Your Daily Sweets: What are you making and baking? (2012–2014)

[jmacnaughtan]

Nice macarons, &roid.

This is from Philippe Conticini's book, "Sensations". It's a pâte sucrée base with a spiced fruit tagine and whipped crème fraîche with Pouligny goat's cheese (the recipe called for Valençay, but I couldn't find any).

Almost a cross between the cheese course and the dessert- the crême fraîche is unsweetened and the tagine uses only a little muscovado sugar, so it's really the tang of the tagine and the cheese that carry the tart, not the sweetness.

[pjm333]

Palmiers

[rajoress]

Love all the pics above! My latest creation was a flourless chocolate torte for my gluten-free friend's birthday! Amazing recipe from The Whimsical Bakehouse cookbook. Chocolate cake covered in a chocolate cream glaze and decorated with chocolate stars brushed with silver and edible star glitter.

[FrogPrincesse]

I love palmiers. These look really crispy and nice.

I made a large batch of David Lebovitz's chocolate chip cookies this weekend (the recipe from Ready for Dessert). I used Trader Joe's 72% chocolate. I think that I cut the pecans a little too small, but otherwise the cookies were quite nice.

[rotuts]

FrogPrincesse

nice mise

thanks

do you prefer TJ's 72 % over their SemiSweet chips?

never thought of useing the 72.

Edited November 12, 2013 by rotuts (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

FrogPrincesse

nice mise

thanks

do you prefer TJ's 72 % over their SemiSweet chips?

never thought of useing the 72.

Thanks rotuts.

The 72% is more versatile and I always keep a block in the pantry. I don't mind the extra workout needed to turn it into small chips, and it's fun to have a mix of larger and smaller pieces in the cookies. I think they melt at lower temperature as well, which is a bit messy but very nice.

[Matthew Kirshner]

So I have been asked by a special client for gluten free cupcakes for her daughter's wedding in three months. Even though I am not an expert in gluten free baking, I think I made it happen with these red velvet cakes. My wife and kids did not even notice a difference.

[emmalish]

Lots of great posts from everyone. FrogPrincesse, you've made me want to try that cookie recipe now! I have yet to try anything from this book but I have a number of recipes already flagged with post-it notes. :-)

I've got a few more cookies. I'm very lazy about rolling cookie dough and decorating cookies, but this is the time of year for that, right? I'll be doing my xmas cookies in a few weeks and will definitely be doing my regular Gingerbread (I've been using the same recipe since '97 LOVE it). I made it at Halloween already, using some new cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma...

I also made some Crunchy Sugar Cookie Moustaches (that's not me, if anyone's wondering)...

Some Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Miette cookbook. These have ground oatmeal and ground walnuts, which give them more of a crumbly texture and a great flavour. I definitely recommend them...

Dark Chocolate Toffee Cookies. These also make use of ground oatmeal, which gives them great flavour and texture...

Molasses Cookies made with fresh grated ginger...

And finally, the Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours. I LOVE this book and can't believe it took me this long to try this recipe. There's so much chocolate in this cookie, it really is that dark...

[Zeemanb]

For my wife's birthday I decided to try my 2nd ever recipe from the Milk Bar Cookbook (first attempt was crack pie....really good). I love the book, and figured if I was successful with one of Tosi's layer cakes, I should have a good shot at making the majority of the recipes in the book. Other than my slightly smaller than called for quarter sheet pan causing a little bit of over-hang around the cake edges, I really didn't experience any hiccups. This Chocolate Malt Cake is insanely rich....with the small size (6 inches in diameter) one would think getting 8 or 10 servings out of it was unthinkable, but the cake is potent, you don't need much. The main things I did differently was use a double batch of the fudge sauce minus what was needed for the cake instead of making that sauce just for the cake and then a batch of the malted fudge sauce. I figured the additional chocolate couldn't hurt anything, and it would be easier to spread in the layers as well as top the cake if I used extra. I cut back on the amount of malted milk crumb between the layers in order to top it with the crumbs instead of the charred marshmallows....and I think that was a wise choice because the extra bit of salt and crunch adds a lot to the flavor. Oh, and instead of making the milk crumb recipe and then adding the additional white chocolate and Ovaltine for the malted crumbs, I just omitted the final addition of milk powder when making the crumbs and did Ovaltine/white chocolate for the finishing step.

[rotuts]

decadent cake, as it should be !

[emmalish]

Jerry, that cake looks amazing! Especially the side view.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Emmalish - does that gingerbread recipe stand up to use in gingerbread housing? I've been looking for a good recipe for that lately - mine makes amazing ginger snaps, but for the slightly springier texture that a house requires it's not ideal….

[emmalish]

Panaderia, I've never tried it in a house, sorry. And I don't have experience with making gingerbread houses, so I don't know what kind of texture you're looking for. Why don't you give it a shot with some regular cookie shapes and see what you think?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Will do - and I can't believe you've never made a gingerbread house! They're so much fun…. I will give it a shot and report back.

[Tri2Cook]

Will do - and I can't believe you've never made a gingerbread house! They're so much fun…. I will give it a shot and report back.

The last one I made, I spent hours working on. Many hours in the very early morning/late night because it was a surprise for my gf's daughter. I built a huge castle with a detailed grounds and everything. I got up very early Christmas morning and got it all set up, it covered most of the dining room table. About 5 minutes before she got to see it, while we were in the living room waiting for her to wake up, her cat decided it would be a fun place to explore and did a large amount of damage. I wasn't impressed... but what can you do besides laugh?

[Kerry Beal]

Every Christmas mold in the house now has eyes. And some frog and fish molds - they seemed kinda Christmasy to me!

The 3 kg mold'art has white chocolate in it overnight and I'll fire up the Selmi with about 30 kg of milk tomorrow.

And so it begins!

Left over 'eye chocolate' with crushed Trader Joe's Meyer Lemon thins and a sprinkling of citron salt. Which is a pretty tasty combination.

[judiu]

Kerry, is the little metal cat in the left front a mold, or just a figurine? It's (G-d, I hate this word, but it works here...) precious!

[Kerry Beal]

He's a bear (Teddy type) chocolate mold. He rarely molds well though.

[jmacnaughtan]

Another one from Philippe Conticini: Pineapple Cheesecake.

Biscuit "cheesecake" (pâte sablée crushed, mixed with butter and muscovado sugar and rebaked), cream cheese mousse, a pineapple insert and a white vanilla glaze.

The original is encased in a tall tart shell, but apparently I can't follow instructions, so it collapsed in the oven. This one is put together like a traditional entremet.

Pretty tasty, but the pineapple overwhelms the mousse a little.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Nanaimo bars - playing around with new flavours. Clockwise from top left: Peanut Butter, Mint, Orange, White Chocolate. Mint and Peanut were "classic" flavours in Alberta when I was growing up; the other two are me playing around. The Orange ones are quite frankly fantastic.

[judiu]

PanCan, do you get meyer lemons there? I LOVE the lemon-dark chocolate combo...

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I have a tree in my front yard, Judiu! Lemon-dark is on the list of flavours to try, as is coffee and cocoa nib, cashew (did I mention I can get cashew butter?!?), and probably cherry-amaretto.

EDIT - and PM me if you want the recipe and method I use for these things. They're dead easy to make and I'd wager you've got most if not all of the ingredients hanging about in the pantry.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Panaderia Canadiense (log)

[Blether]

Cake. I beat the eggs in so hard it's almost like an omelette - moist, wobbling & expectant. Which means... yes, I bought an electric mixing tool. Handheld, but 350W. 350 !

[Kerry Beal]

Beautiful looking cake Blether!

Two of the 'very Christmassy' items I molded on the weekend.

[Chocolot]

Very cute!