Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[merstar]

DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE WITH FLUFFY WHITE FROSTING with lots of tweaks:

http://www.godiva.com/recipes/recipe.aspx?id=518

[cmflick]

Fresh Ginger cake from David Lebovitz's new book "Ready for Dessert". With vanilla ice cream from "The Perfect Scoop" (also Lebovitz).

[Kim Shook]

merstar – that cake sounds great! What tweaks did you do and how did it taste?

My daughter’s best friend ordered mini cupcakes for a gathering he was having for his website:

I came up with Margarita mini cupcakes.

They were yellow cake flavored with coconut extract and the frosting was a fluffy white icing flavored with key lime extract. I tinted the frosting slightly green and topped it with green sprinkles and some coarse sugar to mimic the salt on a margarita.

Some junky cupcakes that I made for Memorial Day:

Just a strawberry cake mix with white frosting and decorations. The little neighbor girl loved them !

[Darienne]

Kim, you are definitely the cupcake queen. I love the 'junky' cupcakes.

[David A. Goldfarb]

David – your little Bundts are beautiful. Was that pan metal or silicone?

Thanks. It's one of those heavy NordicWare pans, which I think are cast aluminum coated with teflon.

But, oy, I signed up to bake something for my the end of year party in my son's preschool tomorrow and made cupcakes using that same batter, and as I was taking them out of the oven I noticed that cup of butter I'd set to melt still sitting in the microwave.

Conclusion: the low-fat version isn't bad either!

Edited June 4, 2010 by David A. Goldfarb (log)

[merstar]

merstar – that cake sounds great! What tweaks did you do and how did it taste?

Kim,

I've made this cake many times - it's fantastic. I can PM the recipe to you with all my tweaks if you'd like. Let me know.

Meryl aka merstar

[David Ross]

My version of Rhubarb Crisp. It's actually just my rhubarb pie filling and then the topping is what I use for Italian-style Crostatta's-a mix of sugar, flour and butter on top of free-form tarts. The difference from the Crostatta is that the fruit is baked in the casserole rather than in a pastry and then the topping melts on top. I served it with a Gooseberry Sherbet. Hope to have the photo up tonight. Old-fashioned, somewhat British-inspired and delicious.

[emmalish]

Fresh Ginger cake from David Lebovitz's new book "Ready for Dessert".

Oooh, I hadn't seen his new book yet. What's the verdict? Worth buying?

Edited June 6, 2010 by emmalish (log)

[dystopiandreamgirl]

pecan dacquoise with espresso bourbon buttercream; chocolate glaze and viburnum leaves

why did the glaze get grainy as you can see? did i scorch the chocolate? (i did put it through a sieve)...this happens occasionally and is very annoying...

[DeEttas]

pecan dacquoise with espresso bourbon buttercream; chocolate glaze and viburnum leaves

why did the glaze get grainy as you can see? did i scorch the chocolate? (i did put it through a sieve)...this happens occasionally and is very annoying...

A couple of things could have happened, either your glaze may have been too cool or you may have "worked" it too much when applying. I assume your glaze was chocolate and cream?

Kevin

[cmflick]

Fresh Ginger cake from David Lebovitz's new book "Ready for Dessert".

Oooh, I hadn't seen his new book yet. What's the verdict? Worth buying?

I made the Fresh Ginger Cake and a Maple Walnut Pear cake from "Ready for Dessert" and both have been excellent. I have read that some of the recipes are from the out-of-print Lebovitz books Room for Dessert and Ripe for Dessert. That doesn't bother me since I don't have either book. My complaint is that there are not as many pictures in the book as I would like, i.e., very many of the recipes do not have a picture of the final product. I really like to see what I'm making should look like. On the whole, a worth while addition to my cook book collection, though.

[pastrygirl]

cheesecake made with cream cheese, chevre, and lemon with roasted sweet cherries and thyme infused honey

butterscotch blondie with spicy peanut ice cream and bacon caramel sauce

sweet cherry and pistachio tarts

vanilla-white pepper shortbread cookies

[cakemuse]

I love your cakes!! Those leaves.....

[RichardJones]

Thanks for your advice on using cocoa butter in another thread. Here are the results of my first experiments with some red CB and milk chocolate (filled with a passion fruit and milk chocolate ganache):

[Kim Shook]

dystopiandreamgirl – let me add my kudos for that amazing cake. I am just in AWE!

pastrygirl - every single one of those desserts sound amazing! How about some pictures?

I made a low carb dessert for Mr. Kim tonight to welcome him home from Arizona:

Lemon cheesecake. He’s diabetic and lately is being really careful with his carb intake. It’s really starting to make a difference in his blood sugar levels, so I’m trying to be supportive.

This was made with Neufchâtel cheese, low fat sour cream and Splenda and it was delicious with a really good texture.

[Corinna]

cheesecake made with cream cheese, chevre, and lemon with roasted sweet cherries and thyme infused honey

It's cherry season here (I'm going picking on Thursday!), and I would love to have this recipe, if possible. Thank you, pastrygirl!

[cmflick]

Lime-blueberry tart.

[Darienne]

cheesecake made with cream cheese, chevre, and lemon with roasted sweet cherries and thyme infused honey

It's cherry season here (I'm going picking on Thursday!), and I would love to have this recipe, if possible. Thank you, pastrygirl!

Ditto for me, please...except for the cherry picking part.

[Mette]

Koldskål-season in Denmark - a traditional cold buttermilk 'soup' (the name means cold bowl....). We have it twice a week in the summer (not always home made, though, you can buy prefab in the dairysection of the supermarket in summer) and the kids love it.

Whisk 2 pasteurized yolks with appx. 75 g sugar until pale and un-crunchy, add some vanilla and fine zest from ½ organic lemon. Mix in 1 l. buttermilk and add lemon juice to taste. It needs to be rich, sweet, tart and dottet with black vanilla seeds. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour and serve with finely sliced strawberries or 'kammerjunkere' (a type of vanilla bisquit, almost like biscotti)

Enjoy

Edited June 14, 2010 by Mette (log)

[Kim Shook]

For dessert last night, I made The Blissful Glutton's peach-cherry crisp:

with vanilla bean ice cream on top:

I’ve made this before and we like it a lot. You can assemble the whole thing before your guests arrive and stick it in the oven when you sit down for dinner. By the time you are ready for dessert, it’s hot and ready to be topped with ice cream. But the topping was different this time – less crumbly and browned. I think I know why: since three out of the four of us are diabetics, I tried using Sugar Twin Brown in place of regular brown sugar. It tasted fine, but the texture was off. I don’t think I’ll do that again. After all, with the fruit and the heavy carb load of flour and oatmeal and ice cream, a little regular brown sugar is hardly worth bothering about!

[abooja]

I made this cherry frangipane tart to bring to a friend's house last night. Too well done for my tastes, but it seemed to go over well.

[deensiebat]

Back to basics with poppy seed cake:

For some reason I seem to have gone years without poppy seed cake. I forgot how rich and nubby and nice it is.

[Darienne]

Never, never, in my entire life have I seen a recipe with so much poppyseed in it. I love it already and I haven't even made it yet. I just know it's going to be a regular in this house.

What about serving it with lemon curd???

Thanks so much for posting it. Hmmmm....what about making it into muffins?

[deensiebat]

Never, never, in my entire life have I seen a recipe with so much poppyseed in it.

That's the beauty of home-baking -- you can sneak in ridiculous amounts of poppy seeds. It's super moist and nice and nutty. I'll bet muffins would be great -- it's definitely got a cake-like richness, but it's not too sweet.

[Darienne]

That's the beauty of home-baking -- you can sneak in ridiculous amounts of poppy seeds. It's super moist and nice and nutty. I'll bet muffins would be great -- it's definitely got a cake-like richness, but it's not too sweet.

Well, they are already made, not cake and not muffins, but rather what you might call mini-loaves...a pan with 8 little loaf cavities. The recipe made 16 loaves. They are scrumptious, delectably poppy-seed filled.

Thank you again for the recipe.