Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2015)

[Anna N]

[Moderator note: The original Your Daily Sweets: What are you making and Baking? topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Your Daily Sweets: What are you making and baking? (2014)]

 

 

 

 

So I have spoken elsewhere of my current love affair with Nigel Slater and with my resolution to dig a little deeper into my British food roots. Slater mentioned these biscuits/cookies anpd I hunted down a recipe or three. They are called Cornish Fairings and are a close cousin of ginger nuts.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Mjx
Note added. (log)

[CatPoet]

I just made angelfood cake that was sickly sweet, not even the kid wanted to eat it.

[McAuliflower]

I've been making Alice Medrich's Tiger Cake, but instead of olive oil > brown butter AND instead of cocoa swirl > cinnamon & brown sugar.

My favorite cake recipe... sigh, so dangerous 

[Kerry Beal]

image.jpg

So I have spoken elsewhere of my current love affair with Nigel Slater and with my resolution to dig a little deeper into my British food roots. Slater mentioned these biscuits/cookies anpd I hunted down a recipe or three. They are called Cornish Fairings and are a close cousin of ginger nuts.

Those were one of my favourites from the International Cookie Cookbook.  

[Anna N]

I have been on the lookout for stem ginger for some weeks. Yesterday I found some in a store that specializes in British products. So this morning I made stem ginger cookies. They are not quite what I had hoped for as they are a little on the cakey side whereas I would prefer them to be crispy. So I shall either find another recipe or attempt to adapt the one I used for the these.

[Franci]

As last year, I made again for my son's class some galettes and couronnes des rois.

This year I changed brand of puff pastry, white toque. The puff pastry didn't puff as much as last year...I didn't have the time nor the inclination to make puff pastry for 3 galettes.

[jmacnaughtan]

As last year, I made again for my son's class some galettes and couronnes des rois.

This year I changed brand of puff pastry, white toque. The puff pastry didn't puff as much as last year...I didn't have the time nor the inclination to make puff pastry for 3 galettes.

galette.jpeg

 

The galettes look great.  How much rise do you expect?  I prefer to dock them heavily to keep the pastry as fine as possible.

[Franci]

The galettes look great.  How much rise do you expect?  I prefer to dock them heavily to keep the pastry as fine as possible.

 

Thank you. This time, especially the first galette looked like a flying saucer to me (made with a picture from the top is not as obvious), very flat on the rim and much more puffed in the center (I had made a vent in the center with a pastry tip). 

To make my work faster and easier I made the filling the day before and kept in a shallow pasta dish to invert directly on the bottom layer (I did the same last year) but this time kept the shape!

Looking at the picture of last year, the galettes were not excessively puffed but more regular, not a huge difference between the rim and the center. The only difference I think it's the pastry discs were prepared on parchment paper the night before baking. This time I defrosted in the morning and left the galete rest half an hour in the fridge before baking. 

[FrogPrincesse]

Glad to see galettes des rois in the thread! 

 

Here is the one I made last week, a bit late for Epiphanie. I used Clement VSOP rhum agricole in the frangipane.

The puff pastry was Pepperidge Farm and it puffed up nicely lot during cooking. I was very happy with the result!

 

 

Edited January 14, 2015 by FrogPrincesse (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I made sopaipillas recently from this recipe: http://userealbutter.com/2013/01/13/sopaipilla-recipe/

 

No pictures, but she has great step-by-step ones with her recipe, and mine came out just like hers by following the recipe exactly.

 

I sprinkled with powdered sugar instead of the honey though. We both thought they were really good.

[tinyragebaking]

Both of your galettes look beautiful! 

My friend lent me Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook, so I made Confetti cookies: 



Really sweet! I'm tinkering with the Blueberries and Cream cookie--I made a citrus milk crumb, omitted dried fruit, reduced sugars by a bit, and threw in some chopped fresh rosemary instead.  The dough is chilling.  Will snap a picture once I bake them off. 

[Franci]

Very nice, FrogPrincesse! I admit I was looking for the pepperidge farm puff pastry but couldn't find any close distance from my house.

Tiniragebaking, I have a Momofuku milk bar at the corner of my house, the first month I moved here, I tried all their cookies...it has been more than one year. It's so sweet for my taste that I gave up.

[jmacnaughtan]

Over the holidays, I was asked to knock up a birthday cake for "between 10 and 20 people"...

 

So I made the densest cake possible- three layers of crème de cacao and rum soaked sacher sponge and a tonne of ganache, with a chocolate glaze and chocolate décor.

 

 

The finish is a bit rough, but it was made in an unfamiliar kitchen using fairly basic equipment.

[Anna N]

I have had Dorie Greenspan's custardy apple squares on my "want to make" list for ages. Today all the stars aligned. I used my new spiralizer to slice the apples and it worked brilliantly. It is not sweet and almost needs a good dusting of icing sugar to finish it. That is not something I say lightly. I wanted a test run to see if it was at all appropriate as a meeting snack. I do not think it lends itself to being eaten with fingers.

The spiralized apple slices

Out of the oven

Ready to eat.

[rotuts]

Brilliant, AnnaN

 

did you peel first ?  Core ?

 

Im a big apple dessert fan.  I use an old fashioned 'Yankee' apple peeler for my Crisp.

 

felling better and better about my Impulse Buy.  guess it just wasn't the Fizz talking.

 

[Anna N]

Brilliant, AnnaN

did you peel first ? Core ?

Im a big apple dessert fan. I use an old fashioned 'Yankee' apple peeler for my Crisp.

felling better and better about my Impulse Buy. guess it just wasn't the Fizz talking.

I did peel but I did not core just dug out the stem and the blossom. So much faster than a knife. So much less heart stopping than a mandoline. You will be left with some apple that is not sliced. If you are feeling reckless you can discard it, eat it, feed it to your favorite animal. If not, you can quickly slice it with a sharp knife across the slice. That is what I did so as not to waste any apple but mostly because my recipe called for three medium apples and I used two large.

Edited to add:

In order to have slices and not one endless spiral you will need to cut the apple from pole to pole just until you reach the core.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Anna N (log)

[rotuts]

Ive always kept the peel in my apple dishes.

 

its always a bit tart, and plenty low-end bourgeios

[Katie Meadow]

At the risk of repeating myself (wouldn't be the first time) I am a huge fan of Dorie's custardy apple thing. So easy, so fast, so good. That one looks perfect. My apples are cut a bit thicker, since I've done it by hand, but I now have a mandoline, so my next one will be upmarket. Until the last few days I really didn't know what a spiralizer looked like, nor did I think I needed one. I'm going to keep my eyes....peeled.

http://twistedsifter.com/videos/how-to-peel-apples-with-a-power-drill/

I thought this was pretty funny. I'm sure I would lose a body part if I tried it.

[Anna N]

Ive always kept the peel in my apple dishes.

 

its always a bit tart, and plenty low-end bourgeios

[Tri2Cook]

I keep telling myself I'm going to try that custardy apple recipe... but so far it has failed to happen.

 

Then what do you munch on while you're making your apple dish?

I once ate pretty much all of the peels from about 10 - 12 granny smith apples while peeling them for use in an apple crisp. I don't know if it was fiber overload or what but I had the most interestingly intense pain in my lower abdominal area later that day. Bordering on unpleasant to stand up straight and move around. Since that little event, I allow myself to munch some of the peel when working with apples but I also allow myself to toss a fair amount of it into the trashcan.

 

[CatPoet]

 

Chocolate yoghurt cake with  chocolate marshmallow glaze. I used left over mango yoghurt, it has real mango in it and  that gave the cake a rich fruity chocolate flavour, it is dense but still moist and soft, it  is a really lovely cake even though the chocolate flavour is very mild.  The glaze is sticky, chocolatey and sweet.  I normally do not glaze  cakes because it becomes a mess and with a 2½ year old wanting to help that is normally mission impossible. 

[Anna N]

Nigel Slater's double ginger cake.

[Kerry Beal]

Spent a delightful afternoon watching a demo by our very own Alleguede.  Rodney is one of the Callebaut ambassadors and was invited to do a demo for young pastry chefs at the Bonnie Gordon Cooking School in Toronto.  He worked through a couple of entremets showing some new techniques and showcasing some of Cacoa Barry's new chocolates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One was a flambeed banana and pecan delight - the other a flourless chocolate cake upon which sat some raspberry, white and dark chocolate ganaches and a milk chocolate mousse.  

Edited January 20, 2015 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Smithy]

Wow! Those are gorgeous! I would look at one of those uncut cakes and admire the beautiful surface (looking as slippery as a Duluth sidewalk in January). After it was cut I'd be flat-out stunned by the beauty of the cross-section.

[rajoress]

Almond butter cookies to take to a friend's house. I'm always on the lookout for that elusive recipe for Italian bakery style cookies! These were good but a different texture than the bakery ones. 

 

Love all the pics on this thread!

Ruth