Sweet Thea » cake

Chocolate Mousse and Cake with Caramelized Pears

laurie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:08:56 +0000

Bittersweet chocolate caramel mousse and flourless chocolate cake with golden rosemary infused caramelized pears, earl grey tea crème anglais, apricot fruit sage coulis and filo.

Served at Sooke Harbour house April 2004.

La Maison du Chocolat: Transcendent Desserts by the Legendary Chocolatier Robert Linxe

laurie — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Master chocolatier Robert Linxe is famous for boxed chocolates; he has shops all over Paris and in New York. Naturally when I bought this book I thought I was getting some great recipes for chocolates – was I ever wrong! There is not a single recipe for any couverture chocolates in the book – pictures of chocolates, ideas about chocolates, lots of writing about how delicious chocolates are – but no recipes for chocolates! What a tease!

Once I got over that disappointment, though, I discovered a pretty good book with lots of excellent recipes. He covers the basics really well – as well as Pierre Herme – on florentines, cookies, macaroons, mousse, tarts, candies, pastries, cakes, frozen desserts, even souffles. It is a pretty book, with excellent photographs, and the recipes I have tried have worked very well – tasty, rich, completely what you would expect them to be.

My default resource for chocolate desserts is Pierre Herme; I trust him, and so refer to his books far more often than Linxe. But this is also a good book, with lots of great information, definitely worth your time and money; recommended.

Hazelnut Cake with Wildflower Honey Frozen Mousse

laurie — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:00:42 +0000

Brown butter hazelnut cake with wild flower honey frozen mousse, blackcurrant grand fir sorbet, marionberry compote and whipped crème freche.

Served at Sooke Harbour house March 24 2004.

Cherry Hazelnut Cake

laurie — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:19:59 +0000

Cherry, brown butter, hazelnut cake, with a warm cherry, loganberry, lemon thyme compote, Fromage frais mousse, caramel sauce and sorrel cream.

Served at Sooke Harbour house June 2004.

The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef

laurie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:00:00 +0000

‘The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef’ is a reference book – an advanced pastry textbook – and as such is a very handy book to have in your kitchen. It provides a wealth of quality information and a wide range of basic techniques with very practical applications, especially for a beginner without formal training in culinary arts. I have bought this book as a gift for friends who are just starting to cook.

It is a mini-encyclopedia of pastry, covering a wide array of topics: decorated cakes, frozen and plated desserts, weight and measurement conversions, how to temper chocolate, trace drawings for decorations, step-by-step tutorials, even contract templates and wedding cake techniques. And that is only scratching the surface.

The recipes all work, but they are not to my personal taste, as they are a bit old-fashioned. Quite often I will refer to this book as a reference, as a starting point, and I will adapt the recipe for my own use.

Every cook should have a book like this on their shelf, as it is very useful – I could go back to it a hundred times and always find something new, as it covers such a wide range of material. While it is not particularly inspirational, it has lots of value, especially to newer cooks, and as such is recommendable.

Professional Touches: The Art of Advanced Cake Decorating

laurie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:00:00 +0000

‘Professional Touches’ is a well-written, advanced book about cake decoration, with meticulous step-by-step instructions and captioned illustrations, making it methodical and practical.

The author walks the reader through a couple dozen of her own creations, with names like ‘The Sheep Dog’ and ‘God Bless Marc’, taking time to address specialty techniques as she does so. Marzipan and sugarpaste coating, counter-sinking the top, ribbon insertion, painting on sugar, bridge and extension work, edible frills, ribbons and bows, lacing and icing techniques are all covered in fastidious detail, and she includes nice design templates for her models.

This is a bookshelf book for me; collected because it looks interesting and practical. I haven’t used it specifically, but I admire how it is written and can see that it is fundamentally sound advice. Recommended as a useful resource for a developing cake designer.

Molasses Ginger Cake with Caramelized Apple

laurie — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:11:45 +0000

Molasses ginger cake with warm pineapple sage caramelized apples, Late Harvest Riesling and lemon thyme sabayon, toasted pumpkin seed crème anglais, and a sugar twist.

Served at Sooke Harbour house Friday September 26 2003.

Such a Deere!

laurie2 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:36:21 +0000

Sarah Higgins is getting married to Mark Matthews on Saturday, and their rehearsal dinner was last night, at the cozy Crescent Beach Bistro.

Her beau had originally suggested a ‘John Deere’ tractor cake for their wedding; she declined, then surprised him at the Rehearsal with this lovely cake – Marble cake with chocolate buttercream.

Have a wonderful wedding day sweethearts!

Zeichnen und Garnieren fur Konditoren

laurie — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:00:00 +0000

This is another sweet gift from my mentor, George Wagner; a German instructional book filled with design and illustrative ideas for cakes.

I haven’t tried any of this stuff yet, it is a relatively new gift; and everything I take from it will be visual only, as the book is written in German.

Still it does have a lot of useful features, particularly fonts, calligraphy, zodiac signs, trim, latticework, stencils, forms, images, and ornaments of all kinds, in simple black and white line drawings that can be easily used by a cake designer. It’s many different themes – children, birthday, love, nature – make it a useful reference work for a professional pastry chef.

Chocolate Truffle Cake with Licorice Spice Ice Cream

laurie — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:47:33 +0000

Warm chocolate truffle center cake with pumpkin, licorice spice ice cream, coffee cream and Grand Fir caramel.

Served at Sooke Harbour house Saturday October 4 2003.