Worth the wait

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.

Chocolate overload

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.

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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.

Mango mousse & fun with chocolate

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!

Sugar & spice

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}.