Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[apronstrings]

Here you go, Natho.Enjoy!

Halvah

2 c sugar

1 c water

1 3/4 c sesame paste(tahini)

1 T pure vanilla

2 egg whites

1 c shelled pistachios(unsalted)

Combine sugar and water in saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook to the hard-ball stage (a few drops of syrup, when dropped into small basin of cold water, will form a firm ball that will not flatten on removal). Set aside.

Put sesame paste with its oil in container of electric mixer or food processor. Add vanilla, blending thoroughly. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into sesame paste. When thoroughly blended, gradually add 3/4 c of the syrup, stirring. When completely blended fold in nuts and remaining syrup.

Pour and scrape mixture into loaf pan. Smooth over top. Cover tightly and refrigerate 3 days before unmolding. This halvah will keep for 6 months in refrigerator.

[pups224]

here is what i made, wild turkey bourbon pumpkin cheesecake during the holidays last year. its been too cold for me to bake lately. but its as good as it looks enjoy!

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Any chance for the recipe? It looks devine!

[DesertCulinary]

I made this last night for dessert tonight - just a very basic Chocolate Chocolate-Mint Cheesecake Bar

[adamru]

I made this last night, a chocolate amaretto layer cake with chocolate espresso frosting.

[Sararwelch]

I made bread pudding with pecans, golden raisins and white chocolate chips:

[lexy]

RLB's chocolate cake with a ganache icing, decorated with shavings from the leftover chocolate.

[GTO]

Joe: What a cool picture. I had to look twice, I thought it was a desert landscape.

[Franci]

Carnevale is coming and I had friends over for dinner yesterday, I took my chance for my once a year chiacchiere frying. They are sooooooo good.

I served them with sanguinaccio, a thick chocolate cream

Both recipes are either on Recipegullet under my name or on my blog.

Edited February 4, 2007 by Franci (log)

[miladyinsanity]

Chocolate cupcake with salted butter caramel dark chocolate ganache.

That sounds so...pretentious.

Short version: The cupcake stinks of cocoa powder. The ganache is amazing.

[Chufi]

Franci, they look wonderful! I can almost taste them!

[C. sapidus]

Capriotada (Mexican rum-spiked bread pudding) with dried fruit, nuts, and feta cheese. The syrup had anise, allspice, cinnamon, apple juice, and brown sugar. Me ‘n the boys expect insulin shock to kick in shortly.

[jende]

Chocolate cupcake with salted butter caramel dark chocolate ganache.

That sounds so...pretentious.

Short version: The cupcake stinks of cocoa powder. The ganache is amazing.

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Yum...can you share the recipe for the ganache?

[pansophia]

I did a test run of a special dinner the other night and this was a vanilla bean panna cotta with a strawberry-balsamic sauce. The sauce has a touch of black pepper that just made it pop!

Now if I can just make a prettier plating for the big dinner.

[Pan]

Capriotada (Mexican rum-spiked bread pudding) with dried fruit, nuts, and feta cheese. The syrup had anise, allspice, cinnamon, apple juice, and brown sugar. Me ‘n the boys expect insulin shock to kick in shortly.

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Good God, does that look delicious! Right up my alley!

[miladyinsanity]

Chocolate cupcake with salted butter caramel dark chocolate ganache.

That sounds so...pretentious.

Short version: The cupcake stinks of cocoa powder. The ganache is amazing.

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Yum...can you share the recipe for the ganache?

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Okay, I'm eating it for the second day, and the ganache is Not Amazing.

I can send you the links to a Pierre Herme or Sherry Yard caramel ganache recipe if you want.

[jende]

Chocolate cupcake with salted butter caramel dark chocolate ganache.

That sounds so...pretentious.

Short version: The cupcake stinks of cocoa powder. The ganache is amazing.

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Yum...can you share the recipe for the ganache?

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Okay, I'm eating it for the second day, and the ganache is Not Amazing.

I can send you the links to a Pierre Herme or Sherry Yard caramel ganache recipe if you want.

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ha! Maybe you're being too hard on yourself. Anyway, sure please send me any recipes you have.

[zpzjessica]

I made an amazing banana cream pie from scratch (except the pie crust, that was frozen). It turned out so well and now that I know how to make the creamy pudding filling, I can make any type of pudding I want

If I can find where I wrote the recipe, I'll post it on here for all to use if they'd like...

[Ling]

A poster on EG sent me a couple of bars of chocolate from Amano. Of the two, I especially liked the Ocumare bar. Anyway, this is the first chocolate I've been really excited to discover in the last while...it's a little fruity, a little smoky, and a little floral, with a long finish. Beautiful packaging as well.

Edited February 5, 2007 by Ling (log)

[miladyinsanity]

Ling, you're back! I've missed you!

[rmillman]

I have been playing with the liquid nitrogen a lot lately (I work for a biotech company and can bring it home anytime).

Last night I half filled 6" round balloons with a milk spiced with some chipotle and vanilla. The partially inflated/filled balloon was then rolled in a liquid nitrogen filled styrofoam ice chest until a frozen coating on the inside of the balloon was formed. The balloon was then "popped" with a torch and a little mint oil was injected into the sphere for flavoring.

I then took blood orange and tangerine segments and put them into the liquid nitrogen and then broke up the segments with a rolling pin in parchment paper leaving frozen orange cells.

The frozen spheres was served on a plate with some cookie crumble and the cells from the orange slices aranged around it.

Dessert was indeed a hit.

[Ling]

Ling, you're back! I've missed you!

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Thanks...I've been a bit busy with work.

[rooftop1000]

I actually made dessert....Yay

I had a quarter of a bag of regular old chocolate chips and a dream

I melted the chips with butter, added some flour, salt and sugar and 2 eggs whisked for a long time then baked for 10 min after dusting my muffin pan with free trade hot cocoa mix

Voila 4 of Alton Brown's Lava cupcakes....scary but true and Yummy

tracey

[ludja]

I have been playing with the liquid nitrogen a lot lately (I work for a biotech company and can bring it home anytime).

Last night I half filled 6" round balloons with a milk spiced with some chipotle and vanilla.  The partially inflated/filled balloon was then rolled in a liquid nitrogen filled styrofoam ice chest until a frozen coating on the inside of the balloon was formed.  The balloon was then "popped" with a torch and a little mint oil was injected into the sphere for flavoring.

I then took blood orange and tangerine segments and put them into the liquid nitrogen and then broke up the segments with a rolling pin in parchment paper leaving frozen orange cells.

The frozen spheres was served on a plate with some cookie crumble and the cells from the orange slices aranged around it.

Dessert was indeed a hit.

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This sounds pretty cool. (no pun intended...) Was there a reason you chose milk rather than cream to freeze? The flavor combination sounds great and it's interesting to try and picture the texture and mouthfeel of the dessert. I'd especially like to see and taste the broken up, liquid nitrogen frozen citrus supremes.

Is there anything you would do different if you tried something lilke this again?

[rmillman]

I used milk because the mini-mart next door was out of creme and I did not want to walk the three blocks to the market in 15 degree weather. Mouth feel was good: the quick freeze performed by the liquid nitrogen does prevent large ice crystals from forming.

Last night I did a similar sphere technique but used odawala blueberry smoothie as the base flavored with taragon oil and coated with cocoa nibs.

The sphere idea was from Moto (Cantu did it recently on iron chef).

The citrus supremes idea came from Elbulli 2003/4. I liked the combination of blood orange and tangerine for both color and taste.

Still playing with the technique: trying some more savory ideas later this week.

Tonight, I got a new supply of fata paper (www.jbprince.com) and I will do a bread-pudding cooked center table on a hot plate.

[ludja]

^Neat, thanks for the additional comments. I was wondering how "icy" the texture would be and how the much quicker freeze might help in that regard. It's true that in freezing more quickly one can reduce or avoid ice crystals in certain cases; I actually exploited that principle in some scientific research projects!

The flavor combinations you are trying sound really nice.

What do you think the recommend time frame is between freezing the components and serving them?

If you have the time or inclination it would be cool to see some photos. This would be cool in a separate topic thread as well.

Thanks, in any case!

Edited February 7, 2007 by ludja (log)