Lemon almond meringue cookies from Joy the Baker.
Like biting into lemony clouds.
Happy baking!
Lemon almond meringue cookies
by VirginieCakes, pies and other treats
by Virginie
Hi everyone! I know, I know, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted something new. With the Holidays and moving across the country, it’s been hard to find the time to write. Now I’m taking the time though. I’ve baked a few things since December. This beautiful flourless chocolate cake from Baked was for our New Years Eve party.
I made this sour cherry slump (also from Baked) for our first breakfast of 2012. Quite tasty! You can also see the nice double skillet cooker I got for Christmas. Can’t wait to bake bread with it!
This blog is quickly coming up on it’s two year anniversary. Yes that’s right! I’ve been doing this for almost two full years now! I’m having so much fun baking, experimenting with different recipes and taking pictures of it all to share! Writing does not come easily to me though. I’m finding it hard to come up with something interesting to say every week. So I’m changing the format of this blog a bit. I’m going to focus more on the baking and taking pictures aspect of it, while the written part will be shorter. I’m still going to write up tips and tricks, things I’ve discovered doing a recipe and where I got the recipe from or the recipe it self, I’m just going to put less pressure on myself to come up with paragraphs of things to say. I hope you will still find this blog interesting and come see what I bake. Hopefully even be inspired to bake and try these recipes yourself!
This is another great recipe from Baked. I love that book! It’s the chocolate bourbon pecan pie. Smells heavenly!
Finally, the dark chocolate macaron, recipe from Le Larousse du Chocolat, also a great book. A little tip working with egg whites: always use real eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. The cartons of eggs whites just don’t whisk up as nicely as the real thing.
Happy baking!
Cookies!
by Virginie
Today I had an urge to bake cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. I baked three different kinds of cookies from Joy the Baker. I thought it would be good to practice baking a lot of recipes at once, to figure out how to manage my time and space in the kitchen and oven. I think I managed pretty well. I only ended up waiting for cookies to cook and move on to the next batch once.
Recipes are here:
Flourless Peanut Butter cookies
Pumpkin Cookies
Giant Vanilla Sugar Cookies
Enjoy :)
Almond and caramelized pear
by Virginie
The pears that I bought last weekend were finally ripe today! So I went for it, I made almond and caramelized pear cupcakes. To caramelize the pears simply cut them up in small slices and cover them with sugar. Cook them in a skillet until the sugar covering them turns to caramel. Simple as that! I also added a hint of amaretto to the cake to give a little kick to the almond taste. Top it all with vanilla icing. Delicious! Here is the recipe for 16 cupcakes:
cake:
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cup of flour
- 1/2 cup of almond powder
- 2 tsp of baking powder
- 3/4 cup of milk
- 2 tbs amaretto
- 2 pears, caramelized and pureed (could have used 3 pears in these cupcakes so you can go ahead and add more if you try this recipe)
method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition, then beat on high for 30 seconds
- sift the flour, almond powder an baking powder together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- add the milk and amaretto and combine until smooth
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- bake for 20 minutes
Caramelizing pears
icing:
- 3 egg whites
- 140g of sugar
- 1 1/4 cup of butter cut in 1 inch cubes
- 1 tbs vanilla
method:
- combine the egg whites and sugar in a double boiler
- whisk a little until all the sugar is melted away
- take off the double boiler and beat on high until cooled and turned into a firm meringue, touch the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature
- add the butter one cube at a time while beating on a lower speed
- beat on high until you get a nice fluffy texture (it will turn to a cottage cheese kind of texture about half way through, just keep beating)
- add vanilla
Enjoy :)
Chocolate and peanut butter
by Virginie
This week’s flavour is chocolate and peanut butter! A classic inspired by Reese’s peanut butter cups. I had this on my list of flavours to try for a while now and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out! The icing might be a bit too sweet and stiff so I suggested to put less sugar then I did in my recipe below. The recipe also gives a lot of the filling, but if you don’t use it all in your cupcakes you can always spread it on your morning toast when you run out of the healthy stuff you usually put on them. I know that’s what I’ll be doing anyway. Maybe I won’t even wait for my healthy option to run out. Maybe I’ll put some on my toast tomorrow morning.
Here’s the recipe for 16 cupcakes:
cake:
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 1/3 cup of cream
- 100g of dark chocolate
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 2 tbs of cocoa powder
- 2 tbs of milk
method:
- put the dark chocolate in a bowl
- bring the milk and cream to a boil and pour over the chocolate
- let sit for 5 minutes and whisk together
- preheat the oven to 350
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition, then beat on high for 30 seconds
- sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together and combine half with the butter/sugar mix
- add the chocolate and combine
- add the other half of the flour and combine again
- add the milk and combine until smooth
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- bake for 22 minutes
filling:
- 150g of milk chocolate
- 1 cup of peanut butter
method:
- in a double boiler, melt the milk chocolate and peanut butter together until smooth
- put in the fridge while you make the icing
icing:
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 3/4 cup of peanut butter
- 3 cups of powdered sugar (could’ve put only 2 1/2, try it and if its too smooth for you liking add another half cup)
- 2 tbs of milk
method:
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the peanut butter and beat until combined, light and fluffy
- sift the powdered sugar and beat
- add the milk and beat until smooth
Enjoy :)