A Sweet and Savory Trip to Surfas

I think I've briefly mentioned Surfas on my blog before. Basically, Surfas is like a Toys "R" Us for serious foodies, cooking/baking enthusiasts, and food business professionals. This store was originally only open to food professionals but eventually began opening its doors to the general public, so this culinary fun house caters to business people and everyday, serious cooks alike.

You'll find: imported cheeses, rices, an expansive selection of high quality chocolates, nut flours, packaging supplies, kitchenware (especially commercial),  unusual and common honeys, various savory condiments, fruit powders, cake decorations, flavor/oil extracts, a huge inventory of bakeware, display cases, chef wear, flatware, a bevvy of ethnic cooking ingredients, books, storage, cooking utensils, bulk spices, tea and coffee blends, pastry dough prep, vinegars and oils and much, much more.

I love Sur la Table, but at Surfas, you can order and buy in bulk and you'll find better prices for bulk purchases. Surfas also features a cute, little, quaint cafe, called Cafe Surfas, that serves organic and local dishes and treats. Local classes and workshops for both savory cooking and baking are held at Surfas weekly.

I also think that every city should have a place equivalent to Surfas in town. If you don't, you're missing out. Many people who visit Surfas, both in and out of town, often look for a place like Surfas in different areas.

Surfas is located in the culinary district of downtown Culver City in Los Angeles county. There's so much to see in this corner supply store, from specialty supplies and ingredients to anything you'd want for both savory and sweet recipes. 

 This is one side of Surfas near the street, where the cafe is

I've wanted to snap some photos of Surfas for a good while, but in my previous visits, I was so busy scouting for supplies and ingredients for my baking and cooking adventures, that I forgot to gather images. I also worried about the legal parameters of taking photos in commercial environments. I am still learning about the ins and outs of food photography, and photography and food writing.

Seems to be OK, unless a no-photo policy is specifically listed on a storefront's premises. I finally got a chance to snap photos yesterday, while on break, during a macarons and financiers workshop (I'll be updating on this soon, too). Keep in mind that the photos I've taken display only a smidgen of what's available in the store.

Now that I think about it, I also wish I snapped some photos of the cafe area, if I could have. Next time, I will, if applicable. Click on any of the photos in the set to see larger versions.

So, there you have it -- many of the photos of I got to take at Surfas. Seriously, if you aren't a West L.A native, if you are ever in town and want to do some shopping for food supplies and items, you have to stop by this shop and take a look for yourself and see how grand it is.

Surfas Restaurant Supply & Gourmet Food

8777 W Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

The shop used to have a dedicated website, but the owners owners of the supply shop also have a storefront in Arkansas under the name of Culinary District. So Surfas Online now redirects to the website for Culinary District. There is still a placeholder on the URL for Surfas: SurfasOnline.com

Dreaming of Bleeding Turnips and Travel Faeries

I've been enjoying my constant and steady exploration into the world of professional cooking, I am not quite there yet, but I am slowly building a foundation, which I'm thrilled about. I've got some volunteer bakery work lined up, I study and research daily on all things related to food, and I am constantly looking for opportunities to grow and learn, especially if they are hands-on.

Culinary school will have to wait, and I am OK with that. It will happen in time.

One thing I vowed to do not long ago was to look into attending food events, venues, and conferences, as often as I could afford it. I have yet to attend one and in the meantime, I am like a wide-eyed, mad cat at the window, trapped in the house, going crazy looking at all of the plump, fat mice scurrying around on the sidewalk that I can only dream of catching.

Crazy metaphor, but it describes my intense desire to get out and weave an exciting web of culinary travel experiences. There's so much going on, in and around my city and on the west coast of the states. I'd like to go beyond these boundaries, but that's more expensive. Culinary travel is the best way to learn and become seasoned (pun intended) in the world of food and drink!

My problem is that I have limited and tight finances, as of late. Yeah, I am one of millions of victims of this shoddy economic downturn. My mom often likes to say, "You can't get blood from a turnip," when an option is not possible, at the moment. It's kind of a freaky saying because odd visuals of mysterious blood leaking from the surface skin of turnips come to mind. Either that, or I begin to imagine a strange vegetarian vampire sinking his or her sharp, fang-like teeth into the firm, hard, dirt-speckled, earthy body of a freshly pulled turnip, only to be disappointed that there's absolutely NO blood contained in the dang thing to draw out!

*Shudders*

However, I find myself liking the saying. I know...it's a sick, sad world.

There's a fantastic event coming up that I am aching to get to. I just have to prepare the proper amount of finances to attend. There's airfare, hotel expense, spending cash, and a registration fee to consider.

The event is called The International Food Blogger Conference.


Foodista and Zephyr Adventures co-host the event and it's held in Seattle. This looks to be, I assume, their 2nd annual event. I noted an archive from 2009, but nothing archived before last year.

It costs 350 dollars to register and it's a fully-packed, 3-day conference. Authors, magazine editors, publishing companies, food bloggers and writers, lots of fellow foodies, an insane amount of food and dessert, and a horde of panel speakers and guests will all be there. Oh-em-gee!

I found a YouTube video for last year's event.



Looking at this video made me even more eager to attend. I am just concerned about being able to register in time so that I can attend before all spots are sold out. Since the event is in August (late August that is), if I'm able to register, I'll worry about the rest of the finances later, as there's time to prepare. Better to get a spot in, if possible, than to lose out on the opportunity completely. There's always next year, but I can't wait!

Attending this event would be my first, and it would be a great foray into making connections in the food and food writing industry. Along with growing as an aspiring pastry chef, I want to seriously establish myself as a food writer. 

The travel faery must come through for me. I'm so counting on it.

Baking Adventure 10: Toffee-Topped Granola Treats

For starters, this isn't technically a baking adventure, as I didn't have to bake anything to make these desserts. However, I did wind up cooking and working with sugar mixtures on the stove to develop both the thick marshmallow sauce and the candy crusting of the toffee dispersed randomly atop the granola squares.

These squares turned out rather tasty and buttery - very shabby chic. The nutty, "honeyfied", addictive, starchy-oat blend of the granola from Quaker Granola Oats & Honey cereal is a superior substitute and flavor over the usual Rice Krispies cereal. Note that I never claimed healthy was among all of those great elements I described.

I guess you can call these Rice Krispies treats for adults.

*Available at most supermarket chains in the cereal aisle. I also recommend Cafe Fanny Granola, which is the second image; more expensive but madly good and awesome with vanilla almond milk or organic soy milk.

With all of this said, I will still always have a soft heart for the classic Rice Krispies treats recipe I remember as a child. Who doesn't?

The marshmallow cream sauce was very simple to make and is better than store-bought options, whether it be Marshmallow Fluff in a jar or marshmallows from a bag. I used sugar, a tad of heavy cream, gelatin, butter, light corn syrup, vanilla bean paste, and water to make my marshmallow sauce. It came out to a thick, gooey, and creamy consistency and held the granola together well as it cooled in a long, buttered, dark, low profile baking pan.

To spread out the granola marshmallow mix, I coated my hands in semi-melted butter so that my fingers would not stick to the flattened uncut batter as I shaped it along the pan.

As that was cooling, I took some brown sugar and began caramelizing it in a small pot, on low heat, on the stove. When the brown sugar was fully melted, I added in butter and let that absorb evenly into the mixture by stirring. I added in vanilla bean extract and a shot of rum liquor. I stirred again, and took the mixture off the stove. I poured in a small amount of heavy cream and the mixture began to spit and argue, but in an ecstatic manner. This means it was singing praises and enjoyed everything I added to it. I was ready, very quickly I might add, to spread the toffee mixture randomly over the granola batter. I had to work fast as the toffee candy began to stiffen and set up as each second progressed.

The toffee set nicely over the granola batter and eventually I was ready to cut the batter into squares and place them upon a light beige ceramic dish...for display and the inevitable appearance of grabbing hands.

Baking Adventure 9: Fudgerrific Brownies

^ Two fudge brownies stacked in a glass bowl

^ A batch of fudge brownies on a platter

These brownies are topped with a fudge coating. They're super rich and the chocolate content is high. If you don't like chocolate much or if you are worried about calories and your weight or you react oddly to chocolate like myself (although that seems to never stop me from indulging like a mad woman), then stay away from this recipe!

As mentioned previously, I used the recipe from The Waspy Redheads's blog: LINK

You can try your hand at these hedonistic brownies by following the recipe within her link.

My fudge layer came out a bit differently. The top is a smooth, fudgy, matte finish with a velvety look and texture and my fudge layer is not as thick. I used salted butter for the chocolate ganache layer which gives the flavor a distinctive blend of salty and sweet. Next time, I'd like to have a thicker layer like The Waspy Redhead, so I'll be making a much larger batter in a higher pan so that there's more room for a fatter layer of ganache.

I thought about adding Nutella to the batter mix, but next time I will experiment more with variations in flavor.

Caramel, praline, butterscotch or peanut butter tops would be exquisite . The choices are endless, especially the more exotic and "outside the box" you get with ingredient experimentation.

Some unusual flavors to incorporate into this recipe would be:

• Blueberry
• Macadamia nut butter 
• Maple fudge and candied bits of bacon (if you dare...or care)
• Blend of sweet spices, cayenne pepper and your choice of a heady liqueur
• Green tea
• Mango curd or mousse
• Sweet potato pie (as a top layer)
• Gingerbread (perhaps as a custom ganache or as a top, dense bar layer to the brownie)
• Kumquat ganache or mousseline

Happy Baking Time!

Today, I finally got around to getting some groceries for a few baking projects.

I've been budgeting a great deal lately, so spending has been very limited and when you are someone who loves to bake and cook as much as I do, money is definitely a necessity in abundance, because I'm always exploring recipes and ideas in the kitchen otherwise.

Tonight, I am trying out this ooey gooey, decadent brownie recipe that I discovered on this blog several months ago - The Waspy Redhead. I first came across this entry when I was looking around online for ideas for my redheads baking project (the red head equivalent to brownies and blondies). I will have to bake these again and document them for this blog, so you can see the delicious and scarlet results.

Anyway, when it comes to brownies, I really enjoy a fudge-textured brownie. Cake-like brownies are OK as I certainly would not turn them away, but chewy, moist, buttery, and dense brownies are the best, especially with a ganache fudge top. They feel like a real brownie, whereas a cake-like brownie reminds me simply of smaller and denser pieces of chocolate cake.

Tomorrow, I will be making oatmeal granola treats (as squares). Instead of using Rice Krispies, I'll be using granola. These are pretty simple to make with a thick marshmallow cream sauce used to hold together the granola, as the bars cool.

On Sunday, I will be making cinnamon sticky buns with a spiced glaze, as I've promised.

I'd also like to share with you three little amazing booklets that I received as gifts from an aunt recently. She knows how much I am into baking/cooking and dessert and sugar table design (I can't wait to explore further with this area of design), as well as baked goods gift packaging and ideas.

I fully recommend this cute little series of titles.

The booklets are published by CQ Products. You can purchase the books on their site directly or find the books on retail sites such as Amazon.com.

A Yeast Dough Kind of Life

I promised to make some sticky buns last week - to fully document the preparation and the results and post them here, but don't worry, this will be my next baking adventure. My schedule and plans have been very challenging and hectic lately and life's become very similar to restructuring and shaping a fine yeast dough. I am looking to "bake a fine product" after putting in a lot of "hard and dedicated hand work".

My career in food is a path I want to develop with persistence, patience and perseverance. Oh...and of course, most importantly, passion! Those are all the necessary p's aren't they?

Hmmm...well I guess we can throw in an extra seasoning to this mix - a bit of practicality. *ahem*

Anyway, one of my plans has long been to get involved in food writing and establish a freelance career, while I continue to develop  as a pastry alchemist (I adore this word!) and plan the finer details of my bakery, Sweet Curiosities, which I'd like to officially launch someday. I'd be mighty decent at food writing, especially as I refine my skills and become more seasoned. I am not sure which area of food writing I am most interested in, but I'd like to experiment and work in a variety of areas to explore and find out. At some point, I might do a proper post on the deeper thoughts I have on food writing.

I'm obsessed with food, I delight in writing, and I have the curiosity of a zillion cats. Research, exploring and learning are all tasks and processes that excite and stimulate me endlessly. I certainly wouldn't mind being paid for any of this.

Right now, I am gathering a variety of resources to prepare myself - searching for and attending workshops, participating in communities and groups for food writers and journalists, continuously consuming food knowledge in the form of shows, video podcasts, books, journals, magazines, articles and etc., taking local community college courses on journalism, keeping up blogs and daily writing exercises, scouting for writing opportunities for beginning food writing professionals, and much more.

I'm doing what I can to further and hatch this goal. I've been thinking about this for a long time and I realize I can spend forever contemplating and preparing my drey with thought-nuts like a squirrel, so it's time to really take the plunge, get to work and start somewhere.

Food writing would be an amazing way to make a living as a freelancer. It complements my goals for establishing a bakery and becoming an expert in the world and industry of food and food-making.

I still have plans to attend culinary school, but after assessing my financial situation for some time, even after investing money in attending culinary school this fall, I realize I am better delaying that plan until later when it is more feasible. My original plan was to attend Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (PICA) in Vancouver, but that plan fell through, unfortunately. I was really upset about that, but I am taking everything in stride now and looking at alternative ways to execute my goals.

Some campuses that I am looking into for future culinary school choices are Culinary Institute of America (Greystone campus in Napa Valley region in California, specifically St. Helena) and the French Culinary Institute. As to the former, the admission requirements include having at least 6 months of experience in a professional kitchen or food service environment. I can apply anytime, but acceptance requires meeting that area of eligibility. I am currently working on that. I have some offers for volunteer bakery work which I am very excited about. I can't wait to get my hands dirty, break myself in to professional kitchen experience and learn from those who are veterans of the industry. I'm always looking for mentors and muse opportunities. It's also great to meet new people who share the same passions. I'll get my chance at a culinary program in due time.

So, screw making lemonade, I am making a fabulous Meyer lemon mousse pie!

Getting Into a Sticky Situation

I am insane about sticky buns. 

I've made them before in a yeast dough/baking workshop taken with Clemence De Lutz Gossett, a wonderful, well-known baking and dessert guru and mentor, but I have yet to make them at home.

I am definitely curious about the process domestically. I don't have the luxury of a full scale commercial kitchen to bake them in and more specifically, flatten out and eventually roll out long sheets of thinly-placed ingredient-layered dough.

The process was very fun and fascinating in the workshop. I was all eyes, wanted to try my hand at everything and wanted to learn as much as I could, while finding time to snap pictures of everything and take notes in my notebook intermittently.

I have a few pictures of the workshop I attended last year for yeast doughs. I snapped these and several others, but I'll post a few in sequence. We also made brioche bread. We made apple cinnamon raisin sticky buns and caramel pecan sticky buns. The results were madly addictive. Seriously, once I got in the car with my share of what I had made in the class, let's just say no one would have been able to see my car driving out of the lot until like 20 minutes and one big empty box later. No actually, I did leave some to bring home for family. LOL

I am not sure what kind of sticky buns I'll make over the weekend. Maybe one of the two flavors I did in the workshop or something else different. Maybe I should try a basic and classic recipe first, to see how I do at home, and then innovate with unusual flavors.

Baking Adventure 8: Mango Cream Cake

As a followup to my last entry, I decided to make and bake a mango cream cake. I wasn't able to get very good shots from my results, but I managed to get a few. I will be making this cake again, in the future, so no worries. I always want to use my camera for food shots.

Food photography is something I am also very fascinated by and I marvel at all of the amazing photo sets and collections I see on sites like Flickr.com and specific baking and food websites.

Anyway, I've never made a mango cake before but I wanted to give this a try. I snapped a few shots of some slices I cut from the cake. The cake went really fast, so by the time I got around to snapping, not much of the cake was left. Great statement about the results, but bad for photo-taking. lol

I decided to make a white cake batter by scratch. I used mango extract, as well as pulp and juice from 2 fresh medium-sized mangoes. I think in the end, I could have used included far more mango. But the mango could still be tasted well once the cake was done (next time I will include photos of the process) because the cake layers came out beautifully and perfect in exactly 35 minutes in the oven.

I created a buttercream frosting and added both mango extract and mango pulp. Once I beat all of the ingredients together for the frosting, the mango pulp was barely noticeable, but it did give the icing a nice orange-yellowish tint and if one looked carefully, you could see a small amount of mango pulp nicely dispersed throughout the icing.

I also added vanilla bean paste in the cake batter. Some of the vanilla bean seeds can be seen in the batter during and after baking, which is something I enjoy in the texture. It provides more of an intense flavor over the extract.

I made some whipped cream from scratch for eating with the cake. I also used whipped cream (in addition to the usual meringue in white cake) in the cake batter, which is why I call it mango cream cake. The homemade whipped cream was gone very quickly. It will ALWAYS be better than anything you can get from the supermarket.

---Make your own. It is very easy to do. ---

The Sugar Train: Next Stop?

I've been thinking about what I'll do for my next baking adventure. I've been browsing through my dessert magazine collection and see that even they've picked up on the new whoopie pie trend that's erupted lately. There the new "cupcake craze" so to speak.

I am starting to see whoppie pies show up in all sorts of place. They tend to range from 3-5 dollars in commercial bakeries. Not exactly cheap, so even more of an incentive to make them at home.

What are whoopie pies? Well, they aren't pies technically nor are they cakes or cookies, really. They are their own breed of dessert that borrows from each category. They kind of look like little pies from the top, the two halves look like fluffy cookies but have a flat cake texture. Whoopie pies are soft cookie/cake-like sandwiches filled with icing or marshmallow cream.

You can be as creative as you want with whatever you want to sandwich the two "soft cookie" halves with, but traditionally they are filled with some sort of cream or frosting and the most common batter flavor used is chocolate. I've even read that another traditional flavor for the cookies is pumpkin (now that sounds heavenly!).

It's a New England dessert that's been around for some time and has Amish roots. The legend is that Amish women/wives/mothers would bake these desserts from scratch and place these treats in their children's and husbands' lunchboxes as surprises and when were discovered, the child or husband would shout out loud, "Whoopie!!"

Is this true? I have no idea, but it's a playful, lighthearted story with a few versions floating around. Plus, it kind of makes sense. I know if I frequently found surprise treats in a lunchbox on my way to work, I'd shout out in joy, too. LOL

Why did I mention whoopie pies? Well, because they are one of several desserts I am considering making for my next baking adventure. Here's a tentative list of dessert ideas I have so far:

• Whoopie pies (with marshmallow cream made from scratch)
• Fruit parfaits or trifles (I've made these before but I'd like to experiment further)
• Mint chocolate cake
• Some kind of cold or frozen treat (sorbet, gelato, ice cream)
• Sticky buns (a yeast dough recipe: LOVE these, have only made them in a workshop but would love to try my hand at them at home)
• Ice cream cupcakes

Baking Adventure 7: Sweet Shop Colored Candy Meringues

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I had planned to make meringues since I'd never made them before and always enjoyed the curious look of them. I baked a couple of batches yesterday and they turned out quite charming, cracks and all. I also love how the colors and flavors came out.

I actually, just from having made this recipe once, will say that I prefer my meringues to not be completely airy. I will explain how the texture of my meringues came out in a bit. But first, here are some pictures of my meringues.

I made several flavors with corresponding colors:

Pink - Strawberry

Purple - Cotton Candy

Green -Crème de menthe

Cream (off-white) - Vanilla

Orange - Citrus Orange

I planned to add chocolate (light brown) and blueberry (blue) as additional flavors but I've used up all of my Valrhona cocoa powder and I am in need of a trip to Surfas to get more flavoring oils and extracts, which would include blueberry.

The Wonder of Meringues

I've seen many photos of meringue cookies and I love how many of them look like dollops of icing or stiff swirled cream in various colors.

Here are a few photos of meringues that I not only enjoy looking at but that showcase the various ways meringue cookies, biscuits or drops can be made:

Meringue "cookies" don't incorporate flour into the mixture like most cookies do. Meringue cookies or drops, as their name suggests are made primarily from egg whites using other ingredients such as sugar (traditionally white although I have seen brown sugar meringues), cream of tartar, flavor extracts and coloring. Some people add other inclusions such as sugar pearls, chocolate ganache (sometimes sandwiched between two meringue cookies like in two of the photos displayed above), nuts, white chocolate and so forth.

You can be as creative and wild as you want to be with custom meringue recipes. I personally love when they come in a collection of hues from a sweet shop color palette. So fitting.