How To Make Salted Caramel Sauce

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How To Make Salted Caramel Sauce

My son, Cameron, is graduating from Pre K on Friday, it’s my birthday on Thursday, and summer is just around the corner, so it’s a celebratory time.  I love summer.  I don’t care how hot and humid it gets.  I also love my birthday, and I don’t care how old I get (although I might feel differently when I turn 90).  I’m usually the first to wish myself a happy birthday on Facebook.  This gets the wheels going, you know, and then all day the birthday accolades come rolling in.  I’m feeling a little sad, however, with Cam graduating.  It’s hard to watch your babies get older.  I can still hold him right now, and play “dinosaur hunters” with him, and let him sleep in our bed when he’s scared of the dark, but the day will come when I won’t be doing any of those things.  He won’t need that anymore, and that’s heart breaking.  Anyway, since Cameron and I both love salted caramel, I decided to make a batch of salted caramel sauce for our special week.  I’m going to use this sauce for cupcakes (coming soon), but in the mean time, I thought I’d show you how to make salted caramel sauce from scratch.    Continue reading →

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Key Lime Lamingtons

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Key Lime Lamington

Key Lime Lamingtons

It’s the 27th of the month, which means it’s time for another Daring Bakers’ challenge!  Before we get started, I would just like to say how happy I am to be apart of this fabulous online community.  I started this blog to learn all the ins and outs about baking and pastry, but since joining the Daring Bakers I have learned so much about desserts from all around the world.  Today’s challenge has been issued by Marcellina from the lovely site Macellina In Cucina. We were asked to make Lamingtons, a very popular, Australian dessert.  Traditionally, the Lamington is a genoise cake cut into squares, covered with a thin layer of chocolate icing, and rolled in shredded coconut.  The coconut helps keep your fingers clean while you eat, and the tiny portion size helps keep you from feeling guilty about eating so many at once!  I decided to do a variation on the original.  I made a Key Lime Pie for Mother’s Day, and I had some ingredients left over, so I made Key Lime Lamingtons–key lime butter cake drenched in white chocolate/key lime ganache, and covered with coconut.  Yummy! Continue reading →

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Berry Tart

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Berry Tart

Berry Tart

This berry tart tastes as good as it looks, and I don’t mean toot my own horn here, but THIS BERRY TART LOOKS AMAZING!  I’m so proud of myself.  I’ve been trying to think of what to write in this paragraph for about an hour now, and I find myself just staring at the the top photo.  During the photo shoot this afternoon (me in my kitchen taking pictures with a semi cheap digital camera while my kids hang off of my legs in a desperate attempt to get my attention) I found that I couldn’t get a bad picture of this berry tart even if I tried.  She is a natural beauty.  I pumped up the volume of some 80s techno music to drown out my kids pleading screams and clicked away.  Every angle worked.  Every side glance was perfection.  When I shouted, “show me glistening!” she did effortlessly.   Before I knew it I had taken 50 some pictures of gorgeousness.  Then, like all prolific, creative, and important food photographers,  I went downstairs and played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with a 5 year old and soon to be 2 year old.  I was Michelangelo.  Continue reading →

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How To Make Pastry Cream

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How To Make Pastry Cream

How To Make Pastry Cream

You know that delicious, creamy filling in eclairs, cream puffs and Napoleons?  Well, that’s pastry cream, also known as creme patissiere.  Pastry cream is a stirred custard, which means that it is cooked directly in a saucepan on the stove.  It is made of egg yolks, sugar, milk, vanilla, starch, and sometimes other flavorings.  Now, I know it might seem daunting to make your own.  I know the idea of buying a box of  vanilla pudding mix seems like the best option, but DON’T!… I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to yell.  I just think you should try and make this from scratch.  It’s so much more tastier, creamier, and better than any pudding mix out there.  And frankly, it’s pretty damn easy too.  Here, take my hand.  I’ll show you how to make pastry cream. Continue reading →

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