Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Kim Shook]

merstar – I am making those brownies soon !

Some recent baking – a coconut cream pie that I took to work for a co-worker’s birthday:

Jessica ended up getting two birthday desserts this year. She had a friends (NO parents invited ) party at her apartment and requested Pink Lemonade Cupcakes:

For her family party, she wanted a turtle cake. I don’t know if anyone remembers the sad fate of last birthday’s turtle cake. I made it into a layer cake and when I came back to it a couple hours later it had fallen apart and we ended up with ‘Bowl Cake’. So I just made it a sheet cake this year:

Coca Cola chocolate cake, dulce de leche and Christmas cinnamon pecans.

Slice:

[Norm Matthews]

Chocolate Raspberry Torte.

Recipe (From “Angels in My Kitchen: Divine Dessert Recipes” by Caryl Westwood, Celestial Arts.)

Edited February 4, 2012 by Norm Matthews (log)

[deensiebat]

Invited to a vegan's house for dinner and asked to bring dessert. Came up with this chocolate peanut butter cream pie.

Lightly baked pressed almond meal/cocoa crust, peanut butter + coconut cream layer, chocolate whipped w/faux cream layer, and slightly salty candied peanuts. I think the candied peanuts make it -- they just take a few minutes, but add a nice bit of crunch and make the whole thing seem a bit fancier.

[Mette]

Waffles with cream and red currant jelly

[RWood]

This is a crazy dessert plate I did for a fundraiser last night (not my menu, just made everything).

Chocolate Marzipan Heart, Goat Cheese Ice Cream, Dark Chocolate Ganache Cube, Chocolate Pot de Creme (madeleine), Triple Chocolate Cookie, White Chocolate Cardamom Orange Sauce, Raspberry Coulis, Orange Dust, and one of my Valentine chocolates.

[tikidoc]

First try at macarons. Filling is a dark chocolate coffee ganache.

Man, these things are temperamental. I had some that cracked on top (turned down the oven temp), some that stuck to the parchment (most came off after some time in the freezer, although I ruined a bunch, which made the kids very happy), and I need to tweak things to get a taller foot, but overall I'm encouraged. They sure taste good. Now I just need to get to Paris so I can see what I need to shoot for...

[Toliver]

No pictures but I made a batch of Dorie Greenspan's Korova Cookies (AKA World Peace Cookies) for a Super bowl party. Once again, people were fighting over them. So much for world peace!

[Kim Shook]

tikidoc – I think your macarons are gorgeous! I’m working up to trying them. Hoping that Jerry will bring Meredith home soon so that he can give me a tutorial ! But if my first batch come even CLOSE to yours, I will be over the moon!

Toliver – those cookies are amazing! I made them for Christmas this year and they were extremely popular.

Birthday dessert for one of Mr. Kim’s co-workers:

Brownies with a layer of marshmallow cream, topped with chocolate. The brownies are from a mix, but at least it was Ghirardelli!

I usually make these with salted peanuts, but the birthday boy requested no nuts. They are much, much better with the nuts. They help to cut the extreme sweetness a bit. I probably should have used a dark chocolate, but didn’t think of it.

[tikidoc]

Thanks Kim. Keep in mind the pictures do not show the rejects!

Things that I learned:

Start with baking a small batch. Very minor changes in temperature can make a HUGE difference in the macaron that comes out of the oven, so until you troubleshoot the temp a little, just bake a small number at a time. I did not get a foot on the first batch in the oven so I increased the temp 10F. Next batch, much better, next batch got a foot but the tops cracked. Dropped the temp 5F, and the next was the best batch. Now I know 330F is optimum for my oven. Or was that day, anyway.

If they don't want to come off the parchment/Silpat, don't just give up and start removing them, leaving half the cookie on the sheet. Put the parchment on a cold pan, put it in the freezer, and leave it there for 15 minutes. The should then come off easily.

I found the latter batches, those that had formed a good "skin" came out best. Some recipes say to do this, some don't. From here on, I will.

Hope that helps!

[faith]

No photo, but I made the tres leches cake from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion for my better half's birthday yesterday. It's got a meringue icing rather than whipped cream. We both enjoyed it quite a bit, but I'll reduce the sugar in the icing by about a quarter the next time I make it. And just as good, I've got four left over egg yolks (when does that ever happen?) so I'm making ice cream today.

[faith]

Re my post post above, I actually won't be reducing the sugar in the tres leches cake next time. The flavors & sweetness are really well balanced straight out of the refrigerator.

[merstar]

I'm making this again (I use currants instead of raisins):

Marilyn O'Reilly's Irish Soda Bread

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/marilyn-oreillys-irish-soda-bread-recipe/index.html

[Kim Shook]

tikidoc – thanks for the macaron pointers – all the information is being saved for when I take the plunge!

Valentine desserts -

Dessert #1:

Momofuku Milk Bar’s (via deensiebat) Sesame-Ginger Rice Krispie Treats. A really grown up treat. Thank you so much for posting about these, deensiebat! You posted about them back in December and I said then that they would be a perfect Valentines gift for Mr. Kim and I was right – he loved them. I made them yesterday and thought that there was not enough ginger in them. But when we tasted them tonight it came through beautifully. These were more a gift for Mr. Kim since he loves all things gingery! The real Valentines dessert was this -

Dessert #2:

Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake from the blog Mangio Da Sola. It was incredible. It has an Oreo cooky crust, a cheesecake layer (from a Dorie Greenspan recipe), a chocolate mousse layer (from a Tyler Florence recipe) and is topped with ganache. It was so easy and turned out perfectly. I tried to be cute and put white chocolate hearts on the ganache and crapped up the look of it , but it was just delicious.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Kim, those recipes both look like winners!

For anyone else who saw that chocolate mousse cheesecake and needed to know more, the recipe is here

[Philip Le]

If you want to add hearts, next time you can pipe a little melted white chocolate on top of wet ganache in a circle and then run through it in one direction [EDIT: Before the ganache has set up, of course!] with a toothpick or something to make a heart shape. The outline of a circle will give you the outline of a heart. A filled circle will give you a filled heart.

Where this video starts is the part of interest; the very last circle is an idea of what I'm talking about. Of course, ganache and white chocolate are much more viscous than coulis and yogurt so you'll definitely get more shape out of your design than this chef did. [second Edit: Not that what he ended up with is any less attractive]

http://international.stockfood.com/image-picture-Making-a-design-with-two-coloured-kiwi-fruit-sauce-00373728.html

This is an example of the technique again, this time with outlines of a heart rather than a filled one. I also don't believe the intention was to make heart shapes, though, so it is not a precise example.

If you already knew all this or if you already tried this, then I apologize for my presumptions and that it did not work out for you.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Philip Le (log)

[Kim Shook]

If you want to add hearts, next time you can pipe a little melted white chocolate on top of wet ganache in a circle and then run through it in one direction [EDIT: Before the ganache has set up, of course!] with a toothpick or something to make a heart shape. The outline of a circle will give you the outline of a heart. A filled circle will give you a filled heart.

Where this video starts is the part of interest; the very last circle is an idea of what I'm talking about. Of course, ganache and white chocolate are much more viscous than coulis and yogurt so you'll definitely get more shape out of your design than this chef did. [second Edit: Not that what he ended up with is any less attractive]

http://international.stockfood.com/image-picture-Making-a-design-with-two-coloured-kiwi-fruit-sauce-00373728.html

This is an example of the technique again, this time with outlines of a heart rather than a filled one. I also don't believe the intention was to make heart shapes, though, so it is not a precise example.

If you already knew all this or if you already tried this, then I apologize for my presumptions and that it did not work out for you.

I did already know this and it's sort of what I tried to do, but no apologies needed. Because I only 'sort of' did it that way. I tried to make a ganache with the white chocolate, figuring that that would work better with the chocolate ganache, but it was too liquid. I'll take your advice next time and just melt the white chocolate. Thank you!

Stuart - thanks for posting the link to the recipe. I haven't had a chance to post it to my recipe site yet, so I appreciate it. It really is a great recipe!

[deensiebat]

Kim, so glad those rice krispies worked out for you! I'll never make them any other way again.

And ooh that mousse cake...

[Shelby]

Okay, so this is kind of boring, but I wanted peanut butter choc. chip cookies. I used to suck at cookies....these were pretty good. Stayed nice and soft.

[Emily_R]

Shelby -- would you post your recipe? Those cookies look great, and I've had a hard time finding a cookie recipe with PB in it that stayed soft at all...

[Shelby]

Shelby -- would you post your recipe? Those cookies look great, and I've had a hard time finding a cookie recipe with PB in it that stayed soft at all...

I used this one. I baked them for 10 minutes and I didn't "smash" them very much with a fork. And, I used extra choc. chips.

[deensiebat]

I brought a 'cream' pie to some vegan friends' house - cocoa/almond meal crust, peanut butter/coconut cream layer, then a chocolate/faux cream mousse layer. Topped with salty-sweet candied peanuts.

[MrsSheepish]

Wow! All these bakes and cakes look wonderful.

I'm off to a "Bake & Banter" event at a local cafe this evening so I've made a traditional Welsh cake. Its called Teisen Lap and I also made one a couple of weeks ago for my husbands EG Blog, it was great hence tonight's reappearance!

Actually, I made two because I felt the first mix (left) was a little too 'wet', so I quickly got another mix together with less milk. The second one (right) looks better and I've cut the first one to reveal I was right, all the dried fruit has sunk to the bottom!

The recipe is here, I've made a couple of changes though, only 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 50 minutes instead of 35 as stated.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I finally got my camera back just in time for the end of Carnaval baking rush. I made 20 of these, which my take on what the locals call Tiramisu Napolés. It's two layers of coffee-amaretto "white" cake with strawberry mascarpone and sliced strawberries by way of filling, and iced with a mascarpone buttercream, then edged with Savoiardi. They weighed about 5 lbs each.

Personally, I prefer Tiramisu de Venezia, which is the more "traditional" soaked savoiardi with zabalione (and which is a heck of a lot less hassle to make), but the customer is always right....

-

Edited to fix a picture problem.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Panaderia Canadiense (log)

[Darienne]

Oh my! I think that covers it all, PanaCan.

[FrogPrincesse]

I made my desperation dessert tonight: a soft chocolate cake with whipped cream. Prep time less than 10 minutes, baking time 10 minutes.