A Tea Party At Home

Meeting up with friends for afternoon tea is always a good idea, and as nice as meeting in a cafe can be, there's nothing quite like hosting a tea party at home. Not only because it's way more child friendly and you don't need to be worrying about where everyone's kids are, but because of the hominess that no cafe, no matter how hygge, could ever achieve. 

This last Monday I hosted a tea party for a party of four (plus two kids and the hubby who cared to join for the yummy cakes), and it was so nice! I made this rose hanging arrangement for the occasion, because I thought it looked so girly and quaint, perfect as a wall backdrop for a girl's tea party! You can find the original DIY tutorial here, even though in my case I simply used fake roses I already had home. 

As for the cakes, I baked a cheesecake and brownies, and I was congratulated on both of them. I used this matcha cheesecake recipe, simply omitting the matcha part. It was top notch for a regular cheesecake, but I like the matcha version (which I made for the hubby's 30th birthday) even better. You're bound to get compliments on both of them, so you're safe no matter which version you choose to go for :) Seeing how I had created the floral wall arrangement, I decided to incorporate some edible flowers to the cakes as well!

The brownies are something from another world, really. Definitely the best brownies I've ever had, and the reason why I never order brownie outside of home anymore, because I gave up on trying to find a better one. These ones are BBC's best-ever brownies after all, so yummy! I just think 180 degrees Celsius is better than the recommended 160. Also, I think it's better to make them the day before, as they do take some time to cool down.

Even though I have several kinds of teas at home, everyone wanted to try the Tea Shop's White Gracia Blend, which smells heavenly, so I just made a big pot of this. It's kind of expensive, as white teas are more delicate than green or black ones, but it's all worth it! We all enjoyed it and I highly recommend it.

Do you ever host tea parties at home? Next time I think I'll try an English style one, my fave!

Homemade Croissants and Pains au Chocolat

I made it! I accomplished the most difficult pastry I've ever attempted to bake: croissants and pains au chocolat. The result was delicious!

After making the lemon tart, one of my all-time favorite desserts, I decided I wanted to attempt one of my favorite viennoiseries, one of my top choices for breakfast: pains au chocolat, which is just like a chocolate croissant, except with a roll shape. The dough for the pains au chocolat and the croissants is prepared in the exact same way, so I finally decided to bake some croissants as well, just because their shape is cuter :) I used this video recipe from Baking with Julia (prominent Julia Child that is). For these kind of really elaborated recipes, I think a video recipe is the way to go, because it leaves no room for doubts as sometimes happens with written recipes.

It took me a total of almost 2 days from the very first step to the very last, so you'll understand after so much effort how bad I wanted these pastries to come out great!!! Well, they did. Once again, I'm proud of myself! Thanks to my lovely husband who helped me shape the croissants and pains au chocolat. And special thanks as well to Maison Eric Kayser, one of my favorite bakeries in town, who agreed to sell me some special chocolate bars for the pains au chocolat.

The layered dough is a sign of work well done!

This recipe yielded 8 pains au chocolat and 6 croissants, most of them slightly smaller than the ones you'd find in a bakery. I baked some of them and froze the rest, and now we can have fresh croissants every morning! :) Will you give it a try?

Baking in Hong Kong

I really like baking, it's the best thing one can do in a kitchen! Cooking for dinner is nice too, but it can never be as fun as baking cakes! Here in Hong Kong I only have a tiny toaster-oven that burned every single cake I tried to bake in it. Not having a big and properly furnished kitchen with a good oven is probably the thing I like the least about my appartment. I miss baking!!! That's why I was so desperate to bake anything at all when I went back home to Barcelona at the beginning of the month. My mom and I cooked this easy chocolate cake and brown sugar heart-shapped muffins. They were fun to make and yummy to eat! Seriously, I need to buy an oven!

Have a marvelous weekend! Follow me on instagram to see what I'm up to!