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

[Kerry Beal]

Welcome Nathalie - some great pictures on your blog. Those little buns had me salivating.

[Nathalie]

Thank you! I do like taking photos and I'm always trying to get better.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Death By Chocolate Zucchini Cake, rum truffle ganache glaze, and "Happy Birthday" in as many languages as I could fit on it, written in mocha icing. My friend Kate didn't notice that I ran my fingerknuckle into the ganache near the Greek....

[Darienne]

Wonderful, PanaCan. We should all have a friend like you...or Kim Shook.

[Tri2Cook]

So today we have Bacon Fat Gingersnaps. A great way to use up leftover bacon fat.

Made 'em. They are tasty. I took a couple liberties with the recipe. That's unusual for me, I usually do recipes as written the first time then decide if I want to make changes but I suppose I've made enough ginger cookies over the years to make an exception. The changes were small, I added a 1/4 tsp black pepper, replaced 1/2 tsp of the 1 1/2 tsp of salt with smoked salt and skipped rolling them in sugar pre-bake. Instead of the sugar roll, I drizzled them with a maple glaze after they cooled. I'm not opposed to rolling in sugar, I just have a couple other cookies I make that have that and wanted something different.

[RWood]

Macarons for a holiday party at work. The customer wanted almond and raspberry.

[minas6907]

Yeah those look sort of ok. Hahaha, just kidding, those are stunning! Very consistent and nicely presented!

[RWood]

Yeah those look sort of ok. Hahaha, just kidding, those are stunning! Very consistent and nicely presented!

Thanks! But, the macaron gods don't like me at home this weekend. I've been trying to make Xmas gifts, and they are so not cooperating. At work, no problem, could be the oven is better. Gonna give it one more shot today, if no go, no macs .

[Kim Shook]

Creola – what a lovely cake. I am a fool for lemon – I would love that!

Kerry – the malt loaf is beautiful. Mr. Kim loves malt and would love either of them, I think.

Elizabeth – I love the idea of saying ‘Happy Birthday’ in all those languages. My piping skills are not so great, so mine wouldn’t EVER resemble yours!

Darienne – thank you, my dear! What an utterly sweet thing for you to say.

From yesterday - Six feet of sugar cookies:

I was rushed this year (odd how the year I ‘retire’ chaos begins to reign!), so they just got generally ‘sprinkled’, but they are crisp and sweet and pretty and that is enough!

[Darienne]

Lovely Kim. Do you have little elves to help sprinkle all that sugar so nicely?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Kim - I'm probably never doing another one like that! The only reason I did was that the birthday girl had actually visited all of the places whose languages I used.

[RWood]

I finally kicked these things in the butt, and ran off my macaron hex . I wasted so much product, I was not a happy camper.

From top, clockwise:

Pecan with Bourbon Buttercream

Raspberry

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

Hazelnut with Praline Buttercream

Salted Caramel (I made Pierre Herme's Salted Butter Caramel for this filling, and while it tastes great, it is not stable at room temp for very long. I'm gonna re-think this one)

Espresso

Coconut in the middle

[janeer]

I finally kicked these things in the butt, and ran off my macaron hex . I wasted so much product, I was not a happy camper.

From top, clockwise:

Pecan with Bourbon Buttercream

Raspberry

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

Hazelnut with Praline Buttercream

Salted Caramel (I made Pierre Herme's Salted Butter Caramel for this filling, and while it tastes great, it is not stable at room temp for very long. I'm gonna re-think this one)

Espresso

Coconut in the middle

those are gorgeous

[curls]

I finally kicked these things in the butt, and ran off my macaron hex . I wasted so much product, I was not a happy camper.

From top, clockwise:

Pecan with Bourbon Buttercream

Raspberry

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

Hazelnut with Praline Buttercream

Salted Caramel (I made Pierre Herme's Salted Butter Caramel for this filling, and while it tastes great, it is not stable at room temp for very long. I'm gonna re-think this one)

Espresso

Coconut in the middle

Beautiful! So, do you know what was the cause of all the difficulties?

[RWood]

I finally kicked these things in the butt, and ran off my macaron hex . I wasted so much product, I was not a happy camper.

From top, clockwise:

Pecan with Bourbon Buttercream

Raspberry

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

Hazelnut with Praline Buttercream

Salted Caramel (I made Pierre Herme's Salted Butter Caramel for this filling, and while it tastes great, it is not stable at room temp for very long. I'm gonna re-think this one)

Espresso

Coconut in the middle

Beautiful! So, do you know what was the cause of all the difficulties?

I finally kicked these things in the butt, and ran off my macaron hex . I wasted so much product, I was not a happy camper.

From top, clockwise:

Pecan with Bourbon Buttercream

Raspberry

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

Hazelnut with Praline Buttercream

Salted Caramel (I made Pierre Herme's Salted Butter Caramel for this filling, and while it tastes great, it is not stable at room temp for very long. I'm gonna re-think this one)

Espresso

Coconut in the middle

Beautiful! So, do you know what was the cause of all the difficulties?

Thanks! Yes, I have found that if the meringue is not very stiff, they just flop. It also eliminates (for me) the need to let them rest. All these when straight in the oven. The only time they rested was while I was piping. Having a stable meringue makes a world of difference. I wrote down every little step so that if it's a while till I make them again, I won't go through all that.

[DianaM]

From top, clockwise:

Pecan with Bourbon Buttercream

Raspberry

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

Hazelnut with Praline Buttercream

Salted Caramel (I made Pierre Herme's Salted Butter Caramel for this filling, and while it tastes great, it is not stable at room temp for very long. I'm gonna re-think this one)

Espresso

Coconut in the middle

What a gorgeous assortment! I would be very excited indeed to receive a present like that!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Shark Attack! My friend Henry is a SCUBA diver, and his lovely wife and son specifically requested this. I have to say, it's the first time I've ever decorated a cake where blood and gore were not only requested, but kind of necessary.... Building the shark head with its bit of diver out of gumpaste was probably the most fun I've had all month. The cake underneath that IMBC is coconut chiffon, with a cherry filling.

[Chocolot]

Finally had some time to do a little baking. Macarons are not my specialty, but I try.

White ones are lemon, chocolate ones have a peppermint filling. Actually, I used leftover ganache on both flavors:-)

[Baselerd]

From the Uchi Cookbook: Mascarpone Cream Spheres, Mint-Pea Sorbet, Pea Shortbread Crumble, Mint Crisps, Cured Strawberry:

[jsmeeker]

Will make a Chocoflan (AKA "Impossible Cake") later tonight. Will be dessert for Christmas dinner. Using Rick Bayless' recipe for it.

[DianaM]

Finally had some time to do a little baking. Macarons are not my specialty, but I try.

White ones are lemon, chocolate ones have a peppermint filling. Actually, I used leftover ganache on both flavors:-)

They sure look lovely, very nice feet on those macs! Ruth, did you use an Italian meringue or French?

[Chocolot]

Finally had some time to do a little baking. Macarons are not my specialty, but I try.

White ones are lemon, chocolate ones have a peppermint filling. Actually, I used leftover ganache on both flavors:-)

They sure look lovely, very nice feet on those macs! Ruth, did you use an Italian meringue or French?

French. I have better luck with it than Italian.

[jsmeeker]

Will make a Chocoflan (AKA "Impossible Cake") later tonight. Will be dessert for Christmas dinner. Using Rick Bayless' recipe for it.

It's out of the oven. It's cooling now. I'll photograph tomorrow when I invert it onto a platter, removing it from the pan. That's when the "magic" reveals itself.

I've done this before and it WORKED! But to be honest, I can't recall if I made it a day in advance or the same day. I'll have to park it in the fridge until it's close to time to serve it because of the custard/flan part. I'm slightly worried it might have issues un-molding. But I've made creme caramels before and they stay in the fridge until service and they un-mold just fine.

[jsmeeker]

Chocoflan whole

Cut into a slice

The center of the cake wasn't baked enough. You can see the flan at the tip is runny. Also, I think there might have been too thick of a layer of cajeta. Still, this was a big hit.

[flourgirl]

Shark Attack! My friend Henry is a SCUBA diver, and his lovely wife and son specifically requested this. I have to say, it's the first time I've ever decorated a cake where blood and gore were not only requested, but kind of necessary.... Building the shark head with its bit of diver out of gumpaste was probably the most fun I've had all month. The cake underneath that IMBC is coconut chiffon, with a cherry filling.

Awesome! I love it!