The caramel icing was interesting: butter and sugar are heated in a saucepan, then milk and vanilla are added and brought to a boil. The mixture is removed from the heat and icing sugar is gradually added in. After being drizzled on the cake, cinnamon sugar is sprinkled on. 
I swear there are so many ingredients in this Pumpkin Date Coffee Cake, it would take forever to list them. The gist is that the dry ingredients {which include flour, sugar, nutmeg, allspice, cloves & cinnamon} are combined with the wet {eggs, pumpkin pulp, milk, melted butter}, then chopped pecans and dates are stirred in. Baking time is an hour at 375 degrees. This was one of those "I don't like pumpkin either, but THIS will be a good cake." It was okay but, you know, it tasted like pumpkin. The spice glaze was amazing: icing sugar, unsalted butter, milk, cinnamon & allspice. Yum!
Two types of chocolate drop cookies for our last night of class. Basic recipes...
Chocolaty Chocolate Chip cookies: Lots of stuff in these! Bread & pastry flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, butter, sugar, white & dark chocolate chips, pecans...baked at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
I'd leave the fudge frosting off this next time; you can barely taste the Chocolate Orange Marble Cake underneath! An easy one: Butter, sugar, vanilla is creamed, eggs are added, then flour, baking powder and milk. The batter is then split into two and melted chocolate is added into one bowl, orange zest in the other. The two batters are dropped into the pan in an alternating pattern, then the end of a wooden spoon is swirled through it to create a marbled effect. Baking time is 40 minutes at 350 degrees.
Fun word. I think because I've been so busy eating the Polish version of this {babka} my whole life, I've never paid attention to the thousands of panettones on store shelves during the holidays. This Italian sweet bread includes only a handful of ingredients but the trick in the preparation. Yeast, warm milk {not too hot!} are combined to form a slurry and bread flour is added to create the sponge, which helps the bread rise. This is left to rest for about 20 minutes. 
The sponge is then combined with sugar, eggs, salt and bread flour in a mixer for a minute. Butter is added and the dough is mixed for 4 more minutes, THEN raisins and candied peel are added and everything is mixed for 2 more minutes. We also added marsala {fortified wine}, creme ovo {cream of egg} and citrus essence, so it was the real deal. The dough is rounded up and left to rest for 20 minutes, then split into smaller pieces, eggwashed and proofed for 45 minutes {at home, it can be left under a thin blanket for 1.5 to 2 hours}. Baking time is 45 minutes at 350 degrees. It took just as long to make as it sounds, but was totally worth it.
Apricot Coconut cookies include more of the dreaded coconut, dried apricots, oats, and the usual suspects {butter, sugar, flour...}. They also include orange juice and zest, which gave them a fresh, healthy taste. Yes, even when I'm not excited by our recipes, I still want to sample them!
This Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake had a dense, almost cookie-like texture. The batter included the basics: flour, sugar, butter, sour cream, eggs, baking powder & soda. It was then piped into the pan {a bit messy! a tough one to work with} and the filling {cream cheese, sugar & eggs, raspberry jam, sliced almonds, cinnamon sugar} was spread in the center and baked for an hour at 350 degrees.
Loved this! This Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake was the basic recipe for all coffee cakes; the chocolate chips can be substituted with anything. 
As with the other coffee cakes I've made so far, super-easy to make and no secret ingredients {butter, eggs, sugar, sour cream milk...}. Cinnamon sugar was layered in, which I thought was unusual for a chocolate coffee cake. Baking time was typical too: almost an hour at 350 degrees.
These Choco-Mint Pinwheels contain: butter, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder and milk. The dough is then cut in half; cocoa powder is mixed into one half and peppermint into the other. A piece of each colour of dough is rolled flat and one laid on top of the other, then rolled into a log, refrigerated and cut into pieces. Baking time is 10 minutes. Even though we used 2 tsp of peppermint extract instead of the suggested 1/2 teaspoon, all we got was a minty after-taste. Peppermint oil would definitely be better to use and I couldn't taste the chocolate at all! Not my favourite but they made for a nice photo.
Is it just me or do these look like shrimp cakes? Orange Pecan {Ice Box} cookies contain: butter, white & brown sugar, eggs, orange zest, flour, coconut and pecans. What we learned this week was how to roll dough into a log, refrigerate it {which makes it easier to cut as the dough has a chance to set} and then cut it into pieces. This log was rolled in pecans before being baked for 10 minutes. They taste pretty good.
My last Classic to Modern Cake! This Brownie Berry Tower layered in chocolate cream {cream, cocoa, sugar, gelatin, water}, Grand Marnier cream {cream, Grand Marnier, sugar, gelatin} & berries between brownie layers. The brownies are amazing; we swapped in corn syrup in place of some the sugar, which made them really moist. We even made our own chocolate chards by piping and spreading white & dark chocolate onto parchment paper, letting it set and then breaking it into pieces. Definitely the prettiest one so far.
Today was my first Coffee Cakes class. Too many ingredients to count in this, as well as all the others I'll be making, according to my recipe book. But the good news is: I love coffee cake! Love it. It's somewhere between breakfast bread and dessert. Sour Cream Coffee Cake contains a brown sugar, pecan & cinnamon filling and is super-moist. Baking time will most likely always be about an hour for the cakes in this class, but totally worth the wait. The glaze {brown sugar, icing sugar, butter, vanilla & milk} is poured over the cake once cooled. The visual doesn't really do justice to the taste.
These look like plain chocolate cookies but god, they are good! Most likely because they include both melted bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder. That, plus butter, eggs, vanilla, brown sugar, bread flour & baking soda are mixed and rolled into little walnut-sized balls which spread when baked for 10 minutes. Once cooled, they are dusted with icing sugar. Will definitely be making these again over the holiday season.
So Split Second Cookies don't actually take a split second to make but they are pretty simple. They're a cross between shortbread and biscotti and contain: butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, bread flour & baking powder. The dough is shaped into a 12"-long roll and a depression {"split"} is made down the middle with the handle of a wooden spoon, which is filled with cherry pie filling. They are baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees and once cooled, they are cut diagonally into strips.
The steps involved in the making of this Mango Mousse Cake are easy, but the decorating technique is the interesting part. First, the recipe: Sponge sheet {eggs, sugar, flour & vanilla} is baked and cut into circles. The mousse {cream, egg yolks, sugar, gelatin & mango puree} is whipped. The glaze {mango puree, gelatin, sugar & water} is cooked over heat. 
To assemble, the sponge cake circles are layered in with the mousse in a springform pan and the resulting cake is refridgerated until set. Once set, the glaze is poured over the surface and garnished with fruit. For the chocolate design {the really fun part!}, melted chocolate is piped in a lattice pattern over a piece of acetate which has been cut the length of the cake's circumference. Before the chocolate hardens, the acetate is wrapped around the cake and left on until set. Once removed, the lattice should stay in place {it almost did}. Voila!
Who cares what this is made of? It's so cute. Sugar cookies taste a lot like Peak Freans. Sugar, milk powder, shortening, butter, salt, vanilla & lemon zest are creamed and sifted cake flour & baking powder are added. Then water is poured in until the dough binds together. After being refrigerated for about half an hour, it's rolled out and cut out with cookie cutters. Baking time is only 10 minutes {at 375 degrees} and the result cookies are sandwiched together with jam and dusted with icing sugar or drizzled with chocolate.
I didn't realize that Rugalachs are what my babcia makes as hers are filled with jam and these also include a mixture of pecans, raisins, sugars & cinnamon. The dough is very simple: cream cheese, butter, sugar and bread & pastry flours are mixed, formed into a ball and refrigerated for an hour. As with the sugar cookies, this dough is rolled out, but into a 10" circle that is cut into pie-shaped wedges. Each wedge is filled and rolled. Baking time is 25 minutes {at 350 degrees}.
Tangy Berry Torte Day was a busy one. I like the sound of Buttermilk White Layer Cake, which was your typical batter. Shortening, sugar, lemon zest & salt are creamed and then: eggs, egg whites & buttermilk are blended and flour, baking powder & soda are sifted. The wet and dry mixtures are added into the shortening mixture alternately. Baking time is about 30 minutes. 
The Tangy Whipped Frosting included sour cream, which I don't think I've tried before. The technique was a bit different: cream, icing sugar and vanilla are whipped, then the heated gelatine with the sour cream added in to temper it are added in and the mixture is whipped to firm peaks.
The layer cake and whipped frosting are layered with a berry mixture and then masked. I tried a "rustic" technique, which really means I could not get the sides of my cake smooth, plus I saw it in Martha Stewart Living once. There should actually be four layers in this cake, which would result in a TALL slice of cake, so I kept it to three.
It was drop cookie week, where dough gets rolled into little balls and flattened with either a Hershey's kiss or the end of a spoon. Sounds delicious, no? The Peanut Butter Blossoms were made with shortening, peanut butter, brown & white sugar, baking soda & powder, egg, vanilla, milk and bread flour. Lots of ingredients and it only took about 5 minutes to mix the dough. The dough is then rolled into little balls and rolled in sugar {I will leave this step out when making these again; it adds a weird texture to the cookie}. After being baked for 10 minutes, a chocolate kiss is pressed into the center while the cookie is still warm. 
I had such a hard time getting a good picture of the Lemon Blossoms. These were made with butter, icing sugar, lemon juice and pastry flour. As with the peanut butter ones, these were rolled into little balls and rolled in chopped walnuts. An indent is made with the handle of a wooden spoon, which is then filled with jam and baked for about 12 minutes.
It was an off-day in the kitchen. My pastry cream burned, I overwhipped my topping and I piped my puff pastry layers too thin! But somehow, this ended up looking and tasting good. Go figure. I had never heard of a Gateau St. Honore before, but it is very similar to a Napolean, except for the profiteroles {cream puffs}. Puff pastry is rolled out very thin, cut into circles and baked. For this recipe, it's meant to baked very thin and not puff up, so we weighed our circles down with mini cooling racks before going into the oven. Then, choux paste {water, butter, salt, eggs and flour stirred quickly on high heat} is piped into little balls and baked. Then {yes, there's more}, pastry cream {milk, cream, vanilla, sugar, cornstarch, eggs} is made and set aside to cool. Where I went wrong with that is that the mixture needs to be stirred very quickly, right down to the bottom of the pot, otherwise it sits there and burns. 
Once everything is baked/cooled/set, the puff circles, pastry cream and fresh strawberries are layered and masked with whipped topping. To garnish, strawberries are arranged on the top and the choux paste puffs are filled with pastry cream and placed around the top of the cake and around the sides. Voila!
I felt like I would never reach the bottom of the bowl of the cookie batter for these. I must have piped 5 or 6 sheets of Chocolate Spritz and Hazelnut Rosette cookies. They're the sort of thing that took so long to make that by the time they came out of the oven, I had no interest in eating them. These are similar to the cookies I made in Baking Arts I. The chocolate ones are a mixture of shortening, butter, vanilla, orange zest, icing sugar, eggs, milk, flour and cocoa powder. Once piped and baked, they were made into raspberry jam sandwiches and dipped or drizzled with white chocolate.
The hazelnut cookies contained butter, icing sugar, eggs {+ additional yolks}, hazelnuts {aka filberts - who knew?}, flour, vanilla and spices {cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice}. After being piped and baked, a drop of raspberry jam is placed on the top and these are drizzled with chocolate. 
"Having no interest in eating them" is actually code for "I caved the next day anyway because they looked so good" and yum! Both variations were good.
Another dense European cake. Similar to the Austrian Linzer Torte, the Sacher Torte was created at the Viennese Sacher Hotel and you can even have it shipped to you if you want to try the original. It's a multi-step process that results in a really dry cake! Dark chocolate, butter and hazelnut paste are melted/egg yolks and sugar are whipped/flour, cocoa powder and ground hazelnuts are combined/egg whites and sugar are whipped...then all this is mixed and baked. Once cooled, it's sliced in half and filled with apricot jam, then ganache is poured over it. The word "sacher" should be piped on every slice to make it authentic, but I like my hearts better. All that work for something that didn't even taste that great! 
Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip cookies aren't the most challenging things to bake, but they're always a hit. They were gone in a minute when I left them in the kitchen at work. These are "drop" cookies {which means exactly that; they're dropped onto the cookie sheet} and include the usual suspects: butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, eggs, vanilla and chocolate chips/oats. The oatmeal cookies also included some cinnamon...a nice touch!
I love biscotti! We made two types last night: Espresso and Chocolate Chip Almond. I've never made it before as the twice-baked process seemed hard but was actually really easy. For the Espresso ones {the "dry" recipe which uses butter}, it only takes 5 minutes to cream the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla and then mix in the dry ingredients {flour, baking powder, cinnamon, espresso, orange zest, chocolate chips}. 
The dough is then rolled into a log and baked for 35-40 minutes, cooled, cut, then baked again for 20 minutes. Cooled, then DIPPED in CHOCOLATE.
The Chocolate Chip Almond ones {"wet" as oil is used instead of butter} are basically the same process, except for the oil and baking soda instead of powder. Those were baked for 30 minutes, removed, cut and baked again for 10 minutes. Cooled and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
