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

[Kim Shook]

Paula – I love the look of that blueberry cheesecake!  It just screams summer.

 

Shuba – I love the little meringue puffs on your lemon tart.  They look lovely – sorry they didn’t ‘work’ for you.  Your oven sounds like a real pain.  I can’t believe that you get such great stuff from it!

 

I volunteered to make cupcakes for a graduation party for our neighbor’s daughter.  My BIL, who knows me so well, had sent me pictures of some cupcakes that looked like high heels he’d seen somewhere.  So I gave it a try.  It was easier than I feared and I was happy with how they turned out.  The possibilities are endless!  Naked cupcakes:

Pretty nicely domed.  I like big domes on my cupcakes and found a trick online – you fill the cups 2/3 full and preheat the oven to 400, lowering to 350 when you put the pan in the oven.  Not perfect, but better.

 

Milano cookies as the sole.  You carve out a little half-moon on one edge of the top of the cupcake, dip one end of the cooky into candy melts at an angle and prop them up for a bit:

Those little pieces in front are Pirouette cookies that will become the heels.  The heels attached:

Close up:

This was where I had my only problem.  On some of the shoes, even after sitting for 1/2 hour, the join between the bottom of the ‘sole’ and the melted candy melts came loose.  It stuck perfectly to the cut end of the ‘heel’ and I’m thinking that it is because the end of the ‘heel’ is rough and the surface of the Milano that makes the ‘sole’ is smooth.  There is nothing on the Milano to ‘hold onto’.  I was thinking that next time it might be a good idea to rough up that area a bit with the end of a knife or something.  Or maybe use another adhesive?  Any suggestions? 

 

Almost finished:

The color theme was pink and gold.  So pink frosting with pale pink sprinkles and gold dragées.  This is the first design option:

Fondant flower, painted with gold luster dust and a little candy flower.  We decided that the flower was too vibrant, so the final product is just the fondant flower:

 

My mom said I shouldn’t show these to anyone because I’ll be inundated with orders for every birthday, shower and girlie party given!  Hope not since I spent all of last evening with my hand in the heating pad  !

[rotuts]

KS ;

 

stunning

[Anna N]

Wow Kim, you have much more talent (and courage) than I can dream of! Was going to post my baking from today but will wait a while so you can get all due accolades.

[Shelby]

KIM, those are A-MA-ZING!!!!!!!!!!!  WOWZA!!!!!!!

[andiesenji]

Paula – I love the look of that blueberry cheesecake!  It just screams summer.

 

Shuba – I love the little meringue puffs on your lemon tart.  They look lovely – sorry they didn’t ‘work’ for you.  Your oven sounds like a real pain.  I can’t believe that you get such great stuff from it!

 

I volunteered to make cupcakes for a graduation party for our neighbor’s daughter.  My BIL, who knows me so well, had sent me pictures of some cupcakes that looked like high heels he’d seen somewhere.  So I gave it a try.  It was easier than I feared and I was happy with how they turned out.  The possibilities are endless!  Naked cupcakes:

Pretty nicely domed.  I like big domes on my cupcakes and found a trick online – you fill the cups 2/3 full and preheat the oven to 400, lowering to 350 when you put the pan in the oven.  Not perfect, but better.

 

Milano cookies as the sole.  You carve out a little half-moon on one edge of the top of the cupcake, dip one end of the cooky into candy melts at an angle and prop them up for a bit:

 

Those little pieces in front are Pirouette cookies that will become the heels.  The heels attached:

 

Close up:

 

This was where I had my only problem.  On some of the shoes, even after sitting for 1/2 hour, the join between the bottom of the ‘sole’ and the melted candy melts came loose.  It stuck perfectly to the cut end of the ‘heel’ and I’m thinking that it is because the end of the ‘heel’ is rough and the surface of the Milano that makes the ‘sole’ is smooth.  There is nothing on the Milano to ‘hold onto’.  I was thinking that next time it might be a good idea to rough up that area a bit with the end of a knife or something.  Or maybe use another adhesive?  Any suggestions? 

 

Almost finished:

 

The color theme was pink and gold.  So pink frosting with pale pink sprinkles and gold dragées.  This is the first design option:

 

Fondant flower, painted with gold luster dust and a little candy flower.  We decided that the flower was too vibrant, so the final product is just the fondant flower:

 

 

 

My mom said I shouldn’t show these to anyone because I’ll be inundated with orders for every birthday, shower and girlie party given!  Hope not since I spent all of last evening with my hand in the heating pad  !

Those are absolutely stunning!

Regarding the Milanos not having enough texture to stick well -  I used to make a flower thing with lady fingers and I cut across one end with pinking shears that created "teeth" that had more surface for the sticky stuff (I used royal icing) to cling to.

Edited June 11, 2014 by andiesenji (log)

[merstar]

I made these again. I've tried tons of brownie recipes, and this is definitely my favorite. The only change I made was to reduce the salt:
THE BAKED BROWNIE
Fall into Cooking Featured Recipe: The Baked Brownie and Chocolate Stout Milkshake from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito
Also posted with great photos at:
The Baked Brownie | Brown Eyed Baker

[rajoress]

Kim - those are awesome!

[Kim Shook]

Thank you to everyone for all the lovely comments on the cupcakes. 

 

Andie – thank you for the information.  I’ll try roughing up the cooky before using an adhesive next time.  And I’ll try royal icing, too.

 

merstar – gorgeous brownies!

[Anna N]

Bit of a baking bonanza on Tuesday. Granddaughter needed stuff for a potluck and son-in-law something for his meeting.

Katharine Hepburn's brownies

Pineapple coconut loaf from a Martha Stewart recipe.

Cherry almond loaf from a Nigella Lawson recipe.

Only the brownies passed muster.

[pquinene]

Paula – I love the look of that blueberry cheesecake!  It just screams summer.

 

Shuba – I love the little meringue puffs on your lemon tart.  They look lovely – sorry they didn’t ‘work’ for you.  Your oven sounds like a real pain.  I can’t believe that you get such great stuff from it!

 

I volunteered to make cupcakes for a graduation party for our neighbor’s daughter.  My BIL, who knows me so well, had sent me pictures of some cupcakes that looked like high heels he’d seen somewhere.  So I gave it a try.  It was easier than I feared and I was happy with how they turned out.  The possibilities are endless!  Naked cupcakes:

Pretty nicely domed.  I like big domes on my cupcakes and found a trick online – you fill the cups 2/3 full and preheat the oven to 400, lowering to 350 when you put the pan in the oven.  Not perfect, but better.

 

Milano cookies as the sole.  You carve out a little half-moon on one edge of the top of the cupcake, dip one end of the cooky into candy melts at an angle and prop them up for a bit:

Those little pieces in front are Pirouette cookies that will become the heels.  The heels attached:

Close up:

This was where I had my only problem.  On some of the shoes, even after sitting for 1/2 hour, the join between the bottom of the ‘sole’ and the melted candy melts came loose.  It stuck perfectly to the cut end of the ‘heel’ and I’m thinking that it is because the end of the ‘heel’ is rough and the surface of the Milano that makes the ‘sole’ is smooth.  There is nothing on the Milano to ‘hold onto’.  I was thinking that next time it might be a good idea to rough up that area a bit with the end of a knife or something.  Or maybe use another adhesive?  Any suggestions? 

 

Almost finished:

The color theme was pink and gold.  So pink frosting with pale pink sprinkles and gold dragées.  This is the first design option:

Fondant flower, painted with gold luster dust and a little candy flower.  We decided that the flower was too vibrant, so the final product is just the fondant flower:

 

My mom said I shouldn’t show these to anyone because I’ll be inundated with orders for every birthday, shower and girlie party given!  Hope not since I spent all of last evening with my hand in the heating pad  !

 

Kim, you did such a gorgeous job!!!

[Kim Shook]

Anna – was there something wrong with the cherry almond loaf?  It looks beautiful and I love that combination.

 

Paula – thank you!  That means a LOT coming from you!

[Anna N]

Anna – was there something wrong with the cherry almond loaf?  It looks beautiful and I love that combination.

 

Paula – thank you!  That means a LOT coming from you!

Kim,

The texture was just wrong. I would describe it as mealy.

[CatPoet]

I have a soda pop cake in the oven, making a small tester cake for a friend.

[shubashuba]

That's a brilliant idea! Ditto the thing about roughing it up as well - or you could try just a small spot of icing or nutella, not sure how it would affect the aesthetics, though...

[CatPoet]

The soda pop cake was lovely, sadly we ate it , it was just a wee one  before  I remember that I should have taken a picture.

 

It was moist,  soft and lovely, it was everything I ask of from a cake and  with coke it tasted lovely.   I am now pondering ginger ale or  fanta.

[FrogPrincesse]

A rustic tart with aprium from Frog Hollow Farm. I bought a lot and the rest will be used in jam.

 

 

 

A few weeks ago I made this very nice chocolate almond cake by Nigel Slater. It was published in his book Kitchen Diairies but there was a gross typo in the ingredient quantities (I believe that the butter was double or tripled) so I used the online recipe instead. Good thing I realized something was wrong when I read the recipe!

 

 

 

[Smithy]

Those are beautiful, FrogPrincesse.  (I swear, I gain 5 pounds just looking at the photos in this topic!)  As much as I adore chocolate, I just might have chosen the tart instead, if I'd been within food-snatching distance.

 

Tell us more about the apriums, please.  I've been disappointed in pluots, the other version of the apricot/plum cross, because they always seem too bland.  I'm not sure I've tried an aprium.  Do these carry more flavor than, say, what passes for apricots in grocery stores these days?  They appear to cook down nicely.

[FrogPrincesse]

Thanks Smithy.

These apriums are an apricot-plum cross called Cot-n-Candy. They look very much like an apricot (you can see a couple in the photo below), with a little less fuzz and a slightly firmer texture. Inside, their flesh is more yellow than orange (there is one regular apricot in the middle of the tart). But it would be easy to mistake them for regular apricots. Russ Parsons wrote a little piece about them in the LA Times a few days ago.

Tastewise, they were not completely ripe when I got them, but once cooked they were great (I don't mind a bit of tartness). They had a lot of flavor.

I am letting the rest ripen a bit before making jam this weekend.

 

 

[Franci]

I like it very much FrogPrincess! I'll see if I can find the aprium but meanwhile I'm thinking I should try it  with rhubarb. Something similar, which I really LOVED was the cranberries galette, Darienne suggested to me. I think the pate brisee is richer than the one I usually used but it was really good.

[DianaM]

Franci, it is rhubarb season here as well, and I happen to have some on hand. How do you prepare the rhubarb to fill the galette?

[CatPoet]

I'm making chocolate cloud cake, it wont be as airy as normal since my electric whisky died before I got a good  egg white, they where nearly there, so I hope it works.

[Franci]

Franci, it is rhubarb season here as well, and I happen to have some on hand. How do you prepare the rhubarb to fill the galette?

 

Diana, I was looking at this Alice Water's recipe and this with a frangipane smear on the bottom and rhubarb/raspberry and cannot decide which way to go...

[Smithy]

FrogPrincesse, thanks for that information, and in particular for the link. I really need to remember to read Russ Parsons' column on a regular basis. Our grocery store didn't have any apriums that looked like yours, but they had 3 varieties of pluots, so I decided to give them another try. (One problem with grocery store stone fruit is that they rarely leave the stuff in the original container, so the labeling is left to rudimentary information: white peach, white nectarine, red pluot, black pluot. 'Cot-n-Candy' won't show up unless it's actually on the fruit sticker.) Bless Russ Parsons for trying to keep the memory of Blenheim apricots alive.

Further to that rustic tart: is there a preferred crust for that? I'm making dessert next week and may try one with nectarines.

CatPoet, I'm glad to see you reached a decision on your midsummer dessert. :-) (I refer to this topic: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/148734-french-chocolate-cake-or-cloud-cake/) Happy Midsummer!

[FrogPrincesse]

Further to that rustic tart: is there a preferred crust for that? I'm making dessert next week and may try one with nectarines.

Here's what I used: 210 g  flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 115 g unsalted butter, 6 tablespoons water.

I sprinkled a few tablespoons of sugar on the fruit and crust before putting the tart in the oven. See here for more details.

[CatPoet]

 

Chocolate cloud cake with strawberries

 

Chocolate fondue with Strawberries.