Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[ScottyBoy]

Ah, well said, thank you.

[Wholemeal Crank]

My weekend treat: last night I made what

have now been independently confirmed (by two people I did not have to bribe to say YUM) as delicious caramels seasoned with Thai curry spices and peanuts, inspired by the Thai curry brittle from morninggloryconfections.com. Tiny Thai chiles, galangal, ginger, Thai lime leaf, lemongrass, coconut milk, and a spicy gingery aftertaste that has my mouth dancing with joy.

Thai Curry Caramels

[Mjx]

. . . . I didn't realise that Krusty the Clown lives locally and is a tween

The... inscription does lack the clarity of the one on your cake, which is remarkably pretty, by the way (I somehow managed to miss it, previously). Is that pistachio-flavoured marzipan?

Not the most flattering of plating but all the flavors fit with the PB&J theme that was requested. It's chocolate cake, peanut butter cream, salted caramel and cubes of strawberry and port.

Love the little red cubes! How did the strawberry and port mesh with the peanut butter and caramel pairing?

[merstar]

I just made this with lots of tweaks for my birthday. I did two cake layers instead of one.

Chocolate Rhapsody:

http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/30219/Chocolate-Rhapsody/detail.aspx

[Mette]

Is that pistachio-flavoured marzipan?

No, just dyed green with nasty chemicals. Same for this one: Number-one-son is into badminton, so he wants a badminton-cake to take to school. Could have made a cake-shuttle cock, but that is way to involved for a weekday

[tikidoc]

Is that pistachio-flavoured marzipan?

No, just dyed green with nasty chemicals. Same for this one: Number-one-son is into badminton, so he wants a badminton-cake to take to school. Could have made a cake-shuttle cock, but that is way to involved for a weekday

Wow, Mette, that would be borderline too involved for a weekend for me! And no way mine would come out looking so nice! You are great with a piping bag!

[teonzo]

This is my last experiment, the layers are: pistachio croquant, rose mousse, chestnut honey jelly, ginseng mousse, rose glaze. The decorations are white chocolate with ground pistachio on the sides, dehidrated rose buds on the top.

This cake took some efforts to get the correct balance, the chestnut honey tends to overcome the other flavours and destroy the whole effect, it just needs to be a "soft" background. Similar thing about pistachio, if it's not on the secondary level then it ruins the balance. I'm satisfied with the final result, and I love the ginseng-rose match, as usual I haven't invented anything new since I just discovered this match is well established in the soap industry.

Teo

[Mjx]

Is that pistachio-flavoured marzipan?

No, just dyed green with nasty chemicals. Same for this one: Number-one-son is into badminton, so he wants a badminton-cake to take to school. Could have made a cake-shuttle cock, but that is way to involved for a weekday

I'm pretty certain that the 'pistachio' flavoured marzipan is not naturally that colour! Regardless, the cakes look great, I'm sure they were hits.

[Kouign Aman]

update on the hot candy -

dried chilis extract nicely into alcohol, and worked to flavor the candy.

The candy hits first w sweet, then a second or so later with considerable, uncomfortable heat. I took a peppercorn sized piece and had an uncomfortable 20 seconds, with at least 5 min of afterburn. My chilihead friend & tester ate a 1/4 tsp sized piece, smiled, then her eyes widened, and she ate a few nuts to help wash it down. There's very little flavor -

a bit of chili flavor, a bit of the brandy I used to extract with.

Overall, it accomplished the goal. And oddly, the recipient and I both prefer the onion flavored candy.

So, I might combine the two, to get the heat up.

First tho, I will try some other flavor with the heat, like lemon peel or loquat, and see if I can make that work.

Gonna have to get some neutral booze first.

The hot moves with the sugar, so its different than eating spicy food. It sits on the spot of your tongue where you placed the candy, then goes down your throat, and the more sensitive felt it all the way down their gullet. Oh my.

There's no spreading around even if the candy is sucked on a while. That's kind of odd. But useful.

[Kim Shook]

KA - interesting experiment. Mr. Kim would have loved being included in the 'test group'! He finds food bland if he doesn't start to sweat in less than a minute!

For a dinner party last night, I made Michael Ruhlman’s angel food cake, filled with lime curd and topped with a lime glaze:

Fantastic, as always. But making it reminded me of something that I always wonder about when I make one. Every time that I make an angel food cake, no matter the recipe, I always get the same effect around the top of the cake – it is a little dip or trough. You can see it if you look closely. Any glaze that I put on always pools in the trough instead of gently dripping down the sides like I’d like it to. Does anyone else have this problem? And a solution?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I used to have that problem, then I started using a bundt pan for angel cakes (it even works when you want to fill them, so long as you've got a nice long cake knife or a cake-levelling saw).

[Mjx]

I've simply flipped the cake over, when the top hasn't been as level as I wanted it to be. Probably not what you meant by 'solution', but it does work, if all else fails

[janeer]

No, never, ever. I wonder if you are overbeating. And do you turn your cake upside-down on removal from the oven?

[Kim Shook]

PC – I have a terrible time getting things out of Bundt pans. Especially something as light as an angel food cake.

Mjx – Actually, that’s what I usually do, too . But this time, since I was filling it, I thought it would look better with the wider part at the base and narrower part at the top (if that makes sense).

janeer – I guess I could be overbeating – I’m not sure that I know how to tell with an angel food cake. I know that the texture is perfect. And, yep, I do turn it over to cool.

Thanks, all for the assistance. Luckily what I made this past week didn’t have any issues at all. It is the second time that I’ve made this and both times, it turned out perfectly. For my mother’s birthday on Sunday:

Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake. Slice:

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Kim, have you tried a lightly-oiled silicone bundt? It's a game-changer.

[merstar]

I made these for the upteenth time - Total chocolate decadence. (Note: There's a typo in the recipe - should be 1 1/4 cups flour NOT 1/4 cup.

Chocolate Espresso Chews:

http://www.washingto...6071301538.html

http://media3.washin...06071301541.jpg

Edited May 11, 2012 by merstar (log)

[Kim Shook]

PC – I haven’t tried a silicone bundt pan. I’ll see if I can find one.

For Mother’s Day dessert I made roasted strawberry coconut milk ice cream and Dream cookies (like shortbread):

The ice cream was absolutely delicious. I was lucky enough to find extremely ripe berries, so the strawberry flavor is perfect. The texture was a little icier than I would have liked. The ingredients are natural cane sugar, egg yolks, full fat coconut milk, strawberries and vanilla. Would using coconut milk instead of cream account for that? Or the new cheapo ice cream maker that we just bought? The flavor is so great that I don’t really care – I called it sorbet at the dinner!

[curls]

Cinnamon rolls

[Darienne]

I do like Cinnamon Buns. Those are beauties.

[DianaM]

Lemon madeleines from Laura Calder's recipe.

[FrogPrincesse]

These madeleines are beautiful... It's been too long since I've baked a batch!

[RobertM]

Curls: Those Cinnamon rolls look professional...I'm sure you're using only the finest of ingredients... :-)

DianaM: The madelines look amazing - I could eat that entire plate - and the madelines too....

[curls]

Curls: Those Cinnamon rolls look professional...I'm sure you're using only the finest of ingredients... :-)

DianaM: The madelines look amazing - I could eat that entire plate - and the madelines too....

RobertM, Just trying to showcase your fine cinnamon roll filling. May bake some cinnamon swirl bread next time!

[RWood]

So, after 6 trials and 2 days production, I finished 900 quinoa cupcakes for Cooking For Solutions at the Monterey Aquarium this weekend. The client we worked with sent a recipe, but it was a bust, so I had to come up with a substitute. They are just a yellow cake with cooked quinoa added. I frosted them with a chocolate stout frosting and topped them with crumbled bacon and chocolate sprinkles. They seemed to be a hit, but we had about half leftover. Better too much than too little I guess. There's way too much food there anyway, so people taste so much they get full fast. Just glad it's over.

[RobertM]

This is a white chocolate/raspberry tart I did for a dessert party

a Chocolate and Cabernet Sauvigon Italian Cake

served with a Creame Anglaise