a busy weekend

Two fun baking adventures this weekend:

 

These cupcakes were for a bridal shower. The theme was butterflies and flowers with a green and brown palette (my favourite!). Each cupcake had a gumpaste butterfly with three small blossom flowers atop a generous helping of swiss meringue buttercream. I made three flavour combinations: 

a. chocolate-chocolate (brown on brown, with green decorations) (2.5 dozen)

b. chocolate-vanilla (brown on white, with green decorations) (1 dozen)

c. vanilla-vanilla (green on white, with chocolate decorations) (4.5 dozen)

 

I made the stand out of 10", 16", and 22"cake boards and 5" cake dummies wrapped in matching green fabric and trimmed with a chocolate brown ribbon (finally putting my glue gun to good use).  And of course it rained. And of course I forgot to bring my camera to take pictures of everything set up at the venue. Thankfully some kind folks took beautiful photographs for me!

The second project was a smaller version of a sushi cake I made a few weeks ago for my better half's birthday:

 

The 'sushi' are cake balls covered in vanilla buttercream and coated in coconut flakes, topped with fondant or dried fruit. This cake fed about 25; however this one was smaller and only needed to feed the guests at an intimate birthday dinner party. I opted to make a smaller bento box with six pieces of nigiri 'sushi' instead. 

 

  

I'm convinced the sushi look even better the second time around! I added a bit more detail to the egg sushi by incorporating texture, and replaced the fish eggs with a piece of red snapper. 




-Danielle

crani-yum.

After almost eight years of studying the brain, it was only a matter of time until I made an edible model. It's too bad I didn't have this during my undergraduate neuroanatomy lab...

I couldn't capture every single sulcus or gyrus, but the corpus callosum is made of buttercream - the most delicious white matter there is.

-Danielle

some changes

Hi everybody,

You may notice some changes with this blog... thanks to my talented friend Monica there is now a full website - you can visit it here. All the galleries and contact info are available on the new site and can be accessed using the navigation links on the top of the page. 

This blog will be used much as it has in the past... to document my few successes and many pitfalls in the kitchen for those interested in reading about such things :)


Enjoy the new layouts!


-Danielle

macarons 102: Italian meringue

I've been making (I use the term loosely; ruining and massacring also frequently apply) macarons for nearly a year and I've been a firm adherent of the French meringue method (recipe here). I've gotten the hang of it and have even learned to troubleshoot some bad outcomes but it's still an incredibly temperamental process and the results are hardly guaranteed even when the steps are followed to the letter. I've decided to finally give the Italian meringue method a go. It may seem daunting and certainly requires more utensils, but it's worth it. The main difference between this method and the French meringue method is the added step of "cooking" the meringue mixture.

Ingredients: 

60g + 60g egg whites

35g + 150g sugar

150g icing sugar

150g ground almonds

50ml water

Directions:
Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Use a food processor to grind icing sugar and almonds until fine (this is not 100% required, but you'll have much smoother shells if you take the time to complete this step) and set aside in large mixing bowl.  Using a stand mixer, whip 60g egg whites until soft peaks form and then add 35g sugar. Keep beating until mixture reaches firm peaks and has a consistency like shaving cream.  At the same time, bring water and 150g sugar to a rolling boil; heat syrup mixture until it registers 118C on a candy thermometer. 

Once the syrup reaches desired temperature, remove from heat and slowly add to the whipped meringue by dripping it down the side of the mixing bowl. Continue to whip this mixture at medium speed until a shiny Italian meringue forms. 

Back to the dry ingredients: add the remaining 60g of egg whites to the dry mixture and fold until it's incorporated; this will moisten the dry ingredients so that the Italian meringue will fold into it easier. Add the Italian meringue to the not-so-dry ingredients and begin folding. Unlike the French meringue method, you can fold this batter a little more aggressively as the cooked meringue is stable and more resistant to over-mixing. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a coupler and large circular tip with the batter and pipe small discs about 1 inch in diameter and 2 inches apart on baking sheet. 

Preheat oven to 300F. While oven preheats, let the macarons rest for about 15 minutes. This lets a skin form on the shells which helps maintain the shape while cooking. Bake macarons for about 12-16 minutes, or longer if necessary. 

These macarons are much more uniform than what I usually get from the French method and the feet are much higher. The batter is also a little firmer so the macarons come out exactly the same size they're piped which makes uniformity much easier to achieve. Best of all: no dreaded air pocket!

 I sandwiched these macarons with some grape buttercream. I'm really happy with how these turned out and will probably stick with this recipe from now on. Give it a try! I wish you ruffly feet and happy macaronage. 


-Danielle

i love macarons

It's been a while since I've made macarons, mostly due to the fact that the last few batches had really inconsistent results and I've been discouraged from trying again. One batch had shells that wouldn't even lift off the baking paper, another batch completely deflated after being taken out of the oven, and some cracked beyond recognition. But, I so much enjoy the challenge of baking these delightful sandwich cookies and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with an edible product that I decided to attempt them yet again. Waiting patiently for the feet to appear generates a suspense I've yet to experience from anything else. I know, I'm lame. I decided to go beyond chocolate and experiment with some different flavours this time. I used the French meringue method described here.

Mocha macarons (coffee shells with dark chocolate ganache)

 
You can't go wrong with coffee and chocolate, and macarons are no different. Yum.

Strawberry macarons (almond shells with strawberry buttercream)

While the shells weren't as smooth as I would have liked, the texture on their insides was great and the flavour was really bold. I could probably ease up on the vanilla in the buttercream and just focus on the berry next time.

Tangerine macarons (tangerine shells with vanilla-tangerine buttercream)

This might be the best looking batch I've made so far. The shells are as smooth as I've ever seen them and there are no air pockets between the outer shell and inner feet. It takes a lot of playing around with oven temperatures and timing to get these cookies right. 

Pistachio macarons with chocolate ganache

These were hands down the trickiest macarons I've ever attempted. I used a food processor to grind the pistachios into powder, but I was left with small chunks; I then thought to use a coffee grinder to make the mixture finer... and ended up with pistachio paste. I didn't even think about the oil content. So my pistachio powder ended up like guacamole and had to be chucked. I used what little powder was created and mixed it into the dry ingredients, then sprinkled the coarse bits on top of the shells after piping.

Pina colada macarons (coconut shells with pineapple-coconut buttercream)

I love cocktail-inspired desserts (see: daiquiri cookies and margarita cupcakes) and macarons are no exception. I ground up some dessicated sweetened coconut (30g) and added it to the dry ingredients. I also sprinkled some coconut on top of the shells after they were piped so that it'd toast in the oven. And because of love coconut so much, I added it to some pineapple-flavoured buttercream. Om nom nom.


Salted caramel macarons (almond shells with salted caramel buttercream)

Macarons can be intensely sweet, so I found a recipe that would cut through the sweetness by adding sea salt, and it was gooood. These macarons reminded me of caramel corn. I added some gold luster dust to the shells shortly after they were piped and before the batter had hardened to create a nice finish.

Pink almond macarons (with chocolate ganache)

I went back to an easy favourite with just plain almond shells and a rich dark chocolate ganache filling, but I dolled them up with hot pink food gel.

With the sense of encouragement that comes from a job well done, I can't wait to experiment with some more ingredients (matcha, lavender, lemon-mascarpone). What flavour combinations are you curious to try?

-Danielle