My Favorite Little Cakes - Friands!

America has the cupcake, France has the fancier and Australia has the friand. I love, love, love bite size cakes. The almond meal makes these afternoon cakes moist, flavorful and perfect with espresso. These can easily be baked in mini cupcake tins or muffin tins. I have a special friand tin that gives them the oval shape. I hope you give these berry friands a shot for your next brunch. recipe is below. Bake On!

Friands
from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay

125g butter
1 cup almond meal
1 2/3 cups icing sugar, sifted
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

5 egg whites
1/3 cup fresh raspberries, blueberries or sliced strawberries


Preheat the oven to 180C (350). Place the butter in a saucepan over low heat and cook until melted and a very light golden color. Set aside.

Place the almond meal, icing sugar, flour and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the egg whites and stir to combine. Add the butter and stir to combine.

Grease 10 x 1/2 cup capacity muffin tins [of course, if you have friand tins, you might as well use them]. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the mixture into each tin and sprinkle the berries over the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and springy to touch but moist in the center.

Baking from the Farmers Market: Strawberries

Chocolate and Strawberry Buttercream Cake. Delicious! I love this cake because the light and fruity strawberry puree buttercream frosting compliments the richness of the dark chocolate cake. I have also been moving toward a more rustic approach to decorating that you will see more of. 

Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Puree Buttercream

 Another treat I swoon for is the combo of a biscuits and fruit. To die for! Here I have whipped up Strawberry Shortcake Cookies and man they were perfect! I love strawberry shortcake but what I want to to get all the flavors in one bite. Here is it. Bake this one up before its gets chilly outside. 

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

 You can get just about anything at your local farmers market these days and I highly stepping out of the chain grocery store and hitting the streets for true, organic, local farming. Both recipes highlight farmers market fresh organic strawberries and organic cage free eggs.

Enjoy the rest of summer! Bake on!

Babycakes

My mom always called us girls babycakes. I have two sisters, an older sister and a twin sister. We all just happen to be really creative. One thing I love about my sisters is that we always share. Don't get me wrong, as kids we hated sharing. Today, we can take one look at each other in a restaurant, although thinking we should order something healthy like the a pear and Gorgonzola salad (with the dressing on the side), we're really craving something like a blue cheese burger and fries. It only takes one glance at each other and we know we'll be nibbling off each others plates, our guys wouldn't even know what hit'em, they hate sharing dishes anyways. Same thing with beer and desserts. We just share. I think my mom would be proud. Her babycakes are sharing. 

These babycakes or "cakes for two" as I call them are perfect for sharing or fulfilling the craving of one very big sweet tooth. What can you say, they are just really cute and these flavors are perfect for spring. Here is my collection of "cakes for two." Enjoy!

4 inch two layer Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This cake was very rich and dark red. The cake was moist and the frosting was just enough. Perfect or two lovers. 

 4 inch Chocolate layer cake

Double chocolate birthday cake, cant go wrong with that.

4 inch two layer Lemon Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting

Surprisingly the combination of lemon and caramel tasted great together. I had some extra caramel frosting from the beer cupcakes that I stored in the freezer that I just whipped up real quick and it was perfect for a little variety. It looks the silkiest out of all the cake frosting. A little lemon rind garnishes the top of the cake. 

 Four inch Strawberry Puree Buttercream Cake

This cake is made with fresh strawberries pureed into the buttercream with a nice buttermilk vanilla cake. Very fresh and perfect for spring. 

6 inch two layer Lemon Raspberry Cake with Buttercream Frosting

This cake is spring time in a bite and is perfect for four. Mixed berry preserves fills the inside layer of the cake. One trick is to line the outer circumference of the first layer with buttercream then spread the filling, in this case the preserves, in the center. The result is a nice white cake without berries seeping out the sides.   

 Rustic Chocolate cake 

This cake is rich on its own. I baked these cakes in four inch Spanish tera cotta ramekins. Chocolate ganache spread between the layers and ontop. Perfect with a fine espresso.

Red Velvet No-cup Cakes

I like making cupcakes without the liners and that's what I mean by no-cup cakes. I think it makes it easier to eat and makes it a bit fancy.

Bake on, 

Sarah

The Doyle's Dont Just Like Beer...

We love chocolate too! Last weekend I made a Porter Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate ganache and Buttercream Frosting...yes I said Porter, for Colin's 32nd birthday. The cakes I make are individual size, either for two or one serving each for 4. Perfect really if you don't want an entire cake hanging around the house. With the left over batter I can usually squeeze in a dozen or dozen and a half of cupcakes.

This was the first beer dessert I've made and I was so pleased it came out so well. I think Grandma Doyle would have been pleased as well. The house smelt like if you can envision walking into a pub right off the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. YUMMY! You wouldn't think beer and chocolate but it actually makes for a light and moist cake. I got the recipe off of smittenkitchen but I made a few changes to what I had in the kitchen. This would be my adaptation. Go ahead and bake on! and let me know what you think!



Porter Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate ganache and Butter Cream Frosting

For the Porter Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup porter, I used Black Butte Porter
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
Ganache Filling
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Buttercream Frosting
3 cups confections sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup porter and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add porter-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 14-17 minutes. You can also divide the batter between cake pans as I did and continue to check the cakes for done'ness after 10 min. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.
Make the filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and stir until combined.
Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer or talent with a paring knife, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. Make sure not to cut all the way through the cupcake liner. Put the ganache into a piping bag (or ziplock with the corner cut off) with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time. When the frosting is thick to spread drizzle in the cream. To ice and decorate the cupcakes I used an Ateco 809 tip to make the poof of buttercream and topped with chocolate covered blueberries.