Wed, 29th February 2012

Today's Goal:
Improve my cupcake icing skills.  More specifically, master the freehand icing swirl without the use of a piping bag. Yikes.

Bake vanilla cupcakes: 
Check.  Greens packet mix.  Easy, light and delicious.  Plus, no time to make them from scratch when you begin baking day at 6:30pm...

Buttercream icing:
Looking good.  Light, fluffy and spreadable.  Tasty too - must remember to save some for the cupcakes...

Icing swirls:
Well I think I started to get the hang of it by the end.  Piped swirls would definitely look neater, but I do like the feeling of doing this by hand.  My goal to "master" this technique was most definitely not achieved, but I think I can get closer with more practice.

The results certainly fell on the scrumdidlyumscious end of the scale of awesomeness.  This recipe is definitely a 'repeater', as my friend Kiyomi would say.

Not many photos, as I took them in a rush at 10pm.  

 

  

(It seemed appropriate that my cupcake apron got to feature in this week's shoot...)

 Midnight cupcake.  Yums.

Next week:

No idea yet.  It's 1am and my brain is already tucked snuggly under the covers.  Any suggestions?

Thurs, 23rd February, 2012

I think I was punished for delaying Baking Day to Thursday this week.  My pictures will explain clearly enough...

The cinnamon and honey icecream mixture went really well. But it seemed to be taking it's sweet time to set.

Next step: brandy snaps. "Leave space between each drop of mixture on the tray", the recipe said.  "Okay!" I replied (leaving slightly less space than suggested)...

 Ohhhhh.

No worries, it was so quick, I'll whip up another batch...done. Now you just curl them around a wooden spoon, right?

 

 Wrong.    So. Terribly. Wrong. 

Out of two whole batches worth, I was rewarded with a whopping FOUR brandy snaps.

Solution: break toffee into pieces and add it as artistic garnish to the icecream... 

...for about 20 seconds, until the toffee slowly drowns into the thick creamy soup.  Even hours later it still hadn't set.

I think I'd better go back to Wednesday next week. 

Postponing party...

Hi friends,

This week's Baking Day will be postponed to Thursday, and cupcakes will be postponed till next week.  Check in again tomorrow for Brandy Snaps and Honey-Cinnamon Icecream!

xx

Wed, 15 February, 2012

My fondness for chocolate eclairs comes from Sundays as a child: After church we'd go to the bakery to get a loaf of sliced white, and sometimes we'd be lucky enough to something sweet too.  Eclairs were a regular feature on such occasions.

But yesterday I knew I had challenges ahead of me.  I had never made choux pastry before.  I had only once attempted the pastry cream recipe for the filling, with not-so-great results.  The dipping chocolate I had confidence in, but let's be honest, this isn't exactly the defining feature of the eclair. 

And then there was the piping.

I love my piping bag.  Especially when it sits in my baking cupboard and looking super-professional next to my french rolling pin with no handles. But when it comes to putting it into practical use, I usually end up with the filling coming out of every possible opening and gap in the bag EXCEPT the nozzle.  I am a Pathetic Piper.* 

So anyway, onto the baking - choux pastry and cream filling all went surprisingly to plan... 

...but my piping hand was unsteady...my eclairs were wonky...I ended up making some little ones that look a bit like profiteroles, and even THEY were a bit wonky-tonk.  After the chocolate dip, only around three of them (out of LOTS) could be redeemable in a photograph.  And you know how I've been discovering everything can look better in a photograph?  Well that's saying something.

Despite the wonkies, these guys tasted great - but seriously rich.  I think using a simpler cream filling would have been better, or stepping down the cocoa percentage in the chocolate a notch. (This being said, many of the non-success-stories (ie. most of the batch) made their way into my tummy that afternoon, so it can't have been that bad.  I'm going for a loooooong run as soon as I finish this post...)

 

I like the angle of this photo, but the eclair DOES look a little like a chocolate slug...

So there you have it.  Next week I attempt vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing, inspired by my experiences of heaven at Magnolia Bakery.  But my icing skills are currently on par with my piping skills, so watch out world...

*I know some very cool people can make their own piping bags out of baking paper.  My attempts at this have Not. Ended. Well.  Advice welcome.

Wed, 8th February, 2012

Today's Baking Day features one of the simplest recipes I tried thus far: Shortbread! 

Now I've never actually made these delectable, sweet, buttery bikkies before - Mum's shortbread are so good, and produced in such enormous quantities at Christmas, that I've never felt the urge to try baking them myself.  But in recent weeks I've started making coffee at home...and the thought of dunking one of these babies into an afternoon latte...well resistance was, as they say, futile.

This recipe comes once again from Tartine, and is baked in a big dish and then sliced up into bars, rather than pressed out as shaped cookies (yes yes, "cookies" is a very American word, but sometimes I think it sounds much more homely than "biscuits."  Bikkies is a nice Australian halfway point.  You may call them what you wish). 

Anyway, enough natter, show us how they turned out!

I will confess now, I've already eaten an entire row from the pan.  These guys were lucky to make it out alive for the photo shoot.

If I were to allocate points like last week, it would be 11 out of 12 for texture (they crumble right at the perfect moment as they enter your mouth) and 11 out of 12 for tastiness.  Dunkability scores 9 out of 12 - leave it one second too long though and the whole bikkie elegantly crumbles into the coffee like sand dunes melting in the rain.

Lastly, in an effort to avoid my regular night-before-recipe-choice-panic, I'm going to try announcing next week's recipe at the end of each post.  However for next Wednesday I am torn between chocolate eclairs and vanilla cupcakes (mainly focusing on decent buttercream icing, I avoid icing-pressure if possible!)  Please cast your vote!

Wed, 1st February, 2012

Cue scary music....da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

Macaroons.

I've heard the rumours.  They're really difficult.  So very fiddly.  A challenge to master.  And to be honest, I've never been overly interested in baking them.

Cue small discount bookstand in the middle of Chadstone shopping centre, one of the most beautiful cookbooks I've ever laid eyes on, and a well-developed capacity for impulse purchasing, inherited undoubtedly from my mother.

It was decided. I was going to make these so-called "macaroons".  And they were going to be spectacular.

Well this week's baking day reminded me it's always good to bring the ego down a notch or two.  Or five.  Awaiting time in the oven, the little 'delights' looked like this:

Gross.  Things did start looking brighter when they came out of the oven, however.

The recipe said "...should be chewy with a slight crunch from the shell." The result was more along the lines of "crunchy with a hint of chewiness inside somewhere...if you really tried to find it."

So overall the result was not that bad, but not that great either. 7 points for taste, 5 points for texture. And I'm thinking out of 20.

Once again though, to my delight the little delicacies look substantially better in photos than in real life (ahhh...now I'm starting to see why everyone looks so good in all those fashion magazines). So here's introducing... Chocolate and Raspberry Macaroons!

And my favourite little sequence to finish off.

See you next Wednesday!

Wed, 25th January, 2012

Yesterday I juggled baking day with another event I've been wanting to do for a little while - TACO PICNIC!  I love tacos, I love parks, I love extended twighlights (thanks, daylight-saving) and I love people.  So baking day ended up played second fiddle to taco preparations.

In a last minute change of plan, I decided to shelve macaroons until next week (too fiddley) and make lamingtons instead.  Very Australia Day-esque.  And I must admit that lamingtons have climbed a good few rungs on my favourites ladder.  So easy (especially when you use a packet mix for the sponge) and TONS OF FUN!!  Who wouldn't like dipping chunks of cake into a bowl of liquid chocolate and then tossing it around in sprinkles of coconut-delight?!   

Just in case you're not convinced, take a closer look...

 Mmmmmmmm........

A quick note about packet mix:  For quite a while, I wanted to make everything from scratch.  I still really enjoy the challenge.  But one factor gets in my way sometimes: room temperature butter.  I never remember to leave butter out to soften, and often microwave it for a little too long so it starts melting and doesn't cream properly.  Grrrr.

And packet mixes are by no means fool-proof!  I managed to overbake these sponge cakes until they were well and truly DENSE...and after I had let one cool down I flipped it to discover a massive black hole of gooeyness underneath.  Double Grrr.

 

But I'm happy with the result.  And I baked and photographed, so I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea to celebrate four weeks in a row.  Everybody join with me in a group shout of "Huzzah!!!"