Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Ling]

Yesterday it was glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste and red bean soup at a Chinese dinner. Then when I got home, I ate some chocolate cake.

Today I had more of the chocolate cake, and a frozen peanut butter swirl brownie from the freezer.

[Ling]

^The aforementioned desserts were actually breakfast, and then the brownie was dessert after lunch. Dessert after dinner turned out to be a raspberry turnover from the fine folks at the Costco bakery.

[spaghetttti]

Toblerone chocolate liberally sprinkled with Hawaiian Pink Sea Salt.

Sweet, salty, crunchy....delightful.

[ericablu]

Cook's Illustrated's 'Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Cake'

<img src="http://baking.ericablu.com/wp-content/flourlesschocwhole.jpg" />

[Ling]

^Oohh! How was that? Have you tried RLB's Chocolate Oblivion, and if so, how does the Cook's Illustrated cake compare? (If you don't have the RLB recipe, I'll swap you!)

ETA: dessert was a high-end chocolate (Michel Cluizel, my last few precious squares!)meets low-end croissant (Costco)...voila, pain au chocolat

Edited November 14, 2005 by Ling (log)

[ericablu]

^Oohh! How was that? Have you tried RLB's Chocolate Oblivion, and if so, how does the Cook's Illustrated cake compare? (If you don't have the RLB recipe, I'll swap you!) smile.gif

I don't have that recipe to compare - let's trade!

[prasantrin]

Toblerone chocolate liberally sprinkled with Hawaiian Pink Sea Salt. 

Sweet, salty, crunchy....delightful.

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Oh my lord, that looks good! I've been eating Toblerone as long as I've been eating chocolate (it was pretty much the only chocolate I remember eating as a kid), and I never thought to try it like that. Have you tried it with other salts, or is Hawaiian Pink Sea Salt the best? That's a regular Toblerone from the cream-coloured box? Or gold or black?

[Ling]

^ I have some fleur de sel that I'm going to try on some chocolate tomorrow. Thanks for the idea, spaghetttti!

I read that Hawaiian pink sea salt does not have a distinctly different flavour, and the colour is just a novelty. What do you think, spaghetttti?

[prasantrin]

Last night I had a Broadway Strawberry Cake from Gramercy New York (a bakery in Japan--I don't know if there's actually a bakery of that name in NYC).

Tonight, I'm going to have an apple tart, also from Gramercy New York.

The cake of the strawberry one was good, but I wasn't crazy about the cream (tasted somewhat edible-oil based, to me, though I'm quite certain they only use fresh cream at this place). The strawberries were also quite tart, though the blueberry was sweet. The apple one, however, is absolutely to die for!

Edited November 14, 2005 by prasantrin (log)

[spaghetttti]

prasantrin, yes that's the chocolate in the cream colored triangular box.

Lorna, I don't have fleur de sel, but I did a taste comparison with what I do have.

I found that the Hawaiian pink and Cerulean Seas salts had a very sharp, clean saltiness. No distinct difference between the two, whereas the Baleine was smooth. All three tasted good with the chocolate, but the crunch of the larger crystals of the Hawaiian pink was most pleasurable.

You might be right about the color, too. It's just pretty.

How does fleur de sel taste?

[Patrick S]

Factoid: the reddish color of the Hawaiian salt is caused by the presence of iron oxide. Sea water around Hawaii is rich in iron because the "mafic" volcanic rock that makes up the islands are iron-rich.

[Chufi]

Speculaas cookies

we usually don't eat dessert and we don't often have sweets and cookies in the house.. but with my dutch cooking project going on, there seem to be cookies all the time.. husband is starting to complain that we're getting fat.. ah too bad

[Ling]

How does fleur de sel taste?

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It tastes a bit minerally, and it is not nearly as salty as regular table salt. It has very delicate, slightly sweet taste. The flakes look kind of moist (for salt)...it is a slight greyish colour. I've just started using it in caramel!

[Verjuice]

My sweet tooth experienced a fair bit of frustration tonight. I'm visiting family, had a pretty sizeable dinner, and was looking forward to a little something sweet. The uninspired odds and ends in the larder weren't really doing it for me. Now it's midnight and although I've eaten a pound of sugar I'm still not... satisfied... I ate, in the following order (note the degenerative influence of a craving that has not been properly addressed):

-A Gala apple (nice start, a valiant effort to remain virtuous)

-Two ripe bananas with natural peanut butter (delicious, but I'd already had a couple throughout the day and they were not what I wanted for dessert)

-Two bowls of Greek yogurt: one with maple syrup and the other with walnuts with ginger honey and pistachios

-A couple of (very) stale brownies (the cakey kind, meh), warmed through and eaten with (generic and tasteless) vanilla ice cream

-A handful of mini Toblerone bars

-A Nature's Valley 'Sweet 'n' Salty' bar, peanut butter flavor

-A small bar of marzipan dipped in bittersweet chocolate

-Three stroopwaffels warmed and eaten with more peanut butter and more mediocre ice cream

- A Milka bar

-Some warm caramel sauce (just over a a cup's worth, I'd guess) that I whipped up as an emergency measure (Maldon sea salt added, since I usually carry it in my purse), eaten out of the saucepan and under the date palms, in the dark.

-Four squares of green tea bittersweet chocolate

-A few honey-soaked, almond-stuffed local dates.

-Half of my sister's Godiva raspberry truffle bar. I usually hate fruit and chocolate combined and I'm no fan of Godiva, but this was kind of good. Reminded me of those Pim's cake/jam processed junky tartlets...

-A third of a box of Pim's pear junk tartlets

My GP warned me last week that my metabolism will probably taper off soon, so I'm definitely trying to make the most of it . But I wonder why I'm still hungry? And more importantly, where is the Nutella?

[*Deborah*]

I made this apple tart (Jacques Pépin's Mémé's apple tart, with some really flavourful fresh MacIntoshes and some ginger and cinnamon in the sugar topping) for brunch at a girlfriend's yesterday:

It came out really well!

[cathrynapple]

i'm a sucker for pear and apple...and fruit tarts in general! yours looks wonderful.

i had some mango juice and about seven ginger lemon creams..can't remember the brand name, but they're very gingery, a little spicy, and the lemon filling is tart and lovely.

[spaghetttti]

*Deborah*, swoon!! That's positively stunning!

Where can I find the recipe?

[Dominicana]

*Deborah*, swoon!! That's positively stunning!

Where can I find the recipe?

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What she said....WOW!

[Ling]

almond biscotti, warm out of the oven

(wish I was eating Deborah's tart instead, though...those apples look so plump and yummy)

Edited November 15, 2005 by Ling (log)

[*Deborah*]

Thanks, everyone! I had exactly the right amount of patience with that I think...browned just enough on top. I wish I had brought home a slice, actually, the apples aren't always that nice. Oh well!

The recipe is in Jacques Pépin's Sweet Simplicity, which is all fruit desserts, organized by fruit. If you're a bit sneaky you can use the Amazon "search in this book" feature to find it. I don't know if it's published online anywhere...I love that book, though, and recommend it if you like fruit desserts. The pastry for that tart has been about foolproof for me; and I kind of suck at pastry, so that's saying something.

[Stephanie Wallace]

Your tart looks beautiful Deborah!

I haven't been able to post for a few days; so here is my weekend in desserts (NYC & Cambridge):

A chocolate macaron at La Maison du Chocolat. It was filled with a chocolate buttercream.

It was tasty, but I wish it had been a ganache.

A delicious burnt caramel bon bon from Recchiuti at the NY Chocolate Show.

"Chinon" at Payard Patisserie. Pistachio dacquoise, with wild cherries on a chocolate wafer.

"Sweet Relief" at Payard. Mango mousse, pineapple parfait and roasted pineapple enveloped by meringue.

...and tons of Payard's macarons.

Next up in Cambridge:

L.A. Burdicks Nuss Torte.

And last but not least The Burdick Wafer. Layers of wafer and rum ganache topped with chopped pistachio.

Edited November 16, 2005 by Melange (log)

[Ling]

Melange...thanks for the pictures! Which was your favourite? I hope to eat Payard's desserts one day, and I've been reading the L.A. Burdick's thread on Egullet too. The desserts at both these places look incredible.

[spaghetttti]

Melange, gorgeous photos of gorgeous desserts! The colorful Payard macarons are enticing....lovely feet!

[*Deborah*]

Melange, lovely stuff!

That meringue...perfect.

[sanrensho]

And last but not least The Burdick Wafer. Layers of wafer and rum ganache topped with chopped pistachio.

Yum! Any idea what kind of wafer that is? Is it a cookie base?

Edited November 16, 2005 by sanrensho (log)