Making the world a little sweeter one pastry tip at at time.
I’m a dulce de leche nut. The first time I had tried it was when a bride requested it as a filling for a her wedding cake many years ago. It was before there were dulce de leche Girl Scout cookies were invented and dulce de leche ice …read more
Lemon Tart – Renee Shelton Fruit curd is a common condiment on the breakfast table and is delicious over toast or waffles for breakfast. Fruit curd is also used in prebaked tart and pie shells for an easy dessert. Typically, a fruit or citrus curd is …read more
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| Chess Pie |
Chess Pie is a classic Southern dessert custard pie made with eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, with some recipes containing either/both cornmeal and vinegar. Open up a dozen different community cookbooks and you’ll find that many different versions of Chess Pie, or more. The origin of the pie is mainly supposition:
No matter where Chess Pie’s name originated, most Chess Pies are simple to stir together and bake, and just like a pecan pie, contain a few common pantry ingredients and is practically foolproof to bake.
Here are a few different recipes to get you started. All are adapted from the 1963 edition of Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers: Desserts, which is a pretty good cross section of recipes made in the different regions of the South. Visit the Old School Pastry blog for a recipe for Chess Pie from 1877.
Chess Pie (with Cornmeal and Vinegar)
Recipe submitted by a teacher from Arkansas.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix all the ingredients together and pour into prepared pie crust. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until lightly browned and set in the center.
Lemon Chess Pie (with Cornmeal and Lemon)
Recipe submitted by multiple teachers from Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all the ingredients together until smooth. Pour into prepared pie crust and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes until lightly browned and set in the center.
Chess Pie (with Brown Sugar)
Recipe submitted by a teacher from South Carolina
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix the sugars and flour, and beat in the eggs, milk, and vanilla. Last, stir in the butter until smooth. Pour into prepared pie crust and bake about 30 to 35 minutes until lightly browned and set in the center.
Image courtesy Flickr User little blue hen through a Creative Commons License.
Yes, there is more than one way to mix a cake, and depending on the recipe and the resulting cake, it could be firm and dense, light and airy, or coarse and crumbly. Choosing the right recipe will enable you to choose the right cake for …read more
I get this question a lot, so I figured it would fit with the June theme for this blog – What is a dariole mold? A dariole mold is a small, round mold, and can be found by different retailers by the name of ‘aspic mold’ or ‘baba mold’. These …read more
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| Opéra Cake – courtesy Flickr User arnold | inuaki through a Creative Commons License. |
To me, there is nothing more close-your-eyes decadent than an Opéra Cake, probably because I know what goes into it. It is sinfully rich and since it is typically served in small portions, the whole presentation makes it a little sexy for adults – you know you’re getting something good inside a small package. For the kids, if they enjoy chocolate, they’ll love a little Opéra Cake at tea time.
The origins of this cake differ. Some say Opéra Cake is credited to Gaston Lenôtre (1920 – 2009), who started École Lenôtre in 1971. Others say it was invented in the kitchens of Dalloyau, where it is still showcased today.
Opéra Cake consists of thin layers of joconde moistened with a coffee-flavored syrup, and sandwiched between layers of coffee-flavored buttercream and ganache. Depending on where you find the dessert, you’ll find variations ranging from several layers of joconde with the buttercream and ganache, to just a few. The topping for it is generally a smooth chocolate glaze. You will often find flakes of edible gold leaf, gold dust, a piping of a musical note, or a coffee bean on the top.
Here is my favorite recipe for Opéra Cake, and it’s very simple. This cake has three layers of joconde separated by a thin layer of ganache and a thicker layer of coffee buttercream. It is then topped with melted ganache that sets up shiny and smooth. It yields one sheet pan.
Opéra Cake
Lay a ganache frame or rectangular stainless steel frame over parchment paper or a silicone sheet on a flat sheet pan . Trim 3 biscuits joconde to fit inside the frame. Place one joconde sheet on the bottom. Brush 10 ounces of coffee syrup over the top, ensuring all the syrup is used up. Evenly spread the ganache over the top of the biscuit joconde.
Place the second joconde over the ganache and gently press to make sure the layer is evenly flat. Douse this layer of joconde with 10 ounces of coffee syrup, again making sure all the syrup is used up. Spread the buttercream over the second joconde evenly, and press the last joconde down evenly to get a perfectly flat cake. Use the last of the syrup for this layer, and spread a very thin layer of ganache over the top. This will act as a crumb coat. Chill until the cake is firm, then melt an amount of ganache for the top, spreading or tilting to make an even layer. Chill again, then cut into small rectangles for service.
Opéra Cake Coffee Syrup
This recipe yields about 30 ounces. Use 10 ounces for the bottom layer, 10 ounces for the middle layer, and the rest for the top layer.
Stir everything together in a saucepan until almost boiling. Remove, and cool before using.
Enjoy,
Traditional Galette des Rois – photo courtesy Flickr User Gael Chardon through a Creative Commons License. Twelfth Night is a celebration that marks the coming of Epiphany, and most Christians celebrate it on the 12th day after Christmas. Epiphany celebrates the divination of Christ, and …read more
Ice cream. Sweet, cold, and delicious. And not a modern invention, even though the use of an ice cream maker and freezer make the job of making it and storage of the treat easy. I wrote about the differences between Italian, French, Philadelphia, and New York style …read more
I’m a big fan of Indian food. I love the spicy sauces and rich vegetarian entrees. And having ordering from the dessert menu of many different Indian restaurants, I’m not sure which I enjoy more – eating them or seeing the paper-thin sheets of silver decorate them. Whenever I make kulfi (an Indian frozen dessert) or burfi (dessert confections), the kids go ga-ga when I decorate with tiny flecks of edible silver. Using edible grade silver and gold leaf makes a seemingly ordinary dessert seem spectacular.
Edible metals or vark – gold or silver – are considered safe to consume, but only if it contains the pure metal. It is important to purchase edible gold and silver sheets from reputable manufacturers, especially with silver which may contain a high percentage of aluminum or just the aluminum itself. The desired purity is just the metal itself with no alloys present, so find a resource that sells sheets as pure as possible and always see if the package states ‘edible’ or ‘inedible’. This will tell what the purity is if no other clues are present as to the purity. For example, in the 2010 Albert Uster catalog you can find 23K edible gold sheets, and inedible silver sheets (to be used for decoration only).
Using edible gold and silver leaf is a showstopper, but take the time to search for edible metals available from specialty purveyors who specialize in handling them. Craft store metallic sheets for gilding are not edible, and contain either a mixture of copper and zinc alloy to mimic gold, or pure aluminum to resemble pure silver.
Here are some resources for pure edible silver and gold:
No matter if it is pure silver or gold, have fun decorating your cakes and desserts with pure sparkle.
Cannolis – they inspire both hunger and fear: hunger as they are crispy tubes filled with a sweetened cream filling, and fear as they have to be made and fried just right or else you’ll end up with a hard, greasy shell. Cannolis are one of those …read more