Birthday Cake

I made a pretty! And I’m very excited about it!

I made a cake for my sister’s birthday, and it turned out pretty well.  

I used a recipe from here, and added pink and green food coloring instead of red.

I also used cream cheese frosting, but as little as possible while still covering the colors. My sister is very strange and doesn’t much like frosting.  

Marshmallows

I have been making a lot of goodies this week, and wrapping them up to give away as holiday gifts.  I made my gramma’s Caramel Corn, I found a recipe for Muddy Buddies, sometimes known as Puppy Chow. And I made some Cocoa Mix and Marshmallows to go with it. 

Leaning tower of spongy sugar.

I am very excited about the Marshmallows, I have been wanting to make those for a long time.  I knew that they were supposed to be pretty easy, but I was still hesitant.  I don’t know if I was scared of making a mess, or a mistake, or ending up with something that is inedible.  

I did end up making a huge mess, but it wasn’t all Marshmallows, and I did make a mistake and have to double the batch right from the beginning.  But the inedible part didn’t happen.

These Marshmallows are really good.  They taste like store-bought marshmallows, but so much better.  So much better.

I used the recipe from Annie’s Eats - Vanilla Bean Marshmallows.  It is a very good place to start.  She explains steps clearly and talks about her experience with them.  I go to Annie’s Eats for a lot of inspiration.

So, so many left.

Buttermilk Cinnamon Almond Strawberry Shortcake

I made a cake yesterday.  

I wanted to make a white cake because I had a bunch of egg whites leftover from making ice cream.  But when I was ready to make the batter I didn’t have my computer with me.  

I decided to forge on anyway.  I used the mini whisk I have here and beat the eggs until they were foamy.  Then I added some sugar, cinnamon and almond extract.  Almond extract smells divine.  It only takes a drop to make the whole trailer stop smelling like dirty boys.

Next I melted some butter and added it slowly to the egg mixture.  Then a bit of buttermilk.  When it was nice and foamy I added some flour and baking powder.  After a touch more buttermilk and it had a consistency that I liked.  

So I spread it into 3 pans and let it cook for a while.  

The cakes are more dense than I’d hoped, but it worked well when I put the strawberry filling between the layers.

Lastly I spread a really thin layer of buttercream frosting over the whole thing, because I only had a little bit of powdered sugar.  

And voila!  My “Strawberry Thing”, as George calls it.

Snickerdoodle Sandwiches

My new friend, Beth, and I made ice cream yesterday.  She had just gotten a new ice cream maker she NEEDED to try.  

So we used the basic recipe that came with the machine.  

It turned out rich and creamy and amazing.

We had to share it, so I made some cookies for sandwiches.  Snickerdoodle cookies.  Then we handed out mini ice cream sandwiches to the roughnecks.  

I think they were a hit.  

• I used 3 t Baking Powder instead of Baking Soda and Cream of Tartar

I found the recipe at Food.com

Caramel Brownie Sundae

I had leftover batter from the chocolate cupcakes, so I made a round cake. It ended up looking rather like a brownie.

Also I have 6 jars of caramel leftover from my caramel sauce trials. So I had to make a sundae. A Caramel Brownie Sundae. It was amazing.

Caramel Brownie Sundae

1 piece of Brownie or Cake

2 scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream

Caramel Sauce

Maraschino Cherry juice

Éclairs, Take II

I tried to make Éclairs again.

This time they turned out much cuter. I used a pastry bag to pipe them out on to the pan. It worked quite well once I got the hang of finishing the puff. The pastry is extremely sticky. That’s why they have some funky tails and Mohawks.

I also dipped them in chocolate this time. So they really were éclairs. They were fun, itty bitty things. They ended up about three inches long and an inch and a half wide.

Sadly, the cream from MyBakingdom didn’t set properly so I made an emergency batch of pudding from a box. I was rather disappointed at how much everyone loved it.

Éclairs

Recently, when I was home for a week and dancing as usual, Shawn asked me what I was going to bring the next day. I didn’t have anything planned so I asked what he’d suggest. Immediately he said éclairs. He was joking and quite obviously didn’t expect me to actually make them. They are quite intimidating. They seem so fancy and elegant that they have to be hard to make, right?


Turns out they’re not so bad. Probably I’ll make these quite often. Also I learned a new trick today to pipe them through a pastry bag rather than shape them by hand. This is a very good idea, and probably will reduce the time shaping them by 5/6. They also take a very long time to cook, but that leaves time to make the filling at the glaze (I cheated and didn’t make the glaze because, as usual, they took slightly more time than I expected, and I procrastinated a bit too much).

But they were still pretty amazing. And Shawn immediately hid half of them to take home. I should have told him I slaved over them for 23 hours, but I wasn’t quite that quick.

Choux Pastry

½ c Butter
1 c Water
¼ t Salt
1 c Flour
4 Eggs

Instructions

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter in the water. Add salt and flour, and stir until a sticky batter is formed, it should glom together in a ball in the pan. Remove the pastry from heat, and place it in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat it until it begins to be glossy about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until the batter is smooth.

Using a spatula, scoop the dough into a pastry bag with a large round tip. Pipe into strips about 4 inches long, 1 inch wide and ½ and inch tall. Bake the éclairs for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and rotate the pans from top to bottom and front to back. Bake for another 20 minutes. Finally, reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake for 10 minutes more, until the éclairs are golden brown. Transfer the éclairs to a wire cooling rack and allow them to cool.

Here is a good tutorial for the whole process. I haven’t tried her filling yet, but I’ll experiment on a few before posting my favorite.

Rolled Cake

The other day I experimented with cake layers. And some fondant. I made a little cake, Red Velvet, but I didn’t stack layers – I rolled them. It made a very interesting pattern when cut through the center. I got the idea from a lady in Austria. She makes amazing cakes, and all of them are rolled up instead of stacked up.

I decided at the last minute that a packet of cocoa would be my inspiration. Here’s what I came up with.

The center wasn’t quite the spiral it was supposed to be, but I thought it was ok for my first attempt.  Next time I’ll let the cake cool all the way before I start to mess with it.

Blood and Caramel

I conducted my first experiment in caramel making last week. Turns out the process is pretty easy, the timing is the tricky part.



Pretty much you put some sugar in a pot to melt, heat some cream, mix them together and add butter. The problem I had was cooking the sugar a little too long before adding the cream, and not long enough after. It was slightly burnt, and very soft. But for a first try I am happy with it. And after the first bite, it's really not so bad...



The worst part was, while cutting this gooey mess into individual pieces I cut my finger on my SHARP knife. Now I remember why I am scared of them. I did discover that those little square plastic scrapers that come with stone cookware are perfect for scooping the caramel up and depositing it on the wax wrapper papers!

Breaking in the New Apron: Dipped Chocolates

First of all I'm not entirely sure how this picture ended up this way, I accidentally hit the shutter button when I was arranging something else, but I really like it.

Today I dipped some chocolates. I found out in my library book that truffles are rolled and covered with cocoa powder, or crushed nuts, not dipped; so who knows what the last ones I made were. My mom says Dipped Truffles. I kinda like that, so that's what we'll go with.

Either way the ones I made today were "Dipped Chocolates". I made the center last night, because they have to sit in the fridge overnight. I didn't have the correct tea to flavor the cream, but we won't worry about that too much, because plain chocolate is just fine for me.

I read the whole book about the types of chocolates one can create, pretty much cover to cover. It is quite fascinating. The ones I chose have a softer center than the first ones, but this time I actually followed the directions for tempering the chocolate I used for dipping. I tried some of the edges, that were mis-shaped. They turned out quite well for the first attempt, although I think the chocolate went out of temper for a few in the middle, they are taking much longer to set than the first ones.






Making the filling last night it didn't look like much. It only made about 2 cups. Even spreading it in the pan to set. It was about a half inch layer in a 9x9 inch pan. But after taking it out today, and cutting it into squares, then dipping it I have about 65 pieces. And they are just perfect. I thin I can make a lot of friends with these. Or maybe send them to friends in Saratoga for the holidays. I'll need to find some good tins or boxes to use!



I used my lovely yellow polka spotted ruffly apron that my sister got for me in Denmark for this adventure. It looks lovely with my plates and my tea set. Now I just need some company for afternoon tea.

Truffles

I'm a big fan of Recipezaar.com. I find so many good recipes there. Here's one for the most amazing truffles:

Raspberry Truffles

8 oz semisweet chocolate

1/4 c butter 2 T cream (I use 3 T cream + 2 T Creme de Cocao)

1/2 c raspberry jam (preferably seedless)

2 T lemon juice

1/2 c cornstarch or cocao powder

Melt the chocolate and put in medium sized bowl. Bring the cream and butter to a boil. When boiling remove from heat and add to the chocolate. Mix well. Add jam, lemon, and Creme de Cacao and whisk in. Cover the mixture and place in the freezer for 60-90 minutes. Remove from the freezer, and line a baking sheet with waxed paper. Scoop the mixuture out and place in 2 T balls on the waxed paper. Chill for 15 minutes. Roll balls in the cornstarch or cocao powder, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and chill overnight. The coating I use for these comes from the book "Double Shot" by Diane Mott Davidson:

Chocolate Coating

6 oz dark chocolate

2 T clarified butter (regular unsalted works, too)

Melt chocolate and butter together on low heat. Using 2 forks (this method worked best for me) drop each ball into the melted chocolate and coat, allow excess chocolate to drip off. Then place back on the waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Stir the melted chocolate often. These can be sprinkled with nuts or crushed candies, but this must be done immediately, the chocolate sets very quickly. When the chocolate coating has fully set, serve or wrap in foil.