The Sweet Taste of Desserts and the Way It Can Open Your Horizons #PastryRecipesWorldwide

The Sweet Taste of Desserts and the Way It Can Open Your Horizons

Some things will never change, no matter how much we grow and look at the world surrounding us in a sarcastic point of view. Just open your eyes and you will find the things that takes you back to the innocent days of your childhood. The scent of fresh fruits, the taste of the air after a stormy weather, the feel of your skin after a warm wind catches your breath, the sound of a newly sprouting flower. These are just a few of the sensual feelings that draws you back in time to wake you from the unexciting times, when every new sensation was new, sharp as a knife.

During the long years of our growing stages, we tend to lose the ability to enjoy our senses the way we did as children. This is the cause of way we are socialized and educated into the full grown, productive members of the society, leaving them emotionally maimed, like trained dogs who lost their ability to express their feelings with a simple bark.

The only sense that in some way keeps its connection to our emotional state of mind is the taste sense. But even this is not quite correct. The one taste that really connect us to the childhood is the sweet liberating taste of a high quality dessert. Not every sweet candy could do the trick. If you really want to kick start your senses you would have to choose something more than just the plain lollypop. This is due to the extant use of artificial sweeteners in the commercial candies. In homemade desserts and in the ones served in fine restaurants, in the other hand, you would see more and more use in the good old fashioned sugar, which gives your taste bulbs the exact push it needs to boost you up to high levels of ecstatic consciousness.

This is one of reasons we see in the past few years what you can call "the revival of home cooking". More and more people start to realize that in the past decades they have lost the control of what they enter their bodies, and that there are consequences. The internet helped a lot in this new trend of home cooking. Today, more than ever, it is easy to find any recipe you like in a matter of seconds, and thus opening the world of cooking to ones who had never practiced such an exciting experience.

All you have to do is just look for the dessert you would like to try, and you could make it in no time. Craving for a sweet old fashioned black forest cake? Got an itch for a Spanish Churros recipe? Woke up with an urge for a strawberry creme brulee? All you have to do is look it up, get the right ingredients and surprise yourself while finding out how easy it is to make your own desserts. You would be surprised even more when you first taste your own making and rediscover the enjoyable senses long lost.

Source: Yoav Shai @GoArticles

Fruit-Flavored Croissant Bread Pudding #PastryRecipesWorldwide

Ingredients:

Bread Pudding
4 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups milk
2 1/2 cups whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
7 large (5 1/2x4 1/2 inches) croissants, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (10 cups)
1 cup dark chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup dried cherries

Cherry Sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1 bag (10 oz) frozen dark sweet cherries
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Procedures:

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Grease bottom and sides of 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with shortening or cooking spray. In large bowl, beat 4 whole eggs, 1 egg yolk and 3/4 cup sugar with wire whisk until well blended. Beat in milk, whipping cream and vanilla until well blended. Stir in 7 cups of the croissants pieces. Let stand 20 minutes. Pour into baking dish. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Lightly press remaining 3 cups croissant pieces on top of mixture. Brush top of croissant pieces with butter; sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar. Sprinkle with dried cherries.

2. Bake uncovered 55 to 65 minutes or until top is light golden brown (center will jiggle slightly). Cool 30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, in 2-quart saucepan, mix 1/4 cup sugar, the cornstarch and water until blended. Stir in frozen cherries. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and thickens. Boil and stir 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

4. Serve sauce over warm bread pudding. Store bread pudding and sauce covered in refrigerator.

5. Serves 12

Essential Pastry Tools and Baking Tools for Making Puff Pastry at Home #PastryRecipesWorldwide

James Lyndona is a certified interior designer and runs his own interior decoration consultancy. James especially loves decorating a home in wooden furniture and believes that nothing gives a home as warm and cozy a touch as all-wood furniture and decor. James loves reading up on new design ideas, and has a special interest in space saving techniques.




Essential Pastry Tools and Baking Tools for Making Puff Pastry at Home

Whether you wish to make puff pastry for desserts or savory dishes, it's easy to make at home with the right pastry tools and baking tools. Here's a list of essential tools for pastry and tips to choose them.

Pastry Blender or Cutter

These pastry tools are also called pastry knives and they are essential for "cutting" or combining butter or shortening into pastry flour. The cold butter pieces have to be distributed evenly through the flour before kneading the pastry dough. After mixing, kneading and rolling, the butter creates pockets of fat in the dough. While baking, the butter melts and releases steam which makes the pastry flaky and delicate.

These baking tools have a series of curved blades which are attached to the handle. These blades are pushed through butter and flour to combine them so choose pastry cutters that are sturdy and well-constructed. For better handling and control while blending butter, pastry blenders with easy-grip handles are a good choice.

Pastry Board

Puff pastry needs a lot of folding over to create the flaky layers and pastry boards are helpful pastry tools for this activity. Choose boards made from wood as they are easy to handle and store than marble boards. Wooden pastry boards that come with marked measurements such as circles for making pie crusts and a ruler are an excellent choice. Opt for a board with a non-slip mat to keep it stable while working.

Rolling Pins and Brushes

Rolling pins and brushes are essential baking tools for making puff pastry. Rolling pins come in all shapes and sizes and in different materials. Wooden ones are the best choice as they are lightweight and easy to handle. Longer pins are ideal as they are useful for rolling puff party and pie crusts. Pastry brushes are essential for applying an egg wash or a butter wash while baking puff pastry.

These pastry tools are versatile. Rolling pins can be used to crumble crackers for crust while pastry brushes can be used for basting and glazing meats. Choose baking tools that are dishwasher-safe to save time and effort while making puff pastry from scratch.

Use these tools to make flaky, multi-layered and delicate puff pastry at home.

Why Do You Call This Roll Brazo de Mercedez? #PastryRecipesWorldwide

Photo Source:Brazo de Mercedez by Gloss Girl, on Flickr

Why Do You Call This Roll Brazo de Mercedez?

What is a Brazo? A Mercedez? Well, others say, a brazo means a hand and Mercedez, a name of beautiful lady living in the woods alone, baking bread daily, and hoping that someday, a male stranger will pass by to eat her soft bread, form into a roll with sweet filling.

Ingredients:

For the filling:
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 egg yolks

For the meringue:
8 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Procedures:

1 Make the filling: Combine ingredients in a bowl and cook on a double boiler until thick. Set aside.

2 Make the meringue: Preheat oven to 400ºF.

3 Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Slowly add the sugar and vanilla. Continue to beat until stiff.

4 Spread meringue on an oiled baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake until lightly brown.

5 Invert on parchment paper that has been sprinkled with sugar. Spread filling while meringue is still warm. Roll the meringue like a jelly roll.

6. Serves 12 persons.

The Perfectly Frosted Cake #PastryRecipesWorldwide

Resource: Theresa Happe is a baker, cake decorator and co-creator of CakesWeBake.com, a social network for cake decorating where you will find thousands of cake photos, cake decorating videos, a live chat and forum.


The Perfectly Frosted Cake

When you start out cake decorating, tackling the buttercream can be frustrating. If the icing isn't smooth, it affects the whole look of the cake. While it does take some practice to get it down pat, there are a few things you can do to get better results.

Chill the cake before you start frosting. A warm cake is more apt to break apart. Chill before and after filling it. Often, if you frost the cake right after you fill it, later on the filling will bulge out of the middle of the cake. By chilling first, the cake has time to settle and anything that wants to squeeze out of the sides can be smoothed with the spatula.

It's very helpful to use a lazy suzan. It allows you to turn the cake continuously while icing so you have fewer lines from stopping and starting again. One way to ice to apply a crumb coat. This can either be a thin coat of butter cream or an apricot glaze. To use an apricot glaze, thin apricot jam with hot water and press it through a strainer. Then brush it on the cake with a pastry brush. Chill it and give it time to firm up.

A quick way to get the icing on the cake is to use a large cake decorating tip to pipe it all over the cake before spreading it. The #789 Wilton cake decorating tip works great for this. It's such a big tip that you'll need to devote a cake decorating bag to it because the hole is much too big to hold a coupler. Once you cut the hole, just drop the tip right into the bag. If you're not using this tip then carefully place the icing on the side of the cake and push from the middle of the icing outward. You don't want to drag the spatula across the cake. That pulls crumbs into the icing and can tear the cake. Medium consistency buttercream works best. If it's too thin, it will slide off the cake. Too thick and it will tear the cake and be very difficult to spread.

Hold the tip so the lines are facing the cake. Pipe a line around the base of the cake. Move up and pipe another line around. Continue until you get to the top but let the icing go a little bit above the top. (This helps you create a nice edge to the cake). Smooth the sides with either a metal spatula, a bowl scraper or a spackle knife by holding it vertically and at a 45 degree angle to the cake. Spread while turning the lazy suzan. Scrape off the excess icing. Repeat until the sides look pretty even.

Now pipe icing on the top of the cake. With your spatula, pull the icing from the edge towards the middle of the cake, scraping off the excess icing as you go. Once you've done this to the entire top of the cake, hold the spatula flat against the cake and pull it straight across from one end to the other. If icing sticks out off of the edges, carefully scrape it away with the spatula.

Not every type of butter cream crusts. If you do use crusting butter cream, you can do the next step to get the icing really smooth. Let the cake sit for at least 15 minutes. Touch the icing and see if it's hardened. If it comes off on your finger, wait a little longer. Now, take either a Viva paper towel (patterned paper towels won't work for this), wax paper or parchment paper and lay it on the side of the cake. Use the spatula again to smooth across the paper towel a few times. Move the paper towel to the next spot and repeat. Do this to the entire cake. The wax paper and parchment paper don't bend as easily but they will still work.