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

[rajoress]

A few tarts for a Sunday dinner on cape cod - fruit with cream cheese frosting on a citrus scented cookie crust and chocolate ganache on a chocolate cookie bottom for my niece hence the addition of the mini marshmallows around the edge...TFL!

Ruth

 

love all the desserts being posted on this thread!

[ElainaA]

Rajoress - Those are gorgeous!

[Shelby]

Cherry pie a couple of days ago.  Probably our favorite dessert.

 

 

RIP to my favorite pie baking dish.    Such a pretty blue.  We had only eaten maybe half of the pie....it was sitting on the counter all nice and cozy.  Waiting for us to have our next slice.  

 

I got up in the middle of the night because Chum (our Lab) wanted out.  I sleepily stumbled through the kitchen and stepped on something sharp.  I looked down to find the pie plate shattered all over the floor.  No pie in sight. How Chum, an 80 lb. furry baby, got in AND out of bed without me waking up is beyond me.  She also drug all of the trash out of the can and ate all of the cat food.  

 

She had a big night.  

[Peggy Garbe]

image.jpg

This was a practice session. I have been asked to make a gluten-free "Key lime" pie and intend to attempt it using purchased gluten-free ginger cookies. But I wanted to test it out first without the expense of buying gluten-free cookies. I learned that 300 g of cookies and quarter pound of butter is way too much crust!

I also do not like the idea of the lime slices as a garnish since they are to me quite inedible. I attempted candying some lime slices but the peel remained the consistency of shoe leather even after 90 minutes of simmering in sugar syrup!

 

Do you have a dehydrator? We candy orange slices at the restaurant by just dipping thinly sliced oranges in simple syrup and then dehydrating overnight at 135F.

[Anna N]

Do you have a dehydrator? We candy orange slices at the restaurant by just dipping thinly sliced oranges in simple syrup and then dehydrating overnight at 135F.

Thanks for joining in with the suggestion. I do not have a dehydrator but I know where I could borrow one, however my suspicion is that lime peel is resistant to almost any method that works perfectly well with other citrus peel. I could be wrong and one day I will have to test my theory. And thank you for making a suggestion.

[Tri2Cook]

Thanks for joining in with the suggestion. I do not have a dehydrator but I know where I could borrow one, however my suspicion is that lime peel is resistant to almost any method that works perfectly well with other citrus peel. I could be wrong and one day I will have to test my theory. And thank you for making a suggestion.

I've done syrup brushed and dehydrated lime slices and never managed to get them to a point I was happy with. They never got the crispy texture I was going for using a standard dehydrator and they were incredibly bitter... but that part could have just been the limes I was using. I wonder how they would turn out using a freeze dryer?

[Kerry Beal]

Freeze dried are fabulous - but moisture changes all that!

[curls]

Crisp Peach Cobblers (from Smitten Kitchen's blog). Very juicy & tasty peaches. One cobbler went to work and the pie plate came back very clean.  :-)

 

[Kim Shook]

We celebrated the 4^th of July with friends and I made this:

It’s a crazy Paula Deen recipe – Frozen Banana Split.  An ice cream torte made with caramel, hot fudge, cherries, bananas, Cool Whip and ice cream sandwiches.  It is ridiculously good.

 

Jessica made me a chocolate/Nutella cake with candied hazelnuts on top for my birthday.  Without the dulce drizzle:

 

With:

 

Peach cobbler for one of Mr. Kim’s co-worker’s BD:

 

Coffee snacks for church – apple fritters with an apple cider glaze:

They were delicious – especially fresh and warm, but I wasn’t satisfied with the glaze.  It made them a bit soggy – I was hoping for a more glazed doughnut-like glaze – the kind that dries solidly.  This just kind of soaked into the fritters.  The recipe included corn syrup – do you think that that would have caused the problem?

 

Blueberry Breakfast Cake:

 

I made a double batch of both and didn’t bring one thing home!

[Tri2Cook]

Freeze dried are fabulous - but moisture changes all that!

Yeah, I suppose it would at that.

Personally, I think an extremely thin slice of fresh lime is more pleasant to eat than any I've been able to do in a regular dehydrator. But I'm perfectly willing to accept that maybe I just didn't do a good job with them.

 

[kayb]

A peach twist on the old Southern standard, Cherry Cheese Pie:

 

 

Body of pie is an 8 oz block of cream cheese, a can of sweetened condensed milk, 1/3 cup lemon juice and 1 tsp vanilla, per the recipe on the Eagle Brand label for maybe the last 50 years. Topping was fresh sliced peaches, with a glaze made of a diced peach boiled in light simple syrup with almond flavoring, pureed, and thickened with a bit of cornstarch.

[David Ross]

Washington Peach Crostatta-

 

[cakewalk]

Marcy Goldman's Majestic and Moist New Year's Honey Cake. It's in the oven. Gotta get a head start on the holiday. Still the best honey cake I've ever tasted, by far.

[Kim Shook]

I went down to visit friends in Chesapeake yesterday and they very kindly let me pick every ripe fig in their garden:

 

I’m making my friend’s candied figs.  First day simmer down:

Not the most appetizing looking thing now, but they will be delectable in a few days.

[Tri2Cook]

Nice! I miss fresh figs. A friend where I used to live made strawberry fig jam every year... I could eat an entire pan of biscuits when I had that jam to go on them.

[Darienne]

A fig right off a tree...I can't imagine...but I can dream.  :wub:

Edited September 4, 2015 by Darienne (log)

[cyalexa]

I went down to visit friends in Chesapeake yesterday and they very kindly let me pick every ripe fig in their garden:

 

 

I’m making my friend’s candied figs.  First day simmer down:

 

I will soon have an abundance of figs. Are you doing the "bring to a boil, let set over night, repeat 5 times" method? 

[JohnT]

For those folk who have access to a fig tree or two, here is a recipe for Green Fig Preserve inherited from my fathers recipes. The resulting product is magic on buttered toast and with cheese. The figs must be picked before they ripen and soften.

Whole Green Fig Preserve

Ingredients:

100 green figs

2 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

3.4 litres water

Method:

Scrub the figs and cut a cross into the end opposite the stalk.

Mix the water and bicarbonate of soda and soak the figs overnight.

Remove from the water and weigh the figs, recording the weight.

Place into clean boiling water and boil for 15 minutes or until just soft.

Drain and then dry the figs well, removing excess water.

Syrup:

For each 500g figs or part thereof, mix 500ml water with 500g sugar.

Boil the syrup until it just starts to thicken.

Add the figs and boil until the syrup is thick.

Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice for each 250g figs and just bring to the boil again before removing from the heat and letting cool.

Bottle the figs and cover with the syrup.

Note 1: If the syrup froths whilst boiling, add a small lump of butter.

Note 2: A small stick of ginger can be added during the boiling process to add a slightly different flavour.

[Smithy]

Thanks for posting that recipe, JohnT. It makes me want to go RIGHT NOW and raid the neighbors' trees...which are now nothing but a memory. Still, I can keep my eyes peeled for the opportunity.

[Shelby]

Ohhhhhhh figs.........  Jealousy abounds.

[kayb]

I found figs at the farmers' market yesterday, first figs I've had this year. In previous years, I'd make a pilgrimage to a friend's home to get figs from her neighbor's tree which hung over her fence and shed figs all over her driveway. Last year, I brought home about 25 pounds of figs and made multitudinous jars of fig jam, so I'm not in fig preserving mode this year.

 

But I do love a fig and walnut upside down cake -- single layer, with a butter/brown sugar/nut layer on the bottom, topped with face-down halved figs in a nice pattern, and your favorite cake batter. I have a recipe for a ricotta cake that includes a grated apple that I love in this preparation -- it's tremendously moist to begin with, and marries beautifully to the figs.

 

And of course, I have to save a few to grill with some blue cheese and honey. Because if there's anything better than that, I'm not certain what it is.

[cyalexa]

For those folk who have access to a fig tree or two, here is a recipe for Green Fig Preserve inherited from my fathers recipes. The resulting product is magic on buttered toast and with cheese. The figs must be picked before they ripen and soften.

 

I bookmarked this for fall. Although I don't do any type of canning I may try a small batch to keep in the refrigerator. Something about the sight of my fig tree after a frost makes me sad - the leaves fall off and many lost figs are visible. I may take some comfort in rescuing some before the frost.

[cyalexa]

I found figs at the farmers' market yesterday, first figs I've had this year. In previous years, I'd make a pilgrimage to a friend's home to get figs from her neighbor's tree which hung over her fence and shed figs all over her driveway. Last year, I brought home about 25 pounds of figs and made multitudinous jars of fig jam, so I'm not in fig preserving mode this year.

 

But I do love a fig and walnut upside down cake -- single layer, with a butter/brown sugar/nut layer on the bottom, topped with face-down halved figs in a nice pattern, and your favorite cake batter. I have a recipe for a ricotta cake that includes a grated apple that I love in this preparation -- it's tremendously moist to begin with, and marries beautifully to the figs.

 

And of course, I have to save a few to grill with some blue cheese and honey. Because if there's anything better than that, I'm not certain what it is.

 

I'll definitely be trying that cake. I like prosciutto with my figs and blue cheese. 

[Kim Shook]

John T – thanks for the recipe!  I’ll be keeping that and sending it on to my friend.  Every time I go there are MANY more green figs than ripe, so we’ll be using the recipe. 

 

cyalexa – the recipe is similar, but they are dehydrated (or roasted at a VERY low temp) after three days of simmering: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/FRUIT/Lenas_Candied_Figs.html

 

I finished the figs yesterday.  Out of the oven:

 

Sugared:

I sugar them so that they won’t stick together during storage, but usually brush most of it off before I eat them.  They are sweet enough!

 

 

Dessert last night was Cream Cheese Pound Cake with blackberries:

 

This is one of my favorite pound cakes.  The flavor was wonderful and I love a dense, tight-crumbed cake, but this time it was slightly too dense for me.  Still really good, though.  

[rotuts]

Kim Shook

 

nice.

 

when I see a cake like that i swoon.

 

Im not much of a baker, but I do use my low-end bread machine a lot.

 

should i begin to become interested in similar cakes as the one you've made

 

( for me cinnamon swirl w nuts + that brown sugar/nut paste  i.e. Coffee cake )

 

Id just Blinp-Our

 

the potato salad made from the Insta-Pot potatoes gave me good warning.