A Memorable Memorial Day

I lost my girl Emily this weekend.

I am heartbroken but I know that it was time to let her go. I miss her terribly and will treasure my memories of her forever.

My girl.

I'm Back In The Game!

I love baseball.

Something about a warm summer night under the lights, a light breeze blowing in, the faint smell of hotdogs and popcorn in the stands, happy, smiling faces.................and a bunch of hot athletic-looking guys running around on a field. Sigh.

I was recently asked to make a cake for a Nursing School graduation, but it also had to acknowledge the graduate's favorite Red Sox player. In short, the cake had to reflect a nurse taking care of Josh Beckett. No problem I said confidently. It was only after I hung up the phone did I look at Emily and say frantically, "I can't do this! Why did I say I could do this?

Once I came in from the ledge, I sat down and sketched a plan, then I assembled my tools and started working. I used an ample supply of Rice Krispy Treats and "glued" them together with chocolate frosting. Ummmmmm.

Don't you just love these little things? I like the homemade version better, but the commercially prepared ones are the most convenient when you're building a structure.

Next I had to mold people. Egads!!!! Since this was my first attempt, I knew the figures had to be more like caricatures, meaning that the facial and body features would be out of proportion and grossly exaggerated.

Easier.

More fun too.

While this head was drying I had to face it towards the wall. The dog kept barking at it. I was afraid that during the night it was going to come to life and kill me in my sleep.

What a cutie pie....or is the term "hottie" more appropriate?

Poof! You're a cake Josh! It's been beaten with an ugly stick, yes.

But it's a cake none the less.

I used "Jimmies" a.k.a. "Sprinkles" to make the chest hair. LOL

Aside from some obvious skin grafting on his shoulder, giant mutant chest hairs and freakish man-breasts, it's pretty funny, isn't it?

Please note that this look can only be achieved with implants.

Fondant implants.

I tried to capture the little details.....note the shamrock "tat" on Ashley's foot.

I hope she liked that and wasn't put off or insulted by the sparkly red stillettos.....that I know all my nursing friends secretly wear.........while they're caring for Red Sox Pitcher, Josh Beckett.

......in their dreams.

The cake itself was a half sheet in size. One side was a rich chocolate and the other a golden vanilla. It was filled with a fluffy vanilla buttercream.

So congratulations on your graduation Ashley!

Now go play ball.

Someone hit the "Play" button please!

So, where was I? Ahhh, yes. A couple of weeks of baking literally hundreds of French macarons everyday....I finally mastered the technique. Just in the nick of time too, as my family and friends were starting to speak French fluently. So if anyone needs any advice in baking Macarons, please ask. I can make them in my sleep.

Then, I moved.

Yes. After years and years, I finally sold the house with that beautiful brand new kitchen with the stainless steel appliances and shiny black granite countertops. You see, it was all in the plan. My master plan....and it worked. I needed change in my life on so many levels that I started with the biggest. The other changes are a work in progress. It was a great feeling to unload sell that house and I haven't looked back once. I think that means that I was really ready to go, doesn't it?

I know that I have been so-o-o-o lame about posting to my Blog but all I've been doing is unpacking. Although I'm getting tons of emails commenting about my absence, rest assured I am working on a new baking project and plan to return very soon. I promise.

From a new kitchen.

In a new house.

In a new town.

Just 4 minutes away from my sister, Kathy.

Ahhhh....You're Nuthin' But A Creampuff.

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?

I mean......other than me?

Okay, okay. Seriously, my sister Kathy asked me to make something for our annual Easter family gathering. I mean, aside from the usual cupcakes and cakeball pops. She gave me this recipe saying that she had sampled it at a friend's house and it was a show stopper. And as you can see from the photo.......................it is. It is so easy and quick to make it's almost ridiculous. In fact, I had to re-read the recipe twice just because I thought I missed something. But I didn't. So fasten your seat belts, because this one is going to change your life.

I used my large Creuset, a.k.a. Big Blue and followed the painfully SIMPLE instructions.

CREAMPUFF:
1 c. water

2 sticks OR 1 cup of butter

1 c. flour

4 eggs

FILLING:

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk
1 large pkg. vanilla instant pie filling

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

TOPPING:
2 (1 oz.) squares unsweetened chocolate

2 tbsp. butter

1 c. confectioners' sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

4-5 tbsp. hot water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, then heat water and butter to boiling in 1 quart saucepan; stir in flour. Stir vigorously until mixture forms a ball, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add eggs, beat until smooth. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheet to form about an 8" ring. Smooth top with spatula. Bake until puffed and golden, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool ring, cut off top with sharp knife. (Pull out any soft dough) Beat heavy cream until it forms a fairly firm peak. Combine 1 cup milk, pudding/pie filling mix and extract in medium mixing bowl on low speed until blended, about 1 minute. Combine heavy cream and vanilla pudding mixture and fill cream puff ring. Replace top of cream puff ring. In a double boiler or small saucepan over boiling water, blend chocolate and butter, stirring until chocolate melts; remove from heat. Blend in sugar and vanilla, gradually stir in enough hot water until glaze consistency is reached. Drizzle over top of cream puff ring.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Then add 1 cup of water....

and a cup of butter (2 sticks) and bring to a boil in a large pot or heavy pan.

Once the butter is melted,

Add 1 cup of flour...

...and stir vigorously together until the mixture forms a soft ball, then remove from the heat.

In a separate bowl, whisk together 4 eggs and add to the flour and butter mixture.

I usually always crack the eggs in a separate bowl so I can catch any rogue shell pieces. Did you ever eat a piece of cake and all of a sudden crunch down on a piece of eggshell?? Ahhhhhh! Gag me.

This is where an electric hand mixer comes in handy. You can whip the everlivin' daylights out of a batter in a flash!

Once the batter is thoroughly combined, you can either drop the batter by heaping tablespoons onto a lined cookie sheet OR you can pipe the batter on with a decorative tip. Can you believe I just said that?? I just gave myself chills. I sounded just like Martha Stewart................NOT.

I am a huge fan of parchment paper. It's neat and it's clean. No fuss, no muss.

Bake your Creampuff Ring for 45-50 minutes or until it is golden brown. If you see the tops getting a little too brown, you can cover it with tinfoil.

It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?

Once it was completely cooled, I used a serrated knife to slice it in half horizontally. Now pull out all of that doughy pastry inside and throw it away. Why? Because we all know that the middle is the fattening part, that's why. Geez, some people. Anyway, when you slice the ring in two, some of the cream puffs may break off , but it's easy to hide once the chocolate sauce is on. Haven't I always taught you that chocolate sauce solves many problems???

Moving on.........I used my big mixer with the whisk attachment to whip the heavy cream, while in another bowl I mixed 2 cups of very cold milk with one large box of vanilla pie filling/pudding.

Then, I added them together.

The mixture should thicken up almost to the consistency of soft-set pudding. Once the Creampuff is refrigerated, the filling will finish setting up really well.

Again, I have to be difficult, right?? I usually use a glass vase to hold my piping bag open while I fill it.....but keep in mind that it's just as easy to spoon the filling into the Creampuff. This is just my obsessive-compulsive baking side rearing it's ugly head. Please ignore me when I get like this.

See? Spooning the filling works just as well.

Moses, I am such a fanatic sometimes.

If some of the Creampuff breaks apart, DO NOT BREAK GLASS. DO NOT PANIC. DO NOT CALL 911.

You'll be fine. Once you replace the top half, no one will know. Except the dog, of course.

And she's not telling anyone.

So now comes the really fun part. The chocolate.

Be still my heart.

This is yet another deadly chocolate recipe. Seriously, it's heart-stopping. Quick! Go and make some right now. I'll wait.

2 squares of unsweetened chocolate

2 tablespoons of butter

1 cup of confectioners sugar (powdered)

1 teaspoon of vanilla

4-5 tablespoons of hot water

Heat the chocolate and butter over a double boiler.......or just use a small pan over another pan of boiling water. Once it's blended, remove from the heat and add the confectioners sugar and vanilla and stir it well. Add the hot water gradually to get the consistency thick enough to adhere to the Creampuff, but so runny that it falls off the top.

Think Hot Fudge Sundae.

In fact........wouldn't that be a great saying for a bumper sticker? Unless of course you are a lifetime member of Weight Watchers. Then..........I could see how you may run into some problems at the annual convention.

Um, what was I saying?

Oh yes. Of course. THE CREAMPUFF. Once I finished drizzling and dolloping the chocolate fudge sauce over the top of the Creampuff, I reserved a little extra whipped cream to make some decorative little toppers.

Then I added some beautiful little red raspberries which had been dunked in a "smidge" of the chocolate. You know................for color. Then I filled the centers with fresh strawberries. I was going to dip them in chocolate too, but that's another post for another time.

The end result of this CreamPuff was heart-stopping. See? Aurelie doesn't know whether to slice into it or just karate-chop it with the serving knife.

It was all so exciting. And delicious. And when all of the screaming was over..........there was nothing left on either plate except the crumbs.

And maybe a couple of tears of joy.

So are you still sitting here reading this?

Jeepers. You could have made two of them by now.

Crazy For Macarons!

Macarons.

It has taken me a few months of intensive blog reading to decipher what in the heck the hubbub was all about. So I finally made them.

And made them.

And made them.

And now I know why everyone is crazy for them. They have rendered me almost speechless. Wait. Let me have another bite and I'll try and explain them to you.

Macarons are not to be confused with Macaroons.

These are Macarons.

This is a Macaroon.

Let's break for a brief phonics review. We all know how to pronounce the word Macaroon. It's easy. The sound rhymes with so many words. "Hey! If you're looking for me soon, I'll be in the saloon, singin' a tune, lookin' at the moon, eatin' a Macaroon. (Dang, I feel like a goon.)

Whereas the word Macaron is slightly different. It's pronounced like the word macaroni......only without the "i". Wait, maybe this rhyme will help. "Please leave me alone , I'm on the phone, eating my Macaron.

There seems to be a frenzied craze lately about these lovely little cookies. Trust me when I say that they are simply delicious, but more importantly is the fact that they are technically challenging to make. That was all I needed to hear. After scouring the internet for baking tips, I decided to head for Barnes & Nobles to purchase a book on Macarons. Note that it is named appropriately.

The book provided tips, pointers, recipes and beautiful photography.....and you all know what a pushover I am for a beautiful cookbook. I just couldn't help myself.

I ended up making this Macaron recipe a total of three times over the weekend. They are not easy to make. Everything has to be perfectly measured, in fact, most recipes suggest using a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients. Macarons have only five ingredients. That's it.

3 egg whites that have been aged for 24 hours

2/3 cup ground almonds

1.5 cups confectioner's sugar

5 Tablespoons of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

Combine ground almonds and powdered sugar, sifted in a bowl. Put egg whites in the mixer and beat until foamy, then add granulated sugar and beat until it is stiff. Add vanilla and beat until just blended. Add almond/sugar to egg whites and fold to blend. Pipe batter onto parchment lined cookie sheets (or just use a Silpat), rap cookie sheet on the counter to settle batter then let sit on the counter for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put cookie sheet in oven and bake for 12-18 minutes (depending on your oven) Remove and completely cool before filling.

I can hear what you're saying. "What are "aged" egg whites?" They're egg whites that have been sitting in a covered container on your counter for 24 hours. The room temperature increases the elasticity of the protein in the egg whites, so they whip faster and higher.

I don't have a food processor so I ground up the almonds in a coffee grinder. Yes....I cleaned it out completely before I used it.

Combine the ground almonds with the confectioner's sugar.

Blend together gently with a wire whisk.

Then sift the mixture together. I love this old sifter. My Nana had one just like it when I was a child. My sister Kathy bought this one for me several years ago and I use it all the time.

See what's at the bottom? Almond carnage.

Set your sifted bowl aside. Now would be the time to add a powdered food coloring to the almond/sugar mix. I didn't have powdered color, so I used a bit of color food gel mixed with a tiny bit of water and mixed it into the meringue mixture. Sigh. It didn't work quite the way I wanted it to. You'll see what I mean in a second.


Whip the egg whites on high until they are foamy, then gradually add the granulated sugar. Turn the mixer on high and beat the daylights out of it until it's about as thick as shaving cream. When you remove the beater, the meringue should stand up straight.

Isn't this lovely? Now add the almond/sugar mix to the egg whites.

Using a large spatula, first slowly blend the mix together making sure to incorporate the dry with the wet. Once that is done, begin scooping and turning the mix in the bowl about 15 times.

Ahh.....lovely macaronnage.

I put a large metal decorating tip inside of a 14 inch pastry bag and then put it into a medium-sized container...in this case, an 8-cup measuring cup. When you turn the pastry bag outside of the cup, it makes it as easy as pie to fill with Macaron batter.

Using the large end of a decorating tip, I traced 1-inch circles onto paper and slipped it underneath the silpat on the baking sheet.

This was used as a guide for piping the Macarons.


These were actually a tad too big, but that was because this particular batch was too runny. Why?? Because I decided to challenge the recipe and use Color Gels instead of Powdered Food Color as I was directed. They ended up tasting great, but it was back to the drawing board.

Of course that didn't stop me from whipping up a chocolate ganache to sandwich in between those crunchy meringue layers.

For the next batch I used Matcha Powder. These.....came out perfectly.

Don't they look beautiful?? After they were piped, I slapped the bottom of the pan on the counter a couple of times to help settle the batter....not because I'm insane, but because most recipes tell you that this sharp movement is what gives the Macaron it's initial structure to develop "feet'. The piped batter should then sit out on the counter for 30 minutes before baking.

This batch made it all worth the effort. They didn't raise up quite as high as I would have liked, but since this was my third attempt in one day, I wanted to kiss each and every one of them......but don't worry......I didn't.

The ruffled bottom edge on each Macaron shell is called a "foot"....or in Francais, un pied. If you don't get the feet....it's not a Macaron.

Dark Chocolate Ganache. Heat heavy cream in a double boiler until the milk starts to hiss, then turn off the heat. Add semi-sweet chocolate chips and stir until melted. Allow to cool to thicken. Any questions?

I peeled this little guy off of the Silpat too quickly and he left some of his guts behind. I hate when that happens. Poor little dude. Tragic......but nothing a little Chocolate Ganache can't hide.

I was so embarrassed about showing you my "unmanicured blacksmith man-hands" all the time, so I Photoshopped myself a hotpink manicure. Sigh. If only all things in life were this easy. Isn't technology grand?

Now if only if I could Photoshop myself into a Size 2.

Aren't they pretty?

Matcha Macarons with Cocoa Ganache filling.

I used bright yellow food coloring for this batch. Um. I wouldn't advise it. The liquid food coloring upsets the balance of the recipe. The batter is too runny and the Macaron didn't rise. It still tasted great but it really didn't have very good Macaron characteristics.

But I filled them up with lemon buttercream and brought them into work anyway.

One, two, three.......GONE!

The Cocoa Macarons were my favorite.

They all puffed up perfectly and they all had "feet".

I filled them with a nice rich peanut butter cream.

Then I put all the batches out on the table together so they could mingle.

And secretly whisper in French to each other.

And so I could sit for just a moment and stare at them....and bask in their glory.........and photograph them........and stare at them again while humming the French National Anthem and really just felt pretty darn smug about my first French pastry accomplishment.

Class dismissed.