Pink Bear

Here is a Pink Bear I created for my daughter's birthday. It was made with Yellow Butter Cake with a Pomegranite Swiss Meringue Butter Cream. The head was made of rice crispie treats. The cake was covered with Fondant for the smooth finish. Needless to say she loved it and there was sooo much left over.

Lemon Ricotta Cookies

Let me just start by saying Yumm..... These cookies are lemony and cake like. Almost like a Madeline. Simple ingredients and simple to make. The only thing I usually don't have in my fridge is Ricotta Cheese. It was well worth stopping off at the grocery store to get myself a 15oz tub of Ricotta. I made the batter and it is soft and could quite easily be piped if you wanted to.




Here is the batter ready to be spooned onto my prepared baking pans. I used 2 dessert spoons and placed them about 2 inches apart.
























"Voila!" The end result, iced with a very lemony butter cream and yellow sugar.

LEMON RICOTTA COOKIE

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature.

2 cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

12 oz tub of whole milk ricotta cheese

1/2 tsp lemon extract

3 Tablespoons grated lemon zest

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

21/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

GLAZE

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter

3 cups confectioners sugar

3-4 Tablespoons lemon juice

Decorating sugar

METHOD

Preheat oven 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, ricotta, lemon extract, zest and juice and blend well.

Add flour in 3 batches and blend.

Spoon tablespoon fulls onto a parchment lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes until edges are golden brown.

Cool on the pan for about 3 minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool.

Prepare glaze by creaming together butter and sugar. Add lemon juice till desired consistency is reached.

Using a spatula put some glaze on each cookie and sprinkle with decorative sugar.

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

Enjoy........

WILTON CLASS

Final cake for my Wilton Course 2 students. Everyone made a beautiful basketweave cake with royal icing flowers and Bluebirds. Good job everyone.

Super Mario

Here is my first Super Mario Brothers cake. Mario is made of gumpaste. The cupcakes are all fondant covered with fondant accents.

South African Tradition- Bran Buttermilk Rusks

RUSKS...... as South African as Table Mountain and Green Market Square.To those who have never encountered a rusk I would explain it as being very similar to Biscotti. Dunk it in your favourite cuppa coffee and you will be hooked, I promise!

With so many variations of this comfort food, it was hard to pick one to make. I love buttermilk and it is an essential ingredient in most of my cakes. So here is a recipe for a killer rusk!

Bran Buttermilk Rusks

Set the oven to 180 Celsius/ 350 Fahrenheit

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups / 450g all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups bran flakes

1 teaspoon salt

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

125g unsalted butter

140g granulated sugar

1/2 cup/125 ml vegetable oil

1 cup/ 250 ml buttermilk

1 large egg

Method

1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, bran flakes and raisins.

2. Melt the butter, granulated sugar and oil in a saucepan and remove from the heat.

3. Whisk the egg into the buttermilk and add to the butter mixture.

4. Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.

5. Prepare a 9x5 inch loaf tin or 8x8 inch tin with vegetable oil.

6. Fill your pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown and your tester comes out clean.

7. Once baked turn out of your baking dish and let it cool on a rack for 10-20 minutes.

8. Cut rusks into finger shapes and lay them on a baking tray.

9. Reduce the oven temperature to 200 Fahrenheit. Place the rusks back in the oven to dry out for 6 hours or overnight.

Now it is ready to dunk in your favourite hot bevvy!

Gingerbread Village

For my neighborhood ornament exchange I was asked to make a red velvet cake. I had just bought the Wilton Gingerbread pan with 6 cavities and decided to do little gingerbread houses. I iced them in blue and white royal icing. The cake was red velvet layered with cream cheese icing and I used Swiss Meringue Butter cream as the exterior finish. Thanks to Barbara for hosting the exchange, we had fun.

Fall Leaves

A cake I did a few years ago. The leaves are all made of gumpaste and dusted with petal dusts. I added a little pearl dust to them for shimmer. I love the colors of fall and think they translate very well onto cake.