Walnut Macarons

Another purchase that I have made at the local Farmer's Market are walnuts. There's an abundance of nuts here in the central valley so it's easy to find huge bags of unshelled nuts for a very very cheap price. I bought one of these huge bags and I'm the only one eating them at home.

I've always wanted to try my luck with the macaron. The Parisian Macaron. Now, I have never had any formal training in baking and pastry so I just go by recipes that I come across, tweak them, add/subtract ingredients to make them my own. Latley it has been hard for me to just go out and run to the store for things that I need and I really wanted to make macarons. I couldn't make them without almonds. But, I did have walnuts...

I wonder...

Yes, I shelled all of them. During my macaron research I learned you can make your own almond powder by processing the almonds with powdered sugar until they are of flour consistancy in a food processor. I don't have one of those so I used a blender and it worked. Maybe I can find one on sale this Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday.

These babies are tricky. Mix them too much, they crack, mix them too little, they crack. If you don't let them set long enough, they crack, but I managed to get them right the first time. They even developed those little feet on the bottom. Success!! Out of walnuts, too!!

I've decided to make these for Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll try making pumpkin or gingerbread macarons. I know now they're not Parisian, they're one of Kell's Kreations!

Walnut macarons with banana cream cheese buttercream.

Packed some up for my boyfriend to take to work. They loved them. They don't believe I made them. haha

Be Mine Cupcakes

I bought 100% cacao chocolate bars and I wanted to try it on some dark dark chocolate cake. What better than to try it on cupcakes? I also went to the Farmers Market and purchased some fresh raspberries. Hmmmm... raspberries and chocolate??? Sounds romantic.

So, here are the cupcakes ready to be frosted with some yummy raspberry buttercream.


I couldn't find a recipe for raspberry buttercream so I had to invent my own. How fun! What I did was puree the raspberries with some water and cornstarch and I put it in a sauce pan to simmer down to a reduction. I should have put the cornstarch later because it thickened quickly and I would have liked the raspberry syrup stronger in taste but it was okay.


I know it's a little bright but this is what the buttercream looked like pre-frosting. I also added some delicious Chambord which intensified the raspberries.

Note: No artificial flavors or colors here!


Mmmmmm... Tell me this doesn't say "Be mine".

Tres Leches cake

We ran out of cupcakes at home so I wanted to make something new. I decided to try my luck on a Tres Leches cake.

So I mixed up a batter of old-fashioned pound cake because I wanted a really dense cake for this. It would suck up more milk this way.

I didn't use a recipe that I already had for the milk mixture but I knew it had milk, evaporated milk and condensed milk. I used 2 cups of regular milk and one can each of the others. I wisked them together, along with a tablespoon of rum.

After the cake cooled I cut a square out to plate it. The I poked holes on the top of the cake to help the milk seep through. I poured about a cup and a half of the milk on to the cake. I made sure it was soaked with the milk.

Garnished with whipped topping, drizzled with my homemade dulce de leche and strawberries. The family loved it. My sister who is allergic eggs didn't want to stop eating it even though it was making her mouth itch. What a soilder...

I'm going to make a cupcake version of this.... It was yummy.

Gold, silver and copper dragees in California

They're nonexistant here in this great state of California.

Aren't they so pretty? They're edible too, you know. But you can't find them here!

I recently went cake decorating supply shopping at a little shop that specializes in cake decorating supplies and I went in there looking specifically for gold dragees (pronounced drah-jays) for my gumpaste flowers. They had "gold" but it looked pearlized but I bought them anyway. You can see them on my Samba blog. I put them on the flowers I made for those cupcakes.

http://kellskreations.blogspot.com/2008/11/heavenly-cupcake.html

So I go online and shopping for them and every website that I come across boldley states that they do not ship to California. All of them , so I do my research and it turns out they are BANNED in California. Where was I when this happened???

I guess some idiot sued the hell out of everyone who used these and the suees ended up just settling with him because it would have cost them more money to defend themselves. This person believed that because the dragees were coated with real silver and gold, consuming them would cause a person to be poisoned by the toxins caused by silver. The problem with this is that there is no recorded incident where this has happened. Yeah, they may chip some teeth but no silver poisoning.

I believe this moron did it for the money. He ruined Christmas and cookies for every Californian! Oh, but I can eat edible gold leafs? Everywhere else in the world besides California can adore these pearls on their cakes, cupcakes, cookies and whatnot but we can't because of the "possibility" of dying from silver.

Tell me, who eats silver and gold in their regular diet? When I travel out of this state I'm buying suitcases of them. What an A-hole, huh?

Samba Cupcake

I decided to make a butter cream frosting out of the DDL (dulce de leche). I wanted to try a different method other than the usual French butter cream method. I decided to do the Italian method.

I know you can't really see it but that is the eggs, egg whites vanilla and salt whipping with the sugar syrup that I heated up. I almost dumped this out because I thought the sugar formed crystals again. I have come across that problem about twice now and it's frustrating because it would be like the frosting would have rock candy in it.

I added about a half cup of the DDL and this is what it looked like. It was so yummy and rich I think I'm going to use the Italian method from now on.

For the cake I decided to do a marble cake. Here is the vanilla cake. I'm going to take half of that mixture and mixed melted dark chocolate in it.

Here's the chocolate on a double boiler.

To save time I just went ahead and poured the chocolate half in to the vanilla and then pour them into the baking cups. Assuming that they would make swirls like marble cakes are supposed to do. Sooo not... it just mixed the two together...

I brushed the tops of the cupcakes with Kahlua. That gave the cupcakes an incredible taste.

Finished! Aren't they pretty?

Marble cake drizzled with Kahlua. Topped with dulce de leche buttercream then sprinkled with cocoa. I added one of my flowers to each cupcake. Aren't they cute??

P.s. this is what happens when you try to put a pan on the rack above or below the middle rack. They cook too fast so they are nasty and dry. They have that broken top where they aren't rounded and springy. They were more like rocks after they cooled. These 8 cuppies went into the trash! This would be my lesson learned for the day.

Dulce de Leche

When I saw the formula for dulce de leche in my baking book I didn't believe that the recipe was that simple so I looked it up online and sure enough it was all the same. I saw another was of making it from condensed milk but I tried it from scratch instead.

Milk, sugar and vanilla are combined in a large sauce pan and heated over medium heat until the sugar melted. Then add the baking soda then reduce the heat to low and have the mixture at a bare simmer. Leave it like this for 2 to 3 hours until the mixture reduces until about a cup is left.

Turned brown like magic! This is halfway there.

I had it carmelize just a little bit longer than what it called for because I like my dolce de leche a little thick.

All done! Dolce de leche is stored in an air-tight container until ready to use. This is the recipe I used...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/dulce-de-leche-recipe/index.html?rsrc=search

Man, oh, man... always have this stuff stocked. I think it goes great with everything. Like ice cream or dipping fruit in. mmmmmmm...

Crispy Rice Treats

I had a lot of those marshmallows left and my grandma has been bugging me to make rice crispy's treats so in they went into a large sauce pan. I added about a teaspoon of vanilla for extra flavor.

They're meeeelting... bye bye marshmallows!

I looked up the recipe online for this because I've never made them before. Ingredients include: butter, marshmallows and crispy rice. So simple. I didn't even bother measuring anything. I melted the butter with the marshmallows until it was all melted then I added the crispy rice.

I poured a little at a time until I had to my liking. I'm glad I added the vanilla. It gave it more flavor.

In to a greased up pan. Spreaded it with a greased up spatula.

Crispy rice treats! Yummy while warm....

Why did I just blog this? This wasn't an adventure. I guess I'm just going to blog what ever I do in the kitchen...

Checkin' out the competition

I bought this cupcake at a cake decorating supply store. This would be my first time buying cupcakes because I always made them. This right here was the only kind they had but I didn't mind because I love chocolate and I hate sprinkles by the way.

I loved how it was moist but I hated how it was so fudgy, chocolatey which I love but so fudgy. You would definitely need to have a glass of milk standing by because this piece of work stuck all over the inside of my mouth. Frosting was light which was probably the best part about it.

I purchased this "gourmet" cuppie at my nieghborhood Raley's the day after my chocolate fudge cupcake esxperience. I always run there when my pantry is missing few ingredients and I always oogle at their cake section. A few weeks ago I noticed that they sold cupcakes individually but I've never tried them because they didn't look so gourmet-ey to me although the sign said otherwise. I decided to give it a shot.

I thought this certain cupcake was a special one because it had coconut on top while the other cuppies were plain vanilla and chocolate. I thought maybe the cake would be a lemon or something cake. Nope. Just plain ole vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream (which I don't think had any vanilla in it) with coconut shavings sprinkled on top.

Taste test? "D". The cake was light and airy which was the complete opposite of the frosting. I thought the frosting was a whipped cream frosting by the looks of it but it was buttercream. Buttercream that was thick with a whole lot of sugar crystals. So it was like chewing on sand with my cupcake. I believe the coconut was there specifically for presentation because there was nothing coconut about the cake.

No one sells any good cupcakes here! This just made me realize my cupcakes are spectacular compared to the ones I've tasted. Problem is, no one really cares for cupcakes around here. I asked my boyfriend what he thinks about making cupcakes for our son's christening and he thought it was soooo tacky. I asked why because this surprised me and he associated cupcakes with childrens partys, classroom parties where the cupcakes are plain chocolate or vanilla and frosted with neon colored frosting which all tastes the same then topped with colorful sprinkles and a plastic ornament. I obviously haven't showed him what I can do yet... Nor you!

Hahaha... till then... Happy baking!!

Kellsa's Lunar Pies

Right after my failure with the gumpaste I asked my sister if she would like to make dessert for tonight. It would be our own creation, our recipe! I love spending time with my family especially when we're cooking or baking something.

I first ask my lil sis what she would like me to bake. She pulled out this box of chocolate cake mix and I immediately roll my eyes because I loathe cakes in a box. She then points to the side of the box where there is a recipe for ice cream sandwiches and asks if we can make them but then I remind her that we need ice cream for that. She sadly returns the cake mix back into the cupboard. Earlier I was craving for hot chocolate made from scratch and I was thinking of making the marshmallows from scratch also because I just bought a candy thermometer earlier today and I was dying to try it out.

So, here is where my light bulb turned on. How about some marshmallow sandwiches? It was a good compromise don't you think? And yes, we used the cake mix because what else were we going to do with it? Throw it away? Haha. If you knew me you'd know that I hate to waste. Now, my sister starts on the cookies which are made out of the cake mix.

That's her right there. Right after I took this picture I asked her if she would like to add some nuts to it. I had some macadamia nuts in the cupboard so we decided to use that. My sister then had to put those four cookie doughs back into the bowl so she could incorporate the nuts into the mix. Sorry, sister. The cake mix we used was the Pillsbury chocolate cake mix and you should find the recipe on the side of the box.

Cookies are all done but I think they still looked a little plain.

Side note: We are making our version of the famous Moon Pies. Now, Moon Pies are graham cracker cookies dipped in chocolate and sandwiched between two of those cookies are marshmallows. I didn't intend this. We just wanted to eat something sweet tonight that we were both craving.

I then decided to drizzle some white chocolate on top of the cookies. My sister went ahead an did this while I made the marshmallows.

While she's doing that I'm waiting for my sugar syrup to reach 240 degrees farenheit.


Not yet...

MMmm... lookin' good already!

Okay, sugar is done. Now into the mixer...

11 more minutes.


Two more minutes.


Marshmallows!! I made marshmallows! Oh my goodness is it sticky. I quickly put some of this soft marshmallow into a piping bag and then I piped it on to half of the cookies.


We were only able to make 11 of these so I put the rest of the marshmallow batch into a pan so they can harden. Then I'm going to cut them up and store them so I can use the marshmallows in my hot chocolate.

That was fun. I wanted to name this new creation so I decided to name it Kellsa's Lunar Pies. Kell after me and Sa after my lovely sister.

Everyone, if you love marshmallows make your own homemade batch because the effort is well worth it.

Here is where I got the recipe. I'm a big fan of Alton Brown. Alton... I like that name... Alton. Remember, you need a candy thermometer for this recipe and once it's done mixing it's super sticky so use pan spray on your spatula or whatever you're using to get it out. Happy baking!

Marshmallow Recipe

Gumpaste 1

Trying my luck with gumpaste... After that last disaster I concluded that I should practice with this new medium. I decided on trying to make the plumeria.


Here are the petals... so far so good... But you know, they do need some color.


I picked out the only yellow I had which is a golden yellow, but I didn't like what was happening to my plumeria so I eventually got lazy.


My half-assed plumeria... Ta Dah!

Note: Needs more practice.

Julieanna

I had to make a cake for my niece's Christening this past weekend. My sister-in-law didn't choose a kind of cake she wanted so I decided to make my oh-so-delicious Red Velvet cake. I only had one 12 inch round cake pan so I had to make 3 seperate batches. Here was my system...

Combine ingredients as directed

Bake

Cool
Release from pan

Repeat 2x's more

It was a long night...

The frosting I used was my own concoction. It's my very own Mascarpone Cream Cheese frosting.



I decorated the cake the next day with flowers that I had made ahead of time out of fondant. I didn't use gumpaste because, well, I didn't have any and I was already pressed for time. I thought fondant would be okay.

Hmm... a little royal icing in the middle and these should come out nice!

All done. Now I just have to get ready...

Disaster...

The fondant melted. The cake is ruined!

I pulled myself together and I went to church to watch my niece get christened into the church. Of course I can't relax because there is a huge cake at home melting and I have to present this to my family.

After church I rush to Michael's and picked up a roll of ribbon.

I still came out all right. I was a little disappointed because I had something else in mine but... you live and you learn! Don't use fondant flowers on frosting... The flowers on top was all right and they used to hold a shape but because flat and the sides started to ooze but I don't think anyone noticed.

The cake served it's purpose... rest in peace.