming a lot of sugar in the coming days! 

I think I will work on my cake baking technique, then once I've got that sorted I can give this another shot. I do really like the icing syringe though, I'm sure it is easier than using a piping bag would be, and it is much prettier!

One thing I will say about icing cakes.. it is super messy! I got myself in a right state. Next time I will be more prepared!

Laura xXx

Disclaimer -Tala sent me this item to test out free of charge, however all opinions stated above are my own.

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Guest Post - {BEST EVER} Carrot Cake

Hello all - it's rather exciting to be introducing myself for the first time over on Laura's lovely blog!

I'm Rachel of OH NO Rachio and I'll be sharing with you the recipe for the world's best carrot cake {bestowed upon me by the lovely Leoni of From Leoni With Love at our Craft Party.}

So whilst Laura is away enjoying herself, here’s a little opportunity for you to enjoy yourself too AND I promise you, there’s little skill required {win!}.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your cake:

* 5 eggs

* 450ml vegetable oil

* 400g self raising flour
* 570g caster sugar

* pinch of salt

* 12g ground cinnamon

* 530g peeled & grated carrots
* 150g walnuts chopped

* {optional} handful sultanas}

AND here’s what you’ll need for the topping:
 * 200g cream cheese

 * 150g sugar

 * 100g butter

The reason it’s a super easy cake is that {despite killing your arms with all of that carrot grating} all you need to do is throw all of the ingredients together into a food processor or mixer and mix for 5 minutes.
That’s it!

Grease your cake tin all over and pour your goopy mixture in {it’s ok for it to seem abnormally thick!}.

Then you pop it into a pre-heated oven at 160° for 45 minutes. Once your timer goes - take him out and insert a skewer into the centre, if when you pull it out it has cake goo on it, it isn’t done yet and pop it back in the oven for another 15 mins. If your skewer comes out clean, your laughing - and you can pop it onto a cooling rack to, well, cool!

Then beat together your three icing ingredients and spread on - I use a cake palette knife to get a level smooth finish, then you can decorate however you like!

I hope you enjoyed drooling over some gratuitous cake shots today! Thanks to Laura for asking me to fill in whilst she’s away - and if you like what you saw then why not pop on over to my blog to see lots of other cake based posts, recipes and craft DIYs here.

xo

Thanks Rachel! This cake looks yum, and with the addition of sprinkles it is perfection!

Check back on wednesday for my final guest post with Erica from Caught on a Whim. She is going to be showing us how to make a DIY necklace!

Laura xXx

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