Matthew.Taylor

This is hummingbird cake. A southern classic.

Been awhile, but this weekend I decided to make a Gugelhupf. There are a lot of stories about this cake’s origin, but this is my favorite. It’s said that on the way home from honoring the baby Jesus, the three Magi passed through what is now France, where they met a potter who opened his home to them. In order to pay him for his generosity, they took a pot he had just made (which looked like there turbans), and using ingredients they had, baked a cake for him. When the potter awoke the next morning, he found his guests gone, but the cake there.

Ok i’m Gonna try a side by side comparison this weekend. Either sugar or butter cookies. I’ll post whatever I find.

Bakers Ammonia was a staple ingredient in Springerle cookies once, and helped give them there crispness. I’m trying to think of a recipe I could use it with to test it, and right now my mind keeps running back to shortbread.

Ok been reading up about this stuff, and I have a small bottle, but I have yet to use it. I was thinking of replacing the baking powder in my chocolate chip cookies with this, but I also recall reading once that it was unwise to use this outside of recipes that actually call for it. What do you think?

Ok, finished this weekend’s big project. And it was a doozy. I made some old style apple strudel. I’m definitely saving this recipe. The filling is two Granny Smith, one honey crisp, and one golden delicious apple. A cup of golden raisins, brown and normal sugar, cinnamon and ginger, and melted butter. I’m not sure if I was supposed to cut the log in two, but it was too long to fit on the sheet by itself.

Ok this is this weekend's baking project. They're Bermuda Banana Snickedoodles. The recipe is from the latest issue of "Bake from Scratch" magazine (I hope you guys have heard of it, if you haven't, then you need to look for it!) They're distinguished by the 3/4 of a cup of Banana puree mixed in, which adds this really nice soft banana taste to them.

Thanks for the honesty. Truthfully, I got some surprisingly good taste from the ganache. Diced Strawberries and cream overnight, and then sieved out seemed to work pretty well, but you're idea is interesting too, but wouldn't that put too much liquid in the ganache?

OK guys, I'd like some opinions, and I ask you to be merciless here. This is the first time I've made filled chocolates, and i'm overall happy with them. I didn't use any of the polycarbonate molds I had, but cheaper plastic ones, as I couldn't find any egg shaped molds that would make it here in time for Easter. They're milk chocolate (as these are for a 2 and 5 year old's Easter baskets), and the filling is a strawberry White Chocolate Ganache made by sitting the cream and diced Strawberries in a bowl together overnight, before sifting them out and mixing them with the white chocolate, and colored with a little bit of pink candy coloring.

Ok, I decided to do some experimentation today. I took my recipe for Almond shortbread, and replaced the almond meal with toasted Pecans ground to a powder. The bottom is not burnt, I brushed the bottoms with beaten egg, and dipped them in raw turbinado sugar, and baked them like that. I tried to use a cookie stamp on them, but I ended up destroying three trying to get them off.

Dang! Nice! Grats Man.

I really like the Bagel bombs, but i'm gonna be honest with you. I don't think the sweet potato crust pizza looks very good, or appetizing. I hope you enjoyed it, but if I saw it in a restaurant, I probably wouldn't order it. I hope you aren't upset at that, but I felt the urge to be honest here.

No I'd never dream of that. I'm still working on all the start-up stuff for my business right now. Yeah it turned out fine really, though I feel the layers didn't rise as much as they could, and I still don't fell that it tasted as good as it should. I'm going to be very careful about that in the future. White cake is part of what I call the Trifecta of cake (white, yellow, chocolate), and it's reportedly the traditional sponge for wedding cakes, so I need to get one down.

Here’s something else I made today, as part of my bakeries first official order.

OK, here's this weekends work. The cake is White Cake, and the shards are 60% cacao chocolate and colored white chocolate. It's not as tall as I'd like, but it is just practice.The shards were originally a chocolate fan I made with my first attempt at tempering chocolate, using the "melt the chocolate 75% Then take off the heat and add more" method. I think it worked pretty well all in all, though with my final decision for decorating, I felt they wouldn't really work they way I made them.

It's not a good weekend for baking. I decided to try out a White cake recipe for the first time tonight. it's in the oven as we speak. I tried tasting the dough before portioning it out, and it tasted really unsweet, which is because I forgot to add the sugar. Sigh. I quickly added the sugar in, and it tasted much better, hopefully it will turn out okay. I need a good wedding cake sponge.

OK, once again I have tried to make Macarons, and surprisingly, these were even worse than the first time, cracked all over and not tasting good at all. As such, in honor of this event, I am starting a venting thread for those bakes that just didn't work out. You were sure you were doing everything right, that you were following all the right instructions, but it just wouldn't come out right. So feel free to open up about this as you wish. Tell us about your disasters, offer advice and comfort where it is needed, whatever, Next weeks project: Mastering Macarons.

The only person I really disliked was Ruby from season 2 (I think it was 2, I watch on Netflix and it calls it season 2, but I heard it was actually like 5 or something). She was just so whiny! Every time she was on it was always the same: “oh it’s just so terrible, it looks awful!” “It’s wonderful Ruby.” NEXT WEEK: “oh it’s just so awful!” I started to hope she’d get eliminated just so she’d stop whining.

OK, i'm not really happy with this cake, but I felt I should post it anyway. I ended up rushing through part of it, and didn't make enough frosting to do what I really wanted, though I'm sure it will taste great. It's Vanilla Buttermilk cake, with cream cheese frosting, and raspberry filling. Happy 40th Anniversary Mom & Dad!

I do know a Trader Joe's up on Montgomery rd. and my mother showed interest today in a mixture of Raspberries and cream cheese frosting. So far building a buttercream dam, and filling it with cream and berries seems to be the right way to go. But I'm still considering things. Thanks really for all this advice.

I like the idea of building a dam for them. Though I often wonder if I need to let the cake cool in the fridge afterwards, before fulling frosting it. Though since I am experimenting with the cream (with profiteroles) this weekend, I may try mixing a little puree in some of it, just to see how it goes. I also like the idea of freeze dried raspberries, but I'm not sure I have enough time to make those.

Ok, my parents 40th anniversary is a week from Saturday. They’ve requested A cake from me, they’re only requests was raspberries. Now i’m gonna be working on French pastry cream this weekend, and I was thinking of mixing a purée of raspberries in it to use as filling. How does this sound, and what would be good ratios?

OK, since i'm still working on my portfolio, I made another cake today, took all day but it was worthwhile. Real Happy with this one, though i'm gonna need bigger circular cutters for the future.

OK, With my Niece' fifth Birthday, my family entrusted me with the creation of the Birthday cake. She requested a Unicorn themed cake several months ago at her brother's party (I made a large Chocolate Chip cookie for the cake, it was dinosaur themes). My sister sent a more specific request, and the end result was this. The buttercream is American Vanilla Buttercream, and the cake is a Vanilla Buttermilk Funfetti cake. I'm really proud of myself for this, I'm even thinking of doing some cakes on the side for people, perhaps finally get my long-wanted business up and running. Nevertheless, here we go.

OK, First, MERRY CHRISTMAS Everyone! Second. one of the gifts I got this year was Pierre Herme's book on Macarons. These delightful little buggers continue to elude me, and hopefully this boo can help me find a good recipe (My one attempt at making them tasted good, but clearly needed improvements) So I thought i'd make this thread. Feel free to discuss your own attempts at these occasionally insufferable things.