Baking

[onlyMark]

The baking of biscuits Christmas tradition in our family continues -

[cheerypeabrain]

I made a 5" and a 6" Christmas cake...the smaller one for my sister and her husband, the larger one for us.
However....we ate the 5" one about a week after I'd made them...to test it you understand....sooooo I had to give Sue the 6" one and made US a NINE inch cake both have been covered in marzipan and icing. Sue took her one before we ate that too....

[cheerypeabrain]

My shortcake biscuits . Not as pretty as Marks

[kerouac2]

I think that baked Christmas items are wonderful but only within the family. I have never wanted such things from another source. Unfortunatey, I no longer have a family. It was good while it lasted.

[cheerypeabrain]

We will need a while to get over all the rich food. This evening we had a small bowl of vegetable soup...tomorrow we may well eat very little.

I recently made some mad cakes
1. A refridgerator cake (for a children's party in the summer)






2. Prince Regent cake...a fancy thing, it was the Technical Challenge on the Great British Bake Off . I made a scaled down version. No piping bag, hence odd decoration

[htmb]

All these photos of delicious goodies are helping to get me energized to bake the apple pie I promised my son for Christmas. We will be spending the day together while the rest of the family is across the country. However, he’s cracked a tooth and has been having a lot of pain, so I can’t imagine he’ll be all that much fun. (Given my choice, I’d help myself to those yummy looking almond crescent cookies)

Cheery, are your Christmas cakes a kind of fruit cake? The covering of marzipan stars is very pretty.

[mickthecactus]

Some great stuff guys!

[cheerypeabrain]

htmb the Christmas cakes are fruit cakes...but quite light. I've tried lots of different recipes over the years and always found them too stodgy or rich. A cople of years ago I found this one in The Guardian newspaper. There's a layer of golden marzipan with white fondant icing on top, and fondant stars...

[fumobici]

Indeed, ace baking going on here.

[htmb]

Dec 23, 2021 20:41:10 GMT cheerypeabrain said:

htmb the Christmas cakes are fruit cakes...but quite light. I've tried lots of different recipes over the years and always found them too stodgy or rich. A cople of years ago I found this one in The Guardian newspaper. There's a layer of golden marzipan with white fondant icing on top, and fondant stars...

Lovely, thanks!

[bixaorellana]

Gosh, y'all!

The closest I've come to baking cookies is to buy chocolate chips and to make peanut butter, both with glowing thoughts of goodies from the oven. *sigh*

Cheery, if you're not careful I am going to submit your name to the next season of GBBO!

Mark,, those cookies are beautiful. Are the crescent shape ones in the lower right of the first picture some kind of sand cakes (my favorites)?

[bjd]

I saw a recipe for Basque cheesecake in the Guardian recently -- supposedly in "internet sensation", whatever that means. Anyway, I'll try making it for this evening.

Cheery's marzipan star cake looks wonderful but she is much more ambitious than I am.

[onlyMark]

Bixa, could look like it but no, just a normal biscuit dough but with lemon in. Those in the tin have more or less the same base as a biscuit but with different additions.

[mickthecactus]

Forgot to mention that eldest grandson is now a part time baker at an artisan bakers for when he isn’t at Uni. Had a 6am start this morning.
Much to my surprise he’s really taken to it but he is a decent cook anyway.

Means we get regular goodies!

[kerouac2]

That is excellent news. Professional bakers can always be proud of what they do -- not just the quality but also dealing with the hours and often working through holidays. 6am is kind of late for a baker, isn't it? At least in France it is.

[fumobici]

I had a friend in my twenties who ran a bakery at a grocery store. He went to work at two or three AM.

[bixaorellana]

Dec 24, 2021 21:21:45 GMT mickthecactus said:

ldest grandson is now a part time baker at an artisan bakers for when he isn’t at Uni.

What an intrepid and multi-talented young man!

[lagatta]

I'm making a duck tourtière...

[bjd]

The Basque cheesecake I made the other day was good, but unlike what the recipe said ("best eaten slightly warm"), it was much better the next day after a night in the fridge. Easy to make because it's just the dairy stuff, no bothering with a crust.

[tod2]

I haven't baked a cake in ages. On a whim I decided to treat myself to a Panettone. This time however it was a "Crema Limoncello" which I found in the middle of the cake. I loved it but Mr Tod said it was the worst cake he has ever eaten. So much for varied tastes!

[kerouac2]

I can't imagine any of us non Italians ever attempting to bake a panettone even if I consider them to be in the brioche family. So I have bought some too in the past because they were super popular in France about 10 years ago during the holiday season. Now you have to really hunt for them, and I don't understand why because no other fad item has replaced them.

[bixaorellana]

A friend shared a quarter of a panettone she'd received as a gift. I was initially delighted, as it looked, smelled, & tasted (from a tiny corner I tried) just lovely. Alas, it was gummy as hell. Sliced & toasted it was okay, though.

[bjd]

Jan 3, 2022 16:22:03 GMT kerouac2 said:

I can't imagine any of us non Italians ever attempting to bake a panettone even if I consider them to be in the brioche family. So I have bought some too in the past because they were super popular in France about 10 years ago during the holiday season. Now you have to really hunt for them, and I don't understand why because no other fad item has replaced them.

You were looking in the wrong place. They were in every supermarket. I bought two at Christmas and they both went really fast.

[kerouac2]

Maybe in the south but no longer in Paris.

[cheerypeabrain]

I fancied making a baked cheesecake. Looking through my recipe books and online I couldn't find one that I wanted to make...also they were invariably huge. I used philadelphia cream cheese (extra light) which used to be sold in 200g tubs...then 185g tubs..now they're in 165g tubs! So even if I'd wanted to make a large one I wouldn't have had enough (I bought 2 tubs thinking I'd have plenty)

ANYWAY...the recipe called for 600g cream cheese and I had 330g. I used melted white chocolate, vanilla concentrate, golden caster sugar, didn't have any soured cream but added lemon juice to the thick cream that I did have...used and eggs for the cheesecake...buttery biscuity base. I wish I'd written it all down properly because it turned out really well. I used a 6" tin

[bixaorellana]

Looks like a perfect cheesecake! Did using the 6" pan make it come out higher? That really seems more elegant than a big wagon wheel cheesecake. Did you have to adjust the oven temperature &/or the time for that pan?

[cheerypeabrain]

The quantities in the recipes that I looked at were all for a deep 9" cake tin and the photos of the cheesecakes looked like they had sunk more in th middle than mine so I probably overbaked it (it was still moist). All the recipes called for a 60 minute bake followed by 60 minutes in a cooling oven with door lightly ajar then several hours in the fridge. As the mixture was quite wet and the tin was deep I didn't change the temperature nor the cooking time

I went with the general rule..'set' cooked and golden but still with a wobble in the middle. It was lush with fresh strawberries...and Jeff had the last bit last night with some mandarin orange segments

[kerouac2]

It looks excellent to me! And there are so many little things and dribbles that you can add to it for serving.

[onlyMark]

I thought some quick apple pastries and apple mousse to use up some excess apples would go down well today -

[bjd]

Those look good. Apples are usually a good addition to cakes or buns.