Donut Craziness

So today my mom had a craving for donuts. She saw some at the grocery store but I talked her out of buying them and so I took on the challenge of making my own. I found an amazingly good recipe, and surprisingly what makes these donuts so good is the mashed potato thats in it. I brought them over to my grandparents house and everyone loved them.


Here is the link to the site with the recipe: http://www.secretdonutrecipe.com


And here is my very own chocolate glaze recipe


Chocolate Glaze for Donuts


1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2.5 ounces dark chocolate
1/2 cup of sugar


1) Mix everything together in a pot on medium heat, and whisk until completely melted.
2) Dip and dunk your donuts, add sprinkles, GO CRAZY!

Earth Hour Pizza Pie

Today is Earth Hour and for dinner was pizza and pie mmm yummie! I've always found that good pizza dough is hard to come by, and today I'm going to share with you my never-fail whole wheat pizza dough recipe. I love doubling it up so i have a nice thick pizza crust, kinda like im eating bread with add-ins instead of pizza. I also made an apple pie at the same time since the oven was on and my internship class made pies this week so they kind of inspired me to make my own at home. I'll share with you the pate brisee recipe I used as well.


Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 
  
• 1) In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes,until foamy.
• 2) Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. 
• 3) Place dough in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Pate Brisee

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon granulated white sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into 1 inch pieces

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

1) In a bowl, place the flour, salt, and sugar mixing until combined.  Add the butter and mix until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Pour 1/4 cup water in a slow, steady stream, and mix until dough just holds together when pinched.  Add remaining water, if necessary.

2) Turn the dough out onto your work surface and gather it into a ball.  Divide the dough into two equal pieces, cover in plasticwrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour before using.This will chill the butter and allow the gluten in the flour to relax.   At this point you can also freeze the dough for later use.  

3) For each disk of pastry, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to fit into a 8 or 9 inch tart pan. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes to chill the butter and to rest the gluten.
4) To prebake the tart shell:  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Line the unbaked pastry shell with parchment paper or aluminum foil.  Fill tart pan with beans, making sure the weights are to the top of the pan and evenly distributed over the entire surface.  Bake crust for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is dry and lightly browned.

  

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Now Ive had my share of red velvet cupcakes and they always end up tasting gross. They always taste like really bad white cupcakes with a dash of red food colouring. I decided to try making some today. I used a Martha Stewart recipe and tweaked it a bit to make it my own. They turned out very moist and fluffy and they taste amazing.


Red Velvet Cupcakes


2 1/2 cups of cake flour
2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of white sugar
1 cup of melted unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon of red gel food colour
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of white vinegar


NOTE: if you don't have buttermilk substitute it with the same amount of milk and add a
            tablespoon of white vinegar for every cup of milk


1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together cake flour,
     cocoa powder, and salt.
2) With a mixer on medium speed, whisk together sugar and melted butter until combined. Add
     eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl
     as needed. Mix in the food colouring and vanilla.
3) Reduce the speed. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with additions of the
     buttermilk whisking well after each. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl
    (it will foam); add mixture to the batter and mix on medium speed for 10 seconds.
4) Divide the batter evenly among the muffin tins, filling each three-quarters full. Bake for about
     20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.


This recipe yields about 20 cupcakes. They should be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three days. Also they can be frozen for up to 2 months in an airtight container.

Fruit Flowers

So my brothers birthday happens to be the day after my dads. He didn't want cake this year because he gave up junk food for lent so he told me to do something with fruit. What do I come up with? Fruit Flower Bouquet! It was pretty easy. I made flowers by cutting out pineapple with a stencil (would have been alot easier with a cookie cutter). A round of cantaloupe for the center of the flower. I used a crinkle cutter to make leaves for the flowers. Then I just made some skewers of grapes and chocolate covered strawberries all stuck into a cabbage in a glass bowl that I had from a center piece from a wedding I went to. Oh and I had to make it twice :P for two parties we had.....the second one does not have chocolate covered strawberries because my brother got mad at the first ones since he could not eat them hehehe.

sans chocolate and cool birthday numbers :)

Cake Time Total: 1 hour

Macaroon Tower

Now I've done macaroons before in third semester of my course and they turned out alot better then these ones. The problem that occurred was that the ground almonds were not fine enough.


Note to anyone making macaroons, if you buy your ground almonds at bulk barn give them a spin through a food processor first before using them. Doing so will ensure a smoother look to your macaroons, like the ones in the header(those are the ones I made in school) compared to the lumpy look that I ended up having.


So I've made macaroons before but never a tower, it seems to be a new trend that I've been seeing. Anyways I decided to give it a go for my dads birthday. All in all it was pretty easy, I made 103 macaroons thinking it would cover the whole thing but nope it didn't. I would've just cut the bottom of the cone but I paid so much for it I just couldn't do it so I fixed the problem another way.

lumpy

lemon buttercream

caramel buttercream

pistachio buttercream

milk chocolate buttercream

brown=caramel   yellow=lemon

purple=milk chocolate  green=pistachio

ya i know....alot of white space, I'll know for next time :)

Cake Time Total: 6 hours

Flower Pot

Another cake this weekend, this time for my grandmother....and how much notice to I get? Only the night before -_-. I already knew what I wanted to do, a flower pot with roses and filler flowers and leaves....but those things need over night to harden because they are made from gumpaste but I managed to do it all in one day. Lets just say, guests were arriving and I was still dusting and sticking the flowers in the cake. It was a devils food cake with strawberry preserve and swiss meringue buttercream, not too much different then the first cake.

Can you spot the flower on fire?

Cake Time Total: 9 hours

Internship!

To finish up my studies at George Brown College and to graduate in June I have to do a 7 week internship with a minimum of 24 hours per week. I chose to go back to my high school and work with the hospitality teacher.....what have I learned so far.....I really don't like kids :P some aren't bad though. There have been quite a few kids that have come up to me and have asked me what I thought about my program because it is something that they are looking into perusing which really excites me. Cakes and pastries in the past five years have seem to be something that people want and they want it done good. A lot of kids are looking into baking as a career because of all the hype its getting, look at Cake Boss and DC Cupcakes, baking is all over, everywhere! I'm just glad that people are realizing what good cake is, not only the way it looks but the way it tastes.