Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Kim Shook]

Darienne - thank you! It was certainly enjoyed by everyone at the cookout!

Some friends gave me some bounty from their garden including a LOT of raspberries. They were very ripe, so I needed to use them quickly, so I made these ‘hand pies’ from the Pepperidge Farm website:

Such a ridiculous recipe. I am a fairly experienced home baker and in reading the recipe could see some problems with it. And even though I tried to make adjustments, mine all ‘blew out’. They taste good, but how could they not? Home grown berries, cream cheese, white chocolate and puff pastry. But their proportions were all off and resulted in overstuffed pies. They tell you to roll out to 12x12-inches and cut twelve 3-inch circles. That is TIGHT cutting – no room for a hair of error. Then they tell you to mix the cream cheese and sugar and white chocolate chips and ‘spread’ them on the rounds of pastry. Right. Chocolate chips spread SO well. I decided to pipe the cream cheese and sugar mixture and top with the chips, which worked ok. But, as you can see, they were still over-full and blew! I can imagine some poor completely inexperienced baker having a nervous breakdown over these things. I still had another 6 oz. of berries (my friend was VERY generous), so I decided to make things really easy on myself and make one big one with another package of puff pastry:

Turned out MUCH better!

[Mjx]

Darienne - thank you! It was certainly enjoyed by everyone at the cookout!

Some friends gave me some bounty from their garden including a LOT of raspberries. They were very ripe, so I needed to use them quickly, so I made these ‘hand pies’ from the Pepperidge Farm website:

Such a ridiculous recipe. I am a fairly experienced home baker and in reading the recipe could see some problems with it. And even though I tried to make adjustments, mine all ‘blew out’. They taste good, but how could they not? Home grown berries, cream cheese, white chocolate and puff pastry. But their proportions were all off and resulted in overstuffed pies. They tell you to roll out to 12x12-inches and cut twelve 3-inch circles. That is TIGHT cutting – no room for a hair of error. Then they tell you to mix the cream cheese and sugar and white chocolate chips and ‘spread’ them on the rounds of pastry. Right. Chocolate chips spread SO well. I decided to pipe the cream cheese and sugar mixture and top with the chips, which worked ok. But, as you can see, they were still over-full and blew! I can imagine some poor completely inexperienced baker having a nervous breakdown over these things. I still had another 6 oz. of berries (my friend was VERY generous), so I decided to make things really easy on myself and make one big one with another package of puff pastry:

Turned out MUCH better!

These look delicious, but as you say, cutting those circles is really tight, I probably would have just cut them as squares.

[judiu]

Kim, looking at your post and looking back, I don't think I've ever had a turnover that DIDN'T blow, even the frozen ones from Pepperidge Farm that come in the 2 pack. Maybe

the "outside fruit" counts as a nostalgia factor to some folks ? You know, just like Gramma made them?

[Darienne]

Did some ungrateful, picky guest complain? I'm not going to eat this blown turnover? I think not. I would have eaten one and been happy. Those who complained do not get invited back.

[rod rock]

Dariennde's Margarita Pie looks perfect! Wonderful work!

[tikidoc]

Kim, I don't know whether to thank you or curse you for introducing me to world peace cookies. Wonderful, addictive chocolate goodness. I made some yesterday and the family already wants me to make another batch.

[RobertM]

Ruth; I've been away for awhile, but coming back to those Duo's are simply Amazing.....

[Toliver]

Kim, I don't know whether to thank you or curse you for introducing me to world peace cookies. Wonderful, addictive chocolate goodness. I made some yesterday and the family already wants me to make another batch.

The nice thing about the World Peace cookies is that you can make the dough ahead of time and freeze it. Make a double batch and freeze half of it to be used at a later date. It's great for last minute invites or surprise guests that pop in.

[tigerwoman]

Kim, I don't know whether to thank you or curse you for introducing me to world peace cookies. Wonderful, addictive chocolate goodness. I made some yesterday and the family already wants me to make another batch.

The nice thing about the World Peace cookies is that you can make the dough ahead of time and freeze it. Make a double batch and freeze half of it to be used at a later date. It's great for last minute invites or surprise guests that pop in.

I stumbled across the World Peace cookie recipe and then found notes about it on Dorie Greenspan's site - my own adaptation most recently was to add a few tablespoons of Sriracha to the butter as it was creaming and to follow the notes to reduce several ingredients in order to bake it as a bar. They are sinfully rich with a surprise twist - we will cut them into tiny byte size pieces for the wedding cookie table. With about 2,000 plus pieces of cookies and bar bytes, smaller is better.

We have been on a baking blitz this past month - all leading up to a 16 foot Cookie Table with close to 2000 cookies and bar bytes displayed for our son's wedding next week. I have blogged about this amazing cookie cookie journey and linked the recipes as well as posted my adaptions and sources. Being both the parents of the groom and the caterer is tricky - and I am making the wedding cake as well but fortunately the requested cake is my version of the bullseye cheesecake using cappuchino and vanilla circles so little or no decorating will be required and the cheesecakes can be baked earlier in the week. The guest list keeps rising - originally they envisioned 40-50 guests the RSVPs seem to be about 107. Not too worried about running out of food cause if all else fails, "let them eat cookies"

Lots of great recipes on our amazing cookie journey. Check them out here on one of our blogs http://cuisinetc-weddings.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-cookie-table-new-trend-or-adaptable.html

[harrysnapperorgans]

I’m still going on my pie and tart addiction. It’s just so easy and quick to make short pastry in the food processor, bake it blind, then chuck in any filling. I haven’t had a single flop yet, every pie has been delicious. my wife has started to call me ‘the tartstress' Today I made a berry pie:

And a double chocolate, this one is a baked dark chocolate custard with a lightly cocoa’d meringue on top:

loooking forward to dessert tonight! as usual I was helped by my boys aged 2 and 4. they had fun. chocolate everywhere

Edited September 12, 2012 by harrysnapperorgans (log)

[deensiebat]

Oooh those tarts look good. I made a brown butter cake with pears and chocolate, topped with whipped cream. Oh so perfect for the season.

[rajoress]

Hello - my 2nd post after lurking for years! I've been in the mini whoopie pie mode and made these red velvet ones for a 75th birthday party. Thanks for looking - I LOVE all the pics on this thread - everything looks amazing!

"sorry if the pic is too big...!"

[Darienne]

Hello Rajoress and welcome to the wonderful world of eG posting. I've never had a whoopie pie...must be my wartime Canadian upbringing...but those do look pretty darned yummy. Just might try to make some.

[vimaladevi]

I'm so into the fresh grated coconut meat these days...

off the cuff today:

2 cups freshly grated coconut meat

2 cup (packed) sprouted grain (spelt or kamut)

1/2 - 1 cup sucanat (to your taste)

1 tsp cassia powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of mineral salts

Food processor and the baked for 45 minutes as blondies... its the mix it too dry add a banana or grated carrots but you may have to adjust baking time.

it's nothing conventional, it's nothing decadent, more wholesome dessert for an any day meal.

actually I did a similar savory:

2 cups freshly grated coconut meat

2 cup whole spelt flour

1 tsp mineral salts or to taste

tiny bit of water if necessary to get to dough consistency

This time no need to for food processor, just mix it all until like a dough shape into bite size balls and serve as biscuit. Bake about 20 minutes they start getting golden... yum it's like biscuit... very rich from coconut oil. But I still added a little ghee and served warm

Eat the Sun!

www.eternalananda.wordpress.com

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Well, my friend's wedding was on Saturday. Those of you who have been following the creation of some of the decorations in the Confections thread have expressed extreme curiousity as to the final product, and here it is (I'm finally rested up enough to download the camera and sort the photos!) Without further ado, I give you the "Fairy Fantasy Cloverleaf Cake" - the only thing on here that I didn't make are the two tall gnomes, which are the keepsake figures for the bride and groom. The only nonedible thing besides those gnomes is the bridge - they're too heavy to support with sugar.

There are four flavours of cake here - orange walnut spice filled with orange marmalade (the section with the blue dragon on it); white coconut filled with cherry (the section with the green dragon and the sheep - this was the first section to be cut); apple raisin walnut spice filled with manjar de leche (the red dragon); and carrot filled with cream cheese icing (the rainbow dragon). Each section is 52 cm in diameter, which means that the full span is more than a full meter; each section weighed about 15 kg. It's frosted in vanilla flavoured ICBM. The entire cake was shipped as bare, stacked sections, then frosted on site; frosted sections were carried to the cake table (in the middle of a field, under a tent) and once all four were in place, decoration started, a process that took about an hour.

I don't, unfortunately, have photos of the cutting of the cake, since it's traditional that after the bride and groom make the first cut, the baker is the one to part it out. I have never seen anything quite like what happened with this cake though - it was like a shark attack. I couldn't get it cut fast enough for the 200+ guests, all of whom reached in as a single, frenzied unit to get at the figurines (very few of which were eaten - they became keepsakes for the guests). Wild. I'll see if I can get that section of video from the bride - it's really got to be seen to be believed! Guests made a point of seeking me out and telling me that it was "the coolest cake I've ever seen!" and "most wedding cakes look lovely and taste like cardboard, but this was beautiful and I want fourths."

For the curious, I have closeups of some of the elements (ie the flock of sheep and its faun shepherd; the dodos; the dragons) - let me know if you want to see them.

[Kerry Beal]

Of course we want to see them!

[Tri2Cook]

That's awesome! I wish more people, at least around where I live, would be willing to step outside of the standard wedding cakes. I might even reconsider my I-don't-do-weddings stance if people were more adventurous. Then again, I'd still have to deal with brides and (even worse) mothers of the bride... so maybe not.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Fantastic! They must have been so thrilled with the final result... I think i'd be quite overwhelmed to see it all for the first time

I can see some very cute bunnies in a patch of it.

[curls]

Indeed, please post more photos of the wedding cake. And the video too!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

That's awesome! I wish more people, at least around where I live, would be willing to step outside of the standard wedding cakes. I might even reconsider my I-don't-do-weddings stance if people were more adventurous. Then again, I'd still have to deal with brides and (even worse) mothers of the bride... so maybe not.

I was very fortunate in that both the bride and her auntie, who were the ones in charge of planning the event, are very good friends who trust me deeply. When we were planning out the cake, they basically said "fantasty fairy forest for 200, shaped like a 4-leaf clover. Have fun with it." I've worked with some real bridezillas, but this (thankfully!) was not one of them. The look on Babsy's face when she saw the cake finished was more than worth the effort it took to do all those figurines.

Incidentally, I actually flat out refuse to do the "standard" fondant and roses tiered white cakes - which means that most of my business is for things more like this one. We'll see what happens - with 200 highly impressed guests, I'm fairly sure that quite a bit more business is coming my way.

[Lior]

Wow! WHat a magical wedding cake! I can understand why the crowds dived in to get those little creatures!!! A keepsake for sure. It seems you had so much fun and it will be a cake long remembered. SO much detail and thought!! I would order one for some occasion from you if only I could!

[Darienne]

Wonderful fantasy cake. If we ever get to Ecuador, we're coming to visit and you and I will make little sugar sheep together. And I'll bring you Canadian 7-year old Cheddar too.

[Shelby]

Panderia, that is an amazing work of art. Thank you for taking time to show us. I only wish I could have a bite.

[jmacnaughtan]

Found a cutter in Vienna, so I had to make hedgehogs. Spiked with vanilla and black pepper, of course.

[rod rock]

Wow they look beautiful! I like that shape.