Sweet Me Up: Desserts by miVi

Pastry Lasagna

admin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:35:29 +0000

Lately, I’ve been reminiscing about Passion Flakies… and lasagna. Don’t ask. So naturally, I tried to recreate a Passion Flakie but in the form of a lasagna. Here’s how my shenanigans went down:

Thaw two sheets of puff pastry and roll it out. With a pastry cutter, cut strips out of the pastry (approx. 3″x12″) - you will need a total of six strips so you may have extra… nothing wrong with that!

Lay on a parchment-lined cookie sheet (you’ll likely need to do two batches). Poke holes with a fork down the center of each strip. Brush with water and sprinkle some granulated sugar on each. Bake at 400°F for 5-7 minutes. The amount of sugar you sprinkled might brown it quicker. Not a horrible thing, just keep an eye on the pastry. Let it cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the pastry cream. Whip 2 cups of heavy cream with ½ cup of icing sugar until soft peaks form. Dissolve 1 tsp. of gelatin in 1 tbsp. of water over a low heat. Add gelatin mixture to the cream mixture and whip until stiff peaks form. Feel free to add 1 tsp. vanilla to the mixture (nothing sucks about that!)

ASSEMBLE!

Line the bottom of a baking dish with three pastry strips. Slather (yes, slather) with raspberry jam (or any jam of your liking).

Generously spoon and spread a layer of the pastry cream over the jam.

Finally, place three more pastry strips over the cream layer and dust like a mad wo/man with icing sugar.

Tah-dah! Instant love! And you’ll likely have some leftover everything there so why not make a Pastry Hoagie?

Large and in Charge

admin — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:59:37 +0000

“I’ve been baking for some time now and you know what I’ve never baked?”
“Uh, a big cupcake?”
“A big, honking cupcake!”
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Cuppy Cake: Old Skool!

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:47:40 +0000

You’re my Honeybunch, Sugarplum
Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You’re my Sweetie Pie
You’re my Cuppycake, Gumdrop
Snoogums-Boogums, You’re the Apple of my Eye
And I love you so and I want you to know
That I’ll always be right here
And I love to sing sweet songs to you
Because you are so dear!

Music to Bake to

admin — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:54:03 +0000

Junk Food Cookies

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:13:00 +0000

Potato Chip Cookies (Makes 50 cookies)

Ingredient:

1 cup butter; softened
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 ½ cup flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup potato chips; crushed

Heat oven to 350°F.
Cream butter, sugar and egg. Add flour, vanilla and potato chips.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and press lightly with a fork. Bake for 10-12 minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool complete.

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BlogTO’d

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:40:46 +0000

Through no fault of my own, the Internet seemed to have found me. Actually, that’s not true: I spend most of my time on the Internet; it really doesn’t take a lot of effort to find me. Anyway, word got around via Twitter that Cupcake Camp (which originated in San Francisco) was a novel idea and that Toronto needed one. Luckily me and my friends had aspirations to make this happen but needed the right kick in the a$$ (more accurately - need to find a good venue!).

Enter BlogTO! This is fantastic - before it was just a neat idea but now I know the amount of interest outside my circle of friends. I’ve gotten so much support and offers to help from cupcakers and bakers alike. The Cupcake Camp Facebook group got so many new members just over night. Thanks goes out to all who have emailed, PM’d or Twittered (tee-hee) me about it! Cupcake Camp is all about community and we’re gonna make this happen, stay tuned!

Baking Pet Peeve #2: Warmed Frosting

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:46:14 +0000

As my second baking pet peeve (a part from my lack of blogging), I hate when frosting warms in your hand as you’re piping and thus losing its pipeable consistency. I was using the leaf tip once and after a few minutes, it started looking like a random blobby strip on my cupcakes. Le sigh…

OMG! Purses, Dresses and Shoes

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:18:30 +0000

A month ago, I did my first engagement party where the theme was fashion! Also, my apologies for not updating for a while. (more…)

Baking Pet Peeve #1: Running Out of Icing Sugar

admin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:38:54 +0000

For some odd reason, I never consider my icing sugar inventory when I start a baking project. I just assume my cupboard has an infinite supply of icing sugar. So nothing grinds my gears more than it being way past midnight (me thinking that’s an ideal time to start the frosting) and discovering I do not have enough icing to make a crumb coat let alone icing the whole thing. What sucks more is I purposely made an ingredient run to the grocery store that day and still disregarded adding icing sugar to the list.

Solution? Make my own!

What you need: blender or processor, granulated sugar (or regular sugar for you n00bs) and corn starch (1 cup of sugar : 1 tbsp. corn starch). Grind the sugar into a powder then add the corn starch. The corn starch acts as a binding agent so that the formerly known sugar can react properly with the other ingredients in your frosting recipe.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Cake

admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:57:46 +0000

Chocolate cake with meringue frosting.

And who doesn’t know who this is?