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

[Tri2Cook]

Made the pear and almond cake Kerry posted here. Didn't bother with a picture, it looks exactly like the ugly stepsister to her perfect cake. After 70 min. I got impatient, said "it has to be done by now" and pulled it despite thinking the whole time that it was still a little too loose in the center. It needed maybe another 5 min. or so that it didn't get... which resulted in the center sinking fairly significantly as it cooled. Very tasty though. I want to try it with cherries instead of pears.

[ChocoMom]

I actually baked today.  We ran out of bread...which is something my teenagers would liken to cruel and unusual punishment. And, with a foot of snow on the ground, and another foot on the way.....I NEEDED to bake bread. We were snowed in--ain't no way were gettin' to the grocery store. So....I made 2 loaves of my Grandma's potato bread. What a treat!  It came out exactly like hers used to. I'd love to post a picture, but....my kids and hubby scarfed it down.  Such a lovely, browned crust, too. Its a shame it disappeared before the camera could capture it.

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Then had to switch gears for a large chocolate order this afternoon-- I just finished doing a sugar plum ganache. If it makes it into the piping bag, I'll try to post a pic on the confections thread. Staying out of that blend of plum, spices, fruits and nuts in chocolate is proving to be quite a challenge. I have no willpower with stuff like this.   The photos here just kill me.  Shelby's Upsidedown Caramel Banana Bread has had me drooling for 2 days straight now. (thank you very much!)

 

Happy baking everyone!

Andrea

[Kim Shook]

CatPoet – yes, please!  I’d love to have the recipe!

 

Shelby – somewhere in the stacks of cookbooks and printed off recipes and magazines, I recently saw and bookmarked a banana bread that looked just like that – on purpose!  It sounds great and I really love the look of it.  Sounds like a happy accident to me.

[Dave W]

I made a riff on tartine morning buns

56% hydrated dough, 500g flour, laminated with 1 stick butter

Filling is just sugar and cinnamon. Dusted with more brown sugar and some turbinado after baking.

[Anna N]

Dave W Your morning buns look really good. I am not one for morning sweets but I would have a hard time turning down one of these.

[CatPoet]

Radio cake

200  gram of coconut oil  ( ours is hard and in brick form)

200 gram of good dark chocolate 

2 eggs  or  the equivalent of two from pasteurized eggs in a bottle .

300 ml  icing/ powdered sugar 

30 rich tea biscuits  or similar.

 

Take a  1 litre  loaf in or container with plastic wrap.    Chop chocolate into bits. In a pot melt  coconut oil and chocolate, do this gentle. Set a side.  Whisk the sugar and  eggs airy and then  slowly incorporate the chocolate mixture. Pour a little of the mixture into the  tin.  add a layer of biscuits and  then a layer of chocolate.  Keep going until no more mixture  and you ended with a chocolate layer.  Leave to set in the fridge.  Serve in thin slices   with a cop of coffee or tea.   

[Franci]

I made some sour cherries bars today.

[Kim Shook]

Dave – gorgeous morning buns!  Yours look a lot flakier than my experiment turned out!

 

The last time I posted I forgot to say thanks to everyone for the kind words about my bake sale items!

 

Dream cookies (a rich butter cooky) for a party at Mr. Kim’s office:

[Smithy]

Then I had an order from a local restaurant for Malva Puddings, an old fashioned South African pudding from the old Dutch trek farmers of the 1800's. Really a simple apricot jam flavoured sponge cake soaked in a rich sweet creamy sauce. Baked in dariole moulds for portion size and one in its foil container whilst being packed. These are served warm, normally with a portion of ice cream - very sweet and rich, but delicious!

image.jpg

Funny, I'd never heard of Malva Pudding until 2 weeks ago, when I was out your way and had the chance to try it. It was very good, sweet and unctuous and rich: 4 of us shared 2 puddings and were well satisfied. We were all surprised later when the recipes we looked at included apricot jam; none of us had noticed an apricot taste. (I'd have described it as a toffee flavor instead.) Do you think the apricot flavor is normally subtle, or were we tasting a nontraditional version? (I don't suppose your order was for Codfathers' restaurant? :-))

[JohnT]

Funny, I'd never heard of Malva Pudding until 2 weeks ago, when I was out your way and had the chance to try it. It was very good, sweet and unctuous and rich: 4 of us shared 2 puddings and were well satisfied. We were all surprised later when the recipes we looked at included apricot jam; none of us had noticed an apricot taste. (I'd have described it as a toffee flavor instead.) Do you think the apricot flavor is normally subtle, or were we tasting a nontraditional version? (I don't suppose your order was for Codfathers' restaurant? :-))

The apricot flavour is very subtle, but should just come through in flavour. Some recipes I have come across in modern books have cut the apricot jam right down and a person then does not detect any flavour of it. The recipe I use was from an old government publication in the late 50's and uses a bit more of the apricot jam. The toffee flavour you detected is from the sauce, made out of cream, butter and sugar and water, which you use to soak the cake after baking. Another ingredient that is missing from most modern Malva recipes is vinegar - it needs about a tablespoon as the last ingredient to activate the baking soda to get a good rise and help cut some of the sweetness.

I do not do any desserts for Codfathers - they are way too far from me. I mainly service a few restaurants in the cities northern suburbs.

If you want, I can post the recipe, but am not too sure where to post it. A bit of guidance on that would be appreciated.

This morning was another production run of Old Cape Brandy Pudding, also an old Cape Dutch recipe, with a cake base including dates and then soaked with a syrup of sugar, water and brandy after baking. No photographs but I will try and take some when I do another batch in a week or two. I do not know if you noticed that brandy is produced in abundance here and is fairly low in price - some of it very good and some, well, not so good! You can get a good bottle for $10 or $11. John.

[FrogPrincesse]

A simple pound cake (quatre quarts) with good quality organic butter (Spring Hill) and freshly milled flour (Sonora from Grist & Toll).

It was a bit dense but the flavor was excellent. I enjoyed it with some quince jam and a cup of tea.

 

 

 

 

 

[jmacnaughtan]

A simple pound cake (quatre quarts) with good quality organic butter (Spring Hill) and freshly milled flour (Sonora from Grist & Toll).

It was a bit dense but the flavor was excellent. I enjoyed it with some quince jam and a cup of tea.

 

 

 

 

 

Looks good.  If it's a bit too dense, I think it's because your batter is too firm.  Try softening the butter a little more before incorporating the other ingredients, it might help.

[Anna N]

Special request. Gluten free blueberry muffins.

[FrogPrincesse]

Looks good.  If it's a bit too dense, I think it's because your batter is too firm.  Try softening the butter a little more before incorporating the other ingredients, it might help.

Thanks for the tip. You are right, the batter was quite firm.

[Kim Shook]

Hungry Caterpillar cake that I made for my nieces’ baby shower:

[ninagluck]

I am done with my christmas cookies

[Smithy]

Those are beautiful, ninagluck! Presented with a tray like that, I'd have trouble saving room for dinner. :-)

[Darienne]

ninagluck, I second what Smithy said.

 

Each year I make the crescent cookies from a recipe in an old Fanny Farmer cookbook, using the pecan variation.  Also, I'm too lazy and clumsy to do that lovely shape.  They just get made into elongated ovaly things.  Then I dip one end into chocolate or drizzle chocolate over them.  Love them. 

[Mmmpomps]

I don't make a lot of sweets , but it is the Season. I served these last night at my Mashed potato martini bar.

 

White Chocolate, Cranberry, Bacon Bark. This is very sweet ! So easy to make:

 

 

 

 

 

[Matthew Kirshner]

Made a birthday cake last weekend for a client.  Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Mousse Filling, Ganache Coating, Fondant cover.  Snowmen are cake pops.

[oli]

Made a birthday cake last weekend for a client.  Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Mousse Filling, Ganache Coating, Fondant cover.  Snowmen are cake pops.

Do you have a picture of a slice?

[rajoress]

One of my contributions to the Hanukkah celebration - butter cookies dipped in chocolate. Happy holidays!

Ruth

[Darienne]

Gorgeous little cookies, Ruth. 

[JohnT]

Ruth, those look "droolishious" - you taking orders for export to Darkest Africa? I am sure anybody taking a bite of one will have a huge grin on their faces within seconds!

John.

[emmalish]

One of my contributions to the Hanukkah celebration - butter cookies dipped in chocolate. Happy holidays!

Ruth

 

SO pretty! I love the way you did the sprinkles