Islands in the sky, food & travel

My kids had a birthday to celebrate so I made the cakes and they decorated. I used to do this when my children were small, set up a table for them to decorate cookies or gingerbread houses, even had parties like this, and to this day, they like assembling treats and are good cooks. Here's the batter recipe I often use which you can find in my other recipes (mocha sponge, apple cider cake...) : Cotton sponge cake recipe : 4 eggs, separated 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar 1-1/4 cup (180 g) cake flour 3/4 cup (150 g) confectioner's sugar 1/4 cup cider (60 g) (French kind, or 4.5% alcohol) or beer or carbonated water 1/4 cup (60 g) sour cream (or thick cream) 1/4 cup (60 g) milk (as needed) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt Preheat oven to 180° F / 350° C.  Line pan with parchment paper.  I used a 7" spring-form pan and a small fluted brioche mold. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Add granulated sugar a little at a time and continue...

I get a lot of compliments on this cake as one of the most tasty and softest mocha cakes.  I even surprised myself, the flavor was primarily coffee flavor but with accents of chocolate ganache for a deeper flavor and some crunch from the nuts and meringue. The salted caramel drip was also a good contrast to the other flavors. I didn't know if I could pull this off, but everything came together, beautiful weather included for the pictures. The layers include a vanilla sponge that I cut into 3 disks, mocha mousse, chocolate ganache with nuts, topped with more mocha cream and drizzled with salted caramel and decorated with chocolate striped meringue. It does take several steps and recipes, but you can cut corners with ready-made salted caramel or skip the chocolate ganache.  For timing, I usually make things ahead of time (the caramel which I put in jars, the mousse which I froze), then bake the cake and store it in the refrigerator. Then the next day I assemble it.  I can t...

Ice cream sandwiches go back to childhood for some of us.  If you don't know them, you must try some with your favorite cookie recipe.  Usually chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream is a classic.   Since peaches are in season, I wanted to try them with homemade caramelized peaches ice cream, as well as a coffee ice cream with chocolate bits and turron we brought back from vacation. The fun thing about making home-made ice cream is you can make any combination of flavors and toppings. Of course store-bought ice cream is great as well and a convenient solution. I usually make ice cream in the summer and fill the freezer with a few flavors I use for ice cream cookies, crumbles and cobblers and parfaits. Here is the sugar cookie recipe I found ideal, giving soft yet sturdy cookies for filling with ice cream. 150 g of butter 180 g of sugar + 1/4 for rolling 250 g of flour + 100 g of cake flour 1 egg + 1 yolk 2 teaspoons of vanilla 1 teaspoon of almond extract 2 tea...

Hi everyone !  Summer means ice cream cakes in our house and this one is with a favorite flavor : lemon meringue.  To start, when I have too many egg whites I make a dacquoise (like a large macaron). I made one of these a few weeks back and put it in the freezer especially for this kind of occasion.  So that means I only had to add a lemon cake layer and ice cream.  As luck would have it, I just so happened to have found a delicious lemon meringue ice cream at the supermarket.  If you can't find one, no worries, a lemon sorbet or sherbert, or lemon ice cream will do just fine.   What you'll need : about a half a litre of ice cream, the 2 cake layers (recipes to follow), some lemon curd or marmalade, a cream cheese frosting, as well as some meringues, macarons or candied lemon to decorate. I made the lemon almond bar layer as follows :  50 g almond flour  70 g sugar  Juice from 1 lemon Rind from 1/4 lemon  2 eggs  30 g butter, s...