Mother's Day Giveaway with Macarons from Sucré!!

Mother's Day is almost here and I want to celebrate it by giving away to one lucky winner a box of macarons from Sucré. If you live in New Orleans, be sure to stop by the store to get the Sucré experience where you can find a wide variety of macaron flavors, chocolates or even find your dream wedding cake. If you are not in New Orleans, don't worry, they will ship their products to you! 

I am never too enthusiastic about eating macarons because it's hard to come across good ones but recently, I had the opportunity to sample some of Sucré signature macarons and I seriously can tell you, they are fantastic. The shell is perfectly crunchy and the inside is soft which works harmoniously with the different flavor creams or jams they are filled with. As simple as these macarons may seem, they have layers of textures and flavors that will give you a very enjoyable experience. These would make the perfect gift for Mother's Day or any occasion.

Enter this giveaway for a chance to win one of Sucré 15-piece signature macarons box.

CONTEST CLOSED

Winner Announced!

Congratulations Kara D  "I love chocolate cake!"

Rules to enter the giveaway:

1. Answer the following question on the comment section of this post:

 What's your favorite dessert? 

2. Follow Delicious Shots on Twitter 

3. "LIKE" Delicious Shots on Facebook

4. Follow Sucré on Twitter

Want more chances to win?

Follow Delicious Shots on:

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email updates.

Open to US residents only. One lucky winner will be chosen randomly and announced on this post. I will email the winner who will have up to two days to claim the prize, otherwise, another winner will be selected.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS GIVEAWAY.  

Disclosure: This giveaway is being provided by Sucré but all opinions are my own.

This contest closes on Monday May 6, 2013 at 12 pm. The winner will be announced that same day sometime in the afternoon. 

Chilled Strawberry and Coconut Milk Soup Shooters from The Recipe Girl Cookbook

I've been following Lori Lange, the genius behind "The Recipe Girl"  blog for quite some time. When I learned that she was writing a cookbook, I was really happy for her and of course, for me too. I now have a piece or her legacy right at home, how cool is that? 

Her recipes are easy to follow and the book has a wide range to choose from, including gluten-free, vegetarian and dairy-free recipes. There are also party menus and tips for easy entertaining. A little bit for everybody. 

It was really hard to choose one recipe to share with you since they all look really good. I had to settle for one and I picked this crazy-good chilled strawberry and coconut milk soup. I've never had anything like this before and she is right to say this would make a great Summer appetizer.

This soup was creamy and refreshing with a burst of coconut on each sip. There is nothing I would change about this recipe except for the quantities to make more. 

Well done and thank you, Recipe Girl! 

Click HERE to buy a copy! 

Ingredients:

8oz strawberries, rinsed and sliced

2 tbsp granulated white sugar

1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1 cup low-fat canned coconut milk

Additional small strawberries for garnish

1/4 cup toasted shaved coconut for garnish

Toss together the strawberries, sugar and lime juice in a medium bowl. Let the mixture marinate for 30 minutes. In a blender or food processor, combine the strawberries and coconut milk. Process until smooth. Pour into small serving glasses and garnish with strawberries and toasted coconut, if desired. 

This recipe is from The Recipe Girl Cookbook.

Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce and Homemade Crème Fraîche

As a mentioned in my last post, my son's birthday was last week. The older he gets, the more demanding he is. It's that a normal thing? I guess it is. When I asked him what kind of breakfast he would want on his special day, he had a very specific answer, pancakes with strawberries. 

Not too long ago, I had made these pancakes for him and I knew he liked them but I didn't imagine he would even remember them. He surprises me every time. I have to say I don't blame him for remembering these fluffy, super light and spongy pancakes. 

I also made strawberry sauce. Very easy to put together and a sweet replacement for the classic maple syrup. If that wasn't enough strawberries, we also made crème fraîche (yes! homemade) and I mixed in some of the strawberry sauce. Out of this world fantastic.

Lets talk a little bit about homemade crème fraîche. It came out so creamy and rich, it doesn't even compare to many of those store-bought brands. The good news is, it's so easy to make, it's hardly a recipe. The bad news is, because it's so easy to make, you will want to make it all the time and make lots of things with it. As we know, crème fraîche is not exactly a diet item. Oh well, guilty pressures, we've got to have them, no? 

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:

Ingredients:
(makes 6-8 pancakes)

1 1/4 cup whole milk

2 large eggs

3 tablespoon canola oil

3 tablespoon sugar 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

A pinch of salt

In a bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, oil and sugar. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth (Do not over mix). Let the batter rest for 5 minutes. Heat a lightly greased griddle over medium high heat. Scoop the batter onto the griddle, using about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Brown on both sides. 

For the strawberry sauce:

2 cups strawberries, hulled  and quartered

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp water

in a saucepan, mix together the strawberries, sugar and water. bring it to a boil. Let it cook until the strawberries are softened, about 15 minutes. Add the vanilla extract, mix well and puree the strawberries, let it cool.

For the crème fraîche

Recipe courtesy of Celia

2 cups of heavy cream 

2 tbsp plain yogurt 

In a jar, stir together the yogurt with the heavy cream. Loosely, cover the jar and let it sit at room temperature for 18 to 24 hours or until thick. How easy was that? 

Mix half of the strawberry sauce with half of the crème fraîche and a pinch of salt for serving. 

Classic Chocolate Cake

Today is Lucas' birthday. My baby boy is turning three and I know this sounds cliché but he is growing so fast. Faster than I would want him to. He has been a blessing in our lives and life is much better (and busy) because of him. Lucas has a strong personality and he is really sweet.

That boy loves chocolate. At this point I have a feeling he thinks that all birthday cakes have to be made out of chocolate or else they're not birthday cakes. When we were singing happy birthday to him this morning, the first thing he said was "where is the chocolate cake mama?" I smiled and promised him a chocolaty chocolate cake for later. 

Lucas is going through a Superman phase. My goodness, everything has to be Superman themed right now. I'm telling you, when toddlers get obsessed with something, it gets really intense like watching a movie a million times. I'm sure some of you can relate to this. 

On Sunday, we are throwing a little "Super" party for him. I have a lot of work ahead of me as we are doing, yes, you guessed it, a Superman themed party. Everything is looking good, I'm sharing photos next week! 

For now, I'll leave you with this "super" chocolate cake. It's really moist and for serious chocolate lovers only ;) 

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup canola oil

2 large eggs

1 cup of buttermilk

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup of hot water

Preheat oven to 350 F.

grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar, brown sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed until blended. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Slowly add the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients on low speed until well blended. Scrape around the bowl with a rubber spatula, scrape the bottom and the sides. Slowly, add the hot water into the batter, blend well on medium speed for 20 seconds. The batter will be thin, don't worry, that's the way it should be. pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. 

 Chocolate buttercream:

7oz dark chocolate (60%)

finely chopped

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 cup cocoa powder,  sifted

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  Make sure the bowl is not touching the water, set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and continue mixing for a minute more. Turn the mixer to low and gradually add the confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder, then turn the speed back to medium and mix until smooth. On low speed, add the melted chocolate and mix until well blended. If the frosting is a little runny but don't worry, just let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes or until it's hard enough to frost the cake. 

To assemble:

Carefully, cut the cake in two layers and evenly spread some of the chocolate buttercream. Place the layer back on top. Spread the rest of the buttercream on the cake and decorate with sprinkles. 

Strawberry Cobbler

I'm very excited to share with you that Delicious Shots made it to the top of Babble's list of food blogs as "Best overall food blog of 2013" , #1 Best Recipes, #2 Best Photography and #3 Fun to Read food blog. Wow, I'm really honored and I want to say thank you to all of you! 

If you celebrated Easter, I hope you had a good one. I had a great one filled with strawberries. For some reason, everybody brought strawberries to our Easter brunch. It's not a complain, on the contrary, I love strawberries and I always look forward to strawberry season. 

I used part of the strawberries for dessert that day, which was a simple strawberry salad with orange cream. With the rest of the strawberries I made a cobbler. This was the first time that I experimented with a biscuit-like topping for my cobbler. Oh my goodness. It was perfection. The topping was buttery and little bit on the savory side which created the right balance between the sweetness of the strawberries and the savory of the salt. The almonds added a nice crunch to each bite. We had this in the afternoon as you would scones or biscuits with "jam", coffee or tea. Of course, a scoop of ice cream is never too much.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

1 1/2 pound strawberries, hulled and sliced

2 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven 350 F. Mix the strawberries, lemon and sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat and cook for five minutes. Pour the strawberries into a 9-inch cast iron skillet or another baking container. 

For the topping:

1 1//2 cup self-rising flour

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

6 tbsp cold butter, cut in small pieces

1/2 cup milk

sliced almonds

Egg wash

In a food processor, add the flour, sugar and salt, pulse few times to combine. Add the cold butter and pulse more until the mixture resemble "bread crumbs". Add the milk and mix until combined. In a lightly floured work surface, bring the dough together then with a rolling pin, roll out to 1/2-inch thick. With a 2 or 3-inch cookie cutter, cut rounds and place them on top of the strawberries. Brush the dough with egg wash and sprinkle with almonds. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the top is golden. Serve warm with ice cream. 

Note: Place the cast iron skillet on a baking sheet to bake in case it spills.