[kim shook]

What are you making for desserts lately? I thought this would be a fun thread. Cakes, pies, cupcakes, whatever!
I'll start out with a chocolate pound cake w/ Italian meringue buttercream that I made recently:



Kim

This post has been edited by kim shook: 10 April 2008 - 08:43 AM

[Marlene]

Great idea, Kim! I'm always looking for inspirations for desserts. That buttercream looks like it worked out really well. I always have trouble with buttercream

I think I've decided on an apple rasin bread pudding with creme anglaise for Saturday's dinner.

[Poutine]

Cream Cheese filled chocolate cupcakes. So easy and so great!!

[Dana]

What a darling cupcake stand!!!

[Poutine]

Dana, on Apr 19 2008, 11:50 AM, said:

What a darling cupcake stand!!!

Thanks. I picked it up at Ross in Florida, but I've seen it at Michael's and TJ Maxx and Home Goods.

Its made by Wilton.

[Marlene]

I love that cupcake stand!

Yesterday I made white and dark chocolate chip cookies





They needed more white chocolate chips but I didn't have as many as I thought I did on hand, and by the time I discovered that, it was too far into the process to go out and get more. They're still really good though!

[Corgi Man]

For company tonight I made a Ground Almond-Lemon Custard tart. The tart pastry shell is ground almonds, lemon zest, butter, a little flour and an egg. It's almost like working with something half-way between a batter and a pate brisé.



The custard is a lot more ground almonds, lemon zest and juice, sugar, eggs and melted butter. Here it is cooled, sprinkled with confectioners sugar and ready to be cut.

Sorry you're not able to taste this, it's wonderful.

[James]

Nice. Rich too. Is it Italian origin? or maybe French?

[Corgi Man]

Thank you. It's French. But the Italians do so many things with ground almonds and hazelnuts, who knows?, they may have something similar.

This post has been edited by Corgi Man: 26 April 2008 - 06:58 AM

[Dana]

I just love nuts in dessert crusts. I made this on Saturday, and a few nuts in the crust would be good here as well, but it was pretty good even without it. It's Cinnamon Pecan Cheescake Bars I got from the Penzey's catalog I pick up at their store in Houston a couple of weeks ago.
The recipe calls for Nuefchatel cheese (low-fat cream cheese), something I've really not used much before, but these were really good. I'll riff it a little and post it in the recipe section in the next couple of days.

[kim shook]

Beautiful sweet stuff, y'all! I'm hungry all over again now!

I made a Kit Kat cake for a friend’s birthday tonight. The cake was inspired by a cake made by someone at eGullet. The cake itself was the CI German chocolate and the frosting was CakeLove chocolate Italian meringue buttercream. There were chopped Kit Kat bars in the middle as well as around the sides and on top. It was fun to make and delicious – and everyone was impressed. A happy cake!





Looking at this cake and then at the cake that I opened this topic with, I realized that I basically made the same cake twice ! I promise that I actually make things other than chocolate. But I do admit to being madly in love with the ease, lightness and taste of this buttercream!

Kim

[Corgi Man]

A street vendor had yellow cherries and I bought a couple pounds and removed the pits and sugared them.

Then I made some clafouti batter and let it sit the required 20 minutes.

Out of the oven and cooling.

'Twas delicious with some vanilla ice cream. Yellow cherries don't taste like red cherries. They have their own wonderful flavor.

This post has been edited by Corgi Man: 01 June 2008 - 07:52 PM

[pixelchef]

Oh goodness, that's gorgeous Skip.

Cherries (especially yellow/Rainier cherries) are my favourite fruit. I buy them by the pound and eat them out-of-hand all day long. Delicious!

[Corgi Man]

From INDULGE, the French Laundry Pastry Chef's dessert book, chocolate chip cookies.

The dough.

8 oz of chopped dark and semi-sweet chocolate for the cookies.

Here they are out of the oven cooling.

How 'bout a close-up?

These are extraordinary and a bit serious. And with this much chocolate for about 24 cookies, very, very rich.

[kim shook]

Skip - those cookies are just amazing looking. I want one with lunch!

Some desserts that we had for Father's Day:

store bought sugar free angel food cake w/ caramel apple sauce, Lucky Charms Treats and my best peanut butter cookies. The Lucky Charms treats were just a fun, silly thing that I made for the kids, but all the grown ups ended up loving them and we sat around coming up with all the other cereals that would make good 'Treats' !

This was truly incredible - easily the best cake I've ever made and one of the best desserts I've ever eaten:



It's called Crunchy Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer Cake. It's a Nancy Olson recipe. That middle bit is a layer of meringue with chopped peanuts, peanut butter, chocolate and Rice Krispies!

[Dana]

That looks truely decedent, Kim. Goodness, you must have had a houseful for all those sweets!!

[kim shook]

Well, we were supposed to . Originally, there were supposed to be 20 people. One BIL decided last minute that he'd rather go to the horse races and took his parents and 2 of his daughters with him. Then my niece, nephew and another BIL just didn't show up . So I was down from 20 to 13. I ended up with a LOT of extra food. WHY do people do that? If they weren't family, they'd never get another invitation from me. Mr. Kim's family is really bad about saying, "I'll let you know" when you invite them and waiting until the last minute to tell you yes or no. I was raised that if you couldn't give a definite yes, you had to say no. Not 'maybe'. Oh, well, I guess this would be a topic for another thread!

[Marlene]

Kim did you ever talk about that buttercream? And now, could you please share the recipe for that chocolate peanut cake?

[kim shook]

Marlene - I'll post both recipes tomorrow.

Kim

[Marlene]

kim shook, on Jun 18 2008, 10:11 PM, said:

Marlene - I'll post both recipes tomorrow.

Kim

thank you ma'am