Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Ling]

gfron1: That's a beautiful dessert! What are the orange lines?

Megan: now I'm craving shortbread....

For dessert, I've been polishing off that plate of truffles Lord Balthazar sent me home with. I am rationing my favourites--the Amedei Porcelana and the dark chocolate squares from Pierre Marcolini.

Edited March 29, 2006 by Ling (log)

[Chufi]

I was sick this weekend and to cheer myself up, I sent my husband to the kitchen supply store to buy me a madeleine pan. Ever since Megan started showing us her beautiful madeleines, they were on my wish-list!

So I made them last night for a dinner party. My guests are both Proust fans and of the 4 people at the table, 3 had read the entire A la recherche du temps perdu from start to finish (yeah, I'm the one who hasn't ), so I thought madeleines would be a nice choice for dessert. I served them with orange cardamom creams and it was delicious!

Mine were kind of evenly brownon one side, and evenly yellow on the other (non-ridged) side, Megan how do you get yours to have those lovely dark edges?

[gfron1]

gfron1: That's a beautiful dessert! What are the orange lines?

For dessert, I've been polishing off that plate of truffles Lord Balthazar sent me home with. I am rationing my favourites--the Amedei Porcelana and the dark chocolate squares from Pierre Marcolini.

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Thanks Ling. The lines were from a printed transfer sheet. When the chocolate melted (ala Patrick's Dali-esque comment) it held the lines but made them wavy - I liked the effect.

And of course you're still eating those truffles I'm sure Balthazar is too, and his friends, and his garbage collector, and his great grandmother's dog sitter... I should have bought stock in cacao futures before that party

[sazji]

We had an accidental dessert party today! It was formally an eclipse party, as I was way too swamped with work to act on my temptation to go hop on the first bus to Antalya, I just called a bunch of friends and we had an "eclipse potluck." They are always fun when you don't tell anyone what to bring and leave it up to them, but this time, what showed up was:

One macaroni salad (mine)

One carrot cake sans cream cheese goo (mine)

Two tahini çöreks (leavened, sweet, very heavy with lots of tahini)

A pound of butter cookies

"Moon çöreks" (A thin dough wrapped around a crescent of dense chocolate/cinnamon/raisin cake)

Apple filled "foldover" cookies

Chocolate filled cake

And most of it is still sitting in my house waiting for someone to devour it...and I dearly hope it won't be me! Well, just a little more o' that carrot cake, the edge is all uneven after all...

Off topic: the day was perfect, 72 degrees, the eclipse was only 87% in Istanbul but that was enough to really reduce the light (which is not like evening light at all...it was more like the sun had been replaced by a slightly dim fluorescent lamp), and all the shadows went ragged. The round dots projected onto the pavement through the hundreds of holes in our patio chairs all turned into crescents. But next time I'm saying "to hell with it" and hopping on that bus!

[Ling]

I had the most incredible food-filled day in Seattle yesterday, thanks to the overwhelming hospitality of many Seattle EGs! I ate at Boat Street Cafe, Fran's, Union, littlemissfoodie's cocktail party (cutest hostess ever, btw!), Monsoon, Mistral, AND pastries from The Barking Frog!

Here are the dessert pictures:

First, Abra picked me up and she gave me a box of the most delicious candied ginger and black sesame ganache cookies! I will post a picture of those later.

I shared this with Abra at Fran's. The burnt caramel ice-cream was my favourite of the three (that's a chocolate ice-cream and a raspberry cassis sorbet.)

I also had a few of the dark chocolate caramels with grey salt and the milk chocolate caramels with smoked salt. (not pictured).

My date arranged a special dessert flight for me at Mistral. I've never had anyone do that for me before. We drank some bubbly with the Chef, William, and the (incredibly talented) Pastry Chef, Stacy, as well.

cannoli with Cara Cara orange sorbet

this was incredible--it's a piece of frozen pineapple wrapped around pineapple sorbet. The pineapple was so thin and crisp when you bit into it, but then becomes chewy. Served with a tart rhubarb sorbet.

banana fritters with maple ice-cream and caramel (incredibly light fritter, btw...wow!)

hibiscus syrup, financier, and I'm blanking on the ice-cream....sorry

Valrhona Manjari brownie, mousse, chocolate cremeux? (I drank so much last night and am not recalling the details as well as I should, but this was an amazing dessert)

AND.............

My date ALSO arranged for me to get this box of desserts from the pastry chef at The Barking Frog! There are tiny chocolate cherry cups, Nutella mousse cake (beautiful, thin shell on all the chocolate work, btw), and chocolate mousse cups.

I ate one of everything in the box. SO GOOD!

There's more...Valrhona bread pudding, chocolate sauce, and apricot coulis, I believe.

Edited April 2, 2006 by Ling (log)

[sazji]

Wow...it's been two years since I've been back to Seattle and five years since I lived there...lots of new names. But I do remember Fran's caramel ice cream, it's amazing! Caramel is actually a very popular flavor for ice cream here too but I've never found a place where it's so intense as Fran's. The brownie looks wonderful.

[lexy]

Wow, looks great Ling! That date's one to hang onto by the look of those photos!

[Ling]

In my previous post, there's a shot of the unassembled Manjari chocolate bread pudding and apriocot coulis (along with some other chocolate treats) made by Pastry Chef Melissa Walpole from The Barking Frog in Seattle.

I plated her dessert tonight. (I was supposed to use a ring mold, but I can't find my small one, so I used a snowflake cutter.) It was delicious--the bread pudding was very rich and not too sweet, and generously studded with cherries. The sauce was luscious. (She also made the chocolate cherry cups in the background, and I added some sour cherries I had hanging around and a few cocoa nibs.)

Here are the cookies Abra made for me! She called them "Ling's Fling". They're ginger shortbread covered in black sesame ganache. DELICIOUS!

And lastly, I got a twice-baked almond croissant today from the same guy who arranged that awesome dessert tasting for me yesterday. I'm a lucky girl.

Edited April 2, 2006 by Ling (log)

[miladyinsanity]

Hold onto him tightly, Ling!

Macarons. Again. I'm close to sick of them already. So next weekend, if I find the energy, it'll be chocolate cake.

Edited to add: I'll post the pic in the macarons thread.

Edited April 2, 2006 by miladyinsanity (log)

[Chufi]

Ling, I hope I will eat half as good when I'm in Seattle this fall! That caramel icecream is on my list..

Dessert yesterday was as pretty as it was delicious: Translucent Apple Tart. The recipe is both in Nigella Lawsons How to eat and in Jane Grigsons Fruit book. The filling is simply 60 grams of melted butter, 60 grams of sugar, 1 egg and a grated apple. As you can see it really was translucent! And really good, a very light and delicate flavor. We had it with vanilla whipped cream but I actually think it would have been even better unadorned.

Edited April 2, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[lexy]

I decided to do a little baking in order to celebrate Oxford's victory in the boat race today (not that I really need an excuse to bake …)

I pulled out my mum's recipe for gingerbread cake, but I probably should have checked the cupboards before I started, instead of just assuming I had what I needed … this became the gingerbread-cake-of-many-substitutions.

First I didn't have enough golden syrup (even though I opened a new jar for this cake, it still wasn't enough!), so I made up the difference with some molasses. Then I realised I was nearly out of all-purpose flour, so I subbed in cake flour. Then I found out I only had about half the powdered ginger required, so I threw in some fresh grated ginger as well. Phew! Oh well, all's well that ends well.

[Ling]

I'm still finishing Abra's cookies (she gave me a lovely tin of them!) and one of my students gave me a box of Girl Guide cookies today so I had a few of those too.

[Abra]

Klary, that tart is radiant! Did you have it on glass with a light underneath? It's gorgeous.

[Wendy DeBord]

My date arranged a special dessert flight for me at Mistral. I've never had anyone do that for me before. We drank some bubbly with the Chef, William, and the (incredibly talented) Pastry Chef, Stacy, as well. 

Very cool...............dare I say romantic, and it shows he knows your tastes......and is willing to go that extra step to please you. Or he wants to fatten you up so your all his..... (I swear my hubby does that sometimes)

just joking........

[Ling]

Thanks everyone...yes, he's very sweet and thoughtful.

[lexy]

I made a batch of my favourite oatmeal cookies yesterday, with chocolate chips thrown in for good measure, but when I came to take some photos of them today, this was the only one left!

[Raquel]

I haven't been on this thread for a while and saw so many delectable treats while perusing the last few pages.

gfron1 - beautiful chambord genois & candied kumquat cremoix

CanadianBakin' - wonderful, colorful crooked cake

Ling - unbelievable sweets in Seattle

Klary - very pretty & delicate apple tart

I really had a craving for cupcakes today, so I headed out to Sprinkles to get a dozen. They were really low on stock and there was a long line... but @ least I got to stand behind Jake Gyllenhaal ("I wish I could quit you") while I waited!

The only flavors left were the basic Vanilla, Chocolate, Red Velvet, & Lemon Coconut. But boy were they ever good...

[hhlodesign]

The first day of a weekend trip to the Bay area ended with dinner at Chez Panisse Cafe. For dessert we had Meyer lemon ice cream with carmel and biscotti.

I found that the flavor of the ice cream was very nice, but there seemed to be too much rind in the base. The biscotti, however, was perfect.

We also had hazelnut praline cream puffs with vanilla pastry cream and chocolate sauce.

My date thought the cream puffs were too dry. But she tends to prefer them slightly underdone.

We started the trip with a tour of the SB factory.

It was very informative, but my date knew everything about the entire process, and ruined the tour for me.

Now we're eating Valrhona Le Noir Amer 72% as I type this. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ling]

^ You forgot about these!!

[Chufi]

Klary, that tart is radiant!  Did you have it on glass with a light underneath?  It's gorgeous.

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The sun was just setting, and shone through the glass pie plate. It was beautiful.. I was sorry my guests did not get to see it.

It's not often a dish lives up to it's fancy cookbook-name..

Tonight: rhubarb crumble. Ah, the first rhubarb of the season. I adore rhubarb, both in the early days when it's rosy-pink, and later in the season when its greenish and coarser flavored. But the first of the year is always special.

[Swisskaese]

^ You forgot about these!!

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Don't freak out, but I am not a big chocolate person. But....I do like dark chocolate and I bet those are fantastic.

I know you are having a lovely time in San Francisco. It is my favourite city in the States.

[Pille]

I made a blueberry tart last night. The crust is butter, sugar, plain flour and porridge oats, the filling is blueberries, sour cream, sugar, egg and a hint of vanilla. Absolutely delicious

Edited April 9, 2006 by Pille (log)

[miladyinsanity]

I'm having a severely modified version of Ling's brownies, and a slice of bad cake (which, I'm ashamed to admit, is a badly-made version of a Trish Deseine recipe).

[Megan Blocker]

Pille - that looks great! I have a huge soft spot for blueberry confections of any and every kind...any chance you could share the recipe with us?

[Pille]

Pille - that looks great!  I have a huge soft spot for blueberry confections of any and every kind...any chance you could share the recipe with us?

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Thanks, Megan I've posted the recipe on my foodblog - hope you'll like it!