Sweet Francisco Loves...

Dreaming up sweet catering ideas for 2012 weddings...

Eating Bostok for Sunday brunch...

Filling our apartment with the delicious summery aromas of peach cobblers, strawberry shortcake cupcakes and rosemary sugar cookies...

Exploring Santa Barbara with culinary style...

(Wild Boar Ravioli...yum!)

Appreciating the "wino" lifestyle and living it proudly at some of our favorite urban tasting rooms...

And enjoying this sweet life in San Francisco...

examiner.com

I just heard from the official market photographer that one of her pictures of Sweet Francisco's tarts might get featured on the San Francisco version of Examiner.com in an upcoming article on the SF Underground Market!  Very exciting!

I will let you know more details as I get them...

We Have A Website!! And Other News...

Check it out at http://www.sweetfrancisco.com/!

Those in charge at ForageSF also let us know this week that the next SF Underground Farmers' Market is going to be held on Saturday, July 24th.  Sign up for the market at www.foragesf.com/market to get in.

Oh, and just in case you needed ONE MORE WAY to buy our sweet treats, we are also officially going to be a part of the Underground Market CSA online buying club, to begin within the next month or so.  We are getting everything together for the site right now and will let you know when it is up and running!  They expect the beta version to launch pretty soon!

Sweet Francisco on a Food Blog

A coworker informed me today that Sweet Francisco was featured on a food blog (that wasn't my own - imagine my excitement!) and I wanted to share it with you all.  If you are interested in checking it out, click here.

The Sweet Francisco part is short and sweet, but it's on a fantastic site called, odetogoodness.com that is dedicated to food and other noteworthy happenings in this wonderful city of ours.  Plus, it's the first public nod that I've ever received from a fellow foodie, so I'll take it.  And love it.  I love it.

Make sure to check out the rest of her site, too! 

SF Underground Farmers' Market

It's been too long since I last wrote.  Two months!  Such a disgrace. 

I know I have been out of touch lately, and I apologize.  Life has been crazy.  What started out as a sweet little idea for a blog has bloomed into a promising business opportunity.  For those of you who don't know, Sweet Francisco recently debuted its wares (tarts - so many beautiful tarts) at the San Francisco Underground Farmers' Market!  The reaction we were met with was beyond what I ever could have expected. Aside from completely covering our costs (and making a wee profit, I might add), we were also humbled by the enormous amount of flattering compliments we received from food writers, professional bakers and, most importantly, dessert lovers themselves. 

We were asked to cater weddings.  We were asked to join bakers' networking sites.  We were asked for pictures.  We were asked for business cards.  Soooo many business cards.  (Why in the world didn't I think it was important to get business cards printed?)  WE WERE COMPARED TO TARTINE!!!  And we were asked to come back!  So to all of you who didn't get a chance to see us at last week's market, you can catch us at both the Oakland and the SF Underground Markets (that's right - we're doing Oakland as well) next month!  Or you can just stop by my favorite little Italian joint on Fillmore and Clay for a sweet taste of our desserts this Saturday when they debut on the Via Veneto menu! 

I know, I know...I am way too excited about this.  You will have to excuse all of the exclamation marks.  I just can't help myself.  I never thought that this little blog and Tante Marie's pastry classes could start such an exciting new venture. 

I will try to post more this evening with some actual pictures of what I have been baking lately, but before I do, I have to give a special shout-out to my most amazing boyfriend who spent hours rolling out dough, filling tart pans and making midnight runs to Costco and Safeway to pick up everything I needed to make the Underground Market happen.  I absolutely could not have done it without him and I appreciate every second he spent on me so so sooooo much.  Together we made Sweet Francisco at the SF Undersground Market happen. 

PS - seriously, checkout the market if you haven't already.  It's fantastic and a great way to support your local bakers, caterers and passionate-food-makers.

Pate a Choux; Meringue. Loveliness.

I really don't like Alton Brown.  That has nothing to do with this post, but I'm watching him right now and he makes me want to punch the TV.

Anywho - there are more important things to be discussed.  Like my recent trysts with Pate a Choux and meringue.  If you have never heard of Pate a Choux, I'm sure you have eaten it; it is the dough that makes profitaroles, eclairs and many other beautiful pastries that grace upscale bakeries around the world.  Meringues - well, a meringue is a meringue - but, in honor of my dear Grandmama Delia, I chose to whip up an extra pavlova during last night's class as well.  Interestingly, I had despised pretty much every bite of meringue I had ever had until last night.  Last night changed everything.  Why, you ask?  Well just look at these:

Piped meringue cookies.  Some with a chocolate dusting.  Some without.  All yummy.

My baby.  A Raspberry Almond Decquoise.  Just look at how beautiful it is.  I'm pretty sure my future children won't even be this attractive.

For my lovely grandmother: pavlova with a honey lavender cream and poached strawberries.

  Some of the spread.  I love the plating that some of the girls did!

I just thought that looked pretty.  We actually got to take our food home after our last class!

Dave was very pleased.

Exhibit A:

Yeah, he is probably the best boyfriend ever.  He sits outside my school for 15 - 30 minutes waiting patiently to take me home after all of my night classes and I rarely get to reward him.  He enjoyed his little gift last night though.  Luckily, my roommate had a bunch of friends over when we got home and they were all willing to help him eat it.  The decquoise is incredibly sweet, so it fed about five people.  Here is a little montage of that adorable little dessert's demise:

  

So sad.  :(  But so delicious.

 Now onto the Pate a Cheux.  I made three different desserts using the same dough: profitaroles filled with vanilla bean pastry cream and served with a chocolate grand marnier sauce, chocolate glazed eclairs and Gateaux Paris-Brest (I don't even know how to explain that one cause I still don't really know what it is - you are just going to have to look at the pics).

The spread.  Oh yeah - and those are cheesecakes in the background.  I forgot about them.  I also made a bourbon pumpkin cheesecake that day.  Sadly, it didn't have time to set, so it pretty much collapsed during our taste-ation.

Profitaroles.  

Eclairs and Gateaux Paris-Brest.  Yummers.

Wow.  Completely forgot about these.   They are the cappucino souffles that I made on Monday night.  If I could have caffeine, I would have eaten all of them.

Here they are out of the oven and with some delicious chocolate Grand Marnier sauce poured into them.  

Never in my life have I been able to make so many beautiful things.  Seriously.  Ask my parents.  I'm probably the least artistic person ever.  My prized drawing as a kid was a harp.  Yes!  I can draw lines!

Anyway, that's about all for now.  No class until Monday, but I do plan on making some of Tartelette's Meyer Lemon and Sour Cream Donuts this weekend.  Those are like, three of my all-time favorite things.  I'm afraid to step on the scale at this point.  It just sits there on the floor in my bathroom...taunting me.

Las Picturas

As promised - here are my pics. 

Note the amazing macarons.  I made them today and can I just tell you how obsessed I am with my kitchen scale?  This is the first time I have used it, but now I am addicted.  They were perfect.

Without further adieu:

The cookie spread.  Not bad for our first night of class.

More.

My chocolate dipped shortbread cookies.

Jessica's first creme brulee.

Class #2 - taste-ation.  Some of the creme caramels fell because they didn't have time to set up, but they were still delicious.

Pretty pretty.

My beautiful babies.

 The jam and marscapone filling for the macarons.

Yum!

The finished product...and by far the prettiest macaron I have ever made.

Anyway, that's all for now.  I have class again all day tomorrow, so I'm sure there will be more to come soon!