Baby Shower | Congrats Amy & Tim!

I've had the pleasure of knowing Amy since elementary school, and her husband Tim since they began dating in college. I think I speak for all of their friends when I say, I can't wait for mini-Amy to arrive in November!!

To celebrate their upcoming baby girl, I made cake pops (a first for me) and cupcakes as party favors for guests to take home.

The cake pops are a browned butter pistachio financier, made with ground pistachios, flour, egg whites, and browned butter.

I brushed the cake with raspberry simple syrup and coated with white chocolate coating chocolate. It turns out you can make the spherical shapes of cake pops either by baking in a spherical mode, or pressing cake pieces into that shape. The latter results in a fudgier texture, and I might have gone that route if I had such a pressing mold. For these, I figured the financier would have sufficient density and texture.

It's a bit tricky to put the right amount of batter in the mold to make sure it fills the full sphere when baking but not push the molds apart. Fortunately I had enough successful pieces to meet the guest count :)

The cupcakes are a play off of the Beau Soleil cake I made recently.

For the cake, I made a cinnamon swirl sour cream cake, brushed with orange simple syrup, filled with peach curd, and topped with mascarpone mousse.

Then I drizzled with honey and sprinkled with some praline. Although it used many of the same ingredients as the cake, it was delicious in its own way.

Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Cookies

Oftentimes, recipes on the back of boxes / packages can be rather mediocre, having been dumbed down to be accessible to the general public. This one, however, despite its simplicity, is a home run. It's quick and easy, and most people seem to love the taste, even if they are not particular fans of oatmeal cookies, craisins, or white chocolate.

Adapted from Ocean Spray® Craisins® package:

Ingredients

• ⅔ cup butter, softened
• ⅔ cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 6 oz. dried cranberries (i.e. Ocean Spray® Craisins®) - Note: I would use 1 to 1 ½ cups.
• ⅔ cup white chocolate chunks or chips - Note: I would use 1 to 1 ½ cups.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF.
2. Using a mixer, beat butter and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks.
3. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. 
4. Drizzle with melted white chocolate for extra flair and flavor.

Most of the sweetness and flavor for this cookie comes from the dried cranberries and white chocolate, so be liberal with those ingredients. In addition, note that these cookies expand very little in the oven. I would flatten them slightly before baking. No need to worry about the cookies running into each other as they bake.

Ivoire Royale - White Chocolate Mousse & Berry Cake

According to Extraordinary Desserts' website:

"Ivoire Royale -- An exquisite torte made of fine layers of vanilla bean soaked pound cakes and creamy white chocolate mousse. Bursting with fresh raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, this delicate mousse torte is hidden by white chocolate shaving dusted with powdered sugar."

This is a 10" cake, with sour cream pound cake layers, brushed with vanilla simple syrup. In between the layers are white chocolate sour cream mousse, fresh whipped cream, and berries. I only used strawberries and blackberries in my cake, but I think any combination would work. The decoration is white chocolate shavings and curls.

I'm not sure the recipe for mousse in the cookbook quite worked. For a better mousse consistency, I suggest the following:

White Chocolate Sour Cream Mousse

• 4 egg yolks
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ cup sour cream (room temperature)
• 6.5 oz (1 ¼ cup) white chocolate
• 2 cup heavy cream
• ⅓ cup powdered sugar

Directions

1. Heat ¾ cup of the heavy cream in a saucepan until it boils/simmers. Pour over white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Let sit for a couple minutes before stirring with a spatula until the white chocolate is melted and smooth.
2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a stand mixer until pale yellow and fluffy.
3. Add melted chocolate to the whipped egg yolks.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the remaining heavy cream and powdered sugar together until peaks form.
5. Gently fold in the whipped cream and sour cream into the white chocolate-egg yolk mousse base.

I played with this while in-process, so the measurements may not be exact, particularly with respect to the whipped cream addition. I think that part can be made to-taste and to-texture, depending on what consistency and level of sweetness you are aiming for. The important addition here to the cookbook is the whipped egg yolk base, which gives the mousse a sturdier structure that won't run.

I had previously attempted this in cupcake form, but because this cake relies on being soaked in vanilla simple syrup, and having almost as much (or perhaps more) mousse and whipped cream than cake, I don't think the cupcake form delivers the same texture and flavor. Not to mention, I also dropped my entire batch of cupcakes before delivering them to a potluck event, so it is not quite a happy memory. One day, I will post a collage of all my disasters (usually in transit), when it doesn't pain me so much to think about it!

Yellow roses for my SYZters:

Spaghetti Cupcakes - Trick or Treat!

The idea for these spaghetti cupcakes comes from the book Hello, Cupcake!, and I was inspired after seeing my sister-in-law make them for April Fool's Day. Instead of using canned frosting, I decided to better complement the strawberry jam (the marinara sauce) with white chocolate flavoring.

This white cake is filled with strawberry meringue buttercream, and topped with a thin layer of white chocolate whipped ganache, and then covered with white chocolate buttercream noodles. White chocolate and butter both have a pale yellow color, so that no food coloring needs to be added to mimic cooked noodles.

A Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolate serves as the meatball, tossed in low sugar strawberry preserves (the low sugar variety has a more realistic red shade than regular preserves). Finally, grated white chocolate serves as the parmesan cheese. By the way, I love Ferrero Rocher chocolates. I'm going to have to try a cupcake version of them one day.

These "trick" cupcakes were complemented by my pumpkin cupcakes as the "treat." Happy Halloween everyone!

Chocolate Krispie Treats

These were inspired by Eric Wolitzky's "Peanut Butter Krispy Bars", the winning dessert on Season 1, Episode 3 of Top Chef: Just Desserts. (You won't be surprised to hear that I love that show—Season 2 premiered tonight!) His recipe was posted with ingredients measured in grams, which is inconvenient if you lack a kitchen scale. I also prefer a higher (rice cereal:chocolate topping) ratio. Once I convert the recipe to more accessible measurements and make some tweaks, I will update this post with a suggested recipe.

There are two versions here:
(1) Regular rice krispie bar covered with a chocolate-hazelnut layer and then topped with a chocolate-peanut butter layer
(2) Cocoa krispie bar covered with the same chocolate-hazelnut layer and then topped with a white chocolate ganache layer

I discovered during this experiment that cocoa krispies weigh more per unit volume than regular rice krispies, so I ended up with about a 3:2 output for these two flavors!

These krispies are decorated with chocolate discs (dark chocolate base with white chocolate or peanut-butter-white chocolate design—not quite "faux bois" but something like that). If I had more time, I think I would have done a full reversal for the cocoa krispie bar (i.e. white chocolate base with hazelnut-chocolate design).