The Baking Medic

O Valentine’s Day. The day when couples get disgustingly mushy and singles band together to rejoice in their independence (not that being in a relationship makes you dependent!). Personally, I like the idea of Valentine’s, but not the idea of a Valentine’s Day. Why do we need a specific day to tell our loved ones how awesome we think they are? Why not tell them everyday?

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Wow. 2011 gone already. I once heard that time seems to more quickly as you age. Each year that passes by is a smaller fraction of your life. When you’re four years old, a year is a quarter of your existence! By now, as I edge further into my twenties, I find myself thinking ‘Really? Today is Dec 31? It’s that time of year already?’.

This past year was a busy year for me. I continue to live up to my title ‘The Baking Medic’, trying to bake every week if I can. Despite my best efforts, not everything that I bake is shared on this blog. Sometimes there is just no time to take a good photograph before it is all gobbled up!

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I am beginning to think there are two magic ingredients in baking: cream cheese and condensed milk.  In the past, I have made various desserts that taste heavenly but are so simple and easy it almost seems impossible. Without fail, they have contained either condensed milk or cream cheese. Some that use cream cheese include my white chocolate mousse, my cream cheese icing, my chocolate chip cookie cheese cake brownies. As for condensed milk, it is a key ingredients in my chocolate fudge, banoffee pie and homemade ice cream.  This recipe uses both! And little else.

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Holiday Sweets & Treats Class: The Buche de Noel!

For a while now the Fine Chocolate Society has been running baking classes for its members.  Each time it’s a challenge and a pleasure to think of new creative themes for the class. In the past we’ve done simply a Chocolate Baking Class and a very hands on Cupcake Decorating Class. This time I decided that since Christmas is fast approaching, a Holiday Baking themed class would be perfect.

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This cake is a victory cake. Victory in the sense that I have triumphed over my MSA and I am enjoying a few days of well earned freedom (relatively speaking…). This cake is very special to me. I have wanted to make it for a very long time, ever since I saw it on I Am Baker, a simply breathtaking blog that mostly is dedicated to cakes.  It’s so simple, yet eye catching.  I can see it being perfect for a summer celebration or wedding anniversary, yet the snowy white of the roses also remind me of Christmas. However, it has just never been the right time to bake this magnificent cake – until now.

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Canada's best Carrot Cake... dressed as a pumpking!

Well, hello there! It’s been a wee while, but fear not. The baking medic as still been hard at work! So while today I will be only posting about one recipe, I’ll give you a sneak peak at a few of the things I’ve made in the fast few months.

The recipe today is “Canada’s Best” Carrot Cake. Now, that seems like a pretty extravagant claim to make, seeing as Canada is freaking HUGE (geographically speaking…did you know almost 41 UKs would fit that vast country of mine?). However the recipe came from one my much loved magazines, Canadian Living.  This magazine has a lot of memories for me; my mum was always subscribed to it and I remember flicking through the pages at the back, marveling at the beautiful pictures of… food. Even as a kid I had a bit of a one track mind.

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Cupcakes appeal to me for a variety of reasons — they are petite individual desserts, don’t require a plate and fork to eat, have a high icing to cake ratio and there is almost an infinite number of ways to decorate the wee things.  From a simple smear of buttercream, to elegantly piped designs, to cupcakes that look like Cookie Monster to these darling Hamburger cupcakes.  With such scope for innovation and creativity, it’s no wonder that cupcakes are so popular.

I wish I could say I thought up the idea to make these ingenious cupcakes — but alas, I did not.  I saw them on Bakerella and I knew immediately that I had to try them myself.  They’re the perfect edible trompe l’oeil — the round of brownie sandwiched between the two halves of cupcake and covered with the brightly coloured icing makes for a very convincing burger! If you want, you can also serve these “burgers” with sugar cookie “fries” (seriously… check out the Bakerella link.  She is incredible).

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me want cookies!

These cupcakes were so much fun to make! I first saw them a few weeks ago on Facebook.  I thought they looked spectacular and immediately wanted to make some of my own.  So I set about looking for the perfect way to recreate these Cookie Monsters. :)

Firstly, I needed to make them look “fuzzy”.  I opted to use dyed coconut instead of dyed coarse sugar for two reasons.  Firstly, coconut is a lot easier to obtain in St Andrews and secondly, these cupcakes have a generous amount of icing and are topped off with chocolate buttons and a chocolate chip cookie.  I don’t really think they needed the extra sugar. :P

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Now I can’t claim this recipe to be of my own creation, however I did pick and choose bits and pieces from other recipes to come up with this: The Triple Lemon Bundt Cake.  It’s called the Triple Lemon Bundt Cake because a generous amount of lemon zest is added to the cake batter, then when the cake is still warm, a lemon sugar syrup is slowly poured all over its surface, and lastly a glaze with a lot of lemony zip is drizzled over the cooled cake.  So. Wow. Lots of lemon! I had 4 lemons leftover that needed using up and this cake was the perfect use for it.  I have to confess that I had to top up my fresh lemon juice with a bit of the bottled stuff (boohiss) but no one called me out on it, so I guess it’s okay. :)  But knowing that, I would make sure I had 5-6 lemons next time just to be sure I wouldn’t be caught short.

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Making all those wee white chocolate raspberry mousses. NOM.

A few weeks back, I taught a Chocolate Baking Class for the Fine Chocolate Society.  The amazingly talented Frank George, Sarah Wilford, and Verena Walsh were such a great help! Luckily, Verena had the foresite to bring her camera and she has just passed on the photos to me.  If you’re interested in some of the recipes, I’ve made the Zebra cake and White Chocolate Mousse before.  You can find the Zebra Cake here and the White Chocolate Mousse here.

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