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

[oli]

Fresh Huckleberry Pie-

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I've got to find a closer place to Hayden Lake than driving out past Wallace and up into the mountains for some Huckleberries.  Took us just over an hour to get to the picking place.

[David Ross]

I've got to find a closer place to Hayden Lake than driving out past Wallace and up into the mountains for some Huckleberries.  Took us just over an hour to get to the picking place.

 

The fresh berries were $45 for a gallon bag.  I buy them from a Vietnamese family who picks them during the week and then sells at the Wednesday and Saturday markets.  They gotten to know me so I feel well taken care of.  Due to the very hot, record-setting temperatures this summer, the huckleberries have ripened early and we think the peak season is right now.  The lady I buy them from said she's never seen so many dark, juicy berries.  I think I'll go back this week for another bag of fresh berries. 

 

I'm incredibly lucky because I have a friend who lives on a big cattle ranch in Northwestern Montana.  She sent a message yesterday that she's got two gallons for me--for free!  That's like a load of foie gras, caviar and Kobe all for free. 

[David Ross]

That's a beautiful-looking pie, David Ross. Have you posted the recipe before? I don't have access to huckleberries, but I'd love to produce a crust that looks like that.

This is done the old-fashioned way, by hand with a good sharp pastry cutter.  You can't use a food processor, it cuts the crumb way to fine, even a few pulses.  You want fairly good size chunks of butter, shortening and flour. Some swear by unsalted butter in pastry.  Not in my crust.  I prefer the flavor of salted butter. Here you go:

 

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cake flour

2 tbsp. granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup, (1 stick) cold salted butter

1/2 cup Crisco

About 2/3 cup ice water

 

Combine the flour, cake flour sugar and salt in a large bowl.  Whisk to combine.  Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter and Crisco until the pieces are the size of large peas.  Using a fork, blend in enough ice water to bring the dough together, then form into a ball with your hands.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least an hour.

 

Bring the chilled dough out and let it come to room temperature, then roll out.  I use a fair amount of flour on both sides of the pastry when I roll it out.  Don't know if it matters, but I use a long French wood rolling pin. 

 

Once you form the dough into the pie pan, brush the top with a mix of whole egg and 1 tbsp. water.  Sprinkle the top of the pie with demera sugar. 

 

For the huckleberry pie I baked it at 375 for 30 minutes and then 400 for about 15 more minutes til the crust was golden.  I intentionally don't add a lot of thickener to the huckleberry pie, (just butter and a small amount of flour) because I love the huckleberry juice.  I'll add more flour/thickener depending on the fruit in the pie.

[CatPoet]

 

Me and my daughter made candy for daddy today. It is a old recipe, from around  1920, but my grandmother remember this from  Christmas as young so then it should be around 1910. It is called  Market nougat, it is  water  boiled with butter and sugar, only for 2 min, poured over icing sugar, coca and flour. Stir and then flatten out, my daughter took  sugar paste plungers and made it pretty. Daddy loved it.

[Sophie Cook]

Just made some cantucci! Pistachio, Almond and Lemon flavour.

 

 

[janeer]

Just made some cantucci! Pistachio, Almond and Lemon flavour.

 

 

Had it with vin santo,I hope.

[CatPoet]

Here is the recipe, sorry for the odd measurement but well  teacups and weirder measurement it hard to translate.

 

Market Candy

In a pot

125 gram butter

575 ml sugar

175 ml water

 

 

In a bowl

650 ml finely sifted flour ( plain flour is the same)

400 ml of fine sifted sugar ( icing sugar is the modern version)

100 ml unsweetened  cocoa powder

 

 

Heat the pot  and stir  until melted and  simmer for a thought ( that's  about 2 minutes).

 

While it is simmering  stir  the bowl ingredients  with a  small wooden spoon.  Pour the content of the  pot in a thin drizzle over the bowl, remember to stir hard while pouring.

Quickly flatten it out on  a clean tray,  paper may be used.  It should be two fingers thick. Cut into  2 finger wide pieces or for those whom think of their  guest waste, 1 finger wide.

 

 

Well that is how the original recipe is. I use and electric  whisk with dough hooks instead of a wooden spoon.

[RWood]

Simple dessert for a special this weekend, got in some great free stone peaches.  

Caramel roasted peach with a creme fraiche polenta cake, sage ice cream and peach coulis.  

 

 

[CatPoet]

 

I made chocolate yo-yos and filled them with toffee cream.   My husband thought it would be great with coffee.

[Kim Shook]

So impressed with all of the gorgeous, delicious looking desserts.

 

Foodfacts Dotus – love the rose cake on 7/26.  What tip did you use to pipe those?

 

Beth – let me add my admiration for your flock of colorful sheep.  I can’t imagine anyone of ANY age not being delighted to find them on their cake!

 

CatPoet – your Fairy Soap story is both funny and frustrating!  How odd that they should still be foaming.  But I know that plastic can hold smells forever – why not suds?

 

Blether – your flapjack looks fantastic!  I had to Google it, since in the US a flapjack is a pancake.  Thanks for posting the recipe, I’d like to try them.

 

 

 

For his birthday dessert, Mr. Kim requested the Tunnel of lemon pumpkin ginger cake:

 

Slice:

The ‘tunnel’ migrated to the very top of the cake and became more of a ‘schmear’, but it was good and everyone seemed to like it.  

[Blether]

Thanks Kim.  Your cake looks and sounds delicious.  I bet it was.

 

ETA: British flapjack is very sweet, but good in moderation.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Blether (log)

[Sophie Cook]

Just put the recipe for the Coconut Cake on RecipeGullet.  I'd be interested to hear if anybody tries making it.

 I'm going to try and make this, looks amazing. Will let you know how I get on! 

[Anna N]

Banana bread.

[Kerry Beal]

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Banana bread.

That looks wonderful.  We've been eating our way through the collection of banana bread from my dad's freezer in the last couple of days.  I've always found banana bread to be a useful thing to take to work to treat the staff - but unfortunately we have a ward clerk who is now anaphylactic to bananas so our hospital is now a banana free zone!

[William Colsher]

An elBulli "pre dessert": Gorgonzola Bonbon. A tiny slab of Gorgonzola embedded in Gorgonzola cream and dipped in very bitter chocolate. Good with Port.

 

[Blether]

I'm not sure whether to 'like' this, or call it out for not being a sweet.  You're still on the cheese course 

[janeer]

An elBulli "pre dessert": Gorgonzola Bonbon. A tiny slab of Gorgonzola embedded in Gorgonzola cream and dipped in very bitter chocolate. Good with Port.

 

This is totally up my alley. On my list for this winter's opening of a vintage port.

[Anna N]

Blondies to fulfill commitment made over here:

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/149283-blondies-are-they-nice/#entry1983078

Followed Kerry's recipe to a T except had no pecans so used walnuts which I had briefly toasted.

[rotuts]

'butterscotch'  or 'brownsugar' taste ?

[Anna N]

'butterscotch'  or 'brownsugar' taste ?

Don't know that I could tell the difference. Not much of a one for sweets. Give me a cheese and onion sandwich over almost any sweet. I'll send them over to my daughter's house where hordes of teenage girls hang out. They'll disappear in the blink of an eye.

[jmacnaughtan]

A slightly non-traditional Sachertorte.  It was nice, but I'm not sure if it beats the original (when made well).

 

 

2 Sacher cake layers (from Pierre Hermé)

Dark chocolate ganache (1:1)

Roasted plum coulis

Dark chocolate mousse (from Francisco Migoya)

Shiny dark chocolate glaze (also Migoya)

 

Btw, does anyone know how to preserve the light texture of a sponge cake after freezing?  Mine start off perfect, but in the finished cake they are far too dense.  I've tried messing around with trimoline, but I'm still not happy with the texture.  Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Tri2Cook]

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Banana bread.

i couldn't take it anymore. Your banana bread posts were driving me, well, "bananas". I love banana bread but for some reason rarely make it (probably because I would eat way too much of it). Today is chilly, windy and raining. The perfect day to cave to temptation, so banana bread is in the oven now. I tempted fate by replacing part of the butter with some roasted walnut oil I wanted to use up. We'll see how that goes...

[Anna N]

i couldn't take it anymore. Your banana bread posts were driving me, well, "bananas". I love banana bread but for some reason rarely make it (probably because I would eat way too much of it). Today is chilly, windy and raining. The perfect day to cave to temptation, so banana bread is in the oven now. I tempted fate by replacing part of the butter with some roasted walnut oil I wanted to use up. We'll see how that goes...

Right on. Must be a day for experimentation. I had about half a cup of mashed bananas left from a banana bread I made yesterday. I have adapted a recipe for chocolate chip bars and included those leftover bananas. We shall have to see.

[Anna N]

These came about because, as noted above, I had half a cup of leftover bananas. I googled and found a recipe for chocolate chip bars. I made a half recipe draining the bananas before adding them. There is a surprising amount of banana flavor in these bars. The half recipe made a quarter sheet pan 12 x 16 inches.

[Kerry Beal]

i couldn't take it anymore. Your banana bread posts were driving me, well, "bananas". I love banana bread but for some reason rarely make it (probably because I would eat way too much of it). Today is chilly, windy and raining. The perfect day to cave to temptation, so banana bread is in the oven now. I tempted fate by replacing part of the butter with some roasted walnut oil I wanted to use up. We'll see how that goes...

Bet it makes it even better!