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

[kayb]

H'mmm. I have buckwheat groats. I see no reason why I couldn't roast them.

 

[blue_dolphin]

Ginger Rye Shortbread from Sister Pie p 150. These are delicious gingery shortbread cookies.  The recipe calls for both ground ginger and chopped, candied ginger and uses half all purpose and half rye flour.

I found a blog post that includes the recipe here.  That blogger dips them in white chocolate.  I followed the book and topped them with a pinch of turbinado sugar before baking. 

 

 

Not sure it was enough to make any difference but I added about 1 T of fresh, grated ginger. I also took the lazy slice & bake route instead of rolling and using a cookie cutter.  I'll cut rest of the dough log into lengths that make about a dozen cookies and stash them in the freezer. 

 

 

[Pete Fred]

Powder Puffs from Ottolenghi 'Sweet'.

 

 

These are cookies that are baked crisp (a bit like Savoiardi biscuits/Ladyfingers), sandwiched with rose cream and raspberry jam, then refrigerated for several hours where they become soft and delicate (he recommends at least five hours, but I thought them best at 24 hours). I found them delightful. Recommended.

[jmacnaughtan]

I was asked to bring something for an apéro, so I went with my old favourite.

 

Gougères!

 

 

These are with parmesan and smoked paprika.

[Kim Shook]

48 minutes ago, jmacnaughtan said:

I was asked to bring something for an apéro, so I went with my old favourite.

 

Gougères!

 

 

These are with parmesan and smoked paprika.

Your gougères are always so smooth and round.  Mine look like this:

Here's the recipe I use.  What do you think makes the difference?  I really like the look of yours.

[blue_dolphin]

I had a haircut appointment this morning and brought along this Blackberry Peach Coffee Cake from Sister Pie.  The recipe is available online at this link.   The base layer is not too sweet, with oats, spelt flour and whole wheat flour that give it a nutty flavor and good texture.  The fruit and streusel add sweetness and chunks of cream cheese add a bit of richness. 

I subbed white nectarines in for the peaches because they had the most delicious floral fragrance and flavor when I sampled them at the farmers market and used kefir instead of buttermilk because it was in the fridge. I didn't have any spelt flour and it was $14.99 for a 5 lb bag at Sprouts so I whizzed some spelt into flour in the old Blendtec and used that.

The recipe has you cut 6 oz of cream cheese into 12 big chunks but since I planned on cutting it up into smaller pieces, I went with 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes. I think I counted 40 of them (you can check that in the photo below 🙃)and was happy with that.

Most of the prep for this can be done ahead - the batter is supposed to sit in the fridge overnight and the streusel can be made a couple of days ahead and stored in the fridge. However, the cake needs to cool before you remove it from the pan and that takes a while. If you try wrestling it out when it's still hot, you'll squeeze juice out of the hot fruit and risk a soggy bottom. I ended up driving it down in the pan and cutting it up after I arrived.   

 

The recipe says to cut it into 16 pieces and that it serves 12 - I guess someone gets more than one!  I think I cut it into about 30 pieces. 

 

 

[jmacnaughtan]

20 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

Your gougères are always so smooth and round.  Mine look like this:

Here's the recipe I use.  What do you think makes the difference?  I really like the look of yours.

 

Hi @Kim Shook,

 

Those gougères look pretty appetising to me

 

The main difference between our recipes, I think, is the cheese - yours is grated and only just mixed in, while I microplane my Parmesan and really beat it in.  I normally add a little more egg after the cheese too, because it tends to "dry" the mixture a bit (I always look for the long smooth "V" when it's hanging off the spoon).  

 

Maybe the food processor is incorporating air, too?  For small quantities, I just do it by hand, as it's easier to judge the texture.

 

You'll also get much more consistent results with a piping bag and a plain 1cm tip than with a spoon.  It takes a bit of practice, but it's worthwhile

[Kim Shook]

2 hours ago, jmacnaughtan said:

 

Hi @Kim Shook,

 

Those gougères look pretty appetising to me

 

The main difference between our recipes, I think, is the cheese - yours is grated and only just mixed in, while I microplane my Parmesan and really beat it in.  I normally add a little more egg after the cheese too, because it tends to "dry" the mixture a bit (I always look for the long smooth "V" when it's hanging off the spoon).  

 

Maybe the food processor is incorporating air, too?  For small quantities, I just do it by hand, as it's easier to judge the texture.

 

You'll also get much more consistent results with a piping bag and a plain 1cm tip than with a spoon.  It takes a bit of practice, but it's worthwhile 

Thanks so much.  I've printed out your comments to put with my recipe, so I'll have them handy next time I make them.  

[patris]

This week is another of our monthly lunches at work. I generally try to make something for both the chocolate eaters and the non-chocolate eaters, which generally means at least two different recipes altogether. This time I decided to try to please everyone with one recipe: His Mother's Oatmeal Cookies, which were the only oatmeal cookie my mother, an exceptional baker, ever made.  

I am not a big oatmeal cookie fan, but these are something else - light and crunchy, a bit buttery, and not too sweet. My mom always sandwiched them with Smucker's blackberry jam, which I will do to some of them the morning of the lunch to keep them from going too soggy; I will also serve some plain/un-sandwiched and some dipped in chocolate so as to please as many as possible.

 

 

Yes, that is a LOT of cookies. A single recipe makes in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 dozen cookies, which is enough for almost any purpose. This morning, however, working from my mother's battered Betty Crocker cookbook, I got distracted by her handwritten notes about doubling the recipe and didn't realize until I had mixed the dough completely that I had added milk enough for a double batch - so I assembled a second batch sans milk and mixed the two together. I sincerely hope I can find a home for them all, as they are absolutely addictive and I definitely do not need the extra calories!

 

[Anna N]

On 6/13/2019 at 11:04 AM, blue_dolphin said:

Ginger Rye Shortbread from Sister Pie p 150. 

These definitely appeal to me but I’m not into cutting out cookies with cookie cutters and my experience with slicing rolled cookies has always been abysmal. So I’m wondering how easy you found these to slice. Did they have a tendency to  crumble? Did they deform as you sliced?  I am sure it is operator error but after struggling with Dorie Greenspan‘s World Peace cookies I swore I would never try this again. But these do look good. Thanks. 

[blue_dolphin]

52 minutes ago, Anna N said:

These definitely appeal to me but I’m not into cutting out cookies with cookie cutters and my experience with slicing rolled cookies has always been abysmal. So I’m wondering how easy you found these to slice. Did they have a tendency to  crumble? Did they deform as you sliced?  I am sure it is operator error but after struggling with Dorie Greenspan‘s World Peace cookies I swore I would never try this again. But these do look good. Thanks. 

 

So far, I've made 3 slice and bake shortbreads from this book and they all sliced quite easily.  

The only minor issue I had with crumbling was when the knife encountered one of the inclusions (crystalized ginger here, olives and juniper or rosemary leaves in the other cookies - posted over in the savory topic) very close to the edge of the cookie, a little crumble tended to break off.  It was easy to pat the little piece back on the few cookies where that happened.   

They didn't deform too much, although I noticed that after a while, the bottom started to flatten out a little so I tried to rotate the log after a few slices and put the log back in the fridge between batches so it wasn't sitting on the warm board.   The other versions I made were square and triangular logs so I didn't have an issue there.  In all cases, they were in the fridge overnight and quite firm.

 

I followed Dorie Greenspan's method for making a tight roll but needed to chill the dough a bit first because it was too squishy at room temp.

Put the roughly shaped log in the center of a piece of parchment paper and bring the far end of the paper over the roll

Pull the bottom layer of parchment towards you as you use a bench scraper or some straightedge tool to push the top layer of parchment against the bottom of the roll. 

It took me rather more pushing and pulling than shown here but was still fairly quick:

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by blue_dolphin
to add link (log)

[Merry Berry]

Made a Father's Day cake for a neighbor.  She did not care what I did with it as long as it was chocolate everything haha.  Have not done fondant figurines in a while, so I knew I would be rusty, but they came out okay.  Still have some work to do to make them look more natural, but it should come back to me with time and practice.  

 

Cake is Devils Food with ABC icing with a dark chocolate ganache drip.

 

 

 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

So far, I've made 3 slice and bake shortbreads from this book and they all sliced quite easily.  

Thanks for all of this!  I just might be prepared to give this kind of cookie another chance.

[demiglace]

2 hours ago, patris said:

This week is another of our monthly lunches at work. I generally try to make something for both the chocolate eaters and the non-chocolate eaters, which generally means at least two different recipes altogether. This time I decided to try to please everyone with one recipe: His Mother's Oatmeal Cookies, which were the only oatmeal cookie my mother, an exceptional baker, ever made.  

I am not a big oatmeal cookie fan, but these are something else - light and crunchy, a bit buttery, and not too sweet. My mom always sandwiched them with Smucker's blackberry jam, which I will do to some of them the morning of the lunch to keep them from going too soggy; I will also serve some plain/un-sandwiched and some dipped in chocolate so as to please as many as possible.

 

 

Yes, that is a LOT of cookies. A single recipe makes in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 dozen cookies, which is enough for almost any purpose. This morning, however, working from my mother's battered Betty Crocker cookbook, I got distracted by her handwritten notes about doubling the recipe and didn't realize until I had mixed the dough completely that I had added milk enough for a double batch - so I assembled a second batch sans milk and mixed the two together. I sincerely hope I can find a home for them all, as they are absolutely addictive and I definitely do not need the extra calories!

 

 

I love oatmeal cookies and these look spectacular. I need to move closer to you so you can use my home for them.

[blue_dolphin]

19 hours ago, Anna N said:

Thanks for all of this!  I just might be prepared to give this kind of cookie another chance.

One more thing to add in case you want to give it a try with reduced investment.  For the Ginger Rye Shortbread, I made the full recipe but for the Juniper-Olive and the Salted Rosemary Shortbreads, I made a half batch.  

I did the same this morning and mixed up doughs for Rose Pistachio Shortbread and Buttered Rum Shortbreads.  

That leaves me with the Fresh Mint and Lime Shortbread left to try.  Maybe I should set up a half batch of them, too.  

Or maybe the World Peace cookies if I start acting cocky and need to be knocked down a peg 🙃

Edited June 17, 2019 by blue_dolphin (log)

[Anna N]

On 6/8/2019 at 9:04 AM, Panaderia Canadiense said:

Great, now I'm craving rhubarb.

 I was fortunate enough to be offered some rhubarb by @Kerry Beal.  I hesitated as I did not wish to waste it and my cooking mojo has been MIA for many weeks. Once I had said yes that I would take some, I knew I was committed to doing something with it.  A quick search brought up a couple of recipes that interested me so I combined them. I briefly roasted the rhubarb with some sugar and a little bit of water, added some ground ginger and then made a topping of  butter, sugar and flour and spread that on top of the roasted rhubarb and then sprinkled some almonds on top of that because I could. Baked it for 30 minutes or so and voila— where is the ice cream?

 

[curls]

@Anna N your rhubarb dish looks delicious. Looks like your cooking mojo has returned!

[Kim Shook]

For Father’s Day, I decided to try a Strawberry Ladyfinger Icebox Cake from Tasteofhome.com.  I had some trouble with it and am still not sure was worth it.  The springform pan lined with ladyfingers:

 

All layered up with strawberries, mascarpone, and whipped cream.

This layering is where I got into trouble.  The ingredients list the strawberries as “6 cups fresh strawberries, sliced”, which SHOULD mean “measure out 6 cups of strawberries and then slice them”.  That really is a bad direction.  Strawberries can be all kinds of sizes – huge or as small as a thimble.  I decided to prep the mascarpone/whipped cream portion and prep as many strawberry slices as seemed correct.  That worked fine.  But I was so freaked out about that that I think my attention wandered while I was doing the layering.  The layering is supposed to go: ladyfingers, creamy layer, strawberries, creamy layer, strawberries, ladyfingers, creamy layer.  I somehow missed the final ladyfinger layer.  I was expressing my confusion and fears on the “absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions” thread here and everyone was sharing my frustration at the strawberry measurement issue.  We were a bit worried that the lack of one of the ladyfinger layers would affect the stability, but it was actually fine:

It was good.  And impressive looking.  But I guess I thought it would be kind of spectacular tasting and it just wasn’t. 

 

[teonzo]

35 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

For Father’s Day, I decided to try a Strawberry Ladyfinger Icebox Cake from Tasteofhome.com.

 

Please call it "charlotte", it's one of the most traditional desserts in classic French pastry. It went out of fashion in modern pastry shops, but it deserves to be rediscovered.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Smithy]

@Kim Shook: It may be partly because I'm not crazy about vanilla pastries in and of themselves and I'm an uneducated cretin, but I can't see where an extra layer of those ladyfingers (just submerged along the top? really??) would have been an improvement. I think what you did looks grand. 

 

@teonzo: thanks for the additional insight.

[HungryChris]

My rhubarb plants were given to me by a coworker, many years ago.They are all now bigger than she was.  Stef helped me at my then, new  job in many  ways and I always think of her as I make the first of many strawberry - rhubarb pies.

HC

 

[blue_dolphin]

Here are the 3 remaining shortbread cookie variations from Sister Pie, all slice & bake. 

From left to right, Buttered Rum, Fresh Mint & Lime and Rose Pistachio.  Out of the oven and cooling:

 

With the addition of rum icing, powered sugar and rose petal icing:

 

[Anna N]

 Think I might be on a fruit crumble bent.  I had two apples in the crisper drawer that looked much more attractive in their youth than in their senescence. I diced them without peeling,  tossed them with some currants and some honey and topped them with my usual crumble topping (butter, sugar, flour).

 

 

 This is one of those desserts that is almost infinitely adaptable, quick to pull together and enjoyed by many people. 

 

 

[rotuts]

@Anna N

 

good for you

 

Crumble , Crisp and the like is my very favorite desert

 

Im having some Trader Joe's made for me soon.

 

[ed.:  talk about lazy he is ! ]

[Okanagancook]

I make a apple crumble that has mint with the apples....from Foods of the World.  Food of Spain

Cinnamon in there also.