The Baking Blog of Patrissherie

I have this thing for William Sonoma.  I ooh and ahh at everything in the store, no matter what it is.  I purchased their seasonal Spiced Pecan Pumpkin Spice Quick Bread Mix (yes it has 2 spices in it's name) during my last visit.  At $16 for a quick mix, I had to do a review. 

Disclaimer: nothing on this blog is made from pre-packaged or pre-made products unless specified.  98% of my baking is from scratch.  I occasionally like to check out the short cuts for fun.

Likes:

-Easy to prepare.  Just add eggs, water and butter.

-Pecans.  These really made the texture of the bread.  I will be adding these to my future pumpkin breads.

-Fragrant smell.  My kitchen smelled like everything Fall while the bread baked.

Dislikes:

-Price. This is definitely a gourmet product at this price.

-Greasiness.  This wasn't due to the cream-cheese topping, but the bread itself.  It left a greasy feeling in your mouth afterwards that brings on guilt, because you probably just consumed the same calories as a slice of cheesecake.

-Over spiced. There was too much spice.  It overpowered and overshadowed the rest of the ingredients.  I can still taste the spice in my mouth afterwards. Too much cloves, maybe too much ginger and probably nutmeg.

Overall, I don't think I will be purchasing this mix again due to my issues with the price, texture and spice level of the bread.  I give it 6.5 out of 10.

William Sonoma Spiced Pecan Pumpkin Spice Quick Bread with Cream-cheese frosting

Of the years that I have known J, this would only be the 2nd time I've ever baked him a b-day cake.  This year was really special as it was the first birthday we celebrated as a married couple.  I'm so glad I got to bake this cake for my best friend on his b-day.

J pulled a "J" in the typical sense.  A dinner outing for 10 became 20.  Thus a cake became a cake plus cupcakes; and ingredients became sparse.  Despite my issue with underestimating how much frosting I needed for the cake alone, I really underestimated the amount of frosting needed for the cupcakes resulting in 3 runs to the local convenient store for more ingredients.

I decided to do J's favorite flavour: chocolate.  But I wanted to add a twist: salted caramel.  His cake ended up being 4 layers of dark chocolate cake, with alternating chocolate and salted caramel frosting; and finished with chocolate frosting on the outside.  I couldn't cut into the b-day boy's cake so you just have to take my word on the dual frosting inside.  I must say, I LOVE this cake.  It tastes amazing and it's moist.  The issue? It's terrible for frosting because of it's loose crumbs.  I fought with it so much during my crumb coating that I gave up and didn't do a crumb coating for most of the cake; and the finishing frosting was piped instead of a smooth finish as originally planned.  The cake finished at 6 inches tall, 9 inches in diameter and approximately 15 lbs in weight.

The cupcakes carried the same theme, where the inner frosting was salted caramel and the outer swirls were chocolate.  The cake batter makes awesome cupcakes because no crumb coating is needed and no spreading is required.  At the end of the night, all 18 cupcakes and the giant cake was gone.  Well kind of.  People ate as much as they could and fought for take-home portions.

So my original plan was to carmelize maltzers like you do with hazelnuts to make gorgeous toppers.  I froze the maltzers to prevent them from melting when I dip them.  Yes, it worked.  But minutes later, my maltzers started growing girths from the hot caramel causing the chocolate to blister.  It was so ugly!  Lesson: stop re-inventing the wheel.  People use hazlenuts for a reason...not chocolate.. noted.

~~~~~Happy Birthday My Love~~~~~

These were a request from 2 friends, friends whom can really stand the heat. I personally cannot say I have yet to try one.  The request came from a friend whom found chocolate-dipped jalapenos on an online store.  At the insane price they were selling it for, I offered to make them one instead.  When the story got told to another friend, the request got extended also.

So out came milk chocolate-dipped jalapenos, drizzled with dark chocolate.  Too bad I can't review these bad boys, since I've yet to have one.  Maybe next time...

Blueberry Ice-cream V 2.0

In lieu of J's approval of the previous blueberry ice-cream, I had to revamp it.  Instead of making the custard from fresh bluberries as I did previously, I cooked it like pie.  It tastes like blueberry pie filling in ice-cream form.  The ice-cream is a gorgeous purple from the natural pigments in the blueberry skins.

Black Sesame Ice-Cream

Growing up, I love black sesame-flavoured desserts.  I knew I had to do an ice-cream variation.  Tiny speckles of ground toasted black sesame are found in the ice-cream.  If you've never had black sesame desserts before, I highly recommend it.  It's extremely flavourful compared to it's pale cousin.  It almost has a vanilla undertone to it.

<3

Remember the failed x-mas dessert of 2011? I do.  Very clearly at that.  Like I've previously mentioned, the universe hates me on x-mas and everything that I make fails.  It turned out so awful that I couldn't document it with a photograph.  I basically served soupy chocolate tart.  Well, I decided I wouldn't admit defeat to the Chocolate Pretzel Tart from the Food And Wine Magazine (http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/milk-chocolate-tart-with-pretzel-crust).  

I adjusted the whipping cream to chocolate ratio and it set beautifully. 

Instead of using powder sugar, I processed granular sugar with pretzels in my magic bullet.

Instead of pulling out the rolling pin to roll out the crust, I pressed it into my pan as I would with a graham cracker crust.

Lindt chocolate ganache with pretzel crust, topped with a sprinkle of sea salt and pretzel pieces

If you love salted caramel, you'll love this tart. It is the perfect balance of sweet and savoury flavours. Did I mention the chocolate of choice was Lindt? I almost went with Godiva but I think J loves Lindt more. Which would you prefer, Godiva or Lindt? Or perhaps a 3rd alternative? I went with milk chocolate as suggested by Food and Wine, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't mind a dark chocolate version.

Gotta love eating your cake and having it too.

I remember my very first day in high school, there was an ice cream fiesta to welcome all the newcomers.  11 years later (god, i'm giving my age away), I'm bringing back the spirit of an ice cream fiesta.  J had bought me the ice cream maker attachment for my kitchenaid, and I LOVE IT!!!  He's requested I churn out at least 4 pints of ice cream before I leave for work.  So off to the kitchen I went!

First came the silky rich chocolate ice-cream with mini rolo candies hidden within it. 

The rolo candies inside were surprisingly a great texture when frozen.  There's nothing worst than eating frozen candy that can literally take off a chunk of your tooth.  J was quite happy with this one.  Whom am I kidding? J was happy with all of them!

Next, came the blueberry rich ice-cream.  This one came out ...different.  Things that went weird with this one:

1. It took less than 10 minutes to churn to become ice-cream consistency (compared to the average 30 minutes)

2. It took forever to fully freeze afterwards.

3. The texture was kind of like frozen whipped cream.

Troubleshoot:  I messed around with the original recipe.  I omitted milk which may have contributed to the texture and temperature issue.

Verdict: It was still yummy but it needs work.  The chocolate one overruled by several points.

Lastly, I made my personal favorite: Cookie dough!!  This one has chocolate chip-almond cookie dough incorporated into a honey-vanilla ice cream.  I was the first to crack into this bad boy and I'm so glad I did because this pint turned out to be my favorite of the three.

(Not sure if it was because the pale creamy colour didn't catch enough light, but the camera didn't like photographing the cookie dough ice-cream.  Maybe it was a sign from the universe telling me to just eat it instead.)

Due to the croquembouche, I didn't have enough time (or eggs) to churn out a 4th pint.  It will have to wait until next time!  Ideas?

Croquembouche is a tower of cream puffs enveloped in a hard caramel.  Since I'm not a huge fan of hard caramel, I chose to envelop it in chocolate ganache instead.

Each choux pastry ball is filled with home-made vanilla custard and drizzled with chocolate ganache before it is stacked into the monstrous tower.

Another item off my baking list! Delicious!

Happy New Year everyone!

Over the holidays, I went on a cook book/baking book haul.  One of the books were Desserts 4 Today by Abigail Johnson Dodge.  The book's speciality is the ability to pull together desserts using only 4 ingredients.

I tested their Sparkling Cocoa Drops recipe which consisted of flour, cocoa, sugar and butter.

The book also includes a list of additional add-ons and substitutions you can make to the recipe itself.  I chose to use brown sugar instead of white sugar as an option suggested by the author.

The results:

1. Cookies were visually unappealing.

2. Cookies were extremely dry.  Even J wouldn't eat them.

3. Cookies were bland even though the cocoa taste was too strong.

I believe the author's focus on having only 4 ingredients to make this cookie took away the recipe's potential to make a yummy and appealing cookie.  It really needed an egg amongst other things like vanilla.

I give this recipe:

I love cheesecake, not only because it's absolutely delicious but because it is so versatile.  Cheesecake can be as simple or as complex as you want and the only limitation is your imagination.

The weather is getting chilly, so I got inspired to incorporate fall flavours into my cheesecake.  This is what I ended up with:

Ginger snap crust. Brown sugar cheesecake. Topped with ginger and cinnamon poached pears.

Check out my new toys!!  These babies (4 inch spring form pans) were a steal.  At $2.50 a piece, I'm hoping they perform just as good as all of the other products in the Wilton line. (Check out your local Wal-mart for availability).

Ginger Snap Cookies For The Crust

Ginger-Cinnamon Poached Pear

Assembled Cheesecake (Before going in the oven).

Voila! Brown Sugar Cheesecake on Ginger Snap Crust, Topped with Ginger-Cinnamon Poached Pears.

So lacking some inspiration, I asked my friends for their favorite desserts.  Here's the list they came up with:

Le Mille Feuille aka The Napolean

Carrot Cake Cheesecake

Home made Ice Cream

Baked Custard or Flan

Coconut Cupcakes

Chocolate Mousse Pie

Reese's Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Brioche

Chocolate Lava Cake

I previously mentioned how I managed to ruin 2 batches of cupcakes.  Well let's add another 2 batches to that count for this recipe before I realized the culprit: my baking soda.  For some reason, although the baking soda passed its leavening test (add vinegar), it made EVERYTHING taste like solid baking soda in the finished product.  The amount used is average too.

So finally, batch 3 omitted the use of baking soda and subbed baking powder. Oh the heart ache bad ingredients can cause....

To maximize the coconut flavour, I used coconut milk and coconut extract in my cake base and continued my theme in my buttercream frosting.  Finishing off with toasted coconut flakes.

So this brings us to an end of June's postings...see you in July~~