Thanksgiving Desserts (Number Two)

I also made an excellent trifle because, well, I always make a trifle for Thanksgiving. This year I made a chocolate, chestnut, tiramisu trifle. Let me say that again: chocolate, chestnut, tiramisu trifle. Or as my mom called it, a trifle-misu. It was so good, it was ridiculous. It's layers of chocolate-chestnut mousse, Marsala mascarpone sabayon, and lady fingers soaked with espresso and amaretto and dusted with cocoa powder. The latter two layers are, basically, tiramisu. But with extra mascarpone to thicken up the sabayon and, of course, the chocolate-chestnut mousse between the layers. Also the layer of whipped cream and dusting of cocoa looks like a tiramisu but is more trifle like in flavor.

Espresso Scones with Chocolate Chips

These are the delicious FCI cream scones with a healthy does of espresso powder and coffee extract added to the dough. I kicked them up even more with chocolate chips. Yum!

Mocha Scones

I love a good scone (as evidenced by my scone kick of late.) A good scone should be light and flakey, rather liked a good biscuit. It need not be terribly moist (in fact I typically prefer a dry, flakey scone.) It should not be dense. It should taste like something other than butter and flour (though that's a good start) and they should never be overly sweet. If scones have additives (like chocolate chips or dried fruit) they shouldn't mar the texture. They should have something on top (a simple egg wash will do.) I love a good scone--but I'm very particular about what makes a scone good.

In this case I made my favorite scone recipe from the FCI, with a few key alterations. I substituted a substantial amount of cocoa powder for some of the flour and tossed in a handful of mini chocolate chips. I also added some powdered espresso powder to the mix. For the topping I added an extra coffee kick by mixing some coffee extract into the heavy cream before I sprinkled a healthy amout of sugar on top. The perfect chocolate scone!

The Best of 2013

It's that time. The time to look back over the previous twelve months and see where you've been and what's happened in your life, both good and bad. For me 2013 is the year I started grad school. It's also the year I made a wedding (okay, anniversary) cake for a real couple, crafted a TARDIS out of chocolate cake, made hundreds of chocolates for the holidays, and so much more. So here's to 2013.

Thanksgivukkah

As I'm sure you heard, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlapped this year (on the 28th of November), a rare occurrence that (apparently) complicated things for American Jews who had to have celebrations two nights in a row. Since I'm currently studying in the UK, I had class on Thursday until 6:00pm, so no chance of a proper Thanksgiving regardless of the timing of Hanukkah. So we combined both celebrations and pushed them until Saturday so that our British family (who had to work Friday) could come over, enjoy the day, celebrate Hanukkah and, of course, eat lots of turkey.

TARDIS Cake and Jammie Dodgers

Hi everyone. I'm Mercedes and I'm a nerd. I love Doctor Who (as you may have noticed when I dressed my yorkie up as the Doctor for Halloween). As you can imagine, I was very excited about the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who that aired last weekend. In celebration of the landmark episode I made my dog dress up again--she was not happy--and I baked quite a bit.

Baked Brownies with No-Churn Coffee Ice Cream

Some of my favorite brownies are the Baked brownies (I think the recipe is in their first cookbook, Baked, but they have variations thereof in all of their books.) We had some bad news today (nothing terrible, but not great) and we decided we needed brownies--and people say I stress eat...humph. The Baked brownies are a relatively simple recipe, no mixer needed (meaning I can put all the equipment in the dishwasher rather than hand washing), and the recipe makes a 9x13in pan rather than a 9x9in pan (as with the recipes from my other favorite brownie brand, Fat Witch brownies). Regardless of my stress and need for an easy recipe, I love this recipe. They are chocolaty, gooey, and delicious!

I happened to have some no-churn coffee ice cream in the freezer. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson's newest cookbook, Nigellisma. It's simple and produces a surprisingly creamy, surprisingly ice cream-y result considering that you don't need an ice cream machine to make it. (And considering that I'm currently without an ice cream maker, that's great!) I'll discuss this recipe at greater length soon. The coffee ice cream was delicious on the warm, deeply chocolaty brownies. It was the perfect dessert after a stressful day. Of course it would be the perfect dessert after pretty much any day--you can't go wrong with brownies and ice cream!

Hazelnut Chocolate Tiramisu

This is a twist on a classic Italian tiramisu. I used Frangelico instead of Marsala and added layers of grated bittersweet chocolate on top of every layer of sabayon. The Frangelico sabayon was a bit sweeter than the the classic Marsala so I didn't sweeten the espresso for the lady fingers as much as normal and I ended up grating bittersweet chocolate between the layers. The chocolate helped cut the sweetness a bit and upped the chocolaty-ness of the tiramisu, so it was aces in my book!

Since I figured I'd give some of the tiramisu away, I decided to use small, clear, plastic cups to make portable individual servings rather than making one large thing that I'd have to slice or scoop up. I think I may have to try this again in mini chocolate cups--it'll be delicious and cute!

Another photo!

Mocha Scones

I suppose these are really coffee scones with chocolate chips, but "mocha scones" is more concise. They are delicious scones made with instant espresso in the dough and plenty of chocolate chips folded in. I really enjoyed these, even if the coffee does kind of make a mockery of the whole tea and scones thing. This recipe, by the way, is from the Alice's Tea Cup cookbook--it's one of their better recipes, just don't brush the tops with anything, they are too delicate and don't rise properly.

Brooklyn Blackout Cake with Mocha Buttercream

My aunt came down for my mom's birthday, but not on the actual day. So I had to make a second cake. I made the same Brooklyn blackout cake I made on July Fourth, and a similar mocha buttercream. Since we'd eaten a whole cake already, I decided to do just one layer. I love buttercream and I could have split the cake in half to make a second layer (as I would usually) but it just seemed too gluttonous to use that extra buttercream. Regardless, it was still delicious and the Brooklyn blackout cake was incredibly moist so it really didn't need the extra buttercream.

Look how lovely and dark the cake is.

Fudgy Brownies

These incredibly fudgy brownies are from the Desserts Le Champignon Sauvage's dessert cookbook. They are meant to be the base for a whole chocolate brownie bar, so they are quite thin and don't really hold together well. That's okay though, they are delicious. The texture is deliciously fudgy and the flavor is pungently chocolaty with just a hint of sea salt. I had a little left over mocha buttercream in the fridge so I put a little bit on it, topped with some raspberries and voila, a delicious plated dessert.

Fourth of July Dessert Plate

Any holiday is a good excuse for food. I feel that July Fourth is no exception, as you may have noticed from my little pastry battle. Well after my little war fought with food, there was enough dessert left over to feed a small army, so I gave away some plates of food. I think they came out very pretty, so I thought I mention them here. I didn't have left over brooklyn blackout cupcakes (I may have eaten a few too many) but I did have a little extra mocha buttercream so I piped it on the white cake cupcakes. I did whip up a small batch of royal icing for these fairy cakes but didn't anticipate that the foil cupcake wrappers would peel away from the cake, allowing the icing to drip down the sides of the cakes rather than pooling on top of them. They still tasted excellent (the royal icing actually improved on the cakes), even if they did look like a smurf threw up on them. The sour cream frosting for the guinness cakes was more spoonable than pipe-able, so I was afraid it'd end up all over everything on the plate so the guinness chocolate cupcakes remained unadorned and still absurdly delicious. I also left the shortcakes and scones plain so that they wouldn't get soggy. Trust me, they were very good plain. Who wouldn't like getting a plate with that assortment of delicious baked goods?!

Tiramisu

Tiramisu means pick me up. Apparently this name came from the days when women cafes during the day. It was considered uncouth for a woman to drink in public (while men, of course, could) so they would order this cake spiked with marsala wine and coffee--quite a pick me up.

We served our tiramisu--made with lady fingers soaked in an espresso syrup between layers of zabaglione (aka sabayon) made with marsala wine and lightened with whipped cream--with a healthy dusting of cocoa powder, coffee creme anglaise, chocolate sauce, a tuile, and coffee granita served in a chocolate bowl. Each element was delicious alone and even better together. And how cute is the little tuile spoon sticking out of the granita?!

Petit Four Exam

From left to right: Petits Fours Glacée, Pâte de Fruits,
Lemon Cookies, and Chocolate-Mint Cookie Sandwiches.

As I mentioned earlier, I had to make pyramid petits fours glacée, pâte de fruits, and lemon cookies for my exam, plus my chocolate-mint cookie sandwiches. We had 4 hours to complete the exam, which was barely enough to finish. You see the problem is, every petit four I had to make has many steps, all of which need time between them. Also we only get one mixer per two people and much of what I had to make involved a mixer, but I often had to wait for my parter to finish using it. Overall, though, I'm really happy with the outcome. The pyramids came out well, which is great because I was worried about them. I flavored the buttercream for them with coffee, orange, and vanilla. It was wonderfully tasty (especially with the almond cake base and the chocolate glaze), but I feel that the colors didn't pop quite as much as I would have liked. The raspberry pâte de fruits came out incredibly well. The lemon cookies worked too (they'd have been a little better if I'd managed to pipe the cookies more evenly so that I could have paired them up faster, ah well.) My cookies (which I decided to make square shaped) came out pretty well, the ganache was delicious and the cookies were perfectly baked. My one problem is that they looked kind of boring. At least they tasted great! The chef didn't go over the final products with us, but I feel pretty good about what I handed in.

Petit Four Tray 3

Our final petits fours tray. This one includes: (from left to right) swirl sablée cookies, coconut palmiers, domed glazed petits fours, Russian tea cakes, pyramid glazed petits fours, checkerboard sablée cookies, square glazed petits fours, lemon cookies, caramel mou, and florentines.

We got our assignments for the petits fours exam in class yesterday. I have to make pyramid petits fours glacée, pâte de fruits, and lemon cookies. I'm not thrilled about having to make the pyramid petits fours glacée, but I'm quite happy with the other two. Plus I have to design and make a fourth petit four. I've chosen a chocolate sablée cookie sandwich filled with white chocolate and peppermint ganache. Yum!

Petit Four Glacée

Unglazed round and pyramid petits fours.
The pink buttercream is raspberry, the green is
pistachio, and the brown is coffee.

Glazed petits fours come in all sorts of varieties, we made three: domed, pyramid, and square. When we started these last class, the chef said that we would love to learn how to make then and, by the time we were done, love that we would never have to make them again (unless they show up on a test.) She was right. They were really interesting to learn and really nice to make and eat, but thank goodness we are done making them!

Glazed round petits fours.

Domed petits fours, which remind me (appearance-wise) of Sarah Bernhardts, are made with a small round of tender, almondy cake topped with flavored buttercream and coated in chocolate glaze.

Glazed pyramid petits fours.

Pyramid petits fours are made with the same cake with three flavors of buttercream. These are a bit harder though, they are strips of the cake, with stripes of buttercream to form a "pyramid." The whole thing coated in chocolate glaze and when the glaze starts to set but isn't totally hard, the log is sliced into petit four sized pieces.

Square petits fours

The square petits fours are two layers of the almond cake sandwiched together with apricot jam topped with marzipan, glazed with colored fondant glaze (as opposed to rolled fondant), and decorated with royal icing. These are a bit of a pain, because the fondant is very hard to get exactly right and I'm not the best with intricate decorations, but they are definitely my favorite of the three. I love how pretty they are (even if my glazing and decorating was less than perfect) and the marzipan adds a welcome extra kick of almond. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of the buttercream we make in class, it's too sugary.

Decorated square petits fours. I think the box is my favorite.

Petit Four Tray 2

My second tray of petits fours. On the tray are: madeleines, pate de fruits, opera cake, passion fruit tartlets, nougat, and langue de chat. I love all the different shapes on the tray and the variety of flavors--I'd be very happy with this if I was served this at a party or fancy restaurant.

Opera Cake

I really like opera cake. It's made with a hazelnut based cake, layered with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache, and coated with chocolate glaze. We decorated the tops by piping the glaze on in decorative patterns. Oh so delicious.

Pate a Choux Exam

Well I just had my second exam. I didn't make any stupid mistakes like I did last time, and I finished on time, so good on both those counts. However, the presentation of all my items was slightly off. The eclairs were slightly wonky shaped (though the chef did say overall they were good) and the coffee glaze was too hot when I used it and the chocolate was too cool. At least he said they were well filled and the cream filling was perfectly lightened. The Paris-Brest wasn't filled high enough and the filling came out the inside too much. He did say the filling's taste and texture was right on. And my choux was well made and well cooked, also good.

Overall, not a stunning success, but nothing too bad either. I'm happy.

Eclairs

This was not an easy lesson! It was our first attempt at pâte à choux. For me at least, the choux wasn't too terrible to make, mine took the right amount of eggs at least, so that was a good start to the day. Unfortunately after that the wheels came off the wagon. It not easy to pipe one even eclair shape, let alone a whole half sheet pan of consistently sized and shaped eclairs.  It could have been worse though. Then we made the three flavors of pastry cream (vanilla, coffee, and chocolate). That was fine, a different recipe, but still the same principle as the pastry cream I've already gotten used to making. The problems came when we piped the cream into the eclairs. It was messy and sticky and I ran out of time and cream. Then we had to dip them in pate à glacé (chocolate glaze) and vanilla or coffee fondant. They were hard to melt without over heating them and then they were messy and we were running out of time. I didn't end up doing the vanilla fondant, instead I did chocolate on the vanilla cream filled ones (and obviously on the chocolate) and coffee fondant on the coffee). I actually like the chocolate glaze more than the fondant, but I know that wasn't quite right. Ah well, it saved time so I was actually able to finish glazing them.

I have to say for all the effort, they were really good. I'm not sure they were worth all those hours (yes, they took hours) of work. Ah well, I did really enjoy eating them, so that's something!

Coffee eclair