Cupcakes with Friends

Delicious chocolate cupcakes with raspberry jam filling and real raspberry icing. Made by my fabulous friend Kristin.

Croissants and Hot Chocolate

I could live off of croissants forever in their buttery, flaky deliciousness. Especially pain au chocolat!  I may or may not have eaten upwards of 3 of these one day...

Today I had one that was brushed with some sort of sugary coating on the outside. It was SO GOOD and even better than a plain croissant. The slight sugary coating sealed the deal.

Isn't this hot chocolate interesting? I've never quite had it served like this: hot milk with some chocolate bits in the bottom that were starting to melt. To make it drinkable you just stir it up. It was really good and creamy! Better than powder any day, but still not as chocolaty as straight melted chocolate, no milk, like some of the chocolate shops here do.

I didn't have the croissants with the hot chocolate, but that would have been vraiment delicious. (I have French words stuck in my head this week from working to understand all the French being spoken around me.)

Scenes from Brussels

Yes, I had to get the obligatory Belgian waffle (gaufre). Since it was only about 3 euro though, unfortunately it wasn't that great. Looking into the chocolate shop windows and smelling the deliciousness inside- that was great!

 

One thing the city is famous for is the Manneken-Pis- a statue of a little boy peeing. Supposedly he gets outfits from all around the world to wear! When I saw him he seemed to be in some sort of cleaner's outfit. Pretty sweet city mascot if you ask me!

 

One fascinating thing about Brussels/Bruxelles/Brussel is that it's a bilingual city. Belgium is split between the Dutch (Flemish) speaking north and the French speaking south. Though Brussels is in the Dutch part, the city's main language is French. Every sign has both French and Dutch, like this sign ("Sword Street"). I can understand way more French, but it did help me to translate words into Dutch. After 2 months in Amsterdam, the Dutch almost looked more familiar than the French!

 

Allors, no pictures, but I did score a box of delicious looking Belgian chocolates, each of which I picked out myself! Picking out weird truffles to try is one of my favorite things. Mmmmm...

Sweets

On my last days in Amsterdam I visited two chocolate shops, Jordino and Puccini Bomboni, in the Grachtengordel West neighborhood of Amsterdam. The shops were recommended by my Amsterdam Rough Guide (given to me by a certain travel-savvy professor).

At Jordino the atmosphere was very welcoming. The owners put out chocolates for everyone to try and the shop was packed with people. I had a chocolate-balsamic truffle and a raspberry-chocolate macaroon (for the first time!). I'm still not exactly sure what macaroons are, but the one I had was very good! Anyone know what macaroons are exactly? The chocolate truffle made with balsamic vinaigrette was a little too strong for me. I ate it after having dinner at an Italian deli. As I made a face at the interesting taste of the truffle I looked across the table and suspiciously eyed the bottle of balsamic vinaigrette innocently sitting there, thinking get out of my chocolate!!

I walked into Puccini from the pouring rain, glad to be somewhere warm, or at least dry. I was the only one in the shop most of the time, and he lone woman working was honestly a bit snobby. She seemed to get annoyed at all the questions I had about what the truffles were, but there were just so many interesting ones I had to ask! The shop seemed more high-end and less welcoming than Jordino. But honestly, the milk chocolate-honey bon bon I had was perhaps the best tasting chocolate I have ever had! The honey was not over-powering at all, but rather just lent its sweetness to the chocolate to make for a perfectly sweet and smoooooth chocolate. Delicious. I also had a dark chocolate one with cranberries on top, which was also excellent. The (dried) cranberries were a perfect taste combination with the dark chocolate- a little sweet, and little tangy. See pictures below.

 

Best taste: Puccini

Best environment for patrons: Jordino

Poffertjes

Poffertjes (translation = heaven) at the Uit Markt festival with butter, powdered sugar, Sophia, and Eli.

Il Cibo. I would say "food" in Dutch, but I don't know how...

French toast that I made with whole wheat bread, stroop, aardbei, and raspeberry-pomegranate juice. Even better when made with brioche :)

FOOD. IL CIBO. FOOD IN DUTCH. (Yes, I could look it up, but how authentic would that be?) Anyway, is there anything better? No. So I'll share some of the delicious things I've been eating/cooking up. First of all, I've been told several times by native Dutch that the native Dutch food isn't much to speak of, and that it mostly consists of meat, potatoes, and vegetables... heartier dishes. Living in an apartment with a non-Dutch person does not make it easy for me to sample Dutch cuisine. Instead, I've had Indonesian, which Amsterdam is known for, possibly more than the native cuisine. I had never had Indonesian before and was expecting it to be spicy. Unfortunately, it was not, but it was pretty tasty... kind of similar to (American) Chinese food, but less greasy. Amsterdam/Holland is also known for fries with mayonnaise (mmm fries, yuuuck mayonnaise for me), herring (no thank you), stroopwafels (yummy wafers with syrupy sweetness smooshed inside), and pannenkoken (pancakes- so good), and pofferjes (mini pancakes- also the background of this blog).

I can now also add to my Dutch vocabulary things that I can recognize by frequenting the grocery store, restaurants, and the two gelato shops near my apartment (framboos = raspberry. appelsap = apple juice. sinnasappel = orange. caneel = cinnamon. knoflook = garlic... isn't this a weird one?!). I am also proud to say that I could understand everything on this extremely hard to understand specials menu board: pannenkoek = pancakes. aardbei = strawberries. slagroom = whipped cream. chocoladetaart = chocolate tart. appeltaart = apple tart. cheesecake = cheescake (this one was the most challenging for me).

Note to those Rome girls out there: no, the gelato is not quite as good as Giolitti. But it's still pretty good, and also 2 euro. The slagroom is sweeter than the panna of Italian gelato- more like American whip cream, but even better. And... they have Strongbow here! Yum.

 

 I've made some dishes myself, too: insalata caprese (my go-to dish for anything and everything), lots of rice stir-frys (nice to meet you, tofu, it's a pleasure working with you), pasta dishes, and risotto con pollo (ok, well I didn't cook this one, but I watched and took pictures as the amazing Hannah expertly whipped it up. Go check out the recipe on her blog.)

Ok. I that know you all know and love Nutella. But being allergic to nuts these past few years has seriously inhibited my life satisfaction. I mean, how could I have been in Europe/Rome and not indulged in it?! But I couldn't. UNTIL NOW. Check this baby out.

Pure heaven? You'll just have to come and try it. This is pure chocolate spread. Milk chocolate. Also in dark chocolate (even better). Ridiculous. All without any nuts! The Dutch are geniuses. Basically, my old Nutella-like chocolate spread relationship is back on, after a 7 year hiatus. I will forever be indebted to Miss Angie and the Greens for first introducing me to Nutella as a kid, and to Holland for giving me a nut free version. Oh baby.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I saw this little baby in the grocery store. If you know me well, you also know that I am obsessed with those delicious Biscoff cookies you can get on Delta flights (Walgreens in South Bend too, it turns out). My dad always saves them for me when he takes a Delta flight. Well, little did I know, but they are originally Dutch! They are called speculoos. I first discovered this by looking at the website (yup... that obsessed). And that website told me about speculoos spread that I found. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! Was my first thought. And then I found it. It tastes exactly like the cookie, but in spreadable form. An amazing feat.

And spread on a pain au chocolat? Don't mind if I do.