Posts Tagged ‘Dessert’

It’s boiling hot outside. All I want is ice cream and I want to make it. This involves turning on my oven and standing over a hot stove. I’ve been wanting to make the Gianduja gelato from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz as this is my go to flavour whenever I order gelato.

There are several steps involved to make this: toast the hazelnuts, try to rub the papery skins off as much as possible (a tea towel helps with this), make the infused hazelnut milk mixture, make the custard, combine the two, refrigerate, and then make ice cream. None too difficult, but I found getting the papery skins off of the hazelnuts to be the most time consuming.

The result was dense and heavenly. Definitely a repeat before this summer ends. Was it worth being in a sweltering kitchen? Yes!

I find homemade ice creams to be much more rich and dense so a small scoop goes a long way.

Recipe here. Note: This recipe calls for milk chocolate, but I think a dark chocolate would also work nicely as well.

P.S. After having this blog for 2.5 years I thought it was time to commit and buy the domain name nervouschef.com. Please change your bookmarks/rss feeders to this one. Thanks!

I love making recipes that involve lengthy processes. It helps me learn patience I guess. My family, however, always requests simple easy to make cakes whenever I offer to bake them up something. My mom’s birthday just passed and wanted something simple and not fussy. As usual, I went to my go to cake book, Heavenly Cakes.

This cake is not fussy or complicated at all. I was able to make the cake without going to the grocery store. You may need to go out and buy some whipping cream if unlike me you don’t have a litre of it in your fridge along with 3 pounds of butter. This is a nice and light cake. It does have a huge helping of whipping cream in it, so don’t go thinking this is diet food.

It’s a very short ingredient list and by the time the oven is done preheating this cake could be in the oven. The hardest part about this recipe is buttering and flouring the pan. I also recommend that you grease the cooling rack like the book suggests. I ignored the instructions and the cake ended up sticking like crazy.

This recipe will be in my arsenal of cakes I can quickly throw together. Definitely give it a try.

Recipe here

For my sister’s birthday, when I asked what cake she wanted, she mentioned a cake I had made a year ago for my grandmother’s birthday. It was a simple cake thrown together that the adults liked, but didn’t win the hearts of the kids. I’m guessing it’s because of the lack of sweet frosting. Instead, in its place was fluffy whipped cream.

This recipe comes from The Cake Bible. The cake is dead simple to make. More efficient bakers could probably mix up everything and have the batter in the pan before the oven is done preheating. For the simplest presentation, a dusting of icing sugar is all that’s needed. I decided to cut the cake in half and fill it with whipped cream and raspberries. It’s a great Spring/Summer cake that you can definitely play around with.

Recipe here. For the filling, just beat whipping cream with some sugar and then put it on one layer of cake, add berries, and then place the other cake layer on top.

I have to be honest, ever since working regular hours I haven’t had the inclination to cook. Getting home at 7pm means dinner at around 8 or later. The hours I used to spend making something extremely delicious just isn’t going to happen on a weekday. You know who makes time to cook after work? The husband. He’s a better person than me. I’m now on the lookout for fast easy meals.

Weekends, I can find time to bake. Especially if it’s for a birthday.

R’s mom turned a big number this year and when I asked what kind of cake she wanted, she said carrot cake. I’m a big fan of carrot cake and there was a recipe in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes. I have to say this is one of the best carrot cakes I have ever tried. It’s super moist and the frosting was so easy to make. I was wondering if the white chocolate would work with the carrot cake, but it does. It gives it a nice sweetness without having to use a bunch of powdered sugar. You also make it in the food processor so it’s hassle free (minus the melting of chocolate that can be done in the microwave). If you want to frost the sides of the cake, I recommend making a double batch, I did not have enough frosting to make the cake look pretty enough.

I haven’t been disappointed by any of the cakes in this book and this cake is no exception. R’s dad was really taken by this cake judging by the number of times he would say “Wow, this is really good cake!” out of the blue.

I like desserts that are for two so then I don’t have an excess of sweets lying around the place. I made these chocolate fondant puddings from Donna Hay’s No Time to Cook. The ingredients list is short and really highlights the chocolate so it’s good to use a chocolate you prefer eating.

You mix the ingredients in a food processor and then spoon it into ramekins because the batter is very thick. Don’t try and use a blender like I did!

Bake until slightly set. It won’t be as runny as a lava cake. I always end up over baking mine so mine turned out more fudgey than gooey:

It’s a very rich cake! You could probably serve 4 with this, so I’ll be re-working this recipe and post the results next time.

I thought maybe if I started making tarts, they wouldn’t look as ugly as my pies. The pre-formed tart shape keeps everything looking the way it’s supposed to and look less like a kitchen accident.

It seems that I can’t show up to a family event empty handed anymore as my relatives anticipate what I’m bringing. It’s my aunt’s 60th birthday so I tried to make something sophisticated. I also wanted something easy with few ingredients involved. This recipe claims sophistication and all I had to buy was some heavy cream and I was all set. Done.

The crust is a sweet tart dough and you can just press it into the pan. This saves me from trying to roll out mis-shapened circles. You pat it into the tart, put foil on it (no weights needed) and bake. Once that’s cool it’s time for the filling.

Do you have chocolate, heavy cream, and butter? That’s the entire list of ingredients for the filling. So make sure that chocolate you’re using is something you’d eat plain. I used 70% Lindt chocolate and I have a feeling this may be too bitter for the kiddies at the party.

To complete the tart, all you have to do is pour the ganache:

Refrigerate for 30 minutes and you’re done. Simple.

The ganache makes it a very rich tart so all you need is a thin slice of it, otherwise it’s too overwhelming. This would also work well as mini tarts. This tart is more adult than kid friendly with the bittersweet, but you can make this with a lower percentage. I think 60% cocoa content would appeal to a wider audience. In the book Dorie says the ganache will taste the same as the chocolate. This was confirmed when my brother in law asked if I had just melted chocolate and poured it right into the tart shell. So use a chocolate you like!

Recipe here.

I think I baked more this year than any other year. I was baking bread on an almost weekly basis before all baking stopped when our unit got hit with a flood, but made up for it with the hundreds of cookies I baked as well as pies and cakes. This year I really got into cake baking and loved making complicated potentially stressful cakes for birthdays. R got 3 birthday cakes this year: His early bday cake so he could open his gift, his birthday with our friends, and his birthday with his family. I decided after the big complicated lemon cake I made, I would do something simple and easy. This spice cake with peanut buttercream fit the bill.

For a Beranbaum recipe, this cake is really simple. One pan, no obscure ingredients, and you make the frosting in a food processor. Simple and tasty.

Recipe here

On Sunday I had the opportunity to participate in a charity bake off. The theme was Escape from Toronto and I decided that my escape would be to Paris since it was my most recent trip. One of my favourite things in Paris was the salted butter caramel — even R was fond of it! I settled on lavender French butter cookies with a salted butter caramel buttercream. I never actually had this combo in Paris, but to see if lavender and caramel would work I googled it and found an Alice Medrich recipe for a lavender caramel sauce so my pairing wasn’t too out there. For the cookie, I used a recipe from Poilane as a base and decided to switch it up. I think this is my first cookie I’ve “created”.

I did a test run and while the lavender cookies only needed some very small tweaking, I ruined many batches of caramel before getting it right. I used the dry method of making caramel where no water is added. It’s best to not have the heat on too high or you’ll burn it. Be patient and let the caramel work its magic.

I’d still like to tweak the salted butter caramel recipe a little bit. I’d like the filling to be a bit more stiff so it doesn’t squish right out of the cookie.

There were so many delicious things at the bake off and I wish I could have tried more, but my stomach had problems coping with that much sugar.

At the bake off my sister’s friends were there, one whom I haven’t seen since my sister was in high school (so I was maybe 10 years old at the time?). They brought these amazing patties which was such a nice change from all the sweets in the room. I could have eaten 5 of these. And I will as the recipe is posted
Sugar Baking cupcakes — Ferrero Rocher and Pina Colada

Amazing bacon blondies. I have always stood firm that blondies weren’t my thing, they are just too sweet. The saltiness of the bacon helps offset that. Recipe here

Cake or Death’s amazing St. Lawrence Market cake!

And of course, the recipe for the cookies:

Lavender French butter cookies with salted butter caramel buttercream (makes 24 2″ cookies)

190g of butter (13.5 Tablespoons) softened
50g (1/4 cup) of sugar granulated
50g (1/4 cup) of sugar superfine (I just ran it through a food processor)
1 teaspoon of lavender syrup (you can omit and add more lavender or make your own lavender simple syrup)
1.5 teaspoons of lavender, ground
1 large egg
2 (284 grams) cups of flour

Beat butter until smooth on low. Add sugar and blend into butter. Add egg and syrup.
Add flour and mix until it just incorporated. Add lavender and mix.
Divide dough in half and shape into a disk. Chill until firm.
Roll out dough on lightly floured surface 1/4”. Cut out shapes and bake at 350F for 10-11 mins.

Salted butter caramel butter cream recipe (slightly adapted from here).

The instructions on how to make caramel using the dry method that saved my sanity here.

200g Sugar

330g Whipping Cream (this is my translation the original recipe calls for Creme Fraiche Liquide)

30g Unsalted Butter + 140g Softened Unsalted Butter

3/4 Teaspoon fleur de sel

Make the Caramel

1. Add about 50g of sugar to a saucepan, let this melt then add another 50g sugar and let this melt. Continue three times until all 200g of sugar has been incorporated and melted (can anyone tell me why its done in this way I have never heard of making caramel this way).

2. Let the syrup caramelize until it has turned a very dark amber. I let mine go very dark, but if you want a sweeter caramel, remove it from the heat earlier. And unless you want 3rd degree burns in your mouth, don’t try the caramel. It’s hot! Remove from the heat and add the 30g butter. Add the cream which will spatter and bubble and may seize up and harden but will melt in the next stage.

3. Put the pan back on the heat and cook until it reaches 108C on a candy thermometer. Pour into a dish and cover with plastic wrap to avoid it developing a skin. Let this cool, until about room temperature.

4. Beat the remaining butter for 8 to 10 minutes and then incorporate the caramel in 2 additions. Add salt and mix until blended in.

I had a very nice woman come up to me later in the night who let me know that she liked my cookies and was surprised at the flavour. This made me happy to hear my cookies weren’t too crazy OR too boring.

Also much thanks to Sarah who mentioned my cookies in her post. She did a fabulous write up of the event! BlogTO also did a write up here

Today is R’s 30th birthday.

Happy birthday to a wonderful husband! What do wonderful husbands do? They help clean the messy kitchen when you’re covered in frosting trying to get a cake done before all the guests come over.

Lately I’ve been pressed for time, but I absolutely had to make a birthday cake. Of course not a simple one, but naturally something that would take days to make. I really need to make better use of my time management skills.

R wanted something citrusy, so I made Woody’s Luxury Lemon Cake. It’s been featured on the Heavenly Cake baker’s blog so I sort of knew what to expect. This cake takes a long time to make and you’re best off splitting the work over a couple of days. I did the lemon curd and baked the cake the day before and the buttercream the day of. I think it’s called “luxury” for a reason: 17 eggs (13 of them egg yolks) and you need the luxury of having enough time to make it. This recipe uses white chocolate and even though I’m not a fan of it, it really adds to the cake.

Everything went together fairly smoothly for me. I’ve made the curd before so that wasn’t a problem. The directions for the curd in this book omit the temperature it should be. The Cake Bible says an accurate thermometer will reach 190F. I took my curd off before it reached 190F because it wouldn’t of been pourable if I let it sit longer. The custard base didn’t cool to the proper temperature either after 45 minutes so I gave it another 30 minutes in the fridge. It still didn’t reach the proper temperature so I pretended my thermometer was wrong and threw it into the mixer anyway. Nothing melted and nothing curdled. The buttercream is a very soft so I recommend chilling it in the fridge for a few hours. If you’re going to leave it in the fridge overnight, allow it to go to room temperature before beating so it doesn’t curdle.

The cake was a huge success and everyone loved it. It’s definitely a repeat recipe.

I think I’ll be posting about Paris for years to come. It’s good fodder when I’ve become so busy I don’t have time to take pictures. Also now that I have those lights, my dinner shots that I haven’t written about look so blah in comparison.

I had about 15 food related things mapped into our itinerary. Ladurèe and Pierre Hermè were the must sees. I’ve been having macarons here in Toronto and I wanted to try the Real Deal.

There’s an ongoing debate on which place has the better macaron, Ladurèe or Pierre Hermè (there’s a couple more that are in the mix, but most often it’s these two names that come up). So I had to try both and see.

First stop was Ladurèe. We were in the Champs Élysèes area (and snagged an awesome memento by purchasing a Peugeot pepper and salt grinder) so it was easy to fit into our schedule.

Again, a line up almost to the door:

I restrained myself and only got the macarons. I wish I had time to try all the other pastries here, they looked fantastic!

I chose 6 flavours: chocolate, salted butter caramel, pistachio, raspberry, cassis, and rose. My order got messed up and I ended up with 2 chocolates instead of cassis. I usually judge how good a food is if R makes a comment about it. He’s not the kind of guy to roll his eyes in the back of his head while he moans about how great a food is. “That’s good.” were all the words that was spoken. That means he was very impressed with these macarons. My favourite was the salted butter caramel. The other macarons, in particular the pistachio and raspberry had a very intense flavour to them. I also didn’t find the macarons as sweet as others.

Pierre Hermè is right by Sacre Cour so it was also an easy destination to get to. It’s a much smaller shop than Ladurèe which is why the line up was out the door this time!

Pierre Hermè is known for his macarons all sorts of interesting flavours that can’t be found elsewhere. Again I limited it to 6 flavours: salted butter caramel, olive oil and vanilla, rose petal, jasmin, cassis, and I can’t remember the other flavour.

The olive oil and vanilla was surprisingly tasty and another favourite was the rose petal one. But really, they were all good. I did find the macarons at Pierre Hermè slightly sweeter than Ladurèe’s. I also liked the salted butter caramel better at Laduree.

So who is the macaron winner here? I think if you’re looking for traditional macarons, Ladurèe is the one to go to and if you’re looking for new and interesting flavours to try (foie gras macaron anyone?) Pierre Hermè is the place to go. Because Ladurèe’s macaron are slightly less sweet, I prefer them over Pierre Hermè’s. But I would never pass up a chance to eat a Pierre Hermè macaron.