Homemade Butter!!

 

 

 

 

 

Starting the Butter!! Cultured cream overnight, chilled, and into the food processor it goes!

Ice washing the butter.

 Separating the butter from the buttermilk only adds to the excitement! The buttermilk made the most fabulous biscuits and pancakes.

Butter cookies anyone??

Coconut Surprise Birthday Party Cake!!!!

Her favorite childhood cake-- and she was surprised!!

Thank- you to Rose Levy Berenbaum for the Cake recipe. I did not use the buttercream but opted for the traditional White Mountain frosting.Rose's Heavenly Cakes will for certain be of inspiration in the future...

Maron Glace and Mont Blanc

 

Maron Glace.... such delicious memories of eating in France and Italy. Chestnuts are just unusual and delicious. Sweet, savory..... I'll take them.

Now making Mont Blanc ahead of time for a party required a substitution of the meringue for a genoise. All well and good, but I still think I would have preferred these with meringue as intended. My European friend thoroughly appreciated the chestnut cream- as expected.

 This was not the finished product. I thought they were ugly in the recipe photo.... and not too surprisingly came out equally ugly when I copied it. I thought that using the star tip for piping would improve them, but the covering of the other chestnut mixture just covered the design.

Holiday Treats!!

Well, the Salted Butter Caramels are a favorite of mine. Thank you David Lebovitz for the recipe! I like mine a little more malleable in the mouth, so I cook the candy to 250F, though. I too use the Taylor candy thermometer- the digital one is just annoying for this precise need- it is off by a few degrees and that just aggravates me!

The Gingerbread cookies this year (Fannie Farmer Baking cookbook) did not get frosted or decorated as usual due to the time crunch. I did not miss the extra sweetness, but I did miss the fun. It's hard getting the boys and everyone involved with all the busy work schedules. We'll get back to it it though....

I do always like the spritz cookies- this year was a recipe by Rose Levy Berenbaum- is uses ground almonds- not your usual tough spritz cookie. These were delicate and tastey, although many folks avoid them due to the their bad rap from bad bakers. Alas, more for me!!! Never overlooked at our house.

Now I have been searching for this recipe that I had hoped these butter cookies were- but they were not.... These are Scandinavian Peppar Crakar cookies. They are flavored with cardamom and black pepper- dare I say their delicate little bite and sweetness was appreciated by many.

Ah, and lastly was the toffee made with Matzoh. Christmas candy.... from matzoh.... it doesn't get more perfect than that!

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Mmmm, that is stickilicious... oh, it's just yummy.

This was finger licking good. I used a combination of recipes.
I did not like that the toffee sauce once cooled, crystallized and it was difficult to get to back to smooth again. I was at someone else's house and did not want to reinvent the cooking process.

Holiday whimsy!

Well, after seeing this Bûche de Noël in one of my foodie magazines, I decided I MUST make it. The flavor was right- coffee buttercream, genoise cake- and there was some component of construction involved! Now the question remained, for which event?
When the just right Holiday party invitation arrived, the deal was sealed and I committed to the task.


I prepared the genoise cake and butter cream the day before, rolled it up, wrapped it and stowed it in the refrigerator. I prepared the ganache. 

The day of the event, I loosened up the ganache and set about enrobing the log. I did enjoy trimming the stump- it allowed a delightful sample of the partially constructed product-mmmmm.

Now I was grateful that the day was cool and dry as I set about making the meringue for the decors- I started with a nice Italian meringue recipe for a good stable egg white. I am still struggling with the piping tip adaptor- it appears I have 3 tip sizes, yet only 2 adapters... really?!? Believe it or not, I ended up holding the star tip against the bad and piped the trees like that.

A little dusting with cocoa powder, and gluing with ganache.... I think this was by far my most favorite part of the project- to make and to look at. The mushrooms are just so darn cute and realistic!


The cake is set, and bark is drawn onto the ganache.

And here is the finished product!

It was well appreciated for its good looks, but most of all, its taste!
And I can't wait to make those little mushrooms again.
Saveur's Holiday Yule Log

Well, Thanksgiving dinner leaves me stuffed, exhausted, warmed by friends and family and mostly grateful to have a chance to cook traditional recipes and to have the audience to try some new ones!!

Every year I am disappointed by the marshmallow topping on my sweet potatoes. Corny as it may be, it is the one thing that is purely junky and without gourmet inspiration- just downright childish. We all scramble for the marshmallow topping that seems to simply evaporate, no matter how many I manage to pile on top.

So, this year, having acquired a new skill- making marshmallows at home- was the perfect time to try using homemade marshmallows on my potatoes. Normally, I would have some kind of sweet brown sugar and butter and oatmeal crumble thing I would sprinkle over the already once baked spuds before smothering them in white clouds of whipped sugar. This year, in my focus to make the topping myself, I completely forgot to put anything atop of the spuds before piping the white fluff on top...

 Normally I would not talk too much about a "savory" dish, but the inclusion of a homemade confection on top, bringing dessert to the main course of a meal, warranted such a move.
It piped out quite nicely, and held its shape perfectly until time to go in the oven.

 I wish I had a chance to photograph it before it was attacked. It was quite successful, and the pillowy white topping held up so stunningly, so substantially, that there was NO FIGHTING for marshmallow topping as each served portion had topping that did not seem to simply vanish between the serving dish and the plate. This was a thrilling turn of events for the children especially, but the adults were equally happy, just not as vocal about it.

Now we must discuss dessert.
I was quite happy with the Pumpkin-Ginger cheesecake recipe from last year, so I opted to try it again but not add additional crystallized ginger than what was called for in the recipe- it was not appreciated by the biggest cheesecake fan at the table, and I felt his input was worth noting.

Again, I managed to serve it before I realized I had not snapped a good photo.... alas.

It was extremely creamy, and gingery, which was fabulous, and I liked the swirly stuff happening on top.









THE  French Pear-Almond tart was by far the biggest hit of the night. Thank-you David Lebovitz and Dorie Greenspan. They said one could use canned pears, but..... how could I!!?? So I didn't. I poached the pears in a lemony sugar syrup and the outcome was well worth it in the texture of the fruit. Sweet but a slight tartness and pleasant firmness of the bosc pears helped make this a beautiful aria in the mouth.

Beautiful poached pears




Almond cream schmeared onto a partially baked cookie sweet crust

Even the cored pears looked pretty

And ready to go into the oven!!

Once again, in the chaos of the meal, did not manage to snap a photo- but is was lovely. I grated some pistachio nuts on top, but really it could have stood as it was. In its almond cream and pear goodness.

Great way to end the night, mmmmm.