A (drinking) day in St. Michael’s

After the French Regional Lunch we had one great food adventure left–the Mexican Tequila Lunch!

This event was held at La Hacienda de San Angel, the newest restaurant in the Mexico pavilion, and was new for the 2011 Food and Wine festival. But it featured something we were VERY familiar with, tequila from the famous (and fabulous) Cava de Tequila in the Mexico pavillion. This is a bar where we’ve spent many a fantastic Epcot afternoon (the Three Caballeros boat ride is MUCH better after a shot or two, trust me). So we were all excited to sample some excellent tequila and some delicious Mexican food–which as an aside, I hadn’t had at Epcot since sometime in the early 90s…yeah…

The whole atmosphere at La Hacienda was very welcoming. And where FRL feels like more of a formal event, this feels like a more relaxed atmosphere. We were greeted at the door by servers with trays of rose margaritas, made with silver tequila, rose extract, and hibiscus salt. These were dangerously delicious, and to be honest, I think I could have drank them all afternoon!

When we arrived at our table, we noticed we were seated with another group, and that all of the tequila samples were already poured. Each place also had a bottle of water, and some items to smell as a scent cleanser. This was quite different that the other events we’ve been to, but it ended up working out well with the flow of the event, which was much faster moving than the FRL.

As soon as everyone was seated, Hilda, the tequila specialist from La Cava welcomed us to the event and gave us a brief history of the production of tequila. Hilda also discussed how tequila isn’t tied to certain food flavors like wine is, making it much easier to pair tequila with different types of food. After her introduction, Hilda introduced the Chef, who welcomed us to the food side of the restaurant. For the rest of the meal, Hilda and the Chef alternated speaking, with Hilda introducing all of the tequilas before our courses.

Our first course was a blanco tequila paired with a ceviche verde with scallops. Hilda explained that the blanco is aged the least, and is the tequila most likely to “burn” on its way down. I personally love blanco, and this tequila was a good one. The ceviche, which was nice and spicy, was a good balance to the sharp taste of the tequila.

Our second course was a a pairing of a reposado tequila and Sope de Chilorio and Empanada. The reposado tequila is “rested” for 2 months to 1 year, so it has a much darker color and smokier taste (from the barrels its aged in) than the blanco. The sope and the empanada were both delicious–the sope was a pastry like bowl filled with pulled pork and a black bean sauce, and the empanada was filled with mexican cheese.

Our third (main) course was a pairing of an anejo tequila and Grilled Tilapia and Pork in Mole Negro. The anejo tequila is aged for at least a year, and has more of the smokey richness from aging. This was probably my least favorite tequila, but my scotch loving husband enjoyed the complexity of this one. The grilled tilapia was also very good, and I enjoyed the veggies that accompanied it, which included cactus! By the time I made it to the mole I was a bit meated out–I don’t eat a lot of meat on a regular basis, so sometimes I have a hard time eating a lot of it–so I had some of the sweet corn with the mole sauce on top. I don’t think I had ever had mole before, but it was delicious! Such a good flavor combination.

Our final course was Tamal de Dulche, a corn tamale filled with guava and served with a strawberry sauce paired with a tequila liquor. I’ll admit to not knowing there was such a thing as tequila liquor before this event, and it was pretty good! And the dessert was hands down delicious. The guava and the strawberry sauce were both pretty sweet, but they were nicely balanced by the smooth, mild corn taste of the tamal.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable meal. Hilda was nice enough to stick around after the event and answer our questions about different types of tequilas, and listen to our gushing about how tequila is now one of our favorite liquors. And as far as value at Food and Wine, this is about as good as it gets–for $65 we had 5 drinks and a four course lunch?! Yes please! And this is another spirit themed meal for the list!

Our fantastic food vacation didn’t stop when we got off the Disney Dream last month! Because after our cruise time, we had 4 nights booked at Walt Disney World to enjoy the 16th annual Epcot Food and Wine Festival!

Long time readers will remember that this is actually my third year going to the festival. The first year we focused on the booths, the second year we branched out to some of the special events. This year we did a bit of both, kicking it all off with my all time favorite event, the French Regional Lunch!!

It’s no secret that I’m a Francophile, and that I will take any and all opportunities to enjoy French food, wine, or heck, even run off to France! So I’m sure it surprises no one that when we were putting together our annual Food and Wine Itinerary, I insisted that the FRL go on. It makes sense to go to different FRL, because the menu at each lunch is different, from week to week and from year to year. I was slightly disappointed when I saw the schedule and realized that we would be attending during the weekend when Alsace was the featured wine region, because it’s probably my least favorite of the French wine regions. But oh well, we needed to go anyways!

As always, the FRL was in Le Bistro de Paris, the charming restaurant above the more popular Le Chefs de Francein Epcot’s France pavilion. We showed up for the lunch in our purple matching Usual Suspects Food and Wine Festival shirts, which featured “It’s Epcot, Keep Drinking” on the back. This definitely got us some looks from the older members of the lunch crowd, but I think by the end of the lunch we established we could go head to head with any table on culinary and wine tastes.

I have no idea why people don’t take us seriously…

no idea…

The lunch started out with fresh hot mini baguettes, always one of my favorites. While the bread was served, the restaurant’s chef introduced the special wine guest of the day, Bernard Sparr, Brand Ambassador of Pierre Sparr. Bernard was without us throughout the meal, and offered a bit about each of the wines we sampled through the meal. Soon we were served our Amuse Bouche, a wonderful creamed asparagus soup that was somewhere between a soup and a cream, served with a crostini. This was paired with Cremant d’Alsace Rose, Pierre Sparr, Brut, which was probably my favorite wine of the day. I just LOVE the bubbles!

The first course was Pied de pore a l’Alsacienne, an Alsacienne style pig trotter. Yes, pig trotter means pig foot, which made me nervous when I saw it on the menu. But it was actually more like a sausage made with pig foot and other fillers and then deep fried. And it was very tasty, as was it’s side of potato topped with bacon. This course was served with Alsace One, Pierre Sparr, 2008, which was a little sweet for my tastes, especially when served with the super savory and rich trotter. But Eileen would tell you that she LOVED this wine.

The Main (Second) Course was Choucroute au trois poissons, sauerkraut with salmon, monkfish & smoked haddock. This was AMAZING, maybe the best thing I’ve ever had at one of these events. The taste of the fish with the light cream sauce it was served in was fantastic–smokey and buttery at the same time. Even the sauerkraut (which is normally something I hate and wouldn’t want within 10 feet of something I was going to eat) wasn’t overpowering and horrible. The wine with this course was the Pinot Gris, Pierre Sparr, 2009, which I thought was a nice compliment to the fish.

We then moved to the cheese course, which was a Comte, a semi-hard cow’s cheese. This cheese was interesting. It was a consistency of semi-hard I’m not sure I’ve encountered before, and it had a taste that was very ripe for this type of cheese. It was a good flavor contrast after the fish dish. This was served with Riesling, Pierre Sparr, 2008, which did balance with the cheese nicely and was probably my second favorite wine of the afternoon.

Finally we arrived stuffed at dessert, which was Flan aux myrtilles, blueberry flan. When we all first saw the menu, I think we thought flan was an interesting choice to end a meal from northern France, but it was fantastic. It was like a light custard served on a fantastic crust with fresh fruit on top. It was wonderful, and you know I’m picky about my desserts! The dessert was served with the Gewurztraminer reserve, Pierre Sparr, 2008, which I also enjoyed since it paired nicely with the dessert.

All in all, a very succesfull lunch! I can’t wait to be back next year, and explore another region of French wine and cuisine!

And this counts as a beer or wine themed meal…so I can check another one off the list!

A few weekends ago, after a few hours of biking followed by some quality time at the Dogfish Head brewery, we decided to stop at one of our favorite shore adult beverage store, Atlantic Liquors. Atlantic is basically a big warehouse on Route 1 between Rehoboth and Lewes, with the standard big warehouse signs for not so great beverages on the outside. But once you get inside, it’s like a treasure cave of great wines and beers. At REALLY good prices.

So when I stepped into the beer section at Atlantic and right into a HUGE display of pumpkin beers, the Great Pumpkin Beer Taste off was born. My love of pumpkin is no secret, and I adore spicy pumpkin ales, so why not take the opportunity to branch out and see which ones we liked best? I had six willing adults and about a dozen varieties of pumpkin beers to choose from. I selected seven and the taste off was ON!

Our contenders were: Blue Point Pumpkin, Wolavers Organic Pumpkin Ale, Schlafly Pumpkin Ale, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, Saranac Pumpkin, Dogfish Punkin, and Heavy Seas Imperial Pumpkin. We sampled in this order, which was our guess of lightest to heaviest beers. After each beer, we talked briefly about the tasting notes and our thoughts on the beer. Our beers broke nicely into two categories: beers that tasted more like pumpkin, and beers that were serious beers with pumpkin and spice notes.

Beers that Tasted More Like Pumpkin (or nothing at all):
Three of our beers fell into this category–Bluepoint, Schlafly, and Wolavers. These were beers that may appeal more to someone who isn’t such a fan of beer, but wants a pumpkin beverage. The Blue Point (which to be fair, was labeled as a malt beverage and not a beer) was thin, with very little beer taste and just a hint of spice on the after taste. The Schlafly was deemed a “girly beer” with it’s sweet, molasses taste and nutty cinnamon aftertaste. The Wolavers had the strongest straight up pumpkin taste of all of the beers that we sampled–not a lot of spice, but just a strong pumpkin flavor all the way through.

Serious Beers with Pumpkin and Spice Notes:
Four of our beers fell into this category–Smuttynose, Saranac, Dogfish, and Heavy Seas. Noel tried to make an argument that Heavy Seas should have it’s own category as an Imperial beer, but for my purposes, it’s staying here, despite the fact that it was thicker, darker, and heavier than any of the others. All of the beers in this category are a good fit for a lover of craft beers who wants something with a fall twist. Smuttynose was basically a pale ale with a bit of spice on the back end. Saranac had a distinct pumpkin pie taste with notes of ginger that balanced out it’s pale ale taste. Dogfish was a characteristic hoppy beer in their usual style, with a nice spicy finish. And the Heavy Seas was a pretty strong Imperial IPA with a pumpkin twist–like many of these types of beers it had a sweet start with a bitter spicy finish.

So which beer won our taste test? Saranac, hands down, with Dogfish Head as a close second. I think Saranac was an all around crowd pleaser–everyone agreed this was a very drinkable beer. I think these results really surprised us, but by the time we got to the end, everyone was happy enough just to drink whichever beer and to be in the fall spirit!

Do you have a favorite pumpkin beer you would like to share?

So about that wine in illicit cups that I mentioned in my last post. It wasn’t that the wine was a problem. It was that the cups that we drank it out of that was.

I know what you’re thinking, wrong cups? Well, let’s just say our rental house was the best labeled space I have ever seen. Everything had a label, so you were pretty much ALWAYS sure what house it belonged to. Now, as someone with a beach house where people are always coming and going, I can see where the labels make sense to make sure your stuff stays at your house. Even if things like labeling every single hanger in every single closet do seem a bit extreme.

The thing that didn’t make quite as much sense, and gave us more than a few laughs, were the signs spread around the house directing us how to enjoy the house.

“Put your feet up, enjoy your time here. Please remember to place things back where they belong”

This one pretty much sums it up, but we had some other favorites around the house.

This is nice. Leave the paper for the next renters. But then you turn around. And are reminded again.

There were also a few helpful kitchen signs. Like this one:

You know, in case you forgot from home.

Or these:

This is useful, because blowing a fuse sucks, especially when the nearest Home Depot is a good ways away, since you’re on a remote barrier island. But yeah, this is a bit much, especially since the appliances are right next to this outlet.

There were others, but I think you get the point.

Ironically, in a place where all the houses have names and most have big signs outside showing their names, there was no name sign. If we had stayed the whole week, we might have made one. To go with this fine view:

Hello Summer!

Here on the east coast, it seems that someone turned on the blast furnace just in time for labor day weekend. And forgot to turn it off again. Not even the shore was immune, as I found out during my very hot 5 Miler!

Three 95+ degree days in a row does not leave me excited at the prospect of baking. I think I’m breaking into a sweat just at the idea of turning my oven on. But there are some summertime treats so cool and refreshing, that the end result is worth the initial heat investment.

Take these Margarita Bars. I made them for a lovely clam bake we attended on the beautiful Indian River Bay this past weekend. I had to turn on the oven in our already hot beach house kitchen to make them. But the cool satisfaction of biting into a lemon bar’s hipper adult cousin while trying to beat the summer heat–makes summer living easy.

Margarita Bars
Adapted from Sugarcrafter

I knew I HAD to make these as soon as they popped up in my feed over the weekend. And the recipe to conversion time was shockingly fast–I think we were eating these less than 10 hours after I saw the recipe! I did make a few alterations–I doubled the recipe (the recipe below will fit in a 13 x 9 pan) and I used margarita mix instead of tequila and triple sec because that’s what we had. And when you need dessert NOW, you have to work with what you have! Next time I will make these will the full strength alcohol. Also, we found these had a stronger taste after an overnight in the fridge, so I would recommend baking the day before you plan to serve.

Ingredients:

For the crust:
2 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, melted

For the filling:
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
4 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp tequila
2 Tbsp triple sec
4 Tbsp fresh lime juice
4 tsp lime zest
1 drop green food coloring (optional)
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease an 13 x 9 baking dish. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, powdered sugar, and salt. Stir in the melted butter. Press the dough into the baking dish (try to get it even) and then bake 15-20 minutes or until the edges of the crust turn light brown.

Reduce the heat to 300 degrees. In another medium bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, flour, salt, tequila, triple sec, and lime juice and zest, and food coloring. Pour the filling mixture over the warm crust and bake another 25-30 minutes, or until center is set.

After removing the dish from the oven, lightly dust with powdered sugar. Let cool, refrigerate and then cut into squares. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

As I mentioned before, one of the excursions we had planned for our trip was a day long outing to the Champagne region and Reims with Paris Champagne Tours. I’m a pretty big champagne fan–I mean really, it’s white wine WITH BUBBLES, what’s not to love?–so I was super excited for a day in the region that promised lots of sampling. The tour also advertised a visit to the Reims Cathedral, traditional crowning site of French Kings. Super added bonus for this history buff.

Our day started out bright and early, with our driver, tour guide, and resident champagne expert, Trong, picking us up at the apartment. Trong provided us all with a bag of lovely pastries and water, and a selection of newspapers. As we wove through the streets of Paris to pick up our tour companions, Trong pointed out major sites and told us little stories about Paris. Soon we were on the expressway heading out of town, and Trong pointed out the faraway tops of the Disneyland Paris Park. Then we all daydreamed or drifted off as we cruised through the French countryside.

An hour and a half later, we arrived in Champagne, outside of the small town of Verzenay. Trong parked our little van and we walked out to the fields, where he gave us an overview of how the grapes for champagne are grown. He explained why the vines looked how they did (oddly bent over and close to the ground) and pointed out the adjoining fields of famous champagne producers. After posing for pictures, we loaded back in the van and headed into town for our next stop at the cellar door of a small champagne house.

We didn’t know it yet, but we were in for a real treat. The champagne house we visited was Godme, a small botique producer. And who gave us a tour of the house and explained how grapes go from the vine to fabulous sparkling wine? Madame Godme herself! With the aid of Trong as a translator, Madame Godme walked us through her whole assembly line, from the tanks where the champagne does its initial fermentation, to the cellars where it is aged, to the corking line!

After we learned about how champagne is made, we got to the best part–the tasting! We sampled 5 of Madame Godme’s champagnes–and we ended up buying four types to take with us!

After our sampling, we headed into Reims to get some lunch. The tour company had a pre-arranged menu for us at a lovely authentic French bistro, where the food was about a thousand times better than your standard cafe fare in Paris. We had a full three courses and coffee, which perked (and sobered) us all up for an afternoon tour of the Reims Cathedral.

What can I say about the Cathedral in Reims? It’s was breathtaking. In the same way that the Lourve or Versailles captures the wealth of the French Kings, so did the cathedral, which was the traditional coronation venue for the Kings of France. It’s hard to believe a place of stone was filed with that much light, but it was.

This summer, the Cathedral will turn 800. She looks good for her age, right?

The cathedral is enormous. These pictures really don’t do her justice!

After our tour of the cathedral, we had one last stop–the winery Taittinger, famous producers of champagne. After our tour with Madame Godme in the morning, the whole group seemed a little skeptical that anything at Taittinger could top it, especially when we were ushered into a fancy, high end show room. But soon we met with our guide and she led us into an elevator to take us down into the Taittinger chalk cellars, which she explained to us had once been a Roman chalk quarry, then in medieval times had been part of a monastery.

And then we got it. The cellars at Taittinger were unlike anything I had ever seen–huge vaulted underground spaces, full of equally huge bottles of champagne (these cellars are where Taittinger ages their magnum bottles). It was beautiful.

In places you could see parts of the old monastery, preserving the old even though the building above had been destroyed.

We also saw a ridiculous amount of champagne being aged. It was beautiful, all of these bottles sleeping in this haunting space.

Our guide told us this cave alone takes two men three days to load or unload. Wonder if they get to drink some as payment?

After emerging from the cave, we sampled a glass of Taittinger, then headed back to the van for a nap and a ride back to Paris. It was one fantastic day that I won’t soon forget! I can’t recommend Paris Champagne Tours* more to anyone visiting Paris and wanting to check out the Champagne Region! And let’s check another one off the list!

*By using the name of the company, I don’t want to suggest that they paid for my tour or that they even know I’m blogging about this. Rather, I know there are lots of tours out there, and this one was so fantastic, I want to share so others can have the same great experience!

I’ve met some really wonderful people through blogging, which really is the best side effect of this hobby.

A few weeks ago, one of those wonderful people, Elizabeth, from Strawberries in Paris, was nice enough to invite me to a dinner party she was hosting at her house as part of the Charm City Cookbook Club. Never heard of the club? Well, they’re famous–they were in Baltimore Magazine and everything! I was delighted to be invited!

The whole premise behind cookbook club is that each month each person in the club makes a different recipe from the same cookbook, and then they see how it goes! For my visit to cookbook club, the group was making recipes from Claire Robinson’s Five Ingredient Fix, where no recipe is supposed to have more than five ingredients. Surprisingly, it works, even though sometimes Claire cheats on the ingredients. And she’s way too supermodel looking to really be a chef! Or maybe I’m just jealous.

I was very excited to make something big, baked and fancy for cookbook club, but when I asked what I could bring, Elizabeth threw me a curveball. Instead of cooking at all, she asked me to put on the mixologist hat and bring one of Claire’s mixed drinks for the evening. After checking out Claire’s drinks, I decided to go seasonal with these clementine cosmos–a deliciously pink cocktail for a girl’s night in!

Clementine Cosmos
From Claire Robinson’s Five Ingredient Fix

If you know me, you’ll know that I’m not much of a mixed drink girl–I would almost always rather kill myself slowly with dry white wine. Let’s chalk it up to permanent scarring from my bachelorette party five years ago! But even I thought these were delicious. They’re crisp and light. If you don’t like vanilla vodka, try subbing in regular.

Ingredients:

3 clementines
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2/3 cup cranberry juice
1/3 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
1 1/2 cups vanilla flavored vodka

Directions:

Cut the clementines into quarters and squeeze their juice into a saucepan. Add the sugar, water, lime juice and clementine flesh and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Pour into a strainer set over a measuring cup, pressing on the solids to remove as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids, add the cranberry juice and vodka and stir well. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

To serve, pour the mixture into an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake until very cold. Pour into the chilled martini glasses.

This weekend, Noel, a bunch of friends, and I decided to hit up the Maryland Wine Festival. Despite the fact that I grew up 12 miles from where the Wine Festival is held and I went to college just down the street, we had never actually managed to make it to the festival. But willing friends and beautiful weather were enough enticement, so after my 5.34 mile training run on Saturday, we set off towards Westminster.

After we fought our way through the traffic (apparently about 20,000 other people in Maryland decided it would be a nice day to visit the festival) we were happy with what we found. A huge setup at the Carroll County Farm Museum with more than 30 Maryland Wineries. Our $25 admission got us unlimited tastings (which is better than the limited, ticketed tasting which seems to be common at these events), which just sweetened the deal on a day where the sun was shining and the crowd was dancing to live music.

I’ll admit that one of the reasons I may have stayed away from the Wine Festival in the past was what I perceived to be a lack of good Maryland wine. And by good I mean something that doesn’t taste like fruit juice. Call me a wine snob or whatever, but I love a good crisp or full bodied glass. So a lot of Maryland Wine just isn’t my cup of tea. But I was pleasantly surprised to find SEVERAL wineries at the festival that were serving up good, drinkable stuff. And not just the much praised Black Ankle.

In fact, we liked the wine so much that we ended up buying a few bottles and just sitting in the grass, enjoying the lovely fall day. Among our favorites–Saint Michael’s Long Splice and and lovely Oaked Chardonnay from Fiore.

It was an excellent day with some–dare I say it–excellent wine. It’s nice to see how far the Maryland Wine industry has come, and I’m planning on adding this to our list of annual events. I can only imagine the festival getting better as our wine industry continues to grow. And wine with a bit of sun–what better way to spend a Saturday in the country?

No dinner party–even one with a spectacular pork loin as the main–is complete without a really fantastic dessert. Yeah, I know I don’t need much of an excuse to reach into my *fancy* dessert file, but I wanted to do something really special for new years.

Remember my favorite recipe source this holiday season, Martha’s Holiday Sweets magazine? Well, the very first time I flipped through it, this beautiful, towering, chocolate cake mid-magazine caught my eye. It was a picture of a black forest cake, but it was way different from any black forest I had ever seen before. Instead of fussy whipped cream swirls and maraschino cherries, there were clean lines with pastry cream, shiny chocolate ganache, and sour cherries. And kirsch. Not baked in, but brushed onto finished layers. Yumlish.

So before we had even settled on an entree, our dinner party had a confirmed dessert. And it was a good thing, because time seemed to slip away a lot faster that week before the party than I had ever expected, and I found myself on the morning of the 31st still without a cake. But this recipe proved easy (for Martha!) to bake and assemble. It was a definite bonus that there was no fussy icing to apply and smooth, apply and smooth. But the cake still had that over the top effect–and helped us to ring in the new year with style!

Inside-Out Black Forest Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Holiday Sweets

This cake has a really grown-up, not overly sweet, chocolate taste, which is nicely offset by slightly sweeter pastry cream and the cherries. If you’re new to layer cakes and freaked out by the idea of making and applying icing, this is a good cake for you to start out with. The assembly is a snap–really. And people will still be super impressed at your efforts! If you can’t find preserved sour cherries, or you’re unwilling to pay $10 a jar for them at Whole Foods (like me!) you can substitute whole bing cherries in light syrup.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans
• 2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temp.
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 jar (12 ounces) preserved sour cherries (40 to 50)
• 1/4 cup kirsch (cherry-flavored liqueur)
• Pastry Cream (recipe follows)
  
• Shiny Chocolate Ganache (recipe follows)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter three 8 inch round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper. Butter parchment. Into large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

With electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter and granulated sugar until fluffy. Add brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in sour cream. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour.

Divide batter evenly among prepared pans. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until firm to the touch and toothpick comes out clean; about 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer pans to wire racks to cool completely. Run a knife around sides to loosen, then remove cakes from pans and peel off parchment.

Drain cherries, reserving 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons juice. Combine juice and kirsch. With a serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to make level, but this is only really necessary if your cakes are really domed. I skipped this step, because my cakes were relatively flat. Use a fork to prick small holes in the tops of the layers, the brush top of each with one-third kirsch mixture. Place a cake layer on a serving plate. Spread 1 1/2 cups pastry cream evenly over cake. Arrange 15 drained cherries on top. Place a second cake layer, brushed side up, on top. Spread with remaining cream; top with 15 more cherries. Top third cake layer, brushed side down.

Make the ganache, by warming cream and honey in a small saucepan until just boiling. Place chopped chocoate in a heatproof bowl, and pour hot milk mixture over the chocolate. Allow to stand for a minute, then whisk until smooth. Pour onto middle of top cake layer, and spread evenly with an offset spatula. Garnish with remaining cherries.

Pastry Cream Ingredients:

• 2 large whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 cups milk
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Pastry Cream Directions:

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk whole eggs, yolks, and 1/2 cup sugar until pale and thick. Sift in cornstarch; whisk on medium-low speed until combined.

Meanwhile, prepare an ice-water bath. Bring milk and remaining 1/4 cup sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan. Whisking constantly, slowly pour half the milk mixture into the egg mixture; whisk until smooth. Pour mixture back into saucepan with remaining milk; whisk over medium heat until mixture reaches the consistency of mayonnaise, 2 to 3 minutes more. This can happen pretty fast, so make sure you keep whisking and remove the cream from the heat immediately if it starts to get too thick.

Add butter, a few pieces at a time, stirring until melted after each addition. Set bowl in ice-water bath until chilled. Stir in vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on surface of pastry cream; chill until set, at least 2 hours or up to overnight. Cream will keep in fridge for a few days.

Shiny Chocolate Ganache Ingredients:

• 5 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon honey

Prepare ganache using instructions above.

This cake was so good, I’m hoping it’s what people remember about me from the meal, not my not-so-gracefull attempt to polish the hardwood on Eileen’s stairs with my bum! Yeah, that one still hurts!