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Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)


Afterburner

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dhardy - thanks for the link and by the way, I think that yours looked better than theirs.

I love all the Halloween stuff and that gorgeous toffee!

Somewhere here, someone asked for a recipe for a cake with the texture of a cake mix cake. I have looked and looked and can NOT find the thread – I refer to it as ‘the cake mixes thread’ in my notes and the post I refer to is dated 9/7/2010. Anyway, someone else offered a recipe for making your own cake mix that you can then freeze or refrigerate and add ingredients and bake off later. The first time I tried it the results were NOT good – the butter that you added at baking time just wouldn’t incorporate. So this time, I decided to try oil instead of butter. Got a little better texture, but still I couldn’t call this cake a success. It has a very coarse crumb – very bready and sodden. The flavor was ok, but I wouldn’t serve this cake. Frosted:

P1060087.JPG

slice:

P1060097.JPG

So I’m still looking for a go-to recipe for yellow cake. I want the flavor of homemade with the texture of a cake mix.

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Here's a creation I came up with the other night: Chocolate & Raspberry Gunkanmaki

A lady finger wrapped with modeling chocolate, filled with whipped cream and topped with spheres of raspberry syrup. Ah, what fun we can have with sodium alginate!

IMG_0825_2.jpg

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No picture, but I made pumpkin whoopie pies with cinnamon cream filling last night. The recipe I have made 11 (and a half) 4" pies, but only enough filling for half of them. I wrapped the extra cakes in parchment and plastic wrap and froze them, so I'll have to make the filling again next week. I brought five pies into work and people were saying how great they were all day. I have to say - I agree!! :biggrin:

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Here are a few goodies I made recently. Having family visit is always a great excuse to bake up a storm! :)

Espresso macarons with frangelico ganache

IMG_3149.JPG

Pecan buttercrunch

IMG_3168.JPG

Molded hazelnut gianduja (1 part hazelnut paste to 1 part dark chocolate)

IMG_3192.JPG

Orange zest cupcakes

IMG_3329.JPG

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So I’m still looking for a go-to recipe for yellow cake. I want the flavor of homemade with the texture of a cake mix.

Have you tried this one?

http://www.cheftalk.com/forum/thread/45372/finally-that-perfect-homemade-yellow-cake

Wow - that sounds perfect. I'm printing this out and will try it as soon as I can! Thank you so much, oli!

Here are a few goodies I made recently. Having family visit is always a great excuse to bake up a storm! :)

Espresso macarons with frangelico ganache

IMG_3149.JPG

Pecan buttercrunch

IMG_3168.JPG

Molded hazelnut gianduja (1 part hazelnut paste to 1 part dark chocolate)

IMG_3192.JPG

Orange zest cupcakes

IMG_3329.JPG

Just amazingly gorgeous! I am in awe!

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Thanks Stuart, Kim and Tarko! :)

This was my first attempt at macarons, so I went with a safe filling (1 part chocolate, 1 part cream, a splash of frangelico). I think I'll go with something softer and more fruity next time.

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ET - all of your sweets and photography are beautiful - but I, too, am especially in awe with the macarons - especially since my one and only attempt, albeit delicious, were disastrous looking!

Thank you :) To be honest, I may have had a good deal of beginner's luck on my side. We'll see if I can reliably reproduce them.

What recipe did you use for the macarons?

I used a hybrid of Ms. Humble's and Tartelette's recipes. In particular, I used Ms. Humble's formula with the following changes:

* Aged the egg whites 3 days in the fridge, and 12 hours on the counter. I started out with 120g of fresh egg whites (4 large eggs), and ended up with 97g of aged whites.

* Added 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar to the egg white powder / sugar mixture (not sure this was strictly necessary);

* Omitted the food coloring; and

* Added 1 teaspoon of espresso powder to the almond meal / powdered sugar mixture.

As for the procedure, I followed Ms. Humble's method, but followed Tartlette's advice to use no more than 50 strokes when folding the almond meal mixture into the meringue.

Once the macarons were piped on Silpats, I let them rest 45 min until they formed a firm skin. I then baked them at 295F for 15 minutes. They were quite crisp when they came out of the oven, but matured beautifully after being filled and left in the fridge for 72 hours.

Both Ms. Humble and Tartlette have a series of great macaron posts on their blogs.

I hope this helps!

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Here's a creation I came up with the other night: Chocolate & Raspberry Gunkanmaki

A lady finger wrapped with modeling chocolate, filled with whipped cream and topped with spheres of raspberry syrup. Ah, what fun we can have with sodium alginate!

IMG_0825_2.jpg

Love it! I'd eat that kind of sushi any day.

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Orison Swett Marden

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I just made these - they're great! (I halved the salt amount):

THE BAKED BROWNIE

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/ild/2009/baked/baked-brownie.html#ixzz12a2NPj7s

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000280791

Edited by merstar (log)
There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE.
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fairfranco – what a lovely little soufflé! I love that you treated yourself to something nice!

Made another try at a yellow cake. It was recommended by oli and I have to say thank you so much! I think this may be the one. I definitely overbaked it, though – got distracted and neglected to reset the timer after checking it. So I’ll have to try it again to be sure, but I really liked the flavor and texture – it was just a little dry. I was a bit disappointed in the icing, though. It was so easy – cooked in the microwave and butter added at the end. Foolproof! It was super glossy and had a gorgeous texture, but the flavor was blah. I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa – can anyone recommend a really, really good cocoa and I’ll give it one more try.

It certainly was especially dark, though:

med_gallery_3331_119_94345.jpg

:blink:

Slice:

med_gallery_3331_119_309110.jpg

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...I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa – can anyone recommend a really, really good cocoa and I’ll give it one more try.

Kim,

I LOVE El Rey cocoa powder - it's the best I've ever tried, and I've tried many. It's the ultimate in chocolate depth and richness. I did several side by side tests with chocolate pudding, cakes, muffins, etc., and nothing could compare to the El Rey. It's not easily available, but you can order it at Chocosphere (that's where I order it), or from their own site.

(Your cake looks great, by the way).

Edited by merstar (log)
There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE.
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a few years ago someone requested a buche in July as their birthday cake, so i 'summer-ized' it by making it a piece of driftwood in a beach setting. another idea a friend suggested was to make a campfire - which i finally did last weekend, for a donation to a fund-raising event whose theme was 'spark'.

DSC01505.JPG

chocolate-walnut-rum torte logs & embers

(logs sandwiched w plum jam and covered w nocino ganache;

embers covered w confectioners sugar)

candied orange peel flames

caramel flames & sparks

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