Paris part 1: The Laduree experience

Last week I was in beautiful Paris with one of my best friends. We stayed for four days, saw all the sights and walked the small streets of Montmartre and Le Marais. But there was one thing we both had on our bucketlist: a trip to Laduree en get the macarons from there! As a lover of sweets and pastries you just have to, right?! So we went from our hotel to Arc de Triomphe, and walked to the famous Champs Elysee. After a lunchbreak, we searched for the Laduree shop. And we found it! The outside already looked impressive.

When we came inside there was already a long line of people. We joined the line and had to wait to choose the flavours of macarons we wanted. There were so many flavours to choose from; mint, chocolate, caramel, gingerbread, pistachio, vanilla, raspberry and many more! There were also many gorgeous pastries for sale.

The inside of the building, where you can also drink tea, was also quite impressive. Overall it was a really cool experience, especially as a baker myself. Very inspirational! If you are ever in Paris and you live baking and pastries, I would defenitely recommend you to go to Laduree. Worth the trip to Champs Elysee!

A sweet dream

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was spent in Paris...lucky me! I will dedicate a post about this very soon. I had a very nice time, saw all the beautiful sights Paris has to offer and I got the chance to buy the 'real' macarons at Laduree. Quite an experience I must say. More on that soon.

As you all may remember, I have a small business called Sweetie Pies. I sell cakes, cupcakes and all things sweet from my own home. It has been a dream of mine to be able to sell my sweets at a market. To see the people that buy my cakes and get instant response, that would be awesome to me. Well last month that dream came true. I registered for a local market here in my hometown of The Hague..and I got selected! I was beyond thrilled about this! I had lots of baking to do..I made brownies, cupcakes, madeleines and five cakes. 

Two of my friends helped me out during the day, which was great. It was my first time at a market as a seller, so I had no idea what to expect. But it went so well. I got a great response and lots of compliments on both my cakes and my decoration of the stall. And an hour before closing I had already sold everything! I know now that I have to bake even more next time around. It was a great experience and I am defenitely participating again next year.

New era of ESD coming soon!

Hi dear readers! Thank you all for staying with me here on Even Sweeter Dreams. I really appreciate you all!
I have been away for a while, but I am excited to start blogging again. I have new ideas and inspiration for posts. I look forward to share posts on my life, travels, ideas, and have fun here.
So look for this very soon! I will start to make a schedule for myself this week, with all my ideas for the blog. After that I have alot to share with you all, like a trip to the Sherlock Holmes museum in London. See you all soon! Have a sweet day.

 

With a Dr. Watson hat on!

Being gentle and follow your dreams.

Hi my friends! I have been absent for quite a while, but I really needed a break from blogging. As you may have read in my previous posts my health wasn't well, and I have had many hospital visits since. But I only have good news! My health is all good, and all the tests turned out great. I am really happy! The health issues were all due to stress, so I have to take it easy and be a bit more gentle to myself. Do you recognise the feeling that you are just never doing enough? Or that what you are doing is really never good enough? Well, that's me right there. And I have to stop thinking this way!

This quote is what I have to keep in mind. I was always hard on myself, and also finding it hard to be proud of myself. But I am doing the best I can! And if I have a bad day, I just take it a bit slower and do some thing that makes me happy. If only it is to read a book or see a movie I like, I notice it really helps. And I don't judge myself on having a bad day, we all have them right? With all this in mind I have started to focus more on realising my dream on having my own catering company Sweetie Pies. 

The website is starting to look better and better. And soon I will print some businesscards, exciting stuff! Ofcourse you will all be the first ones to see the website when it is all done! And after weeks of not baking, I have started to bake again. I really missed it and enjoy being in the kitchen again. I made these French Madeleine cakes, they were really nice! I am looking forward to sharing more on Sweetie Pies with you all soon. And remember:

So far so good!

Hi friends! I just noticed that it has been over a week since my last update here. The last week has been kinds crazy. Many visits to the hospital to see why I had the two black outs I wrote about. I have had a brain test, heart test and yesterday a ct scan of my brain. The first brain test results are good, so that makes me happy! The heart test was good too, but I need to do a second one just in case. Now just the result of the ct, but my neurologist expects the result to be good here as well. He thinks it is very likely that my black outs were just sheer bad luck. That I just slipped in the shower and the second fall I just tripped and hit my head to the table. That is also what I am hoping, but to hear the doctor actually saying that his is possible really helps! So far so good it is. This weekend me and my parents went to visit the famous Kinderdijk. We could use the distraction! Kinderdijk is about 30 or 40 minutes from my home, and it is so beautiful. It is on the Unesco world heritage list and visited by many tourists. It is a typical Dutch view, with all the mills.

It was so nice to forget about all the tests, hospital visits and so on and just enjoy the beauty of this place. I really needed that! Me and my mum have also been working on setting up a new webshop with some of her drawings. She is making some amazing art, with a sweet retro feel and pastel colours. We are now working on some more drawings, but this is the first in the series. What do you think??

Have a good day everyone! And please keep your fingers crossed for me that all the results will be good!

Life lately.

Hi everyone! It has been a bit quiet here lately, but I am still around. Life just has been a bit hectic with hospital visits due to another fall/black out. I hit my head and needed stiches. Next week I have an mri scan planned to see if the black outs are caused by anything in my body or if it is a result of a stressfull period in my life. So yeah, not very fun or exciting things. In between the not so fun things, I did get around to doing some fun stuff haha. I took some snapshots of these happy moments. Hope you will enjoy!

Tried on this super cute outfit. Bought the skirt and going to buy the top!

Being woken by sunshine is the best way to wake up!

Got this awesome trolley at Ikea.

It's the most amazing blue/green aqua colour. Looks great in my kitchen.

Really enjoying all the Dutch success at the Olympics. The picture sort of shows iceskating haha.

Snail mail, isn't it pretty?! Snail mail really brightens up my day!

{Recipe} Chocolate cake with ganache

Hi everyone, I want to share a delish recipe with you for a cake that I have made loads of times. It's a big hit among friends and family. And I love it too! An amazing (and amazingly simple) chocolate cake. Because you just can't go wrong with chocolate right?! This recipe is for a 'plain' chocolate cake, for added flavour or texture you can add macademianuts, chocolate chips (white! oh yeah!) or cranberries, just a few suggestions that will make the cake even more spectacular. Enjoy!

Recipe for chocolate cake and ganache
Gram to cup conversion table

Ingredients
150 gr butter
180 gr flour
200 gr pure chocolate
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
250 gr sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
125 gr icing sugar
10 gr cocoa powder
200 gr cream cheese

Preheat the oven to 150 C/ 302 F (hot air oven). Chop 175 gr of chocolate into small pieces. Melt the chocolate with the butter. Let it cool for a few minutes. Whisk the eggs, set aside. Mix flour and baking powder together. Add the sugar, vanilla sugar and a pich of salt. Mix together. Then add the eggs and chocolate and butter to the flour mix. Whisk untill smooth. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes. For the ganache chop the rest of the chocolate into fine pieces. Melt it and let it cool. Mix the icing sugar and cocoa powder together. Add the cream cheese and mix untill smooth. Finally add the chocolate and gently mix. When the cake has cooled, cover with the ganache.