Sometimes enough is enough. Sometimes too much is enough. And sometimes half is enough.
Marzipan used to be the thing that laid in the bottom of the box of cookies until it got so hard that no one would eat it. Then I would taste it, confirm its ickiness, and go find some chocolate.
Until recently. Now Marzipan is one of my best food friends. It adds moisture to muffins, and surrounded by puff pastry and fresh from the oven, it’s a delight like no other.
Today I also discovered that more chocolate is better than less chocolate. After interviewing a promising housecleaning candidate (hallelujah!) we drove her home and stopped for coffee and cake at our local Konditorei, Cafe Frech.
One of the first great pleasures at the Konditorei is to gaze at all of the cakes in the displays and order the piece I want to eat with my coffee. The second great pleasure is actually eating it, and drinking the coffee poured from the tiny silver coffee pot.
Cafe Frech does a great business on Saturdays and has lots of fresh delicious pastries available. Today I chose not a slice of a Sacher torte cake, which can sometimes be dry, but an individual Sacher torte, which was heaven on earth.
Rather than being sliced and drying out in the case, the individual torte is totally covered in chocolate, so it stays moist. For those of you who don’t know, the Sacher is chocolate cake made with ground nuts, drenched in apricot glaze, and layered with raspberry jam. After that’s all assembled, the bakers at Frech place a thin layer of marzipan on top, then pour a chocolate couverture over everything.
It was so delicious I almost finished half. DH had to step in and help me out after he had finished his orange cream cake, which is sponge cake layered with an orange flavored whipped cream.
Because it was perfect, I stopped when I had the perfect feeling of satisfaction. Today half was enough.
