Valentine's Day: Local culinary artists create sweets from the heart
Plus: Two local wines to toast that crazy little thing called love
Mon Paris Pâtisserie.
Valentine’s Day calls for sweet treats, and Vancouver’s culinary artists are creating to their heart’s content. Here’s a mere handful of what’s out there to celebrate love, plus two B.C. wines for a heartfelt toast to it.
Mon Paris Pâtisserie.
Love Birds Cake at Mon Paris Pâtisserie
Pastry chef and chocolatier Elena Krasnova is whipping up all sorts of goodies at her boutique Burnaby shop, including a Chocolate Potted Camellia (a blossom made of white, milk, and dark chocolate and accented with a signature champagne truffle) and Chocolate High Heel made of milk chocolate and adorned with a daisy and Champagne, mango, and passion fruit truffles. We’re especially smitten by the Heart-Shaped Love Birds Cake for two (pictured at top), very Vancouver with two crows alight on layers of fresh mango compote and passionfruit mousse and vanilla biscuit. Then there’s the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-a-purse Louis Vuitton Chocolate Bag. Having become one of the pastry shop’s most popular gifts, the Belgian milk-chocolate clutch holds seven signature truffles.
Buttermere Patisserie
Love Note Cake at Buttermere Patisserie
cake is pastry chef Jamie Tung’s elegant, edible nod to love: layers of chocolate sponge, stracciatella namelaka, and cherry compote—an even blend of tartness and sweetness—take the form of a concentric circle, which is said to symbolize shared outlook at long-term commitment. There’s also Butterfly Valentine, a six-inch mousse version of a strawberry shortcake, with a flaky strawberry-crumble crust topped with flexible cacao sponge, mixed-berry compôte, and a Zéphyr light mousse. Buttermere is also offering a nine-piece box of glistening hand-crafted chocolates in three distinct hues and flavours. Red silver features 71-percent dark chocolate and freeze-dried cherry and cherry ganache; silver rose gold has passion-fruit chocolate paired with pineapple ganache and popping candies; and black gold consists of 34-percent white chocolate with sesame paste and feuilletine.
Coconut Cardamom Cake at The Modern Pantry
Fanciful and fun describe the cake that chef Kendall Parslow has come up with for 2023. The Coconut Cardamom Cake, with roasted-strawberry soak and strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream, is topped with organic flowers and dried fruit. Darling.
Kafka’s.
Big Heart “Pizza” Cookie at Kafka’s
This one’s for young’uns, or the young at heart: pastry chef Adi Kesselman’s Big Heart “Pizza” Cookie is topped with classic sweets like Oreo pieces, Smarties, and marshmallows. Originally offered by the slice as an exclusive accompaniment to Kafka’s Ultimate “Kid’s” Hot Chocolate for the 2023 Hot Chocolate Festival, the treat is back by popular demand, in an eight-inch form.
Laughing Stock Vineyards.
Portfolio 2019 from Laughing Stock Vineyards
Over the past decade, Laughing Stock’s signature Portfolio has won numerous competitions and earned consistent critical praise. The wine illustrates the complex art of blending, in this case of Bordeaux varietals. The 2019 vintage combines the five classics: 49 percent Merlot, 31 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 13 percent Cabernet Franc, 5 percent Malbec, and 2 percent Petit Verdot. Headed by winemaker Sandy Leier, the team at the Naramata Bench winery pays meticulous attention to detail, first sorting grapes by cluster and then berry by berry and aging the wine for 20 months in French oak barrels. Dark cherry and herbaceous flavours come through in this full-bodied wine that could cellar for up to a decade. If a romantic weekend getaway to Penticton is on the books, the winery is offering a Valentine’s Experience on February 11 from 10 am to 5 pm, with a flight of five wines, including the Portfolio, in varietally specific glassware along with a deliciously sweet amuse-bouche from nearby Maison Mulnati.
Culmina Family Estate Winery
Culmina Family Estate Winery’s Hypothesis 2017
Hand-picked and -sorted grapes get carefully put into a Bucher Oscillys destemmer, the first of its kind in Canada. Gentle handling of fruit is one of the core approaches at the Golden Mile Bench winery, along with minimal intervention of wine, led by classically trained French winemaker and vigneron Jean-Marc Enixon. Hypothesis is the culmination of the team’s efforts to create an iconic wine from select micro blocks on its estate. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (43 percent), Merlot (21 percent), Cabernet Franc (20 percent), Malbec (10 percent) and Petit Verdot (6 percent), the 2017 vintage, aged in French oak for 16 months, is rich in flavours of red fruit and baking spices. The winery suggests pairing with classic beef Wellington with mushroom duxelles in butter puff pastry—sounds like an idea for Valentine’s Day dinner.
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