All posts tagged: Buttercream

Honey Matcha Castella Cake

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I told myself I wasn’t going to do any baking this week. I was going to avoid the kitchen in lieu of being productive and getting important things done in all the other areas of my life. And then the spark of an idea led to me tumbling down the rabbit hole–flipping through a handful of cookbooks and spending a solid hour furiously Googling subsequent ideas… Until not only was I in the kitchen, but I had about four projects in various stages spread across every available counter space as I vaguely listened to 30 Rock playing from my computer while sitting cross-legged in front of my oven, carefully regarding the cakes inside. Despite not understanding how the oven in my parents new house can simultaneously over and under cook the things I try to bake, my evening baking adventure turned out to be quite a success. Half following some recipes and half throwing in ingredients haphazardly like the rebel I am, I ended up with a Honey Castella Cake, Almond Matcha Mousse, Matcha Spread, …

Milk Chocolate Macarons

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If ever I have to choose between milk and dark chocolate, I will 99% of the time choose milk chocolate. I don’t mind the more bitter taste of the dark chocolate, but I want something to melt in my mouth and be able to taste a creaminess along with my chocolate. That said, when I bake I tend to use dark or semi-sweet chocolate because of all the added sugar that goes into cakes and buttercreams. Last week though, as you may have read in my post about Raspberry Macarons, I was baking on commission, and my client was looking for raspberry macarons and milk chocolate macarons. So I stepped out of my realm of baking with dark chocolate and used milk chocolate in every element of this macaron–which I was somehow skeptical of even though I am a total milk chocolate person. I was worried that the added sweetness and creaminess of the milk chocolate would lead to problems in my macaron shell and an overwhelming sweetness in my buttercream. But to be honest …

Raspberry Macarons

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I love baking for other people. I love knowing that something that I have made with my own two hands has brought a smile to someones face and a happy moment to their day. But I also like these moments of giving baked goods to be spontaneous, because up to this point in my life I only bake when I am in the mood or I randomly change the path of what the end result will be mid way through the baking process. So while I would love to bake on commission and take orders for cakes and things, I am always hesitant to do so. I have yet to have an actual bad experience with baking on commission, but since I bake to make myself and the people around me happy, I live in fear of the promise of cake that never works out. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine told me how much her coworker loved the pictures of all my cakes and how she was really hoping that she could …

Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake

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This technique is so much easier than you would ever dream it would be. So you have no excuse for not trying it out. Basically, you build your cake upside down, then chill it, flip it over, remove the old base and voila! You end up with a perfectly flat top…and ganache that looks like it is defying gravity! I would go out and make a dozen more cakes in this style, but I am down to counting the days (16) before I leave for France, and I am getting more into packing-and-freaking-out mode than I am into lollygagging about in the kitchen. There will be more kitchen adventures once I get to France though, so never fear! (Though you may want to fear a little bit…because I am not the most reliable at blogging-while-abroad as you may have noticed from my time in Japan and Korea 😛 ) Anyway. This cake was marvelous. The filling was not as put together as I wanted it to be, but since I made it without thinking in …

Raspberry and Lychee Macarons

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Making these macarons was….nothing short of disastrous. I am sharing the recipes because in the end it mostly worked out and also so that I can share some of the things that I think went wrong–and how you can do it better. (Also if sometime in the future I have the time to come back to these flavors I will do my best to update the recipe with one that will undoubtably work). First of all, with relatively little experience in making macarons, I went ahead and played around with a recipe that I had found successful in the past. That was mistake number one–why didn’t I just look up new recipes to match my new flavors?! I ended up adding the wrong kind of food coloring at the wrong time, two much of one ingredient, didn’t mix long enough, didn’t wait long enough…. In short I was trying to be creative and ended up just being impatient and short sighted. But the macarons taste fantastic, and I think if you actually follow the recipe …

Raspberry Lychee Macaron Cake

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This whole cake happened because I had half of a can of lychees sitting in my refrigerator and I was sad that they might go to waste. Somehow this cake was imagined from that sad half can of lychees. What is wrong with me. The cake may look impressive and cheerful now, but let me tell you, despite the rush of imagination that allowed me to think up all of the recipes, making this cake was a struggle. After the first batch of macarons failed my expectations and I had to run to the store to get more almond flour and I took my second batch of macarons out of the oven only to find that they had browned incredibly on the top….. I simply laid down on the *dirty* kitchen floor and took a moment of self pity before moving on and figuring out a way to mask the gross brown spots (powdered freeze dried raspberries). So while the cake is AMAZINGLY delicious and in the end I literally dug in to the cake …