Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[2010]

The Chinese New Year collection from L.A. Burdick arrived at my house yesterday. So far I have tasted the Lapsang Souchong and Cashew Sesame. The smoky Lapsang aroma was incredible!

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Don't you just love those mice! I ordered some as soon as I saw a segment about LA Burdick on Martha Stewart Living.

Megan, your madeleines are BEAUTIFUL! Not an air bubble to be seen. You should stick to your $10 B,B&B pan since they produce such wonderful madeleines, unless the Williams-Sonoma pan you're after is the silicone flexi-pan made in France, which also produces beautiful madeleines! Psst, I have it!

[Chufi]

(Quince Tart)

It was very good.. the only thing wrong with it was that I had liked the jelly to be more, uhm, jellied.. it was too runny. But still delicious 

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When you poach the quinces, did you add the seeds to the poaching liquid? They are loaded with pectin, I'd think enough to make things gel quite well (maybe even more than you might want!)

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yes, I always make a syrup first by cooking the peels and pips in some water, then strain, and cook the pieces of quince in this syrup.. I think I was just not patient enough and spread the jelly on the tart before it was really cold, so that's why it spread so much.

edited to add: Ling , your puff pastry looks gorgeous.. and isn't it fun to make?

Edited February 7, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[Patrick S]

Great-looking desserts, Megan and Klary.

I made another tart, the caramel custard tart from The Secrets of Baking. I used the pate sucre recipe from Cook's Illustrated's perfect lemon tart recipe. I like this tart dough pretty well, though it has a habit of slumping down a little when it is blind baked, making the tart a little shallow. My MIL was literally raving about how much she liked this tart. I thought it was delicious too! 

Looks really beautiful. Considering it slumps, how do you keep the edge so even? I assume you are filling the shell with rice/beans/pie weights? I have a slumpy but delicious tart dough recipe that contains ground walnuts (I sometimes substitute hazelnuts), and the directions suggest letting it slump just a bit over the edge of the pan. I find it tends to "cut itself off" over the edge of the pan and drop in quickly-congealing blobs on the bottom of the oven (That's just Lurch getting his share, I figure,) and the result is a fairly even edge; but it's messy.

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I use pennies as pie weights, set over parchment. What I did with that crust was unroll the crust over the tart pan, press it in, and roll off the excess with a rolling pin. I guess what is really happening is the tart shell is shrinking rather than slumping. I'll try your suggestion next time and see how it works.

[Patrick S]

Great-looking pain au chocolat, Ling!

[Ling]

Thank-you all!

edited to add: Ling , your puff pastry looks gorgeous.. and isn't it fun to make? 

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Yes, it was fun to make and I'm so glad I get to cross off one of my culinary resolutions for the new year! The bad thing is I used more than half my puff pastry already and I know that means I ate more than a cup of butter yesterday, if you count all the butter and cream in the chocolates, brownies, ganache, etc.

I think I will have strawberries for dessert today.

[Mottmott]

Thank-you all!

edited to add: Ling , your puff pastry looks gorgeous.. and isn't it fun to make? 

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Yes, it was fun to make and I'm so glad I get to cross off one of my culinary resolutions for the new year! The bad thing is I used more than half my puff pastry already and I know that means I ate more than a cup of butter yesterday, if you count all the butter and cream in the chocolates, brownies, ganache, etc.

I think I will have strawberries for dessert today.

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Ling, you will be happy to read in today's NYTimes that fat may not be as bad for you as has been previously reported.

[tejon]

It was my oldest's 7th birthday, so I made him a volcano cake. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but the butter cake was moist and quite tasty with the chocolate buttercream. Pretty cool, too

[Ling]

Awesome! I can't wait til I have kids so I can do cool things like that with them!

On a sidenote, my friend's brother just asked me to help him teach a cooking class for kids on Fridays.

[sazji]

What fun! How did you get the shape, did you bake it flat and carve it, or...?

[petite tête de chou]

Butter pecan ice cream cake, pie thingy. I crushed a bag of pecan shortbread (sandies) cookies, mixed with melted butter, pressed into a springform pan, smeared the bottom with butterscotch/caramel sauce, froze, spooned a half gallon of butter pecan ice cream over that, froze again, covered the top with the remaining caramel sauce and trimmed the edges with crushed Heath bars. And y'know, I don't even care that much for the whole thing. But my husband loves butter pecan sooo...

[tejon]

What fun!  How did you get the shape, did you bake it flat and carve it, or...?

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I baked six layers, ranging from 9 inches in diameter to custard cup sized for the very top. Then I stacked everything with the buttercream, let it firm up in the refrigerator and trimmed any edges that stuck out. Then I did the crumb coat, chilled, then a final coat that built up the shape that I wanted. Crushed chocolate cookie crumbs made up the "dirt", with powdered sugar on top for "snow". I cut a deep round hole in the center for the "lava", which was made with double strength red Jello (liquid) mixed half and half with lemon juice, then sprinkled with baking soda. This is the first time I've made a shaped cake or anything quite this large, and I was happy with how it all came out in the end.

[Ling]

^That's awesome! You're so creative, tejon!

I made the apple frangipane galette out of the Feenie's cookbook. The pastry chef told me that it is their most popular dessert. I've had it at the restaurant and it's quite good. I love their vanilla ice-cream (made in-house)!

I cut down on the sugar in the recipe, and used ground hazelnuts instead of almonds in the frangipane. I added a bit of cardamom with the cinnamon. I also made dulce de leche instead of the caramel sauce, and used the puff pastry I made instead of frozen puff.

The recipe specifies that the galette will be done in 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees, but perhaps my oven is off because it took a full 22 minutes for the puff pastry to crisp up.

Great recipe, though--and so quick and easy to put together!

[Patrick S]

Lemon pound cake from The Secrets of Baking. Unusual texture. Overly dense. Delicious, but not the best ever.

[angrykoala]

Ling: that's breathtaking. And I'm certain it lives up to it's visual in the taste department. Pure yum.

[Ling]

Thanks angrykoala!

Lemon pound cake from The Secrets of Baking. Unusual texture. Overly dense. Delicious, but not the best ever.

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I hope you don't mind me saying this, but the pound cake looks rubbery in the middle, just like my Elvis Presley pound cake...which is why I didn't like it. What were the proportions like for the Sherry Yard cake?

[Patrick S]

I hope you don't mind me saying this, but the pound cake looks rubbery in the middle, just like my Elvis Presley pound cake...which is why I didn't like it. What were the proportions like for the Sherry Yard cake?

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Of course I don't mind, and the ingredients were:

1C butter/1C sugar/2 eggs/0.5C buttermilk/1.5C flour (mix of AP and cake).

I can't recall how much leavening was in the cake, but it wasn't much -- around .25-.50t baking powder.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Of course the idea popped into my head as to whether such a thing exists as a chocolate-pumpkin pie? 

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It appears that they do exist. Unsure as to whether or not I would be willing to try one. The two flavors I do enjoy singularly but not together ....

[ablosh]

On the left with just a bite left is a New York style cheesecake that wasn't worth the price...but I was hungry...so...And the one on the right is half of the strawberry shortcake with a chocolate ganache topping my sister and I shared.

Both were disappointments as they looked far more delicious than they tasted...

[Joni]

Ling..what dulche de leche recipe do you use? Your picture is fabulous! Yum...

[Ling]

Dulce de Leche thread

Here you go! You just submerge a can of condensed milk and boil it for a few hours. I then put the can in the fridge overnight so the dulce de leche would firm up some more so I could get that tadpole shape (which started to soften and collapse into a teardrop a few minutes after I took the picture...but that's OK b/c it made for easier dipping.)

ETA: I just looked at my picture again and I guess I took it at a bad angle--the fat part of the tadpole looked more rounded in real life. Ah well.

Edited February 9, 2006 by Ling (log)

[sanrensho]

Here you go! You just submerge a can of condensed milk and boil it for a few hours.

Yorna, do you usually use a Vietnamese brand of condensed milk, or something like Carnation brand? Does it make any difference to the finished product? I only ever use sweetened condensed milk for Vietnamese coffee, so I don't know if there is much of a difference between the two.

Thanks.

[Ling]

I used the brand with the old man on the can...it's an Asian brand (I think it's Vietnamese?) I've only done dulce de leche with this brand. I find it a little bit sweeter than the Carnation brand...so I figure it would become browner somehow b/c of the greater amount of sugar. Just a theory.

[shaloop]

I only ever use sweetened condensed milk for Vietnamese coffee, so I don't

How do you make Vietnamese coffee?

[sanrensho]

How do you make Vietnamese coffee?

There's a good thread about cafe sua da here. Basically, you use a dripper to brew strong coffee over a liberal amount of sweetened condensed milk.

Thanks for the info, Lorna.

[Ling]

^No problem!

No picture today as I'm in a rush to get out of the house! I made vanilla cardamom pots de creme. (Yes, I'm on a cardamom kick). Did my basic recipe of 2 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 6 yolks, some vanilla, pinch of cardamom. Into the waterbath at 325F for about half an hour. Mmmmm silky smooth.