Baking - Buche de Noel

A friend hosted a turkey dinner this past weekend - a chance to catch up, enjoy good company and some good food. I wouldn't have normally attempted this, but it was nice to be able to put this together at a time that wasn't crazy with the rest of Christmas celebrations.

Excited!

I'd heard about a new bakery near where I lived that was planning to create and sell proper french macarons. As you can see, they do make them, and more than a few accompanied me on the way home today. Macarons are by far the fussiest cookies I've ever come across - for the shells, you need to stir dry ingredients into a meringue, pipe out little circles, let the whole thing set up, give the cookie sheet a good bang on the counter and then bake the cookies. Hopefully, if you've done everything right, and there's not too much humidity, you get glossy little cookies with a little ridge at the bottom. After creating the filling and sandwiching the cookies together, you have macarons. I've created quite a few batches of macarons, and only one really worked out the way it was supposed to. They are my favourite cookie, however, and so I'm glad that that I found them.

Eat dessert first!

Well... maybe not... But the latest cake creation from Cook's Country had me so intrigued that I decided that I'd give it a go. They called it a Stained Glass cake, with bits of Jello surrounded by white cream. It turned out pretty well (better than I expected) and tasted pretty good as well. I wish I was a better food stylist - my pictures never turn out the way that I hope they do.

More baking...

Salty Nut Bars. I love the combination of salty and sweet, and these are perfect for that.

I've been baking

Bite-sized pecan pies. This one is only about an inch in diameter.

Just a reminder - Saturday's blog candy is open until tomorrow, Sundays until Wednesday - just leave a comment.

Key Lime Squares

This week's adventure in baking was inspired by a challenge on "The Wagon" BB. One of the members there has challenged all of the members to make a lemon square recipe. I'd found a couple of recipes I'd wanted to try that were close to the lemon square recipe that the member shared - one for Pink Grapefruit Squares, and one for Key Lime Squares. I have a meeting tonight for which I'm bringing treats, so I thought I'd try the Key Lime Squares. The original recipe called for white chocolate whipped cream, but I was running out of time tonight, and I only had time to make regular whipped cream. I thought the little slices of lime were a great addition to the top of the lime bars.

Dessert - Week 2

This is croissant-banana bread pudding with southern comfort sauce,again from "Cuisine at Home" magazine. This will be tonight's dessert.

Catching Up....

Questions and comments:

To MissyAnn - thanks for letting me know you bought your first peyote stitch kit - hope you enjoy it!

To Trixie - I think making beads is pretty easy, but I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with the beads from my first attempt. I was lucky that I had some good resources and teachers when I first started out. Beads like the bracelet beads, which are pretty much just small even beads are actually pretty easy to make.

The Recipe:

Apple Pie a la Easy

Caramel Sauce:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 T. Corn Syrup
Pinch of Salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 T. Dark Rum
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 t. vanilla extract

Pie Crust:
1 round purchased pie dough
1 T. butter, melted
2 T. coarse sugar, such as Sugar in the Raw

Apple Filling:
1 T. unsalted butter
2 Braeburn Apples, peeled, cored, thin sliced
1 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 t. cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of apple juice or cider

To assemble:
Vanilla Ice Cream

For Caramel Sauce:
Boil sugar, water, corn syrup and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat, swirling occasionally. Cook until caramel is the colour of iced tea, 10 minutes. Add cream and rum, whisking to combine. Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla. Transfer sauce to a bowl to cool.

For Pie Crust:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees; line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Unroll pie dough onto prepared baking sheet, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Using a pastry wheel, cut dough into 12 wedges and bake until golden and crisp, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

For Apple filling:
Melt butter in a non-stick skillet over medium heat, add apples, raisins, cinnamon, salt and saute until apples begin to soften, about 4 minutes. Add juice, simmer until nearly evapourated, then add 3/4 cup caramel. Reduce heat to low and keep apple mixture warm.

To Assemble:
Arrange 1 crust wedge on each of 6 plates, then top with 2 small scoops of ice cream and a spoonful of apples and caramel sauce. Place a second wedge on top with more ice cream and apple mixture. Serve immediatley.

Thanksgiving Dessert

This is Cuisine at Home's "Apple Pie a la Easy", which I made for Thanksgiving dinner on Monday. The pie crust is cut into wedges and baked, and the apples are pan-fried with apple juice, raisins and caramel sauce. All in all, it was easy - I only had to peel 3 apples, and I didn't have to fuss with trying to make sure that the pie crust wasn't soggy.