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

[Shelby]

1 minute ago, kayb said:

 

Walgreen's. If they have Walgreens in your world.

 

They do in the big city.  Still easier for me to Amazon it lol. 

[demiglace]

4 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I had never heard of Sugar Babies.  Learn something almost every day on this forum.

Sometimes you'll find US treats like Sugar Babies at Walmart in large movie size boxes.

[Pete Fred]

After the unrestrained hedonism of pink icing and glacé cherries, it's back to boring brown cakes for me. This is parkin, a traditional cake from the north of England. It's kind of a dense gingerbread made with black treacle (molasses) and oats.

 

 

This is the Yorkshire type of parkin and bakes quite dry. But it's so hygroscopic from the ridiculous amount of sugar that, after a few weeks in a cupboard, it softens nicely and turns pleasingly sticky. It's a popular treat at this time of year with Halloween and Bonfire Night just around the corner.

[shain]

Chocolate cake with banana and chocolate chips cream.

[Shelby]

On 10/18/2018 at 3:01 PM, Kim Shook said:

@kayb and @Shelby - So glad these are appealing to you!  They are really, really good.  Two things to know.  Make sure to not overcook them - they should be fairly soft out of the oven.  Also - you can make these messy or you can make them neat.  If you don't care what they look like, mix the Sugar Babies in and bake.  They will melt and the ones near the edges will spill out over the edges and make these lacy little crisp caramel ruffles.  We count these as a delicious little treat.  If you want them neat (which I did for the bake sale), you can just press a couple of the Sugar Babies into the cookies before putting in the oven.  For that matter, you could probably place them on top of the soft cookie when it comes out of the oven - like you do Hershey Kisses in PB blossoms.

 

And, I always find my Sugar Babies at Dollar Tree, if that helps.

 

[kayb]

1 minute ago, Shelby said:

 

Wise woman.

Two to eat, two to cook with.

 

[keychris]

Brownies ❤️

[jmacnaughtan]

18 hours ago, kayb said:

Wise woman.

Two to eat, two to cook with.

 

 

So are these just caramels?  According to Wikipedia, they're actually Jamaican.

 

And now I'm down the Wiki-candy rabbit hole...

[jmacnaughtan]

A big birthday party this weekend, so it had to be a bûche.

 

Dark Forest Bûche

 

 

Chocolate digestive and upmarket Lindt candy crunch

Blackcurrant curd

Dark chocolate sponge

Cherries in brandy

Mascarpone and vanilla chantilly

Dark chocolate mousse

Glaze

Chocolate, cherries

 

My first Black Forest, and many things learned:

 

a) Buy the cherries at the last minute, or I will eat them all.

b) Cling film leaves an unintentionally cool wood effect on the cake.

c) I cannot cut straight to save my life.

d) You can pipe glaze onto cakes.

e) You don't notice how bad Paris streets are until you're trying to keep a cake away from your white shirt in the back of a taxi.

 

But not bad

 

Edited for coherence.

Edited October 21, 2018 by jmacnaughtan (log)

[kayb]

That's a thing of beauty.

 

 

[Pete Fred]

Another day, another bit of brown; this time in the form of the Courgette (Zucchini) & Pistachio (Pistachio) Cake from Honey & Co.

 

 

I didn't have any olive oil so subbed in regular vegetable oil (rapeseed). Next time I'll chuck in another handful of (roasted) nuts.

 

I enjoyed this. It was a fine cake.

[keychris]

looks good (delicious) 

[Pete Fred]

Pistachio and Rose Water Semolina Cake from Ottolenghi 'Sweet'.

 

 

A bit of a curious one, this. I had high expectations that, sadly, didn't quite deliver. I think I may have contributed to my own disappointment by roasting the almonds (with skins, my choice) and pistachios that went into the cake batter. They were then blitzed in the food processor but not as finely as commercial ground nuts. This meant their flavour and texture was a little more "wholemeal" in the finished cake. Even the generous amount of soaking syrup (lemon, rose water, sugar) didn't really brighten things up much.

 

I was hoping the accompanying cream (Greek yoghurt, crème fraîche, rose water) would come to the rescue but that turned out to be surprisingly anodyne.

 

 

Not sure I'll be revisiting this one any time soon.

[weinoo]

My wife is no fan of the lowly banana.  And certainly not when they look like this...

 

 

But that's how I like them when I'm making one of these...

 

 

It's my standard, slightly bastardized recipe from Nick Malgieri's How to Bake. 

 

I have a fondness for Nick, as he was my instructor for pastry and baking back at the old Peter Kump's NY Cooking School, my alma mater 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by weinoo (log)

[chromedome]

LOL I consider those to be "just nicely ripened."

They gotta go a bit longer to be consigned to baking, in my house.

[weinoo]

12 hours ago, chromedome said:

LOL I consider those to be "just nicely ripened."

They gotta go a bit longer to be consigned to baking, in my house.

I find that any longer and they ferment.

[jmacnaughtan]

1 minute ago, weinoo said:

I find that any longer and they ferment.

 

That's the sweet spot.  Also, if you want to boost the banana flavour a bit, add a splash of Jack Daniel's

[jmacnaughtan]

In an effort to get the cherries in kirsch out of the house, I'm running with the Black Forest Gâteau thing.

 

 

All of the elements are the same as the bûche from last weekend, but it's tweaked to make it a bit lighter.  I'll see if I've succeeded tonight 🤔

[Kim Shook]

The first of five apple cakes for my church bake sale:

[kayb]

@Kim Shook -- That has a pound cake-ish look about it. Is it?

 

[Pete Fred]

Beetroot, Ginger and Soured Cream Cake from Ottolenghi 'Sweet'. Here it is before and after icing...

 

 

It contains beetroot, walnuts and stem ginger (preserved ginger). The topping is cream cheese and double (heavy) cream. Ottolenghi uses a vitamin C tablet to preserve and 'set' the colour of the beetroot, resulting in quite a striking visual when sliced...

 

 

This was a very good cake.

[Kim Shook]

4 hours ago, kayb said:

@Kim Shook -- That has a pound cake-ish look about it. Is it?

 

Something between pound cake and regular cake.

[weinoo]

On 10/26/2018 at 7:54 AM, jmacnaughtan said:

 

That's the sweet spot.  Also, if you want to boost the banana flavour a bit, add a splash of Jack Daniel's

If you really want to boost the banana flavour, I suggest doing 2 shots of Jack Daniel's  .

[Matthew.Taylor]

Well, I haven't done this yet, but my little nephew's birthday is next weekend. He's turning 2 years old, and loves cars. I've been commissioned by my sister to make a large chocolate chip cookie cake. You've seen those if you've been to a cookie store in the mall. It's too have a big picture of the Blue Truck, on it. 

 

Little Blue Truck's Halloween (board book, by Alice Schertle)

 

I was thinking of using my copy of Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie recipe, as Collin seems to like that. I'm gonna make a test-run "cake" early this week.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Smithy
Adjusted Amazon link to be eG-friendly (log)

[Kim Shook]

I was looking for something to do with some past their prime bananas and leftover melted semi-sweet chocolate that Jessica had from making chocolate dipped strawberries.  The consensus in another thread was chocolate chip banana bread.  I decided to try a Betty Crocker recipe for a cake mix fix up.  I re-melted the chocolate, spread it in a pan and chunked it up.  Chocolate Chunk Walnut Banana Bread:

 

It tasted wonderful, but I think my chunks were a little large because they all migrated to the bottom of the loaf:

 

But the flavor and texture were very good: