Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[DesertCulinary]

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake I made today for treat day at the office tomorrow. I did use walnuts as I had more of them on hand then I did pecans! Vanilla wafer/walnut crust, a caramel layer followed by a chocolate cheesecake batter on top.

[Amy D.]

Amy, I'll trade you a couple of oatmeal for your double chocolate pecan cookies.

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mmmm..Ann_T they do look tempting.. I really must try an oatmeal recipe next time..

[Darienne]

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake I made today for treat day at the office tomorrow.  I did use walnuts as I had more of them on hand then I did pecans!  Vanilla wafer/walnut crust, a caramel layer followed by a chocolate cheesecake batter on top.

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Lovely!

My next-door-neighbor/landlady/friend in Moab loves Turtles. We have made them twice now and this might be a treat to make for her just before we leave. Our Moab stay is almost over.

Could you please walk me through the steps again:

crust - crushed vanilla wafers and walnuts (I'll use pecans)

layer 1 - caramel

layer 2 - chocolate cheesecake

topping 1 - ?

topping 2 - drizzled dark chocolate & walnuts (again, I'll use pecans)

Is this more or less correct? Thanks.

[Kim Shook]

OMG - where to start? Between Rob's utterly lovely mousse, Joe's delectable looking cheesecake and Ann and Amy's cookies, I would have a hard time choosing. Just beautiful work folks!

This is actually not my pie, but my daughter, Jessica’s. She had a pastry lesson Tuesday night with my MIL, a real pastry expert. She makes some of the best pie crust I’ve ever had. Jessica is a pie filling expert – this is her apple, citrus and toffee pie filling in her very first from-scratch crust:

Very proud Momma here – she’s 25 and has produced a shatteringly crisp, light pie crust. I’m almost 50 and still unroll the Pillsbury things !

Edited April 23, 2009 by Kim Shook (log)

[DesertCulinary]

My next-door-neighbor/landlady/friend in Moab loves Turtles.  We have made them twice now and this might be a treat to make for her just before we leave.  Our Moab stay is almost over.

Could you please walk me through the steps again:

crust - crushed vanilla wafers and walnuts (I'll use pecans)

layer 1 - caramel

layer 2 - chocolate cheesecake

topping 1 - ?

topping 2 - drizzled dark chocolate & walnuts (again, I'll use pecans)

Is this more or less correct?  Thanks.

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Pretty much - there is no topping "one" in your list. After the cheesecake is baked and cooled, the top was just finished with walnuts and the drizzle of chocolate!

Edited April 26, 2009 by DesertCulinary (log)

[Darienne]

Pretty much - there is no topping "one" in your list.  After the cheesecake is baked and cooled, the top was just finished with walnuts and the drizzle of chocolate!

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Thanks for the information.

[Kim Shook]

A giant cupcake that I made for a friend to give to her cupcake-crazy gentleman friend:

The coffee cup is for scale. It was, by request, German chocolate. Adorable and came out of the pan very easily, as I was afraid that it would not. I can't wait to try it out in a yellow or white cake with pastel frosting and some cute decorations.

[hansjoakim]

Yesterday I found some gorgeous strawberries at the market, and used some of them in a Fraisier. I had a genoise base in the freezer, so I only had to make the mousseline cream and roll out the marzipan:

This was the first time I've made a Fraisier, but I was quite pleased with how it turned out! I think I should've trimmed off the sides of the genoise to get a prettier edge, but I'm the only one who's eating this, so...

Last weekend I made a Charlotte:

Just in time for summer!

[gfron1]

Those are great! Here's to frozen leftover pastry components!

[hansjoakim]

Those are great!  Here's to frozen leftover pastry components!

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Thanks gfron1! Here here!

[Ann_T]

A giant cupcake that I made for a friend to give to her cupcake-crazy gentleman friend:

The coffee cup is for scale.  It was, by request, German chocolate.  Adorable and came out of the pan very easily, as I was afraid that it would not.  I can't wait to try it out in a yellow or white cake with pastel frosting and some cute decorations.

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Kim, that is one amazing cupcake.

My favourite - first rhubarb pie of the season.

And homemade Walnut and White Chocolate Fudge

[Lior]

Oh my! I think the last time I tasted fudge was on a holiday in the U.S. in mackinak Island about 15 years ago. That looks good!! We don't have fudge here! Maybe I shold learn how to make it!

[dystopiandreamgirl]

it's such a treat to browse these pages...everything looks so wonderful - the perfectly positioned strawberries on the frasier, the in-your-face pics of cookies and pie, appearing as if they were any closer they might juuuust reach my mouth, the gorgeous mousse (i would be thrilled to attend a wedding and be served my own little jewel instead of a slice of cake), the german chocolate frosting appearing alarmingly close to sliding off the cupcake, and the *perfect* green chocolate marbles...

here's a couple things i was happy with recently. i love when ideas incubate for a while, then come to fruition...

i long ago lost the ability to look at any foliage without wondering what it would look like in chocolate. andy goldsworthy's work fascinates me (if you're not familiar, go rent rivers and tides), and i was inspired to make this based on his 'black hole' creations:

the cake underneath all those leaves (about 200) is composed of three 12" almond dacquoise layers sandwiched with coffee buttercream & caramelized plum preserves, covered with ganache.

for my mother's 80th birthday charlotte, i made white chocolate tulips, atop chocolate ladyfingers brushed with cointreau, filled with strawberry-kirsch mousse and a thin layer of ganache. the tulips are made the same way that chocolate leaves are, by brushing, setting, and peeling the petals. because they are three-dimensional (as opposed to the way leaves just lay flat), i had to alternate the side that i used for the petals, and then position them so their good sides showed...

(tulips are edible, by the way. i used to set the whole flower [with stamens removed] upright on a plate and fill with curried chicken salad. they taste...vegetal, i guess, appropriate with chicken)

i have not made chocolate ladyfingers before and hardly found any recipes. i ended up adding a little cocoa to the yolks in my regular recipe (from The Cake Bible) and eliminating a little flour; they did not end up as dark as i would have liked, and i wasn't sure what would result in the best look - cocoa mixed with, or substituted for, the powdered sugar sprinkled on top, more cocoa in the batter itself, or what...since ladyfinger batter cannot sit, i did not have time to experiment with one or two fingers before deciding. if anyone has some advice, i'd love to hear it. i also noticed that the cocoa toughened the ladyfingers a bit, so wondered if i should have just sifted the cocoa with the flour rather than beating it with the yolks (one of the few recipes i found included it with the yolks).

fortunately it was only noticeable when sampled alone...when combined with the strawberry mousse, ganache, and white chocolate petals, in-between sips of espresso, in a sunny garden of narcissi and fritallaria, the texture seemed just fine.

happy spring everybody!

[Lior]

My heart feels weak. Your work is perfection, the detail hurts. How absolutely fabulous for your mother's birthday. There is nothing like a gift made out of love.

How do you do it so patiently perfect? It is so beautiful. I would buy it in a second, but I can't from so far! Those white leaves gently tainted with browning!!! Poetry.

Thank you. SOrry for ranting!

[blurby]

Wow! That's possibly the most amazing dessert I've ever seen! And Goldsworthy would certainly approve; the temporary nature of his art resonates with the temporary nature of artfully prepared food.

Ann_T: Any change of a recipe for that rhubarb pie? It looks great!

[MikeJ]

Those are both phenomenal. Just amazing. The leaf cake really reminded me of something, and I couldn't figure out what it was until I saw the reference to Goldsworthy's black holes. Then it clicked. I think, if anything, I prefer yours to his.

[Stephanie Brim]

A giant cupcake that I made for a friend to give to her cupcake-crazy gentleman friend:

The coffee cup is for scale.  It was, by request, German chocolate.  Adorable and came out of the pan very easily, as I was afraid that it would not.  I can't wait to try it out in a yellow or white cake with pastel frosting and some cute decorations.

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Kim, that is one amazing cupcake.

My favourite - first rhubarb pie of the season.

And homemade Walnut and White Chocolate Fudge

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My GOD I love rhubarb pie, and that one looks particularly scrumptious. Mine is doing poorly due to where the person who previously owned this house had it so I'm getting it moved in August to a more suitable location. It'll get big enough for me to use in a couple weeks and I do think I'll have to make a pie of my own.

[Pilori]

Truffles made a few days ago with my girlfriend. Half are "plain" and the other half are rolled in coconut flakes. This was our first attempt! They turned out delicious.

[Emily_R]

Hey Ann -- Any chance you'd post the recipe for your rhubarb pie here? Getting the filling just right is such a fine balance -- and what do you use for thickener? It looks like it set up just perfectly!

[Ann_T]

Hey Ann -- Any chance you'd post the recipe for your rhubarb pie here? Getting the filling just right is such a fine balance -- and what do you use for thickener? It looks like it set up just perfectly!

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Emily, I posted the recipe on Recipe Gullet. You can find it here.

[Emily_R]

Hey Ann -- Any chance you'd post the recipe for your rhubarb pie here? Getting the filling just right is such a fine balance -- and what do you use for thickener? It looks like it set up just perfectly!

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Emily, I posted the recipe on Recipe Gullet. You can find it here.

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Thanks Ann! I really appreciate it! Will report back soon!

[DeliciouslyLekker]

Thanks Lior! Seems like you're familiar with Holland;)

Marzipan Cake

Edited May 5, 2009 by DeliciouslyLekker (log)

[Lior]

now that looks lekker!!

[Jmahl]

Sorry to hijack this thread. I have been trying to post images on Image Gullet for ages but it never seems to upload properly (after adding the image, it goes to a blank page). Is anyone else having this problem?

A few years ago I posted a step by step tutorial on how to post photos. You might want to look for it and check it out - it works.

Jmahl

[DeliciouslyLekker]

Thanks for your help with ImageGullet:)