Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Ling]

^Thanks Klary!

Today I made Claudia Fleming's chocolate caramel tarts. They were OK...I think the crust is the best part of the recipe. The caramel is pretty sweet. I made some brittle for the top too. Ate one...I baked them in 4" round rings, so it was quite substantial.

Also made a tray of peanut butter cookies. Ate a few of the ones that were a little more brown for my liking, so I could save the ones that are half a shade paler to give away.

No pics, as the stuff I made tonight is too similar to stuff I've made before.

Edited May 14, 2006 by Ling (log)

[Pille]

I made a simple carrot cake which I decorated with dried pineapple flowers. Making pineapple flowers was rather fun

[gfron1]

Pineapple flowers are the treat of the day!

For a dear friend's 85th birthday (on Mother's Day) I baked a little cake. It was fun waking up this morning to see how it turned out...I opened the fridge...

Then I added my flowers - pineapple and nectarine...

Then the finished product!

The cake is a basic genoise, filled with passion fruit curd, covered in a vanilla orange bavaroise (my favorite topping) and then with a mango gelee on the top.

It felt good to be baking again after such a busy couple of weeks.

Edited May 14, 2006 by gfron1 (log)

[SweetSide]

Gorgeous flowers gfron1! I've seen you do them before I believe... Did you post how you did them somewhere, or can you post instructions? I think they are such an elegant garnish.

[Patrick S]

Pineapple flowers are the treat of the day!

For a dear friend's 85th birthday (on Mother's Day) I baked a little cake.  It was fun waking up this morning to see how it turned out...I opened the fridge...

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Very nice!

[cathrynapple]

blurry photo of: vanilla cake, filled with raspberries and whipped cream, with vanilla bean italian buttercream. with flowers from mom's garden. (for mother's day, of course. )

[gfron1]

Gorgeous flowers gfron1!  I've seen you do them before I believe...  Did you post how you did them somewhere, or can you post instructions?  I think they are such an elegant garnish.

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Thanks Sweetside and Patrick.

The flowers are really easy to make. Take any fruit - I've done the pineapple a couple of times and the nectarines were a first time which turned out the best. Slice the fruit 1/8" (1-2 mm) thick. Lay out on paper towel for an hour to let dry out. Then coat heavily with powdered sugar. Oven to 200 F. Line sheet with parchment paper, place fruit on the paper, cover with a 2nd sheet of parchment paper and a second tray on top to keep them flat. Bake one hour. Once you take them out, let them air cool for about 10 minutes and then remove them from the paper. Here you can either leave them flat, or I push them into a shot glass to get the flower shape. The nectarines (they may have been plums) I put a few together which was even nicer than the pineapple. I want to try star fruit next which may create a tulip. Anyway, let them sit in the shot glass for as long as you're able - preferably overnight. No science to all of this, just play until they turn out the way you want.

Edited May 15, 2006 by gfron1 (log)

[kaneel]

Thanks for the instructions gfron1, I am gonna give this a try sometime.

Your cake is beautiful. Did you use a cake ring to assemble the cake??

[Parmhero]

Made my first incursion into Tartine Bakery in San Francisco today. Incredible bakery. I chose the eclair.

The mastermind behind the operation, Elisabeth Prueitt, owner and chef, was in the kitchen performing a procedure on a bavarian strawberry cake.

[Pontormo]

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.

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I noticed your new signature line and immediately came here. I really appreciate the posting of the first attempt, too. I'm not proud of Schadenfreude, but if someone as gifted and experienced as Ling could forget a crucial ingredient, then I can forgive myself more readily when I make a similar mistake. I must say even your mistakes look great baked!

This version is GORGEOUS !!!!

Edited May 15, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[gfron1]

Thanks for the instructions gfron1, I am gonna give this a try sometime.

Your cake is beautiful. Did you use a cake ring to assemble the cake??

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I've been making most of my cakes in an 9" springform, then I finish them upside down in a 10" springform ala the Orange Exotic cake technique.

[Chufi]

Chocolate chestnut cake

This came out really well by accident. I had about 125 grams of those vacuumpacked chestnuts left over from dinner last night. I used Nigella Lawsons recipe for Chocolate chestnut cake, which calls for 425 grams of chestnut puree, and 'sort of' divided all other ingredients by 3 or 4 (I'm really terrible at math).

Baked it in a small souffle mold and it came out just perfectly moist and very tasty!

[Desiderio]

Last night and the night before ,home made sourdough and Papassini ,they are rustic type of biscotti from the region Sardegna in Italy , they were originally made for the day of the dead ( 2nd of november if I recall correct ).

[gfron1]

Chocolate chestnut cake

This came out really well by accident. I had about 125 grams of those vacuumpacked chestnuts left over from dinner last night. I used Nigella Lawsons recipe for Chocolate chestnut cake, which calls for 425 grams of chestnut puree, and 'sort of' divided all other ingredients by 3 or 4 (I'm really terrible at math).

Baked it in a small souffle mold and it came out just perfectly moist and very tasty!

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Chufi, that looks absolutely wonderful - super moist! I haven't had very good luck with chestnuts so I don't use them much. Clearly I need a trip to Europe to learn the finer points of chesnuts

[ludja]

Made my first incursion into Tartine Bakery in San Francisco today. Incredible bakery. I chose the eclair.

...

The mastermind behind the operation, Elisabeth Prueitt, owner and chef, was in the kitchen performing a procedure on a bavarian strawberry cake.

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This is a great bakery; reminds me that I have not been there recently! I'll have to remedy that soon and maybe couple it with a trip to the new Beard Papa for cream puffs also. I love the photo you took of the bakers in the kitchen. Thanks for sharing.

[Ling]

Last night, I had a chocolate fondant (like molten chocolate cake) with cinnamon ice-cream and a honey tuile at Feenie's. My bf had a scoop each of caramel and fleur de sel ice-cream, passionfruit sorbet, and Poire William sorbet, which he generously shared with me.

He also bought me a 1/2 lb. box of assorted truffles from LA Burdick's in Boston, and a box of their signature chocolate mice! I've had quite a few of them already...I especially enjoyed the Trinidad (dark ganache with honey, Carribean spices, and chopped hazelnuts), and the Scotch Whiskey truffle. He liked the one with ginger root and candied ginger a lot. The truffles are very nice--the fillings are much subtler than the truffles from, say, Genevieve Grandbois...but that's not necessarily a bad thing, just different. LA Burdick's is quite good.

[Ling]

Parmhero: I loved Tartine when I was down in San Fran! Here's a link to the pastries I had there, plus some more of the store.

Tartine Bakery

[Ling]

I had chocolate cake (but that was for breakfast), jackfruit sorbet, coffee ice-cream with nuts, and one of my students bought me a box of cookies from Japan--they are langue de chat (cat's tongues) with white chocolate. The white chocolate is not nearly as sweet as the white chocolate we see in N. America, and it is delicious with the crispy cookies! The package says they are from Ishiya Patisserie.

The cookies are called Shiroi Koibito, and I liked them so much that I googled them.

Ishiya Patisserie history

you can order the cookies here

[sanrensho]

The cookies are called Shiroi Koibito, and I liked them so much that I googled them.

Aren't they great? From now on, you might want to drop hints with all of your Japanese students that you're a big fan of Shiroi Koibito cookies.

We discussed them briefly in this thread.

Edited May 18, 2006 by sanrensho (log)

[legourmet]

Today's dessert: Nougat gugelhupf on Mocha sauce with mint leaves

[Ling]

The cookies are called Shiroi Koibito, and I liked them so much that I googled them.

Aren't they great? From now on, you might want to drop hints with all of your Japanese students that you're a big fan of Shiroi Koibito cookies.

We discussed them briefly in this thread.

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Thanks for the link. I've had a good selection of the Yoku Moku cookies that were discussed in that thread and I think the Shiroi Koibito cookies are much better.

[Chufi]

I made these florentines yesterday. Had a couple yesterday, but today, now that I've forgotten how much work they were, they tasted much better and I just had about 10 of them for dessert... They are very, very nice and I just want to keep on eating them...

edited to add: the ones with the dark chocolate were the best. If there ever is a next time, I'll just make those.

Edited May 18, 2006 by Chufi (log)

[RuthWells]

Today's dessert: Nougat gugelhupf on Mocha sauce with mint leaves

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That looks lovely!

[lexy]

I don't normally bake during term time since the oven in my residence kitchen is pretty dodgy, but I made some apple tartlets this morning because this afternoon my team competes in qualifying race heats, and I thought we'd probably want a little something for afterwards.

[gfron1]

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Absolutely beautiful!