The Cream Puff

This week I was feeling a bit homesick, and decided to make the Cream Puff. Originally being from Wisconsin I have many fun memories of going to the Wisconsin State Fair. All the animals, rides and exhibits were fun, but getting in line for a Cream Puff with my mom tops them all!

The recipe was very easy to make and went pretty quickly. The challenge was in how I baked these yummy puffs. I had invited my mother and father-in-law over for dinner and decided to roast a chicken in my oven. Timing was my challenger. With the oven being used I had to rely on my toaster oven to bake my puff pastry for the cream puff. I was not sure how it would turn out, but that's the fun of the whole experience!

I used Maida Heatter's recipe in her book "Great Desserts."

The toaster oven got the job done! I had heated it up to 425 degrees as the recipe called, but needed to bake the puffs longer at this temp before lowering the temp to 350 degrees like the recipe called for me to do.

For the filling I made a plain whipped cream with vanilla extract and a touch of almond extract, it was perfect when topped with some powdered sugar.

Before writing this post I did a little research...

The largest cream puff was made just this past year in Wisconsin at the State Fair! August 11, 2011 to be exact, and the pastry weighed in at 125.5 pounds! What else would you expect from the dairy state!

Dessert Ideas Please

Because I am planning on doing at least 52 different desserts in 2012 with this blog, I thought it would be great to get some ideas from those who may follow along with me on my journey!

If you have a favorite dessert, or one that you've always wanted to try, please share! Lets have fun exploring all the possibilities!

Birthday Goodies

I was very excited to start getting in some of the items I ordered off Amazon for my cake decorating!
It feels so great because most of the things are ordered are to help further my skills in this profession.

I finally have a steamer to smooth and shine up my fondant cakes!
and a food scale to help weigh instead of measure out my ingredients.

Next is to save for a more powerful stand mixer, and air brush system and a pasta machine!

Bring on 2012!

Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream

For my first dessert I chose a Red Velvet Cake. Typically it is made with a Cream Cheese Frosting, but I decided to go with White Chocolate instead! I first made this cake last year for my birthday and really enjoyed the flavor as well as the deep red color. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it again this year for my birthday.
My husband, 2 children and I went to Whole Foods, and my quest was for my favorite cocoa powder to use in this cake. Valrhona Chocolate. I first heard of it last year during a Bravo channel episode of "Top Chef Just Desserts". It is excellent and is my preferred choice with all my baking! Unfortunately they were out of it, most likely due to the Holidays! So I opted for another brand. It turned out good but not Valrhona. If you are interested in trying this brand, it is excellent and the only place in RI that carries it is Whole Foods, but beware it is pricey.

This year I chose a recipe from "175 best babycakes cupcake maker" written by Kathy Moore and Roxanne Wyss, but I modified it to include the tweaks I had made last year.

The cake itself was easy to make. I made 2 batches of the recipe, 1 batch fills one 8" round cake pan. For the vinegar I used white, but prefer cider if I have it in the house (was all out this time). Also I prefer to use red food coloring gel, but any type of red food coloring will do. If interested in the recipe, refer to the Recipe index to the left of this blog.

The filling was my new creation and had its fall backs, but all in all was my favorite filling with this cake. I made a White Chocolate Cream filling and topped that with fresh sliced strawberries. The strawberries were a huge hit with my kids. They couldn't get enough of them. I used heavy whipped cream, with powdered sugar and melted Ghirardelli white chocolate. My fall back was in the whipping. I'm pretty sure I over whipped. Also the melted chocolate when mixed with the cold cream chunked up a little. I would try this again, but with White Chocolate cocoa powder. I had looked in Whole Foods for this but they did not carry it. I will need to purchase it online in the future!

For the butter cream frosting, I use my staple: but added some of the melted white chocolate. It turned out okay, but because I came up with this on the fly, I ended not having enough  melted white chocolate to really make this butter cream taste like the white chocolate. It ended up with just a hint of the flavor. Next time I would make sure I bought enough. NOTE: the recipe posted has the amounts of chocolate that I believe would be needed to make this frosting the way I had wanted it to taste.

All in all, this cake turned out to be pretty tasty, and would make it again! But would still add some tweaks to the filling and frosting! That's what I love about baking... just keep adjusting till you get the texture and taste you love!

New Year, New Blog and Lots of Yummy Desserts!

I love all the cakes that I have made, and look forward to what this new year will bring! Already booked for 2 wedding cakes and a bridal shower. While I have spent the past 5 years focusing on learning more about different decorating techniques, I now need to add in more baking! I mean more than just cakes!

I hope you will enjoy reading and seeing the different cakes and other desserts that I make and decorate over this year. I promise to post the recipe as well as if it worked or failed and what worked! The unique part about all of this is that, I will also be attempting to lose weight and take better care of my health in the midst of creating 52 desserts!

I figured there is no better way than to start tomorrow, January 2nd, seeing how its my birthday. I will start with a cake and one of my favorites...Red Velvet. This should help me to get into this blog and get creative! Thank you reading, support and comments are encouraged! This should be fun!