Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[C. sapidus]

Wow, the desserts that y’all make are amazing. Baklava features prominently in my limited dessert repertoire. My wife volunteered to chop pecans and walnuts, so she gets part credit. I made a fresh batch of mixed spice, and that made a huge difference in the flavor and aroma. Here is the warm baklava soaking up syrup.

Bruce

[fodgycakes]

Friday was chocolate meringue pie, my boyfriend's dad's favorite, for his birthday.

I gave the rest to him to take home (hence the disposable pie tin for this one) so I had to make another pie (coconut cream) to fill up our weekend.

Edited May 7, 2006 by fodgycakes (log)

[Megan Blocker]

Madeleines again for me today...lemon zest and vanilla! I left them in about 30 seconds too long, but otherwise they were great!

[alanamoana]

megan, i'm sure you've said before, but what recipe do you use for your madeleins? they always look so beautiful! and even if you've left em in the oven a little too long, as long as you eat them right away, the crunchy outside is delicious contrasted with the softer interior.

[Megan Blocker]

megan, i'm sure you've said before, but what recipe do you use for your madeleins?  they always look so beautiful!  and even if you've left em in the oven a little too long, as long as you eat them right away, the crunchy outside is delicious contrasted with the softer interior.

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It's my own recipe - adapted from Martha Stewart! To make the ones I made today, I subbed in vanilla for the Grand Marnier and lemon zest for the orange.

The recipe halves and quarters really well - I made a quarter recipe today, which made seven madeleines...keeps me from eating a dozen in one go, which is a totally doable thing.

Here's a link to the recipe on RecipeGullet.

Edited May 7, 2006 by Megan Blocker (log)

[merstar]

megan, i'm sure you've said before, but what recipe do you use for your madeleins?  they always look so beautiful!  and even if you've left em in the oven a little too long, as long as you eat them right away, the crunchy outside is delicious contrasted with the softer interior.

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It's my own recipe - adapted from Martha Stewart! To make the ones I made today, I subbed in vanilla for the Grand Marnier and lemon zest for the orange.

The recipe halves and quarters really well - I made a quarter recipe today, which made seven madeleines...keeps me from eating a dozen in one go, which is a totally doable thing.

Here's a link to the recipe on RecipeGullet.

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They look soooo great, Megan. Makes me miss Paris even more. Thanks for the recipe!

[alanamoana]

The recipe halves and quarters really well - I made a quarter recipe today, which made seven madeleines...keeps me from eating a dozen in one go, which is a totally doable thing.

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hehe

Thanks Megan. You know, if you're bad like me (a "retired" professional) you'd just make a huge batch of batter and keep it in your fridge to bake off as emergencies arise

As a matter of fact, I just made a ton of brown butter (beurre noisette) so I can make some emergency financier batter! So very easy and so very delicious.

I love how perfectly formed your madeleines come out each time! Just great!

[Ling]

A lovely lady on Egullet sent me a treasured lemon cake recipe, but my first attempt was rather disastrous, as it wasn't until I had all 3 cakes in the oven (it's a rather large recipe) that I realized I had forgotten the butter! While I did make 3 more lemon cakes WITH butter--they were delicious, btw!--I didn't want to throw away the other 3 cakes. (They were still edible and reasonably moist with all that buttermilk.)

I cubed up 2 of the 3 butterless cakes, threw together a quick custard (eggs, lots of extra yolks, cream, and milk), and re-baked it.

So here's my lemon pudding cake. (It tasted quite good! I'm so happy I was able to salvage it! )

(The three cakes that were made properly are levelled and in the freezer, and will be served with lemon curd and Italian meringue later in the week.)

Edited May 9, 2006 by Ling (log)

[merstar]

A lovely lady on Egullet sent me a treasured lemon cake recipe, but my first attempt was rather disastrous, as it wasn't until I had all 3 cakes in the oven (it's a rather large recipe) that I realized I had forgotten the butter!  While I did make 3 more lemon cakes WITH butter--they were delicious, btw!--I didn't want to throw away the other 3 cakes. (They were still edible and reasonably moist with all that buttermilk.)

I cubed up 2 of the 3 butterless cakes, threw together a quick custard (eggs, lots of extra yolks, cream, and milk), and re-baked it.

So here's my lemon pudding cake. (It tasted quite good! I'm so happy I was able to salvage it!  )

(The three cakes that were made properly are levelled and in the freezer, and will be served with lemon curd and Italian meringue later in the week.)

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Brilliant!

[alanamoana]

that's thinking on your feet, ling. it looks delicious!

[fodgycakes]

It's finals week, I have an exam tomorrow and two papers due the day after that, I just finished dinner and was craving something sweet but I finished the last slice of my weekend pie for breakfast and really have no time to bake. So I spread some ricotta cheese on a plate, packing it down and sprinkled a generous amount of sugar all over the top. Worked just fine!

[BryanZ]

First visit to this thread. I usually avoid pastry like the plague and have no baking skills at all. While I'll analyze how a savory course was created for days after the fact, I'll dig into a great dessert, note the flavor combinations or novel techniques and forget it in a week. I'm definitely not one of those "dessert makes the meal" types.

With that said, there's some sweet (no pun intended) food here. I'm flirting with desserts now only because I find them to be fun creative exercises for me.

So here's my first go.

Grapefruit in three textures or Pomelo en tres texturas for those days I pretend that I'm a famous avant garde Spanish chef (never mind the fact I'm neither famous nor Spanish nor a chef)

Grapefruit Stoli Granita - subtle vodka bite on the finish but hard as hell to plate

Mint and Ginger Grapefruit Sorbet - this was awesome if a little bit passe in concept

Grapefruit "Air" with dill - grapefruit juice reduced, sweetened, strained, fortified with lecithin, buzzed, lightly frozen

Obviously the theory here is to present a rather harsh but tasty ingredient and tame it by highlighting different flavors and texture. I'm upset that my plating isn't totally evenly spaced and the granita isn't a tight cylinder. Next time.

[glennbech]

BryanZ; I'm always intereded in taste *grin* how did you like the dill with grapefruit ? I've always associated dill with fish dishes .-) How did the ginger go with it? Both Dill and ginger have very distinct tastes.

Mint I can see straigh away that would work .-)

I love the idea of presenting the same ingredient three different ways on the same plate by the way. Sonunds like an exercise given at a culinary school ! I have to figure out one of my own now! :-)

[Ling]

Thanks for the compliments upthread!

Bryan: I love the idea of doing 3 different takes on an ingredient, and the fact that all the grapefruit desserts are cool/cold.

[BryanZ]

BryanZ; I'm always intereded in taste *grin* how did you like the dill with grapefruit ? I've always associated dill with fish dishes .-) How did the ginger go with it? Both Dill and ginger have very distinct tastes.

Mint I can see straigh away that would work .-)

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Ginger and grapefruit is a classic combination for me. I've seen it done in a few different applications. Incidentally, the pairing of grapefruit and dill came stemmed from a dish of fish and dill with a citrus aquavit. I like the subtle, savory herb quality that dill brings and it was interesting to see how a delicate garnish such as dill can actually take center stage in the face of a super light "air."

[Pam R]

I can't believe I've never looked in this thread before. It's taken me two days to get through all 41 pages and I'm (almost) speechless. There is so much talent on display here - and some very lucky recipients out there. It's amazing.

Thanks for sharing all your beautiful work here - I can't wait to see what else comes out of your kitchens in the future.

[gfron1]

I made the rhubarb dessert that was made for the President of China - here are my comments in that thread. I wasn't happy with the plating or photo, but it tasted pretty good.

[miladyinsanity]

I've got melt in the mouth cupcakes, from a Trish Deseine recipe via Chocolate & Zucchini. Yum, but will be better tomorrow. Will have pics if I don't eat them all first. I probably will. I think I will need to go post in the PMS thread today.

I made another batch of Korova Cookies, but I don't know what happened. It spread like mad, even though I stuck the tray back in the fridge before baking. It looks like a continent on the tray.

[Jean Blanchard]

Chocolate chip, oatmeal cookies from the latest Food and Wine magazine. YUM!

[Parmhero]

Had this Valrhona chocolate mousse at Divino Wine and Cheese Bistro in Calgary. The chef and server recommended it as their favorites. It looked lovely, but I found it a bit too sweet.

[Ling]

^It's really too bad when too much sugar is added to a dessert, especially when the chocolate is so good!

Here's the lemon buttermilk cake I made and froze earlier in the week. Yesterday, I made lemon curd for between the layers, and today I frosted it with lemon buttercream.

Edited May 12, 2006 by Ling (log)

[miladyinsanity]

^It's really too bad when too much sugar is added to a dessert, especially when the chocolate is so good!

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I know!!

It was only after tasting the cupcakes I made, and checking the proportions, that I realized that I had put 25g too much sugar for 8 cupcakes!!

Thank goodness I substituted 50g dark brown sugar for 50g caster already, otherwise...

I'm only just coming down from the sugar high of one cupcake.

Any suggestions on how to fix it? I could sprinkle salt on top...It didn't occur to me to add some when I was mixing it up.

[Ling]

I can't really think of a way to fix it, other than cubing up your cupcakes and making a (sugarless) custard, then rebaking it like I did upthread. That would cut the sweetness a little...or you can make a rather tart berry sauce and serve it with your cupcakes.

[miladyinsanity]

I can't really think of a way to fix it, other than cubing up your cupcakes and making a (sugarless) custard, then rebaking it like I did upthread. That would cut the sweetness a little...or you can make a rather tart berry sauce and serve it with your cupcakes.

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That's just what I decided to do after finding strawberries in the fridge! Thank you.

So it's Korova cookies (I don't think they are going to last me the rest of the week at this rate) and chocolate cupcakes with strawberry coulis.

[Chufi]

Ling, that cake looks and souds just divine. Lemon, buttermilk, lemon curd.. I can almost taste it!