Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Megan Blocker]

I had this on Saturday afternoon at Java Girl on E. 66th Street...a homemade marshmallow stuffed with chocolate...a bit two sweet; I think oreos would do better.

[avocado]

Brazilian Bolo Gelado

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This looks delicious, but I have no idea what it is! Could you elaborate? Is that coconut? Are they frozen? I bet I'd like them either way.

[Kim Shook]

I had this on Saturday afternoon at Java Girl on E. 66th Street...a homemade marshmallow stuffed with chocolate...a bit two sweet; I think oreos would do better.

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Gooooooood God! Drool! I have promised myself that when the dry cool days come I am going to start the marshmallow experiments.

[s_sevilla]

I've had plenty of sweeter foccacia's, while not sweet in a cakelike way, more like a subtle fruit sweetness. I suggest trying raisins and fresh rosemary. just soak the raisins in a light syrup, and then replace some of your water with the soaking syrup. The key to goodness is use plenty of raisins, more than you think you should, plenty of rosemary on the top for some herby crunch, and plenty of EVOO.

[Pontormo]

I baked a raspberry focaccia last weekend (at least that what the recipe called it. I don't know if a focaccia can be sweet rather than savoury. Anyone?  ).

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Second yes. It's called schiacciata, traditionally made with grapes in Tuscany as in this version on the blog of an eGullet member, Divina Cucina. This type tends to be flatter and pleasantly moist on top since the fruit covers much of the surface.

Yours looks gorgeous, Pille!

I bet peaches and blackberries together would be wonderful, too.

[Ling]

Yesterday, we finished off the rest of the Basque cake.

Today, I made a chocolate sponge cake out of the Pierre Herme Desserts book. I only needed two layers for the recipe (the chocolate bombe) so I ate the third layer with coffee ice-cream.

[Pontormo]

For the first time in quite a while, I made something that provoked satori as soon as it came out of the oven. Now I understand why all you crazy, crazy people photograph your food.

Seconds on peaches provide one of the great bargains of the farmers market. While I started out believing this was going to be a bummer year, recent crops prove utterly delicious. I decided to check out a number of dessert books from the library and with an open mind, included something by Martha Stewart that ended up my source of inspiration: an open-faced pie of unpeeled white Belle Georgia peaches.

I peeled my bright yellow ones and tossed in some chopped crystalized ginger and grated fresh Hawaiian gingerroot. I didn't have quite enough even to fill a nine-inch pie plate, so I made a wide well in the center to accommodate blueberries, using zest from the lemon I juiced for the peaches and a just a small amount of cinnamon. The entire pie was dotted with butter.

It is a thing of beauty: glistening surface of sugar and butter seizing up and tightening around clumps of peaches, their color deepened, edges rosy with some just a little crisped and golden brown, heaped in a circle around that dark, deep blue of berries that remain intact if wizened as they cool and lose the heaving quality they had when first brought forth from the heat.

One of the great pleasures of not having a top crust is the same benefit you get from a crostada or galette: if you pile the fruit high enough, you get to pick at the edges, slide a small wedge out near the crust and close some of the syrupy goop over the wound.

[Pille]

I've had plenty of sweeter foccacia's, while not sweet in a cakelike way, more like a subtle fruit sweetness.  I suggest trying raisins and fresh rosemary.  just soak the raisins in a light syrup, and then replace some of your water with the soaking syrup.  The key to goodness is use plenty of raisins, more than you think you should, plenty of rosemary on the top for some herby crunch, and plenty of EVOO.

Second yes.  It's called schiacciata, traditionally made with grapes in Tuscany as in this version on the blog of an eGullet member, Divina Cucina.  This type tends to be flatter and pleasantly moist on top since the fruit covers much of the surface.

Yours looks gorgeous, Pille!

Thank you, S_Sevilla & Pontormo - I'll try to make a proper schiacciata next time!

[Franci]

Brazilian Bolo Gelado

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This looks delicious, but I have no idea what it is! Could you elaborate? Is that coconut? Are they frozen? I bet I'd like them either way.

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it's a very popular brazilian snack I learned from a friend from Sao Paulo. The cake is similar to a sponge cake, maybe a little more dense (eggs, sugar, flour, hot milk and baking powder), cut in squares, dipped in a mix of coconut milk and condensed milk and rolled in coconut. Then every single piece is wrapped in foil and refrigerated. It's very good although next time I will have to adjust the sugar, brazilian have a very sweet tooth

[Pontormo]

Thank you, S_Sevilla & Pontormo - I'll try to make a proper schiacciata next time!

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Nonsense! Just trying to answer your question with a little information. Your raspberry schiacciata looks glorious and in the photographic sequence on its page, beautifully complements Ling's Basque cake.

As I said before, I think a peach version would be perfect, but keep in mind I will be obsessed with peaches until the season ends.

[Ling]

Pontormo, your words are as evocative as the prettiest picture.

Franci: thanks for explaining the dessert! It sounds really tasty. Could you give me the ingredient amounts for the cake?

[Franci]

Franci: thanks for explaining the dessert! It sounds really tasty. Could you give me the ingredient amounts for the cake?

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Sure Ling, I'll pm to you. I want to try it one more time to make a couple adjustments before adding it to the recipes.

[rajsuman]

Hi Franci,

As a lover of all things coconut, could I please have the recipe too?

Thanks!

Suman

[Jason Perlow]

Cobbler, using this really easy recipe from Paula Deen.

[Megan Blocker]

Hazelnut-chocolate gelato with blackberries from the Greenmarket...

[Chihiran]

megan blocker, that gelato looks delicious! Did you make it?

I had a cherry-almond coffeecake. It's the first recipe I tried from "Kaffeehaus" and it was delicious! It's also big and rich enough for me to have to share it. I'll bring it to friends tomorrow, and my husband is bringing some to work.

[Megan Blocker]

megan blocker, that gelato looks delicious! Did you make it?

I had a cherry-almond coffeecake. It's the first recipe I tried from "Kaffeehaus" and it was delicious! It's also big and rich enough for me to have to share it. I'll bring it to friends tomorrow, and my husband is bringing some to work.

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I sure did! The recipe was really easy, too. Thanks for the compliment!

[FWED]

Last night I made and eat a mini exotic orange cake. The recipe and more information on this cake can be read in the Exotic Orange Cake thread. Here are some photos. The gold cake disk is 4 inches so that gives you an idea of the size.

And

[Abra]

I got to have a fantasy fulfilled: desserts by FWED, Chefpeon, and Ling, all on one plate!

FWED's Exotic Orange mini, Chefpeon's Milk Chocolate Caramel ice cream, and Ling's Date Butter Tart. There was also a delicious peppermint stick ice cream from Chefpeon, and these beautiful treats filled with a pineapple mint ganache from FWED.

Boy, do I feel lucky!

[Ling]

^That was an incredible plate of desserts! I can still taste the Exotic Orange cake and chefpeon's chocolate ice-cream...yum yum!

The day before, we had dinner at Veil in Seattle. It was a friend's birthday and I made her a Valrhona chocolate dome cake.

Here's the cake, and a picture of it plated with the salted peanut butter ice-cream from Veil. The recipe for the ice-cream is in this month's Bon Appetit, and the chocolate dome recipe is from Pierre Herme.

[RuthWells]

That dome is lovely, Ling -- what is the garnish around the lower edge?

I haven't been doing much dessert-ing lately, but did fulfill a birthday request from Hubby over the weekend. He's a serious pistachio-holic, so we came up with pistachio-white chocolate semi-freddo, served in a coconut-pistachio tuile. If I were do to it again, the tuile would have a lot less coconut and be more thin and crispy, rather than thick and chewy. Yummy none the less!

[Ling]

^The pistachio and white chocolate semifreddo looks and sounds delicious!

The garnish on the bottom edge of the dome cake is just candied walnuts.

Today's dessert--I tried this butterscotch pudding recipe I found online and it totally sucked. I don't know what I did wrong, I mean, it's just pudding and I followed the recipe exactly. The pudding had a grainy, unpleasant texture from the cornstarch. I ate two ice-cream bars out of frustration. Grr.

Edited August 15, 2006 by Ling (log)

[RuthWells]

^The pistachio and white chocolate semifreddo looks and sounds delicious!

The garnish on the bottom edge of the dome cake is just candied walnuts. 

Today's dessert--I tried this butterscotch pudding recipe I found online and it totally sucked. I don't know what I did wrong, I mean, it's just pudding and I followed the recipe exactly. The pudding had a grainy, unpleasant texture from the cornstarch. I ate two ice-cream bars out of frustration. Grr.

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At least you had a fall-back dessert on hand! I don't care for cornstarch, either, and try to stick to egg-thickened custards and such. The first time I made a 10x-sugar based frosting (just a few years ago), I was appalled and outraged at how much of the cornstarch in the 10x I could taste/feel. Never again!

[Pontormo]

First, there are seriously tempting desserts on this page. Second:

Today's dessert--I tried this butterscotch pudding recipe I found online and it totally sucked...The pudding had a grainy, unpleasant texture from the cornstarch...

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I don't care for cornstarch, either, and try to stick to egg-thickened custards and such. The first time I made a 10x-sugar based frosting (just a few years ago), I was appalled and outraged at how much of the cornstarch in the 10x I could taste/feel. Never again!

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Ut oh.

I bought a huge watermelon this week to make a Sicilian watermelon pudding studded with pistachios, bittersweet chocolate flakes and candied citrus peel as a sub for the traditional preserved squash, though I intend to reserve the peel for decoration. Gourmet published a simplified version a couple of summers ago.

The recipe for one large watermelon (grrr, no weight provided) calls for 3/4 c. cornstarch!!!! I just looked up the recipe on Epicurious where 1/4 c. is used with 4 1/2 pounds of melon. While I plan to transform half my melon into this dessert tomorrow, I am a little concerned about the vehemence of these comments. So the dissolved cornstarch becomes unpleasant when the dessert sets? Foodman made the same pudding and really liked it.

Should I go all Junior League of South Carolinia and substitute gelatin for the cornstarch? It's a chilled dessert, but definitely not solid.

Edited August 15, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Chihiran]

I use cornstarch to make custards and flans all the time, I've never had a problem. My favorite recipe is the Parisian flan from "Paris Sweets". The recipe is from Pierre Herme and it's completely delicious!