Fancy Gourmet Dessert Cakes

If you’re like me, you might have had little luck keeping plants bright and prosperous in the house. I have found after countless “botanistic” deaths that three plants can handle the indoor environment; Spider Plants, Herbaceous Plants, and some Ferns (Ask about them at your plant store).

It is always surprising to me how relaxing plant life can make a room. They are a kind of plant pet and I seem to have developed a relationship of sorts after tending to them over time. I have found that too much watering is an instant killer. Keep a close eye on the moisture in the soil. If you let it build up, they can develop a fungus or they will simply drown. I water my indoor plants every three to four days depending on the heat and humidity.

Having a gathering in the family room can seem a little mundane without some plant life. Strangely enough beverages are more refreshing, it may be due to the carbon dioxide rush since plants actually breath. The party keeps it’s spruce (no pun intended) when adding a few fresh flowers to a spider plant or fern. I place them carefully between the leaves or on the branches and try to keep the shape proportionate.

I would also like to stress, that since so much of the greenery is being chopped down; more plant life anywhere can help the environment. I am not a big environmental junkie or anything, but I have noticed that the air has gotten stuffy, thick and definitely less fresh without the beautiful trees that we used to have here in Fort Lauderdale.

So here’s to more life at home!

Written by Delightful Biteful

I was walking down the street the other day and I noticed that the holiday decorations are already going up. The fact is, that I don’t care. They are so pretty to look at, and with the economic crunch, my appreciation for colorful distractions has increased.

Friends of mine have mentioned that they are watching their budget, I said to my pals, worried about food prices, to get out the wok. Nothing like some stir fried veggies to keep the body healthy and the wallet fat. Less meat in the diet never hurt anyone. I have done that in my struggling years along with buying large quantities of food and storing it carefully and it worked like a charm. I did not feel like I had to pay so much attention to the budget because I was always ahead of the game and less stressed out.

Now back to the holiday decorations, it seems that they are effective as I am already making out my gift list and deciding on some new decorations. Careful spending does manage to leave me with extra money to spend, I just need to remember that things can always be worse and I need to be considerate of my needs first. After that, I go to town and decide what kind of foods to prepare, and activities to anticipate.

Frankly, it’s been a long hot summer and I’m looking forward to a slice of pumpkin pie and some hot apple cider. In any case, we’re coming down the stretch and the leaves are getting ready to fall from the trees. Yippee!

Written by Delightful Biteful

Dealing in desserts, we receive many inquiries concerning dessert terms and descriptions. I wanted to compile a small list of the most common terms that are used. Some folks may be familiar with them but many may not.

We have pulled descriptions from Wikipedia for complete definitions:

A Génoise Cake is a sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and closely associated with French cuisine that does not use any chemical leavening, instead using air suspended in the batter during mixing to give volume to the cake. It is a whole-egg cake, unlike some other sponge cakes that beat their yolks and whites of the eggs separately; the eggs, and sometimes extra yolks, are beaten with sugar and heated at the same time using “bain marie” or flame, to a stage known to patissiers as the “ribbon”. Génoise is not the same thing as pain de Gênes, which is an almond cake of possible Jewish origins; however,Génoise is very close in composition and basic use to Spanish bread, an Italian sponge cake known to have Sephardic Jewish origins. Génoise is generally a fairly lean cake, getting most of its fat from egg yolks, but some recipes also add in melted butter before baking. Génoise is a basic building block of much French patisserie.

A pâtisserie is a French bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets. In France, it is an official title that only bakeries that employ a maître pâtissier (master pastry chef) may use. The pâtissier is an artist who wants his or her creations to be as individual as they are, which is the reason for so many variations in French pastry shops and in pâtisserie recipes. Often found in partnership with a boulangerie, pâtisseries are a common sight in towns and villages in France.
Meringue is a type of dessert made from whipped egg whites and caster sugar. Some meringue recipes call for adding a binding agent such as cream of tartar or the cornstarch found in confectioner’s sugar. Meringues are often flavoured with vanilla and a small amount of almond or coconut extract. They are very light and airy and extremely sweet. The notion that meringue was invented in the Swiss town of Meiringen by an Italian chef named Gasparini is contended.

Fondant is a cream confection used as a filling or coating for cakes, pastries, and candies or sweets. In its simplest form, it is sugar and water cooked to a point, specifically the soft-ball stage, cooled slightly, and stirred or beaten until it is an opaque mass of creamy consistency. Rolled fondant is commonly used to decorate wedding cakes. This gives the cakes a smooth appearance.

Crème fraîche is French for “fresh cream”. It is the continental European counterpart to the soured cream more traditional to Anglophone cultures. Creme fraiche is produced by a process similar to that of sour cream, with the exception that no ingredients are added. Each processing step requires attention to producing and maintaining high viscosity. Crème fraîche can be made at home by adding a small amount of cultured buttermilk or sour cream to normal heavy cream, and allowing to stand for several hours at room temperature until the bacterial cultures act on the cream.

Dulce de leche in Spanish or doce de leite in Portuguese (”milk candy”), is a milk-based syrup. Found as both a sauce and a caramel-like candy, it is popular across Latin America. It is prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a product similar in taste to caramel.
 
Tiramisu is one of the most popular Italian desserts. It is made of savoiardi (lady fingers) dipped in coffee and mascarpone cream. For many years, different sources (from Vin Veneto, dated 1981, to the Italian Academy of Giuseppe Maffioli and several cuisine websites) give evidence that tiramisu was born in Treviso at “Le Beccherie” restaurant in the hands of the confectioner Roberto Linguanotto, also known as Loli. Different stories report the creation of the cake to have been born in the city of Siena.

A chiffon cake is a very light cake made with vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and flavorings. Unlike butter, the traditional fat used in cake making, it is difficult to beat air into oil, so chiffon cakes, like angel cakes and other foam cakes, achieve a fluffy texture by beating egg whites until stiff, and folding them into the cake batter before baking. The high oil and egg content creates a very moist cake, and as oil is liquid even at cooler temperatures, chiffon cakes do not tend to harden or dry out as traditional butter cakes might.

Ganache - from the French word for “jowl” refers to a variety of icing, fillings for pastries, and glazes. It is typically made from chocolate and cream. Its origins date to around 1850, when it may have been inverented in Switzerland or in France. Ganache is normally made by heating heavy cream, then pouring it over chopped, dark chocolate. The mixture is stirred or blended until smooth, and can be enhanced with liqueurs or extracts. Depending on the kind of chocolate used, cream should be adjusted to reach desired consistency.

Hope this helps the dessert novices out there.

Bon Apetit!
Written by Delightful Biteful