In the Organic Kitchen: Valentine's Day - The Menu

As I shared yesterday, our Valentine’s Day get-together with The Chalkboard Mag was appropriately all about sweets, with inspiration and instruction courtesy of the always-amazing Annie Campbell . For small nibbles to start the class, Annie put together a brilliant array of crudités using veggies from the Hollywood Farmers Market and heart-shaped paper mache kraft boxes as vessels. In keeping with the holiday palette, she created two different color-schemed displays. The first: a purple & white platter with purple cauliflower, purple carrots, lavender and white radishes and purple grapes. The second: a pink & red platter with easter radishes, french radishes, red peppers, red apples and watermelon radishes. While we sipped on Pressed Juicery Rose Coconut H2o and munched on the crudites (accompanied by Annie’s tasty Red Pepper Dip ), she detailed the lessons for the day.

At each of our seats, we found both our menus (housed in a cute envelope) and recipes for each of the desserts we would be making. Created by Amy Blessing , the paper elements were made using neutral paper from Paper Source , and featured this romantic font in a deep pink hue.

First on the the day’s menu: a how-to in properly frosting and decorating a cake, complete with the most incredible set of materials. Our toppings: astrantia, blackberries on the branch, majolica spray roses, ranunculus, anemones, lilac, and vibernum greenery, provided by Heather of Twig & Twine , as well as gooseberries, raspberries and raspberry jam.
While we frosted and decorated away, Annie took us through the steps of making a decadent Dark Chocolate Pots De Creme , a Strawberry & Raspberry Layered Pavlova , the Heart-Shaped Naked Layer Cake that we were decorating, and Honey Lavender Ice Cream . Needless to say, everything was beyond delicious, but the crowd favorite was the Pavlova; all at once creamy and fresh, crunch and chewy, it had many of us going back for seconds.

And lastly, true to form, Annie served the most delicious cocktail. An inspired take on the classic, her Lavender Champagne Cocktail featured fresh lavender, lavender bitters and lavender honey simple syrup – a refreshing, floral sip perfect for the occasion. XXJKE