Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[David Ross]

I made a St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake - OMG - delicious, decadent, and good for my cardiologist!  I wrote a step-by-step in the Heartland Cooking & Baking forum HERE since its a local specialty.

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Good God Man! Do you want to kill me and send me to Sweet Heaven right now! My shopping list is ready and waiting. I think this cake will be delicious this weekend. Although it probably doesn't naturally fit into the French menu I've planned for Saturday with a nice Spring/Summer Veal Stew with Baby Vegetables, what the heck. That cake looks fabulous. Thanks for sharing.

[David Ross]

After our worst Winter in 50 years-and snow into June-we are finally seeing the bounty of the great Northwest come alive in Eastern Washington. Both our raspberry and strawberry crops are about three weeks late this year-but not to worry, the recent hot sun has blessed us with very large, very sweet berries.

And so I share with you the simplicity of nature found in two recent dishes-Raspberry Tartlet and Strawberry Ice Cream.

I made a shortbread crust for the tartlet and filled it with pastry cream. I had thought about glazing the raspberries with red currant jelly, but after glazing a few of the raspberries in the jelly, I decided against doing so for the raspberries in the tart. While the currant jelly would have added a nice shine to the raspberries, I didn't like how the flavor of the jelly altered the virgin taste of these little red beauties.

I use the same basic recipe for every ice cream I make-eggs, sugar, vanilla bean, cream and whole milk. For fruit ice creams, I mash the fruit with some sugar. (If you add chunks of strawberries into the cream base they will freeze into little icy chunks of strawberry-not a pleasant texture in your ice cream).

After having made three quarts of Strawberry Ice Cream this Summer, I'm ready to move on to another one of our delicious Summer fruits. Next up, a batch of delicious Bing Cherry Ice Cream.

[Tri2Cook]

Great stuff everybody. Rob, I'm trying that cake. My cycling shorts say no but that picture says I have to.

Campfire:

toasted marshmallow ice cream - graham cracker cream - chocolate graham crumb - aerated smoked chocolate

[gfron1]

And...

Larry, you're as bad as me! How does it all taste - inquiring minds do want to know.

[Tri2Cook]

It tastes like s'mores made over a campfire. When I smoked the chocolate for the aerated chocolates I smoked half of the marshmallows for the ice cream at the same time. The other half of the marshmallows I toasted over a fire. The combination gave the ice cream that nice, toasty flavor that makes outdoors s'mores so much better than the oven versions. The graham cracker cream is a blatant rip-off of the Ideas in Food ritz ice cream recipe. I replaced the ritz with grahams and adjusted the sugar accordingly then used it as is instead of freezing it. The crumb is chocolate cookie crumbs, graham cracker crumbs, butter, 70% chocolate, sugar, salt and a little bit of egg white mixed, baked and crumbled. I'm happy with the result.

[Kim Shook]

Great stuff everybody. Rob, I'm trying that cake. My cycling shorts say no but that picture says I have to.

Campfire:

toasted marshmallow ice cream - graham cracker cream - chocolate graham crumb - aerated smoked chocolate

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I'm back....I fell off my chair in a dead faint just trying to imagine toasted marshmallow ice cream ! Could you, would you possibly part with the recipe? Please, please?? I promise I won't go into business with it and become a multimillionare !

[Vanilla Guerrilla]

That campfire looks fantastic! I can only imagine how that tastes. I love smores and this looks like a proper adult version. I would love to know how you made this as well if you don't mind sharing some of your secrets.

[Tri2Cook]

Thanks for the nice comments. I don't mind sharing at all. For the ice cream I took 40 regular large marshmallows (from the grocery store, I may try it again with homemade marshmallow and see if it makes much difference but then again I may not... I was pretty happy with the result as is) and toasted half of them over a fire. Yes, I built a small fire with some of the hickory chips I was using for smoking the chocolate in a pan and used it to toast the marshmallows, a gas flame just didn't seem appropriate for this one. The other half I put in a pan and smoked while I was smoking the chocolate (I put the marshmallows in a pie pan and the melted chocolate in another pie pan and put them at one end of a large hotel pan, I then put another pie pan of smoking wood chips covered with foil with a few holes poked in it at the other end of the hotel pan, covered the whole thing tightly with foil and left it alone for about 30 minutes or so). I melted the marshmallows in 600ml of whole milk, sieved it, added a little vanilla and 500ml of 35% cream, chilled it and gave it a spin in the ice cream machine. It's not super sweet (compared to an actual marshmallow) so you may want to adjust the amount of marshmallow to your taste or add a bit of sugar.

The recipe for the graham cream can be found on the Ideas in Food blog. Search for ritz ice cream. I subbed the grahams in for the ritz crackers, reduced the sugar a bit and used it chilled as a cream instead of frozen. It's a simple 4 ingredient recipe but I don't want to put it here without their permission. Their original ritz version is a thing of beauty and it translated very well to the grahams.

The aerated chocolate is 200g of smoked 70% chocolate mixed with 100g of milk chocolate to mellow it a bit then charged in a cream whipper, sprayed and chilled.

The crumb is 2 parts oreo crumbs, 1 part graham crumbs, 1 part melted butter, 70% chocolate, sugar and salt to taste and a bit of egg white to bind it a little. It was spread on parchment and baked for a bit then cooled and crumbled.

[gfron1]

Lemon Macaron with Dark Chocolate Ganache & Fresh Blueberries

Patric A did the macs (his piping skills are getting much better), and I filled with a quick 2:1 ganache and 3 blueberries set in the middle. Very yummy and of course sweet.

[DesertCulinary]

I made these Espresso Cheesecake Bars to celebrate our 3rd blogging anniversary... they were decadent and delicious! Bonus points for cutting nice and clean!

[Mary Elizabeth]

Turnovers with Pichet Ong's carmelized pineapple:

Apricot tart:

Edited July 7, 2008 by Mary Elizabeth (log)

[gfron1]

Celery, White Chocolate & Olives

Celery gelatin (just fresh juice, nothing added), white chocolate ganache (Callebaut) and Moroccan dry cured olives, dried, powdered and re-formed with cocoa butter (thanks to Kerry for the cocoa butter and Tri2Cook for the technique). I thought it was interesting, but wouldn't make it again. Tyler loved it. The funny thing was that I wasn't thinking of this in a playful way, but when I formed it in a sushi roller and let it sit, it looks like a celery stalk filled with cream cheese, and the ganache had a very similar texture.

If I were to do it again, I would find a way to dehydrate the celery juice and make it into a nori sheet.

[Tri2Cook]

That's awesome Rob. Looks great. I'm loving that the celery sheet has the ribs on it. I'm glad it worked out because it sounded like a tough challenge when you described what you wanted to do. Was the ganache enough to bring the celery and olive to the sweet side or did it keep a savory edge? Either way, cool stuff. You are the celery sensei.

[gfron1]

Thanks - it was well balanced on sweetness. My non-sweet spouse and a non-sweet guest liked it much more than I and the sweet loving other guest, so it leans savory, but certainly worked as a dessert. I cut it in 1/2" slices.

[Kim Shook]

Tri2Cook - thank you so much for the ice cream recipe. I've got Mr. Kim's fantasy football draft to cater in August and I'm thinking ice cream sandwiches! I'm sure the guys will love them!

David - the raspberry tartlet is just simple perfection!

Joe - gorgeous cheesecake bars! I am so jealous of your nice straight lines - not just the edges but between they layers!! Lovely job! Also, your blog is great! Yet another blog to add to my 'must read' list <sigh> !

Mary Elizabeth - just lovely pastries! Welcome and let's see more!!!

[emmalish]

Rob, that's beautiful! I'm not sure I'd like that flavour combination, but with a presentation like that I'd just have to give it a try.

[Lisa2k]

Celery, White Chocolate & Olives

Celery gelatin (just fresh juice, nothing added), white chocolate ganache (Callebaut) and Moroccan dry cured olives, dried, powdered and re-formed with cocoa butter (thanks to Kerry for the cocoa butter and Tri2Cook for the technique).  I thought it was interesting, but wouldn't make it again.  Tyler loved it.  The funny thing was that I wasn't thinking of this in a playful way, but when I formed it in a sushi roller and let it sit, it looks like a celery stalk filled with cream cheese, and the ganache had a very similar texture.

If I were to do it again, I would find a way to dehydrate the celery juice and make it into a nori sheet.

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Rob, when I was a child, my mom would occasionally wrap up some celery sticks filled with cream cheese and cut up black olives, in my lunchbox, because I loved it so much. Once I saw that, the memories came flooding back. I would be very interested in trying that, as the sweet edge with the white chocolate ganache paired with briny, salty olives and mild celery is too cool not to try, but also because I've been sprinkling cinnamon sugar over cream cheese on celery as of late. No, not pregnant..I think..lol

[Vanilla Guerrilla]

Tri2Cook - Thanks for the recipe! I am going on vacation in the next couple of days but I will definitely have to try that when I get back.

Mary Elizabeth - That pinapple tart looks great and sounds fantastic!

gfron1 - I love the way the that celery thing looks (not sure what to call it)

[Mary Elizabeth]

Kim Shook and Vanilla Guerrilla--Thanks!

[Ted Fairhead]

Gallette with Creme Chatillon

[gfron1]

That looks great Ted! I'd put a huge dollop of cream on that sucker.

[emmalish]

Gorgeous, Ted. What kind of fruit & sauce? Apple? Pear? Some sort of red berry?

[Pille]

I'm enjoying the strawberry season and made a big bowl of Eton Mess for ourselves and our 6 guests tonight:

Although it's such a simple 'recipe', it was very much enjoyed

[Kim Shook]

Ted - that is lovely! I wish y'all were coming to dinner with us tonight. I think I picked a good one!

Pille - I want some Eton Mess !!! If I could find any decent strawberries, I'd be having that for every meal for the next week !!! Just gorgeous!!

[emmalish]

Pille  - I  want some Eton Mess !!!

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Me too! I went to a barbeque on the weekend and that would've been perfect! Which is not to say I can't make it this weekend...