Midnight Madeleines

I made a quadruple batch of my favorite madeleines, a recipe adapted from "Williams Sonoma" Cookies". Original recipe is made with lemon zest.
ORANGE MADELEINES, 1 recipe makes 24+ large madeleines
 150 g cake flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
6 oz granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
4 oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1.Bring eggs to room temperature. Butter(and flour if it is not nonstcick) madeleine pans. Preheat oven to 375F
2.Sift together flour, baking powder & salt
3.Beat eggs, egg yolks and sugar till light and fluffy. Add Vanilla and orange zest, beat to combine.
4.Fold flour in to wet mixture gently
5.Fold butter in to combine.
6.Fill madeleine molds with batter 3/4 full.
*Transferring the batter into a piping bag will expedite this step. 
7.Bake 10 to 15 minute till edges started to brown. Dark nonstick pans take shorter time to bake.
8.Un-mold and cool on wire racks, dust with powdered sugar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiramisu Tuesday & Monday Meyer Lemon Curd

I whipped up a recipe of my express version of Tiramisu for an event Tuesday. A traditional Tiramisu involves a Zabliogne, or Italian egg custard cream but my quickly put together version skips that.  It works really well if you are in a hurry.

The ingredients are similar to traditional Tiramisu, minus the eggs. Instead of espresso , I brew a really strong pot of French Press coffee for the soaking syrup.

The Coffee is sweetened with a little sugar and usually some form of liquor such as Kahlua, Frangelico, Amaretto or Marsala. I was going for a version suitable for kids so I used Almond and Chocolate extracts.

Mascarpone is whipped with malted milk powder

Cream is whipped with powdered sugar

Whip till just set

 

Mascarpone mixture is folded into the whipped cream

Have Ladyfinger cookies ready to go

First layer, the mascarpone cream

 

Then a "fence" of cookies and layers of soaked cookies and cream

Dusting of cocoa between each layer adds flavor

  

Top layer should be mascarpone cream and cocoa

if you have any extra, make them into individual servings for a quick treat later.

Late last night, I also made a batch of Meyer lemon curd. It is a good recipe to make with all the egg yolks leftover from macaron making.

 

 

 

 

The lemon curd turned out well and will be perfect for filling little tartlets.

Yummy treat, Tiramisu and cold green tea

Saturday Strawberry , Sunday Strawberry

The local strawberries are in and they are scrumptious! This weekend was the opening Saturday of our Cotton Mill Farmer's Market. It was lovely to catch up with the "market folks". It was a cool morning on Saturday and I enjoyed a lovely bike ride to the Market.

I tried the basket idea for farm goodies but it held too little. Luckily, I was able to catch a ride for the flat of strawberries I got.

I hobbled together a quick breakfast at the market, fresh strawberries, a coconut muffin and some coffee

I came home from market with eggs, spinach, Pak choy, lettuce and some succulent baby onions, but the big score was an entire flat of Crager-Hager Farm strawberries, grown without pesticides and each one picked at the perfect ripeness.

I ate one pint for breakfast

Red all the way through and sweet, like they are supposed to be

After market, I entertained several visitors to the garden, had an order of macarons picked up and delivered an orchid centerpiece, wow a busy but good afternoon. I also made a quick trip to the local ACE garden center and planted an order for a container garden before it got too dark. I was trying to think of something good to bring the the bake sale Sunday morning and decided cupcakes would be a nice addition to the handful of macarons I was bringing. I have not baked cupcakes since last year so I figured it was about time to whip some up.

The recipe I was making made 2 dozen cupcakes and i only had one 12 cup pan so I decided to do the cakes in half batches. The scale was handy in dividing the dry ingredients

This is how I "sift"

I had some dehydrated strawberries that needed to be used up so I crushed them and added it to the batter.

 

Ice cream scoop makes it easy dividing the cake batter

I experimented with the frosting, Strawberries, powdered sugar and mascarpone

 

I wanted the frosting to be thicker so I added some whipped butter to it

 

 

I ate one for breakfast before church

Ready for the sale!

My first batch of frosting did not cover all the cupcakes and I raided the fridge and came up with another "made up" frosting. this time, fresh strawberries, Double Devon Cream, powdered sugar and some butter. I was pleased with the result, a very moist strawberry butter-cream and it was very stable. I was able to drive all over town with those cupcakes.