Roger made a chocolate mousse with Bailey’s liquor for Marco and I last week. It was actually a trial run for this weekend, when he will be making the dessert for his family:
Yum!
Last year’s Christmas dessert was a tiramisu dessert in a wine glass.
Posts Tagged With: Desserts
An illusionary pizza (Or: Marco’s latest creation)
Marco made some pizza last night:
But this pizza wasn’t what it seemed. This pizza is actually a dessert! The pizza dough is white cake, while the cheese is a yellow cream (it was already yellow, but yellow food dye was added to make it an even brighter yellow). The pepperoni is actually strawberries, though in this case it was preserved strawberries out of a can because they tend to be darker in color. There is a bit of pineapple to look like onions, as well as a bit of mandarin to look like orange peppers. The “spices” on top of the cheese is actually shaved chocolate.
I never would have thought pizza would go so well with coffee! Here’s a look at his other creation, a dessert “hamburger and fries”.
Gevulde speculaas (Or: Another dessert by Roger)
Yesterday Marco and I visited Roger and were treated to gevulde speculaas. This translates to “filled speculaas” – the speculaas is filled with almond paste and the speculaas cookie is softer. I liked the homemade version Roger made – it was a lot less sweet than what you find in the stores. It’s mostly made around the the time St. Nicholas visits the Netherlands (5 December, Sinterklaas in Dutch).
Here is a look at the entire piece, before it was cut:
Almond paste inside, almonds on top…
And a look at a slice of it, where you can more clearly see the almond paste inside:
Delicious!
Holidays at the Grote Markt (Or: Colorful decorations)
Last week I took some photos of the Christmas trees by the Bijenkorf (a department store). This week I was able to take a few photos of the lights along the Grote Markt street:
The new tear-shaped lights the city put in earlier this year look really nice!
Lights by the entrance:
And a look at the lights in the other direction, towards the movie theater and Primark:
Oh, and today a coworker brought in 12 oliebollen (sorta doughnut-y pastry that is usually made with raisins inside and covered in powdered sugar). They started selling those on November 1st… It is always something to look forward to!
Enjoy these with coffee (Or: Halloween themed cookies)
Halloween themed cookies, made by Marco. Pumpkins, ghosts and skulls. And the skulls were spicy! A bit of haberno powder, while the pumpkins were made of marzipan.
10 year anniversary (Or: Hamburger and fries dessert)
Marco and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on Wednesday. This was the anniversary of us meeting (October 19, 2006). We actually met each other after Marco went to a hockey game — Nashville Predators vs New Jersey Devils — in which the Predators won 4-3. It makes the date rather easy to remember, as you just need to look up the hockey game if you forget.
Marco surprised me with this on Wednesday night:
Trust me, this gesture was sweeter than you think.
Hamburger and fries, right? Wrong.
The fries on the left are actually pieces of waffle and cake. The lower right is strawberry, kiwi and mango with yellow sauce made to look like mustard. And the hamburger itself is made of two donuts for buns and with chocolate “mug cake” posing as the hamburger patty and strawberry sauce as ketchup.
What a creative surprise! 🙂
As we enter autumn (Or: Stroopwafel cake)
Over the weekend Roger made stroopwafel cake. Yum!
Here’s a closeup of one of the slices:
And, for randomness, here is a look at the fall mural for Eat Company, drawn by Sophia den Breems:
Tapas at the Mezze (Or: Dinner out in Scheveningen)
Amazingly my birthday celebrations are still going strong a week and a half later! My taalcoach (language coach, Den Haag SamenSpraak) invited Marco and I to dinner at the Mezze, an Arabic/Moroccan tapas bar in Schveningen. It’s actually right next to the Kurhaus, on the side facing away from the beach.
The food was great – we did the all you can eat buffet which meant everyone could choose what they wanted. And go back multiple times for the same item, in my case… Below is a look at some of my food (bottom plate) and Marco’s food (top plate). A mix of cold and warm items.
Quite simple but the thing I kept going back for was the soup and bread. Did I ever mention I love bread? Yum. Actually, in the picture above you also see the bread (the slightly darker pieces on the plate itself) – it’s just been cooked for another day and is much crispier. I prefer the softer bread at the far right above or in the picture below, though.
The area where we ate was in the glass enclosed terrace. Even though it was a cold day outside, it was warm enough inside, thanks to a healthy fire in the middle of the table.
The restaurant also has belly dancers on the weekends. I didn’t get a picture of it, but she had a very pretty navel piercing – a blue jewel.
And because I just like colorful plates, here’s a look at the choices for the soup bowls. One of these does not belong…
Afterwards we had dessert and coffee back at their house. Check out the desserts! Of course I went for the chocolate one. 🙂
But check out the design at the bottom of this one. Very cool!
Lebkuchen (Or: A German Christmas cookie)
Over the weekend Marco and I visited the Fred, a shopping area close to (but not quite in) Scheveningen. The name comes from the Main Street it is on, or Frederik Hendriklaan.
One of the stores we visited was Simon Lévelt. We were able to pick up a package of lebkuchen, a traditional Christmas cookie in Germany.
Yum! Made with lots of tasty spices (cardamom, aniseed, ginger, etc.).
Elaborate things (Or: Christmas cards and desserts)
Merry Christmas all!
To celebrate the holidays, here is a photo of the card that Marco’s dad and his wife made and gave us:
(We’ve had it for a while but on the off chance that another relative reading this blog would get a copy, I decided to hold off on posting it.) At the bottom of the photo you can also see the box it came in.
Another Christmas-y photo – Roger made a tiramisu dessert in a wine glass for his family’s Christmas dinner. Here is the yummy result:
I can say Marco and I had the pleasure of being guinea pigs twice for this dessert so he could get it just-right for today’s big unveiling.
Life in the Hague 