Tough Relationship: Mignardises and Me: SHF #24

Yes, I have a difficult relationship with bite size desserts, also known as mignardises or petits fours. I love them and I dislike them. I did not want to use the verb "hate" because I can't truly hate anything sweet that passes through my lips.
I love them because one or two bites and hop! you can get on to the next one. They fit in one hand, you can carry your drink in the other and still be able to dance around at a party, not that I have ever tried . I love making them: playing with the bases, the fillings, the decorations. I love working assembly lines for a while. I love eating them. And there you have it, the base of my dislike for them: I know no restrain when it comes to petits fours, bite sizes desserts and their numerous cousins! I always end up eating more than my share and feeling a wee bit of guilt. Thankfully, this feeling never lasted long enough to prevent me from eating them again!

When Jeanne from Cook Sister posted the theme for Sugar High Friday #24, "Little Bites of Delight", I got nervous. So many ideas popped in my head, the excitement of the task at hand, mixed with that fear of eating them all before others have the chance to try them. I divised a plan: I would tell the neighbors precisely what I would be doing that Friday and invite them all for a little dessert party as soon as I'd be done with taking pictures. Guess what? The plan worked and we all had a great time, and I think I have finally mended my tough relationship with the morsels.

For the occasion I decided to go with 3 bite size desserts: Meringues Kisses, Caramel Vol Au Vents and Macarons filled with Honey Buttercream. They did not require me to purchase anything too fancy as it was pouring rain all day long and I did not feel like driving around. All the components can be made ahead of time and assembled last minute.

Meringues Kisses, adapted from Flo Braker.

For the dough:
4 oz. butter, room temperature
1/4 sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup + 2 Tb. flour

Cream butter and sugar, add flour and salt. Divide the dough in half in between sheets of plastic wrap and pat to 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate until firm.
Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove one package of dough form fridge and peel one sheet of plastic. Using the wide end of a pastry tip, cut out circles in the dough. Bake the cookies 6 to 8 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough. Let cool completely and lower oven to 225 degrees.

For the meringue kisses:
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tb. cocoa

Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar and continue to whip until firm white peaks. Fold in the cocoa. Fill a pastry bag with a wide tipe wih the meringue and pipe on top of the cookie bases. Bake at 225 for 1 hour. Since it was rainy and damp I turned the oven off but kept them in with the pilot light after the hour was up so they could get firm and dry.

Caramel Vol Au Vents, adapted from Flo Braker (for a definition of "vol au vents", click here)

For the cases:
1 sheet puff pastry

Using a 1 3/4 inch scalloped cookie cutter, cut shapes from the dough. With a 3/4 inch round cutter, stamp each pastry center wihout cutting all the way through the dough. Space the circles 1 inch apart on a baking sheet and bake at 375 until golden brown, 15-18 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and with a pairing knife remove the pastry circles marked in the center.

For the filling:
1/3 cup light corn syrup
2/3 cup granulaed sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream, room temp

Bring the sugar and corn syrup to a boil, and continue boiling until light caramel colored. Remove from heat and add the heavy cream at once. Do not worry if it foams loke crazy, it will settle down. Stir with a wooden spoon until completely smooth. Let cool completely.
When the filling is cool, spoon into the pastry shell and let stand until ready to eat.

Last bite size dessert today: Macarons with Honey Buttercream.

For the Macarons:
120 gr. egg whites, divided
35 gr. sugar
150 gr. finely ground almonds
150 gr. powdered sugar
For the boiling syrup:
150 gr. sugar and 50 gr. water

Sift the ground almonds and powdered sugar.
In a stand mixer, whip 60 gr. egg whites to soft peaks, add 35 gr. sugar.
In the meantime, in a saucepan on high heat bring the water and sugar for the syrup to 230 F. on a candy thermometer.
Slowly add the boiling syrup to the egg whites and continue to whip on medium - high speed until they are completely cooled and you have a shiny meringue (10-15 minutes).
Mix the remaining 60 gr. of egg whites and the sifted almond/sugar and carefully fold into the meringue.
Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip with the mixture and pipe macarons about 3 inches in diameter on parchment paper lined baking sheet. You can let them sit at room temperature for 20 minutes if desired. This is often done to assure those little feet at the bottom but I found that I can skip this step with this recipe and still end up with the same result.
Bake at 320 for 15 minutes. Let cool.

For the Honey Buttercream:
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
8 oz. butter (2 sticks) room temp.
2 Tb. honey

Whip the egg yolks until light and fluffy with a stand mixer. Combine water and sugar in a saucepan over low heat. Stir occasionally until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat and bring the syrup to 238 on a cansy thermometer. Pour over the yolks and quickly stir to combine. Return the bowl to stand mixer and whip at high speed until completely cold. Add the butter and mix in on medium speed. Add the honey and mix. Fill a pastry bag with the buttercream and layer your macarons with it. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

And here is a picture of the 3 assembled on a tray. It is one of the only shots of the whole thing as they were quick to disappear. Sweet Happy Hour!

You can tell I am digging those blog events, as seen in Grand Marnier Brulee in Egg Shells or Snow White's Apple.

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Zebra And Tiger Cakes: The Other Side of Bananas

I realized the other day that it had been a while since my last few, weekly banana posts, especially so when B. (that's the hubby) handed me the fruit bowl with that heavy sigh : "please, do something, put an end to their misery, pleeeeeeze". I had to go teach a couple of classes so I put the dear bananas in the back of my mind.
Later in the afternoon, we were outside with the rest of the neighborhood, and the kids (ages 3 to 9) were vividly talking about their Halloween costumes. Looks like we are going to have a fairy, a princess, a baby pumpkin, a skeleton, a couple of ghosts, a zebra and a tiger. We are trying to come up with a couple of games that could keep them entertained for a while as well as some fun foods that adults and kids can enjoy. That's when the bananas came to haunt me... I remembered a marbled banana cake I had seen on the Cooking Light website when I was looking for the Apple Cinnamon Cake from the other day.

I made it and baked them in mini bunt shapes. As soon as I took some next door, the kids exclaimed : "oh look! They look like Zebras! They look like Tigers" and that's how this marbled cake got a new name, at least around Halloween.

Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread, aka Zebra and Tiger Cakes, adapted from Cooking Light:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
2 eggs
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add banana, egg substitute, and yogurt; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.
Place chocolate chips in a medium microwave-safe bowl, and microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool slightly. Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined. Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray or mini bundt pans. Swirl batters together using a knife. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Since using smaller pans, they baked a little faster, more like 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.
They were great with some vanilla ice cream.

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Fall is Here! Apple Cinnamon Cake Too!

You know how it happens... you wake up one morning and the ligh has changed, the cold air starts nipping at your nose and the landscape has changed! I wish the switch in seasons was that pronounced in the South Carolina Lowcountry but we are definetely not in summer anymore! My in laws went apple picking in the upstate a couple of weeks ago and were nice enough to make us a big basket of gorgeous, fragrant and delicious apples. They were so good at the first bite that I immediately decided I had to do something with them. Because of our activities this weekend (I do not recommend teaching Pilates with a hangover), I put those lovelies to the side and got myself covered in powdered sugar instead.

Everything in the air today prompted me to make an apple dessert and I remembered reading about a Cooking Light recipe on a blog just recently. I can't backtrack my steps to the actual post or blog (as it happens often after a couple of hours browsing), but I did find the recipe on the magazine website and with so many great reviews I felt encouraged to try it, even or especially (depending on which way the scale dips today) if it is "light".

The only changes I made were to use real butter instead of stick margarine. I am not being an hypocrite since I just admitted using some Crisco in my latest buttercream but I don't keep margarine in the house so butter it was, and regular cream cheese. I also only used 2 TB. of the cinnamon sugar called to top the cake prior to baking and not the 1/4 cup the recipe suggested.
Result? Delicious! Strong but not overpowerig cinnamon flavor. I can't wait to try it with cardamom.

Cinnamon Apple Cake, adapted from Cooking Light

1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 ounces block-style cream cheese, softened (about 3/4 cup)
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups chopped peeled Rome apple

Cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350°.
Beat 1 1/2 cups sugar, butter, vanilla, and cream cheese at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended (about 4 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, beating at low speed until blended.
Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Combine 2 tablespoons cinnamon mixture and apple in a bowl, and stir apple mixture into batter. Pour batter into an 8-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray, and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon mixture.
Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cool the cake completely on a wire rack, and cut using a serrated knife.
Note: You can also make this cake in a 9-inch square cake pan or a 9-inch springform pan; just reduce the cooking time by 5 minutes. Yield: 12 servings

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Celebrating With The Neighbors

This cake is one of the reasons why I was away from this blog over the weekend. One of our neighbors turned 40 on Sunday and we all gathered to steam some oysters, eat some pulled BBQ pork, cheeses, drink a lot (like a truck ran over me 5 times already)and eat this cake. I made her a 2 tiered dark chocolate cake filled with cream cheese frosting and covered in fondant. I had a great time making it and it was a big hit. I can't believe we almost ate our way through the whole thing!

I'll be back later for recipes and instructions.

For the cake layers, I used this recipe I found on Lisa's blog, La Mia Cucina. I made 5 batches as I'd rather be on the safe side and I am OK with recycling what's left over. I made a couple of changes though. You can find her recipe here, below is the one I used.

Dark Chocolate Fusgy Cake:

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 oz. good quality bittersweet chocolate melted
1 cup sour cream
1 c. boiling water
2 TBS. instant espresso powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter and sugar until well mixed. Add eggs one at a time. Beat in the vanilla and melted chocolate. Add 1/2 c. of the sour cream and then 1/2 the dry ingredients to the butter mixture until well blended. Add the reamining sour cream and remaining dry ingredients to the batter. Stir in boiling water with espresso powder.
Bake in a 9 or 10 inch cake pans.

As I said I made 5 batches and I filled 3 10 inch pans and 2 8 inch pans.

For the frosting I made 2 batches of the following recipe, and before you scream and send me to Pastry Hell, yes I used Crisco! I found that in SC where the humidity is very high 99% of the time, Crisco helps my buttercream set and prevent my cakes and fondant from sweating, shifting, and ultimately collapsing. I did use the trans-fat free one though.

2 lbs. of powdered sugar
1/3 C. warm water
3 1/2 oz. cream cheese , softened
7 oz. trans-fat free Crisco

In stand mixer, cream Criso and cream cheese until very smooth. Add sifted powdered sugar and water. Mix until well incorporated.
Fill and cover the cakes with this. Refrigerate until ready to cover with fondant.
You can find the original here.

For the fondant, I usually go 2 ways: either I run around town and look for glycerin and glucose to make my recipe or I call C. who runs the pastry department at the restaurant across from the one I used to work for. She is my to go source when I am lazy and hers is always perfect. I decided to go another route this time again and decided on this recipe after seeing Monisha's cake last week. Amazingly easy and fun to make and so smooth to roll and handle, no tear which meant no tears for me saturday night when I used it.
I made 2 batches since I plan on using some next week for another cake. For the dots I used pastry decorating tips and used the openings or bases to cut different size circles.

It got so humid overnight and it rained all day long sunday, I started worrying as the fondant might sweat and stretch, get gooey or gummy and start chnaging the overall appearance of the cake. I think I was the only one to notice the little shifts and things but the birthday girl was extremely happy with it. It looked and tasted good, you would expect it to be sickenly sweet but it wasn't that much. So it was a shock full of sugar! Hey, it was a birthday after all!

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Sweet Recycling

I guess I owe this to my upbringing but I am known in my family as the Queen of Recycling. At the restaurant, the executive chef and the owners loved me for that: failed cheesecake? No problem, we'll have cheesecake mousse in parfaits glasses! Leftover pastry cream? No problem, we'll have Bavarois! Dry chocolate cake? I'll pulverize it and use the crumbs for crusts, decorative crumbs or something...Hey! I could even use it in those parfaits glasses to layer my mousse with! You get the picture. Mind you, not everything got recycled, in spite of my best effort.

I was reorganizing the pastry/baking drawer of my freezer the other day when I found some Sour Cream Pastry Dough that needed to be used by the end of the month. I had made a cheesecake for a friend during the week and had some leftover filling. I was also staring at a half jar of Blueberyy Tea Jelly which color looked like a gem stone in the sun. I had a vessel, a filling and a crown! I had been craving small bites to go along my tea or my coffee in the afternoon so I decided to make tinsy mini tartlets using my min muffin tins.

Sweet Cheese Tartlets with Blueberry Tea Jelly Crowns.

Sour Cream Pastry, adapted from Flo Braker's Sweet Miniatures.

2 cups all purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
8 oz. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup sour cream

In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the butter and cut in with a pastry knife or your fingers until you get pea sized crumbs.Add the sour cream and blend in quickly into a ball. Don't over work the dough or it will be too elastic. Divide in half, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Cream Cheese Filling
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

In a bowl, blend the cream cheese and sugar. Add the egg and lemon zest. Blend well. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut 3 inch circles. Fit them into the cavities of the mini muffin tin and divide the cream cheese filling evenly among them. Bake at 350, for 10-15 minutes. Let cool completely.

For the Glaze:
Melt 1/2 cup of your favorite jelly. I used Blueberyy Tea that I made over the summer. Divide evenly on top of the tartlets and refrigerate until set.

Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and pop a few into your mouth!

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Sweet Potato Cake and Spiked Sugar Glaze - Blog Party 15

Today I learned that a friend had breast cancer. Today I learned that a family member had passed away. Today I learned of a couple getting married. Today I learned a friend had her baby. Sorrow and happiness were overwhelming and I dealt with them the only way I know how: I am not an emotion eater, I am an emotion baker.

Faced with life's joys and pains my preservation system is to put on some music and get myself in the kitchen. I baked non stop this afternoon. I found myself wanting round small things, Fall flavors, butter, eggs: familiar things that I knew how to control.By the end of the day my apron was covered in sugar, my slippers dusted with flour, my kitchen sink overflowing with pots and pans. I was calmer, I was tired, I was happy. Did I make all these baked goods for us? No. You see, part of my emotion coping system is to make sure everybody else around me is well fed, hydrated, and happy. I packed some of the stuff in containers, got some milk and rang the neighbors' doors. That's when hubby said: "you are like the woman in the book you just read!" and then I knew I had my entry for Stephanie's Blog Party 15.

The theme this month was to make something from one of our favorites books. I baked a recipe for a cake I found in this book I just finished, Eat Cake, by Jeanne Ray. I know she said an appetizer and a drink but I blog about sweets, so I hope she'll accept my entry as a "if you still have room for dessert" one as far as the cocktail part, there is rum in the glaze! Although it is not my favorite book, it is an easy read and I found a lot of similarities with the main character. When faced with difficult decision or stressful situation, Ruth calms her nerves by picturing herself inside a cake. She then proceeds to bake one and gives ot to her family or friends. This afternoon I was Ruth by making one of her famed cakes. The author was gracious enough to include the recipes for the featured cakes at the end of the book and I picked the Sweet Potato Bundt Cake one, minus the raisins as my husband dislikes them, and made mini ones.