Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2017 – )

[RWood]

46 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

Fabulous! Placing all those scales must have been a job and a half in itself.

Thanks ! Yeah, it took several hours to get them all on there.

[OlyveOyl]

Lemon, peach,  verveine ( lemon verbena) , yogurt cake.  From the book , “Gateau”, a favorite cake of ours.  This has been made many times, raspberries, blackberries, even sans fruit , it’s a fine textured crumb with a lovely flavor from the verveine.  The cake was also brushed with a verveine syrup prior to dusting with confectionery sugar.

[Pete Fred]

The plums from my mirabelle tree are not as good as last year, but decent enough to eat out of hand. I also used them in this Spoon Cake by Anna Stockwell...

 

 

It looks a little unassuming, but it's a good dessert, the cake on top being nicely buttery. Warm cake and cold crème fraîche, job done...

 

 

A kilo or two got turned into jam, which in turn made it into these mazurka bars (oats, nuts, coconut)...

 

 

 

Another batch were macerated with sugar and crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur), then served with zabaglione...

 

 

It was my first time making zabaglione, and it turned out to be a bit of a bust. I made a lovely thick and airy sabayon using the macerating liquor, but the next step was to combine it with a mascarpone whipped cream. That was where the problems started. Infuriatingly, my fridge had gone into overdrive and the cheese had frozen solid and wasn't useable. I have trouble at the best of times whipping what passes for 'cream' in France, so without the extra fat from the mascarpone I was always going to be on to a loser, but persevered more in hope than expectation. Anyway, the cream barely whipped, which then overly thinned out the sabayon, resulting in more of a crème anglaise consistency. If only I'd stopped at the sabayon, everything would've been fine. Oh well...

[oli]

Looks just scrummy.😀

[Pete Fred]

Toscakaka, which is a Swedish toffee almond cake...

 

 

 

A very good cake. Never fails to be a hit.

[OlyveOyl]

Peach blueberry custard tart, adapted from Raymond Blanc’s Tarte Maman. The peaches and blueberries are cooked for twenty minutes and the custard is then poured over.  This takes just 10/15 minutes to set the custard.  Usually made with apples, but it works well with other fruit.

[ElsieD]

@OlyveOyl Looks delicious.  Are you able to share a link?

[OlyveOyl]

@ElsieD if you just google Tarte Maman, Raymond Blanc, I’m sure you will get the info you are looking for, I no longer have the link as make it from memory.

[OlyveOyl]

A couple of small tarts today with a little extra pastry dough, tart dough has some almond flour and confectionery sugar, based on one of Ed Lepard’s from his book “Short and Sweet”.

Pastry filling is from @JoNorvelleWalker,  berries from the Farmers Market.

[Pete Fred]

Looking for something to make with my surplus of plums, the plum caramel in Dana Cree's "Hello, My Name is Ice Cream" caught my eye. Very simple: cook and purée some plums, make a caramel, combine. I normally take my caramel quite dark, whereas her recipe calls for a medium amber. So I made it both ways then raided the freezer for some of the spoon cake from earlier in the week...

 

 

I preferred the lighter version; it was more caramel-y with a nice, bright fruitiness. The cake-caramel combo was a winner, too.

[ElsieD]

8 hours ago, Pete Fred said:

Looking for something to make with my surplus of plums, the plum caramel in Dana Cree's "Hello, My Name is Ice Cream" caught my eye. Very simple: cook and purée some plums, make a caramel, combine. I normally take my caramel quite dark, whereas her recipe calls for a medium amber. So I made it both ways then raided the freezer for some of the spoon cake from earlier in the week...

 

 

I preferred the lighter version; it was more caramel-y with a nice, bright fruitiness. The cake-caramel combo was a winner, too.

I wonder if that would work with peaches.  I have a slew of nice, big, ripe ones at the moment.

[Pete Fred]

10 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I wonder if that would work with peaches.

She does go on to say… “I've also had amazing results making this recipe with apricots instead of plums, and I would think almost any bright acidic fruit puree will shine.”

Edited August 31 by Pete Fred (log)

[Pete Fred]

Apologies for the continuing Mira-pocalypse but every day or two there's another kilo or so lying on the ground. They'd otherwise just go to the wasps.

 

Today's went into a German Plum Cake...

 

 

I believe there are many regional variations; this one had a bread dough base and a streusel topping...

 

 

I liked the yeasty flavour, the bready texture and the crunchy crumble topping. I'd like to try it with some bigger, deep red plums next time make it pop more visually.

 

It was a good cake, especially with some of the plum caramel from yesterday...

 

[ElsieD]

15 hours ago, Pete Fred said:

She does go on to say… “I've also had amazing results making this recipe with apricots instead of plums, and I would think almost any bright acidic fruit puree will shine.”

I'm going to try it with peaches.  Your plums were the dark variety?

[Pete Fred]

9 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Your plums were the dark variety?

 

I used mirabelles.

[PetarG]

Almond financiers. Was pretty surprised how moist they stay, even after a couple of days. Also a simple chiffon and whipped cream (and blueberry) cake; was practising various cake types. Unfortunately, the weather is just too damn hot for the cakes that require creaming butter.

[OlyveOyl]

Tangerine curd tart, blueberries and crushed pistachios.  I made just two mini tarts as I had the unbaked tart shells frozen, while they quickly baked, I made a tangerine curd in the micro for the filling. These chilled for a little bit, topped with berries, nuts, and dessert was ready!

[Pete Fred]

I made some scones...

 

 

For an English cream tea, it always feels wrong to use crème fraîche but you've gotta make do with what you've got...

 

 

Not wishing to offend any Cornwallians who might be reading*, the other half got flipped...

 

 

*are you a top or a bottom 🤔

 

[ElsieD]

@Pete Fred. I made the peach caramel yesterday using the plum caramel recipe.  It's delicious and I would never have thought of making such a thing, so thank you for the inspiration.

[Pete Fred]

1 minute ago, ElsieD said:

It's delicious...

 

Good to know. If I come across some decent peaches I'll give it a go.

[OlyveOyl]

Red plum tart with almonds,  a very tender cake due to the sour cream incorporated in the batter.  This was adaptable from Easy Strawberry Cake at Natasha’s Kitchen.  This is half in a 7” cake mold, the cake has a generous rise. I also made a plum compote to serve with it.

[Pete Fred]

Gâteau Basque...

 

 

I've posted several in the past, so for those suffering Basque-fatigue I've left the pretty French countryside in the background for added interest.

 

 

The little granules in the filling are down to it being a semolina crème pâtissière.

 

Belgian friends were passing through whilst château-hunting and gifted me a book covering their part of the world...

 

 

In the past I've flirted with the idea of getting a waffle maker but ultimately never bothered, figuring any initial enthusiasm would soon fade and it'd just languish in the cupboard. The book has several variations of Belgian waffles so I told my friends that maybe this will spur me on.

 

I sent them away with some macarons (I think I got the better end of that swap)...

 

 

A few days later I received a text...

 

 

And they didn't just turn up with a toothless nonagenarian's best wishes. Oh no, they also had one of these...

 

 

Apparently, this was languishing in the cupboard (obviously!) of their airbnb host, Madeleine, a barely used gift from her grandkids. Dazzled by my macarons, and saddened to hear of my waffle maker hesitancy, she figured it would be better off going to a good home instead.

 

And so I made my first waffle...

 

 

Having zero experience, the first ladleful (right) was slightly misjudged, but the second (left) wasn't too bad.

 

I was getting in the swing of things by the next batch...

 

 

The batter wasn't sweetened, so a generous dusting of icing sugar was recommended...

 

 

I don't think I've had a freshly made waffle before, so the hot, crispy shell and soft, airy inside was a bit of a revelation...

 

 

Even better with vanilla whipped cream...

 

 

So thanks to Madeleine my waffle adventure has begun. As a small thank you, my friends headed back with a chunk of gateau Basque for her to suck on.

[Katie Meadow]

@Pete Fred  I don't have Basque fatigue yet but I want to. I've never made a Gateau Basque but I'm tired of not living next door to you. So is there a recipe you like best? 

[Pete Fred]

12 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

@Pete Fred So is there a recipe you like best? 

 

I posted a couple of links a few months back (although the Bruno video seems to have now disappeared). But most recipes seem to be broadly similar, so I doubt you can go wrong.

 

A regular pastry cream is fine; I just seem to have settled on this slightly different one, and I use a larger quantity than is usual.

 

You should make one. It's a good cake, and pretty straightforward.

[Pete Fred]

I had 250g of surplus brioche dough so decided to turn it into a small tear-and-share* loaf...

 

 

 

I love warm brioche straight from the oven but then I remembered I still had some of the plum caramel from a couple of weeks back. A good dredging later...

 

 

*there was no sharing, just tearing.

 

 

Edited September 11 by Pete Fred (log)