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

[Tri2Cook]

This has got to be one of my most favorite cakes I have done. The couple wanted old style tattoo images on the cake that a friend of theirs had drawn for them. I used edible paper/ink to print out the images. And the topper is so freakin' cool! They had mini guitars on every table as well and decorated the room with the groom's vintage guitar collection.

Awesome cake! That topper is a miniature of Steve Vai's heart-shaped Ibanez triple neck that he used when playing with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake in the late 80's.

Apologies if I sound like an excited fan... it's just because I am.

[RWood]

This has got to be one of my most favorite cakes I have done. The couple wanted old style tattoo images on the cake that a friend of theirs had drawn for them. I used edible paper/ink to print out the images. And the topper is so freakin' cool! They had mini guitars on every table as well and decorated the room with the groom's vintage guitar collection.

Awesome cake! That topper is a miniature of Steve Vai's heart-shaped Ibanez triple neck that he used when playing with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake in the late 80's.

Apologies if I sound like an excited fan... it's just because I am.

Thanks! Oh, I know . One of my best friends informed me of that. She is a huge Vai fan. I'm more of a George Lynch girl myself

[Ann_T]

Emmalish, I think that is the prettiest Bran Muffin I've ever seen.

Kim, I'm not a big fan of Neapolitan Ice cream, but I know I would like your cake.

The first Rhubarb pie of the season.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I am intensely jealous of your crust, Ann. Do you care to share the recipe?

[Ann_T]

Elizabeth, I'm happy to share the recipe. The basic recipe is half butter , half shortening/lard. I vary it depending on what I am baking. The above pie has an all butter crust and a little sugar added to the mix.

Butter Lard Pastry Crust

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup lard (or shortening- Crisco)
5 to 6 tablespoons of ice water, or more as needed

NOTE: Or use all Butter

(NOTE: if using for a sweet pie, add 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar.)

Mix flour with salt, and cut in butter and lard.

You can cut the butter/lard in using the food processor or with a
pastry blender. Butter/lard should be the size of peas.

Or you can use a box grater for the butter. (My preferred method)

Put flour mixture in bowl and add water mixing with a fork until pastry
comes together. Tip out on to a floured board. Quickly pat out and fold, a few times. Form in to a ball and cut in two pieces. Form each
into a round flat disc and refrigerate for 1 hour.

NOTE: Can be made with all butter

The secret to a good crust is to not over-handle the dough.

[emmalish]

Ann, that pie looks gorgeous! Thanks for sharing the recipe. I don't make pies very often — for some reason I always imagine they're more work than they actually are.

[Ann_T]

Emma, thank you. I've had a craving for a chocolate chip cookie, since I saw your picture.

I made a batch of Jacques Torres's Chocolate Chip cookies, adding some toasted walnuts along with the sea salt.

[emmalish]

Oh Ann, those look delicious. I'll have to add that recipe to my list. ;-)

[emmalish]

Sorry for two posts in a row, but it was too late to edit the previous one. I've finally got this week's cookie posted. It was a long weekend up here in BC so I didn't make them until Monday, and then work was crazy all week and tonight was the first chance I've had to get everything typed out and uploaded.

This week I made the Double Chocolate Cookies from Baking with Julia. I used to make these cookies all the time years ago - not really sure why I haven't made them in so long, but man, this is a good cookie. It's more like a brownie than a cookie, actually. There's a full pound of chocolate in this recipe and only a half cup of flour. Yup. I like those proportions.

I used Cacao Barry Mi-Amère for the bittersweet and Valrhona for the unsweetened.

(Recipe here).

[Kim Shook]

emmalish – those bran muffins look perfect – such gorgeous little dome tops!

Elizabeth – beautiful, beautiful cheesecake!

Baselerd – your desserts are always among the most beautiful and delicious sounding ones on this thread!

Ann – thank you! I’ll be posting something on the dinner thread in a bit that you might like to see! That is one of the loveliest pies I’ve ever seen!

I made some strawberry muffins from a recipe that I got from someone on Marlene’s site, cookskorner.com:

Simple and tender – not too cakelike or too bready. I did find that my American palate wanted them a little sweeter. I topped them with a confectioner’s sugar glaze. No picture of that because I used too much red food coloring and they ended up looking like they were covered with Pepto Bismol!

[rajoress]

Everyone's desserts look wonderful. Emmalish, I made the Double Chocolate Cookies and they were a huge hit all weekend - thank you!

My mother asked for a cheesecake for her birthday which we celebrated yesterday so my 15 year old niece told me to decorate it for Memorial Day with the strawberries and blueberries. Thanks for looking,

Ruth

[Darienne]

Gorgeous, Rajoress.

[judiu]

Rajoress, your neice has a future as a food stylist!

[emmalish]

Ruth, that cheesecake is gorgeous! I'm so jealous of people who have such decorating talents! I lean more towards a "rustic" style. ;-)

I'm glad to hear that you tried the cookies and they turned out for you. It's a really nice recipe, right?

This week I made what may be the world's least pretty cookie. It tastes really good though! But seriously, look at this thing. The brown cookie, the day-glo orange butterscotch chips... yeah.

My coworkers finished them in record time though. They have a great flavour, and I know I'll be using the brown sugar cookie as a base recipe with different additions in the future. I think they'd be really good with toasted pecans or walnuts. Just NOT the orange butterscotch chips again.

(Recipe here).

[Darienne]

'I lean more towards a "rustic" style. ;-)' I like that, Emmalish, and if you don't mind, I think I might just use it as a cooking and decorating mantra for myself.

[Baselerd]

Here's something I cooked from the VOLT Ink cookbook recently. I changed up the plating a bit and added the chocolate crumble:

Caramelized white chocolate goat cheesecakes, frozen chocolate mousse, mandarin sorbet, chocolate crumble.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I'm still on my major cheesecake kick. Here's a vanilla-golden plum jam swirl one with a black-plum jam topping and multiple fruits. These work so well.... Very yum.

[Kim Shook]

Rajoress – I agree, your cheesecake is lovely! It looks nice and high, too. That’s the way I like my cheesecakes.

Baselerd – that frozen mousse/goat cheese cheesecake thing sounds delicious and looks so beautiful.

Elizabeth – between you and Rajoress, I think I’m due to make cheesecake soon! Gorgeous!

I did a cake this week for a blog anniversary party. The blog is about the local music scene and the blogger is a young friend of ours:

Coca-cola cake with my fluffy white chocolate icing. The symbol on top was made out of fondant and was a ‘play button’:

I got texts all night from the kids telling me how good it was!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

What do you get the friend who has everything on his 30th birthday? 30 key lime tarts, obviously. I've told him he doesn't get to age again until he's 59 or 60, because my trays fit exactly 30 tarts...

And here's a closeup of the nifty pirotines I had for these:

As usual, I have only one excuse for the godzilla-like neon green of these things. The customer is always right, even when he's wrong.

[IowaDee]

Those are just beautiful. If I were Daniel, I would insist that next year you use Roman Numerals and fill the extra spaces with

many !!!!!!!!!s

[Panaderia Canadiense]

LOL, that's just about exactly what he had to say.

[emmalish]

I decided to try a cookie that I probably wouldn't choose for myself this week. Anise drops. I'm not a big fan of licorice, but I don't mind anise. They were nice and crisp right out of the oven, but they softened up quite a bit. Not sure if that's normal or just because of the humidity here in Vancouver.

Recipe here.

[rajoress]

Thank you all for the compliments on the cheesecake. I can't take any credit - it is the original Philadephia cream cheese recipe that somehow doesn't always show up on the boxes in its original form. The original has a little flour and sour cream and the requisite 2 1/2 pounds of cream cheese...among other things.

Here is a chocolate babka I made - it was delicious and the recipe was from (of all places) the Chef's Catalogue - they periodically email recipes and it was very authentic, like it came from a Jewish deli. Thanks for looking!

Ruth

[merstar]

Wow - that babka looks amazing! I want some!

[Baselerd]

Here's a plated dessert I made - inspired by this photo on Modern Pastry.

It included greek yogurt mousse, chamomile-hibiscus sorbet, fennel shortbread crumble, sous vide lemon curd (from MC), and carbonated green grapes. One of the best sorbets I've made, I started with this recipe and changed it a bit:

1/4 cup dry chamomile

1/8 cup dry hibiscus

4 cups water

1 cup sugar

3 Tbsp honey

1.5 g xanthan gum