Passion Nut?

Its time again for another Daring Baker post! This is an especially fun one, as there was quite a bit of leeway in the flavoring and decorating. So expect to see many many fancy layer cakes in the blogosphere today! The hostess this month was Morven from Food Art and Random Thoughts, and the recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours. You can find the recipe here.

When I saw the crazy amount of egg whites used in the cake and butter cream, I immediately knew I would fill the cake with some sort of curd. What better way to use up those yolks? Instead of the usual lemon, I chose to make passion fruit curd. I haven’t made curd with passion fruit before, so it was a bit of an experiment. Can we say yummy? I basically replaced the lemon juice with passion fruit puree in a basic lemon curd recipe. Easy peasy…

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March 30, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Daring Bakers, Sweet Tooth

55 Critiques

Egg-celent cookies

I just wasn’t feeling Eastery this year. We didn’t even have an Easter dinner… just a little homemade guacamole and Coronas while watching a movie. I know, I’m a bad wife, but we’ve been so busy with Stephan’s business, it just slipped my mind. Its definitely Wedding season in South Florida! Anyway, instead of making Easter Dinner, I woke up on Sunday morning and decided to make my favorite sugar cookies. I used the same recipe from my Halloween cookies, but ommitted the baking soda. I spent some time decorating them with pink, blue and yellow Royal Icing.

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March 24, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Holiday Fare, Sweet Tooth

5 Critiques

Blueberry Galette

As usual, I had something on the verge of going bad in my fridge (blueberries) and decided to salvage them by baking something. I found this galette recipe in my Essential Baker cookbook. It’s my kind of recipe… very easy, and not labor intensive. I wish I had the time to make complicated, many step recipes, but its just not in the cards for me. To make this even easier, I made the dough the day before I baked it, and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Can’t get any easier than that!

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March 13, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Sweet Tooth

21 Critiques

Rump Cake

Rum Raisin + Pound Cake = Rump Cake? Hey if Bennifer, TomKat and Brangelina are legit, then so is my rump cake! Mmmmkay!

This recipe came from The Essential Baker by Carole Bloom. Stephan’s favorite ice cream is Rum Raisin, and when I came across this recipe, I knew I would have to try it. The flavor is wonderful, but I think could have used a bit more rum and maybe a splash of vanilla. Also, I was pretty bummed when all my raisins sunk to the bottom. However, it was quite tasty, ridiculously easy and will definitely be made again one day. I served it with caramel sauce.
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March 6, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Sweet Tooth

12 Critiques

Tuxedo Strawberries

In planning our Valentines day dinner, I decided to go somewhat healthy for our dessert and chose chocolate dipped strawberries. But of course, being me, I had to make them fancy with the tuxedos. I stood in my local grocery store for about 5 minutes with two boxes of strawberries. One box consisted of two pints for $4 of regular strawberries, the other was a mere (perfect) dozen ones with the stem still on. That one was $10. I was so torn… should I spend $6 more for a fraction of the strawberries simply to have the stems? The frugal side of me took over, and I bought the less expensive ones. If I had to go back, I’d say screw it and spend the other 6 dollars! The stem really does help with the dipping process. So the moral of the story is… if you’re planning on taking the time to do tuxedo strawberries, don’t cheap out… buy the fancy strawberries with the stems!

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February 18, 2008 | Filed Under Sweet Tooth

11 Critiques

Happy New Year!

For those that are confused, today is the first day of the Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade.

While flipping through the South Florida Sun Sentinel last week, these Yin-Yang cookies caught my eye. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang represent the two primal cosmic forces in the universe… plus its pretty! I decided not to use recipe in the paper, but used the one from my checkerboard cookies from this past Christmas. Its actually much easier than the checkerboard cookies and takes less time. The result is really cool!
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February 7, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Sweet Tooth

17 Critiques

The Crepe Queen

When I used to work at the Four Seasons Hotel, I was always on crepe duty during the lavish Sunday Brunches. I would make the crepes ahead of time in the kitchen and I had the ability to have four pans of crepes going at once. When the pans reached the perfect temperature (with, believe it or not, little portable butane stoves!) I learned to time it perfectly. I’d pour and swirl the first pan, then the second, third and fourth. By they time I finished swirling the fourth pan, the first crepe would be ready to flip. And so on and so forth. So that…. is how I landed the lofty title of “The Crepe Queen”. I felt cocky once and tried five pans… and that was disastrous! lol

Funny story… I was working the Sunday Brunch one day, with my impeccable white chef’s jacket and mile-high chef’s toque (hat) when a group of swarthy men stopped and asked if they could have some petit fours off of the dessert table. I told them no, because it was only for those participating in the brunch. According to one of the waiters, it was the Gipsy Kings. HA! How was I supposed to know? Hehe… now I know why they looked so offended because I wouldn’t let them have a chocolate covered strawberry! Sorry guys… I do like your music!
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February 5, 2008 | Filed Under Breakfast, Sweet Tooth

18 Critiques

Ooooh, What a Tart!

My second Daring Baker challenge was Lemon Meringue Pie. Jen from The Canadian Baker was the host this month, and the recipe came from Wanda’s Pie in the Sky by Wanda Beaver. I decided to do individual tartletts, as I much prefer plating desserts with tartletts than pie or tart slices.

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January 28, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Daring Bakers, Sweet Tooth

48 Critiques

Buttermilk Scones

I received a wonderful new baking book, The Essential Baker by Carole Bloom, from our friends Ryan and Carolina. This scone recipe comes from my new book. Of course, as usual, I had to tweak it a smidgen to my liking. The original recipe called for chopped dried figs, but I didn’t have any, so I used a combination of dried cherries and golden raisins. I also added a handful of toasted slivered almonds and topped them with a few extra slivers. I’m looking forward to trying many more recipes from this book. Thanks Ryan & Carolina!!!

As with most scones, they are a bit dry, but quite lovely served warm with a smear of butter and a drizzle of honey. Or you could do like the English and slather them with clotted cream, which sounds horribly unappetizing, but is very tasty. The best part about this recipe, is since you use your food processor, it takes all of about 10 minutes to prepare them, then another 15 or so to bake. Perfect for a lazy Sunday morning!
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January 16, 2008 | Filed Under Bakery, Breakfast, Sweet Tooth

8 Critiques

Les Secrets Du Chocolat

On our way home from Colmar, we stopped in Strasbourg, France to tour the Les Secrets Du Chocolate Musee. AKA CHOCOLATE MUSEUM! It was fabulous… you walk into the building, and are immediately struck with a strong chocolate aroma. I learned quite a bit about chocolate that I was not aware of before. Interesting stuff. At the end, we all had a cup of hot chocolate. I don’t mean the kind that you add water to chocolate powder… this was the texture of warm ganache and was only slightly sweet. Fabulous, I tell ya! Of course, I had to make a little purchase in their gift store… my favorite chocolate, Gianduja which is a mixture of chocolate and hazelnut paste.

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