Making, The Grand Budapest Hotel's, Mendl’s Courtesan au Chocolat

• Yesterday, I did two things, 
• I saw the rather enjoyable Grand Budpest Hotel with a good friend
• And I tried making the featured treat "Mendl’s Courtesan au Chocolat"

• I had the help of the full recipe at this link,
• It's a dream link
• It has the written recipe at the very bottom, 
• A helpful how-to-video in the middle, 
• and the cliff notes picture version at the top.
• I was going to write out the recipe here, but why re-create the wheel?
• especially when the wheel is detailed and lovely
• Mine turned out looking differently but, my guess is, tasting the same...
• I was missing a few tools that ended up changing the aesthetic
• So this is my notes on how my recreation of the recipe went 
• At the bottom are the two frosting tips that I think are the keys (that I was missing) to match the aesthetic: 

• Things I did differently:
• Sour cream instead of Whole Milk. 
• Couldn't justify buying a half gallon, and my poor sour cream, I love it, but never finish it before it goes bad...well til today!
• I added chocolate between the layers...because I wanted more chocolate in the recipe
• I used white frosting between the puffs, because I thought it was prettier than the blue
• Ways I speeded up the process
• Melting chocolate is always tricky:
• You use a double boiler, 
• which I don't have, 
• Or really low heat and frequent stirring to keep it from burning 
• which takes forever...
• So I cheated

•  I put the chips in the microwave for a minute, then added them to my sour cream and milk in the pan 
• So fast, and the same result.
• I didn't add the white chocolate piping at the end because I didn't have it on hand, and I was ready to be done
• Plus, white chocolate is not a personal favorite

• Mistakes I made:
• I used a whole bag of chocolate chips. 
• You don't need this much chocolate filling, 
• I have bowl full of filling sitting in my fridge that has no place to go.
• My glaze was powdered sugar and 1% milk. 
• It was too thin, and with further investigation, I'm not alone with this problem
• 1% milk is not as useful as whole milk
• I heard that a secret can be "add a touch of butter."
• Or a bit of sour cream,

• Substitution that worked for me:
• I don't drink coffee, so I ended up using chocolate chips on top instead of the coffee bean. 
• Buying a whole bag and giving it to a friend may have been a good idea... 
• But my coffee knowledge is so scant that I might have bought the Folgers of coffee beans...
• Is that analogy apt? 
• I don't even know
• I used bittersweet chocolate chips for the filling instead of the chocolate bar. 

• Practical Solution:
• I also didn't have the doilies shown in the movie, so I put mine on flattened cupcake wrappers
• Transport:
• My friend I were going to have dinner before the movie
• The movie got done late
• So going to my house after was not an option for her, 
• She had a meeting before six in the morning.
• This is a moment in honor of my fabulous friend.
• No meeting should ever start that early.
• I didn't have the lovely boxes depicted in the film so...

• I boxed mine in an Ikea gift box from an after Christmas sale. 

• I taped in some wax paper to work as bumpers so that they didn't slide.
• Missing Tools
• I used a ziplock bags instead of frosting bags, worked fine
• Filling the pastries you should have a special frosting tip, according to the internet this one...
• I didn't have it, so I used a larger one I had, 
• Much more difficult 
• Let me know if someone else had one that worked better for them.

• I also used no tip for the balls, and ended up with a different shape...in the “how to video” they are using a tip...
• maybe this one?
• Movie Note:
• In the movie the actress pipes her similar to mine. 
• But, with movie magic, ends up with the other result.

 A photo I took of the actual model of the Grand Budapest Hotel on display at the Arc Light.

• Bonus:
• You end up with egg whites!!! 
•  One of my all time favorite things, because when you whip it, it's so pretty. 
• And it brings back all the angel food cakes I made with my grandma
• So on Saturday, I plan to make an egg white based dessert 
• Maybe covered with an entire bowl full of chocolate filling.

  

  I made these, just beat egg whites til stiff, add in a tsp. of cream of tarter, and a 1/2 c. of sugar, spooned them over balls of chocolate filling, and cooked on low heat for a half hour. Note: grease the pan, I didn't and removing them was difficult.

• Also check out: 
• Yam Cookies
• Cupcake Class On A Cruise Ship