A Cake for my Mom

When you think about making a cake for your beloved mom, you desire to make the most beautiful one, a cake that expresses your feeling and gratitude for all her unconditional love. Recently it was my mom’s birthday, and despite the distance between us, I made a special cake for her. She has a passion for flowers (such as me, it's in our DNA) and one of her favorites are orchids, which she has been collecting over the years. 

Initially I was planning to make a cake decorated with several sugar orchids, inspired by a visit that I did to the Cleveland Botanical Garden. But I decided for just only one. The one that she first bought. I still remember when that happens. I was a little girl and that beautiful exotic flower with white and pink petals impressed me. And making this particular sugar orchid was really, really special for me. And I know that means a lot to my mom too. With love, my memories and some photos that I have, I tried to reproduce it and I think that the result was great.

The cake is a recipe that she already used for my birthday cake in the past.  I love it! It consists of layers of sponge cake, dried plum jam, coconut cream and condensed milk cream. She covers the cake with the condensed milk cream and fresh grated coconut. The result is beautiful, but in my version I didn’t use the coconut, I preferred decorate the cake with fondant.

My Mom's Cake

Sponge cake

1 1/4 cup granulated sugar

4 egg yolks

8 tablespoon water

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 egg whites

pinch of salt 

2 cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter ad flour the cake pan.

Gradually beat the sugar into the egg yolks and water, add the vanilla, and continue beating for several minutes until mixture is thick and pale yellow.

Beat the egg whites and salt together in a separated bowl until soft peaks are formed. Scoop one fourth of the egg whites over the top of the egg yolks and sugar mixture. Sift on one fourth of the flour, and delicately fold in until partially blended. Then add one third of the remaining egg whites, sift on one third of the remaining flour and baking powder. Fold until partially blended, and repeat with half of each, then the last of each. The egg whites must retain as much volume as possible.

Turn into prepared cake pan, tiling pan to run batter to the rim all around. Set in middle level of preheated oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Cake is done when it has puffed, is lightly brown, and has just begun to show a faint line of shrinkage from the edges of the pan.

Condensed milk cream

395g/14oz sweetened condensed milk

395g/14oz heavy cream

790g/ 28oz milk

4 egg yolks

2 tablespoon corn starch

Place all the ingredients into a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir the mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan while you scrape it with a spoon. The mixture should be thick enough to show the bottom of the pan for a few seconds before the mixture back again.

Coconut cream

395g/14oz sweetened condensed milk

200g/7oz unsweetened coconut flakes

2 egg yolks

Place all the ingredients into a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir the mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan while you scrape it with a spoon. The mixture should be thick enough to show the bottom of the pan for a few seconds before the mixture back again.

Dried Plum Jam

10 oz. dried plums, chopped

1/2 cup sugar

water

In a sauce pan over medium heat boil the plums in water and sugar. Stirring constantly with a wooden spoon about 20 minutes or until jam consistency. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter my dear friends! For this beautiful day I made a dessert table with some delicious treats: chocolate cake, some vanilla cupcakes, bonbons and chocolate eggs.

My inspiration for decorating came from some flowers of this season. For the cake I used sugar magnolias, which is one of my favorite. I had this idea after photographing them during my visit to arboretum couple of weeks ago. This was also the first time I made a wired flower and it was pretty fun. For the bonbons and cupcakes, I prepared little sugar flowers of some that I found in the garden of my condominium.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Sequin and Glittered Eggs

Hi Dear readers. Today I have something different to share with you. It is not a recipe but an inspiration for Easter. I’m amazed at the beauty of this season and I can’t stop thinking about flowers and decorated eggs. I already published some dyed eggs and chocolates eggs posts. Now I showed you some ideas for sequin and glittered eggs inspired by the beautiful work of Torie Jayne.

I saw for the first time sequin eggs on the Torie Jayne’s Pinterest board. Her creations are amazing and I loved this idea. This is such a fun way to decorate eggs. You can use your imagination to use different colors and shapes of sequins to make several patterns. They are a good option to create fancy baskets for dessert tables or embellish an Easter tree.

You can use Styrofoam or polystyrene eggs. I used the Styrofoam eggs. You will need sequin pins, also known as hemming or basting pins, to pin sequins along on egg surface. 

I also made some glittered eggs using Styroglue and glitter. Start painting the egg surface with glue and then sprinkle glitter on them. I'm pretty sure you will have a great time making these lovely eggs.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

A Guest Post: Rolinhos de Mamão Verde

Hi everyone! I’m sharing a traditional sweet treat from Brazil at A Clove o Garlic, a Pinch of Salt blog. It was a pleasure for me to prepare my first guest post to Tiffany! Her blog is amazing and I love the way she writes about the Brazilian culture specially the food. Check it out this papaya recipe  here.

Fabergé-Inspired Easter Egg with Zabaglione Brigadeiros

For this post I was inspired by the Fabergé Eggs. On the Easter of 1885, the Czar Alexander III ordered to a young jeweler, Peter Fabergé, an exceptional gift for his wife, Czarina Fedorovna. Fabergé created a jewel-shaped egg. As a surprise, he put inside the egg a golden yolk; within the yolk was a golden hen; and concealed within the hen was a diamond miniature of the royal crown and a tiny ruby egg.

My Faberge-inspired Easter egg is made with white chocolate and embellished with sugar flowers e ribbons, which were painted with gold luster dust. As a surprise, I filled it with zabaglione brigadeiros. Zabaglione is an Italian dessert made by whisking together some sweet wine, egg yolks and sugar. To prepare my brigadeiro version, I used Moscato d'Asti, egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk.

Zabaglione Brigadeiros

1 can sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

50 ml heavy cream

60ml Moscato d'Asti

1 Tb butter

Place condensed milk, heavy cream and egg yolks in a saucepan. Stir until combine all ingredients. 

Add the butter and bring the mixture over low heat, stirring it constantly with a fouet until it begins to loosen the bottom of the pan.
Remove from heat and continue stirring the mixture until the temperature drops a little.
Add the wine. Mix everything well.
Transfer brigadeiro to a platter or baking sheet lightly greased with butter to cool.

  Make little balls and decorate with fine grated chocolate or chocolate sprinkles.

Easter Season

Spring is almost upon us and from one day to the next everything can change, offering a range of new colors, scents, flavors and experiences. How good it is opening windows to feel the fresh air and also to admire the birds singing.  Spring is certainly for me the most exhilarating season.

Beyond these wonderful things, spring also means Easter season. Decorating Easter eggs is one of the better ways to celebrate it. I started this sunny week here in Beachwood, OH painting some eggs and also making a chocolate egg decorated with sugar blossoms. 

To paint the eggs, I used water-based acrylic colors. To make the sugar blossoms, I used the small, medium and large blossom ejectors impression strips from Wilton. But this is just the beginning. Many decorated eggs are coming soon!

I hope you enjoy the springtime!

Baileys Cheesecake

As St Patrick’s Day is quickly approaching, this is the perfect opportunity to use a classic Irish liqueur for a dessert. I'm talking about Baileys, a delicious drink made from an emulsion of milk diluted in whisky and other ingredients, like honey, coffee, chocolate and secret herbs. So, inspired by this festive day and this delicious drink, I present to you today a Baileys Cheesecake.

To prepared the cream, I added 1.7oz of Baileys to a traditional cheesecake recipe. I've seem recipes adding just 1oz, some time less than that. I suggest you to try first with just 0.5oz. If you think the cream doesn't get the intensity of flavor that you want, continue adding 0.5oz until you get the result that most satisfy you. I did that too and for me 1.7oz worked best. The crust was prepared using Oreo cookies and butter, and I topped the cream with dark chocolate ganache. Can you imagine how wonderful is this combination of flavors? All ingredients were in a perfect harmony creating a truly treasure dessert.

Baileys Cheesecake

(adapted from here)

Makes two 4.5in pan

Crust

100g Oreo cookies, crushed

50g butter

Preheat oven to 320 degrees F/ 160 degrees C. Butter the sides of a 4.5-inch springform pan. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Place crushed Oreo in a bowl. Pour melted butter over crushed cookies and mix until evenly moistened. Press mixture evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan.

Place pan on a baking sheet. Bake until crust is set, 10 to minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Baileys cheesecake

12 oz/ 350g cream cheese

1.76 oz/ 50g heavy cream

0.18 oz / 5g lemon juice

3.17oz /90g sugar

2.650z / 75 g whole eggs / about 1 egg and a half

1.7 oz/ 50 ml Baileys

Beat cream cheese and sugar until very smooth (3 min) in a stand mixer at

medium speed using the whisk attachment (It gives the cake

that mousse quality). Add eggs, heavy cream, lemon juice and Baileys and beat until incorporated.

Pour batter into crust. Bake 40 min over 302 degrees F/150 degrees C.

Chocolate Ganache

1.7 oz / 50ml heavy cream

1.4 /40g dark chocolate

Bring cream to boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, add chocolate, stir until smooth and glossy.  Pour over cream cheese layer and refrigerate until firm. To serve, unmold cheesecake. Transfer to a serving platter.