Cooking with Alison

Posts Tagged ‘recipes’

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Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

In Other Desserts on January 19, 2010 at pm

I made Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova for a friend’s birthday party and everyone Loved it.  It was elegant, sophisticated, simple, and not too sweet.  I look forward to making this again and again with different fruits (ie. strawberries; mixed berries), because I imagine any fruit that pairs well with chocolate and cream will work beautifully.

I may have spread it out too much before I baked it because it turned out very large and could have served 12 – 15 people.  Even though there were only 8 people at the dinner party, and two other desserts, they still managed to finish it.

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Gumpaste Recipe

In Cake Decorating, Cakes, Cookie Decorating, Cookies, Cupcakes on January 18, 2010 at pm

Gumpaste is used for decorating cakes, cookies, and cupcakes and is actually very easy and cost efficient to make.  I think of it as an edible cake decorating play-doh.  It holds up better than fondant so I use it for decorations that need more structure.  Also, unlike fondant, once gumpaste decorations dry out, you can keep them forever.  I buy tylose online and use the recipe provided by Nicholas Lodge’s isac (international sugar art collection).

Please note that you need a stand mixer to make gumpaste (although I wonder if a food processor would work… let me know how it works out if you try it).  The first time I made gumpaste, I broke my handheld mixer.  I was So Happy when it happened because then I knew that I could finally justify buying myself a Kitchenaid stand mixer.  You see, I try to only purchase kitchen stuff that I absolutely need and I try to be resourceful with my already versatile tools.  Even while sticking to these strict rules, I’ve still managed to accumulate a Lot of kitchen stuff, haha.  In October 2009, I bought the Kitchenaid Professional HD model from Costco for $275 (on sale).  I chose the stainless steel colour because it reminded me of an industrial kitchen.  I absolutely adore it and use it all the time.

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Valentine’s Day Cookies

In Cookie Decorating, Cookies on January 16, 2010 at am

Shortly after I completed my cake decorating course (link here), I applied the techniques that I learned to decorate cookies.  I made royal icing (recipe from Joy of Baking) for the first time and bought a good paint brush to flood sugar cookies.

I’ve never liked the taste of iced sugar cookies, but I would consider these to be good recipes, because the texture and taste are very similar to the store-bought ones.  They were very popular when I brought them into work.  Also, if you like the taste of almond extract, you’ll probably like these.

I use the recipe for sugar cookies from Joy of Baking when I’m decorating with icing.  See here for my favourite plain sugar cookies recipe.

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Favourite Yellow Cake Recipe

In Cakes on January 16, 2010 at am

When I took a cake decorating course (link here), homework included baking a cake for each class.  So I used this as an opportunity to search for my favourite yellow cake recipe.  I tested three cake recipes that were already rated “the best”, and the one I liked the most was Restaurant Eve’s Cake, posted in The Washington Post on April 23, 2006.  I especially like it because it uses melted butter which means you don’t have to worry about remembering to soften the butter ahead of time.  Also, you don’t have to worry about overbeating this batter as you actually want to incorporate air into this one.  For cupcakes, however, I prefer the texture of this yellow cake recipe here.

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