My only change to the recipe was using cultured butter rather than regular. This may have caused the cookies to puff up rather than spread out. As I turned the pan in the oven, I gave it a sharp rap which helped to deflate the cookies somewhat. I also needed about 5 extra minu...
I let the slurry sit for a long time so it was quite active and bubbly by the time I started to mix the dough together. The mixer kneaded the dough to a smooth ball quite easily as the dough is soft and elastic. The Empire apples I used were very small, so I ended up using 8 o...
The use of Bird’s custard powder caught my eye in this recipe; I had not used it since I made the sago pudding last year. I also had a large quantity of Philadelphia cream cheese so I was all set to try out a recipe from this newly purchased cookbook. Several notes about the r...
I wanted to make a fancy coffee-chocolate dessert for a dinner party and didn’t have any luck finding Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé in several bookstores. In the end, I decided on the classic Opera Cake using the detailed recipe here.The cake layers are based on a recipe ...
These were easy enough to make on a weekday morning. Start to finish: about 2 hours. This isn’t a traditional madeleine recipe as it uses baking powder and doesn’t require chilling of the batter. The citrus flavour comes from simmered, pureed blood orange (the entire fruit: ze...
It may be useful to compare this recipe to the version originally featured in the New York Times in November 2004. Instead of steaming the squash, I cut it into chunks, placed it in baking dishes with a little water, covered them in foil, and baked them in a hot oven for about...
This was a multi-day project that began on Sunday afternoon when I made the initial dough. It seemed quite stiff and I thought about stopping the mixer well before the 4 minute mark but let it go as this was my first time making the recipe. After a 3-hour rest, I did the lamin...
I was looking for a way to use up the rest of the buttercream, when I saw this recipe from the current issue of CI. The spice mixture is bloomed in browned butter which is supposed to bring out their flavours; I ran out of cinnamon (!) so I ground up a piece of cinnamon bark a...
I was at a party where a celebrated macaron maker and I were commenting about Sherry Yard’s delicious gingerbread macaron recipe from last Christmas. Since I don’t like to repeat baking projects, I decided to make a chai variation after seeing a chai cupcake recipe in a magazi...