The theme for this month’s Sugar High Friday was Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts, where I asked you to tell me about a dessert you made (or want to make) for somebody else.

What an amazing group of people you are, to have created such a huge collection of sweet gifts for your friends, family, and loved ones all over the world! I’ve enjoyed reading all of your stories and imagining the tastiness of your desserts. Thank you so much for participating and sharing your stories with me here.

Next month’s Sugar High Friday will be hosted by La Petite Boulangette, and the theme is Asian Sweet Invasion.

Big Blondes
Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms
Elle made these cookies from a recipe from Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey as a gift to her mother, to thank her for the gift of the cookbook. Way to go positive reinforcement!
 
 

Honey Bears for my Honey Bear
Kiriel from The Papillon Pantry
These bears were sent as a care package to a far-off friend, to help him eat properly even without Kiriel there to cook for him each day.
 
 

Rum Baba
Cakelaw from Laws of the Kitchen
Cakelaw made her very first Rum Baba to thank her friend for her generosity in inviting her to stay at her house in a beachside suburb for the Labour Day long weekend. I’m sure her friend loved receiving her favorite dessert as a thank you gift.
 
 

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Mrs. W from Mrs. W’s Kitchen
Mrs. W’s dear friend is going through a hard time with her granddaughter, and Mrs. W is trying her best to help by being there to listen, to share driving and lunches, and to bake cookies to help her friend through this difficult time.
 
 
Nega Maluca
Sarah from What Smells So Good?
Sarah made this cake for her mother’s surprise birthday party. What a treat!
 
 

Whole Grain Biscotti
Smita from Smita Serves You Right
Smita gives these biscotti out for all sorts of occasions – Bon Voyage! Good luck before an exam! Welcome back (to work!)! Happy Friday! And they’ve always gone over well.
 
 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Cupcakes
Holly from PheMOMenon
Holly made these cupcakes for her four-year-old, Aidan, as a special treat that won’t trigger his allergic reaction to too much dairy. What a lucky kid, to have such a sweet Mom!
 
 

Chilled Pandan Soufflé
Rachel from R khooks
A sweet gift for Mr Soul & City and Mr Bump.
 
 

Espresso Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Amy from Eggs on Sunday
Amy made these cookies for her family, who all love chocolate and coffee combined as much as she does.
 
 

Nutella Crêpes w/Strawberry & Banana
Mike from Mike’s Table
When Mike was younger, he and his brother tried to make crepes for their mother on Mother’s Day, and, well, I’m sure she appreciated the gesture, at least. But now that he is older and more skilled in the kitchen, he was able to get over the anxiety of that memory to make these beautiful crepes for his wife.
 
 

Marzipan Mushrooms
Zlamushka from Zlamushka’s Spicy Kitchen
Every year, Zlamushka’s mother grumbles, revolts, and eventually whips up a beautiful batch of these candies for her devoted husband.
 
 

White Chocolate Irish Cream Marbled Loaf
Ngoc from Professional Bakist
This was a belated birthday cake for Ngoc’s father, who usually gets his own birthday cake but somehow failed to do so this year.
 
 

Vanilla Panna Cotta
My kitchen treats
This was made from V, who got a sore mouth from spicy food and deserved something sweet afterwards.
 
 

Bring Back the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake
Susan from Food Blogga
When Susan had her wisdom teeth removed and couldn’t eat solid food, her father waited on line to bring her a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake after work every day for a week. 15 years later, she recreated the shake as a thank you for her father.
 
 

Mint Oreo Truffles
Steph from Cooking In An Apron
Steph made these truffles as a St. Patrick’s Day present for her Irish boss and the rest of the work clan.
 
 

Time for Key Lime
Saralynn from Happy Baker
Key lime pie is Saralynn’s husband’s favorite, and his eyes light up when she makes it for him. It’s her way of thanking him for being a wonderful helpmeet to her.
 
 

Orange Date Cake
Miri from Peppermill
Miri used orange extract she received as a gift from another food blogger to create this cake for her orange blossom, her almost-three-year-old daughter.
 
 

Milk Chocolate Cookies and Cream Bark and a White Chocolate Fruit and Nut Bark
Nicole from Sweet Tooth
I’m not sure who Nicole gave these candies to, but whoever the lucky recipient was, I’m sure they enjoyed them very much.
 
 

Chocolate Pound Cake
Sihan from Walking in the Rain
Sihan’s babe never had much of a sweet tooth, but he sure loved this cake!
 
 

Matcha White Chocolate Pralines with Pistachios
Meeta from What’s For Lunch, Honey?
Meeta made these treats for her lucky local friends right before she left to visit her family for Easter, so they wouldn’t forget her while she was gone. I wish I lived in her neighborhood!
 
 

Pralines
Ann from Redacted Recipes
Ann’s grandmother used to make pralines each Christmas for her father, who liked to greedily hoard them for himself. The last time Ann made some for him, she had to make an extra batch for her children, because he still wouldn’t share. The man likes his pralines. And I’m sure he loves his daughter, who just made yet another batch to put in the mail for him.
 
 

Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Alanna from A Veggie Venture
While working on this post, Alanna discovered the unthinkable – she’s lost her carrot cake recipe. The one her grandmother made for her 17th birthday, which she made for her grandmother’s 80th birthday, and which she made year after year to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday after her death. She’s searched and searched, but she just can’t find. And while I’m sure the carrot cake recipe she’s shared with us is wonderful too, I’m so sorry to hear that her grandmother’s recipe is lost, and so grateful to hear the tale of the love and cake they shared together.
 
 

Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Katie from Salt and Chocolate
Katie made these cookies for her father’s birthday.
 
 

Chai Latte Cupcakes
Joanna Mong from Salute to Sanity
These cupcakes were a gift for a worthy cause, baked for a bake sale that was being held to raise money for the university’s library.
 
 

Swirly Macarons With Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache
Helen from Tartelette
This is my favorite entry, because not only did Helen make these gorgeous macarons for her friend’s wedding, she even agreed to mail me some to eat! Thank you, Helen!
 
 

Eggless Cranberry-Walnut Scones
Mansi Desai from Fun and Food
Mansi makes these for her husband’s breakfast, and she likes knowing that she’s serving him something that is not only delicious, but also healthy and nutritious.
 
 

Almond Butter Cake with Lemon Thyme Cream
Brittany from The Pie Lady
Brittany made this cake for her sister, who sounds like an awesome person and a life-long friend (and who declared this cake a mouth-gasm).
 
 

Vermicelli Kesari ~ Semiya Kesari!
Srivalli from Cooking 4 all Seasons
Srivalli made this thinking of Amma, who used to make it specially for her.
 
 

Orange Truffles
Linda from make life sweeter!
Linda made these truffles for two lucky girlfriends of hers.
 
 

Colomba Pasquale with Candied Peel
Louise from Knit1Bake2
Louise shares this recipe with a wonderful story about a girl who saved herself from the king by baking this cake for him.
 
 

Dark Chocolate Toffee Cookies
Mary Lynn Allen from Sweet Mary
Mary Lynn made these cookies for another worthy cause, a bake sale to raise money for the March of Dimes (a/k/a the March for Babies).
 
 

Coconut Toffee Almond Crunch Cookies and Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas
Bri, this is only the easiest thing ever because you’re all such loving, giving people to begin with! And I love the cookie system idea: “Everything seems so much better when you’re handing someone an amazing cookie. Arrive late to work? One cookie. Need to take the weekend off? Two cookies. Want your co-workers to be nice to your? Three cookies. Handing in a resignation letter when three other people have just quit and the store is uber-busy? Tin of cookies. See, if everyone worked on the cookie system, life would be so much easier.”
 
 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Zarah Maria Food & Thoughts
Zarah made these cookies for the amazing woman and new mother who has been her best friend since they were 12 years old.
 
 

White Russian Cake
Chriesi from Almond Corner
When Chriesi surprised her mother with this cake, her mother said it was even better than her own. Now, that’s a compliment!
 
 

Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Truffles
Aran from Cannelle Et Vanille
Aran made these beautiful truffles to welcome her friend Deena’s new baby into the world. Congratulations, Deena! And with such a sweet welcome, I’m sure that child will have the sweetest of lives. Welcome to the world, welcome to chocolate, welcome to life!
 
 

Vegan Caramel Candy
Maggie from Dog Hill Kitchen
These vegan caramel’s were Maggie’s son’s first taste of caramel candy!
 
 

Chocolate & Cornflakes nests with Mini Eggs, Chocolate Eggs, Milky Truffles, and Easter Egg Cookies
Isabel Cholaky from Isa’s Cooking
Isa made overflowing easter baskets for her cousins this year.
 
 

Lavender Shortbread and Nutella Cupcakes
Yoko from Virtual Frolic
Yoko made these when she visited her friend Sarah, and lucky her, Sarah made her dinner that evening as well.
 
 

Quadruple Chocolate Cookies
ashleystravel from Introducing Ashley
This was a gift for her husband right before he left for a month-long work trip to the Netherlands.
 
 

Chocolate Walnut Brownies
Deeba from Passionate About Baking…& beyond
Deeba made these for a dear old lady who lives near her, who is 78 years old and still makes sure to greet her at the children’s bus stop each morning.
 
 

Carrot Muffins
Nora from Pipe Dream Pastries
Nora’s family is obsessed with carrot cake, so she made these somewhat healthier than usual carrot muffins for them.
 
 

Peach Kuchen
Kate from A Way To Eat
Kate delivers extra kuchens to her lucky friends around Easter.
 
 

Peanut Manjar Balls
Gretchen Noelle Jones from Canela & Comino
Gretchen loves hospitality, and she brought these treats to the new wife a pastor she’s worked with for several months when she was invited over for lunch.
 
 

Irish Cream Truffles and Grand Marnier Truffles
Mandy from Fresh From The Oven
Monica made these for OTC’s colleagues, in thanks for the wonderful farewell party they threw for them.
 
 

Coconut Cupcakes
Mimi from Mimi on the Move
Mimi made these cupcakes for her friend SV, who declared that they were as good as the cupcakes from Magnolia bakery! (What, not better?)
 
 

Vegan Animal Crackers
Maybelle’s Mom from Feeding Maybelle
Maybelle’s Mom made these cookies for her as a low-sugar Easter treat.
 
 

Caramel Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting
Ashley from eat me, delicious
Ashley made this cake for her sister-in-law’s birthday.
 
 

Banana Jam
Joy from Joy Of Desserts
Joy has wonderful childhood memories of receiving homemade jams from her aunt, and now she shares with us one of the jams she makes herself.
 
 

A Rainbow of Fortune Cookies
Michelle Safirstein from Big Black Dogs
Michelle even typed up her own personalized messages to put into these fortune cookies for her nieces. Too cute!
 
 

Move Over Bugs Bunny, This Carrot Is For Cake!
Danielle Deskins from Colin’s Mom
Danielle made this cake for two co-workers of hers who share the same birthday, but have very different tastes in sweets.
 
 

Grandpa BB’s Red Hot Baked Apples
Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen
Lisa’s theory is that her Grandpa baked these red hot apples for her Grandma, and that’s why she fell in love with him and they had 50 wonderful years together.
 
 

First things first: Up there, that’s a photo of my entirely-too-cute goddaughter eating freshly made marshmallow straight from the spatula. We’re pretty brave (some might say stupid), sugaring up a 4-year-old like that. But how can you deny a child such a sweet, sweet gift?

I’m thrilled that I get to host Sugar High Friday again this month. Sugar High Friday is a traveling event that was originally created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess. Last month, Rachel of Vampituity hosted Sugar High Friday #40: Pies That Evoke Your Dreams (follow the link for the round-up). It’s a hard act to follow, but I’ll try.

The theme for March is: Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts.

In order to participate, please post the recipe for a dessert you made (or want to make) for someone else. Any sweet will do, as long as you also share the story of why you made (or want to make) that particular dessert for that particular person! The emphasis here is on the story more than the dessert, but I’m sure you make your best desserts when they’re meant to be gifts (unless you intentionally made a gross dessert as a prank gift, which would also count for this theme).

Now, the rules:

You must post your entry and email me to notify me of it by Monday, March 24, 2008 . I don’t really have the time to scour the internet searching for your entries, so if you don’t send me an email with the info listed below, it may not be included in the round-up. It’s just a matter of practicality, really.

Don’t forget to mention and link to this announcement in your post and if you can, also include a link to the round-up once it is up.

Send an email with the following information to habeasbrulee-AT-gmail-DOT-com:
Your name
Your blog’s name
Your blog’s URL (homepage)
The title of your entry
Your entry’s permalink (individual URL)
A 200×200 image (please give the file the same name as your blog)

If you don’t have a blog, you can post your write-up and picture (if any) on any website, or in the comments to this post, and I will still include it in the round-up.

The round-up will be posted on Friday, March 28, 2008.

It’s time for Menu of Hope again! What is Menu of Hope, you ask? Well, here’s a FAQ. In sum, Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised an incredible $62,925.12 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

From December 10-21, food bloggers from all over the world will be offering food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. You can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. Tickets cost $10 each, and you may buy as many tickets as you’d like for any one prize or for multiple prizes. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

You can learn about all the other East Coast prizes at Adam Kuban’s East Coast USA regional listing, and I encourage you to bid on not only my cooking class (Prize # UE31), but many of the other prizes as well! They’re not only for a good cause; they’re just plain tasty, too.

As Pim explains:

The UN World Food Programme is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good.

With a special permission from the WFP, the funds raised by Menu for Hope 4 will be earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement – buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there.

Now, let’s get to the point; you want to know what I’m ready to put on the table. Well, here it is: Dave and I are offering to teach a cooking class for two! (Prize # UE31) Yes, that’s right, all the fun of cooking with us in our huge (for NYC) Park Slope kitchen, with us sharing all of our tips and tricks along the way.

We’re happy to tailor the class to you. Want to learn to make kimchi, preserve lemons, and pitch yeast for mead? We can have a fermentation class! If you’re interested in learning sugar art, we can teach you to build a croquemouche or blow sugar bubbles. If you choose to bring your child in as your classmate, we’ll find a set of kid-friendly recipes to work on together. We can focus on a theme ingredient, technique, cuisine, or whatever interests you most!

If you’ve ever read our recipes and thought a dish looked like something you’d like to eat, but wouldn’t have time to make yourself, come in and we’ll show you how fun and easy it can be to make it together.

Or if you’d like something even more personalized, we’ll go through the fundamentals of tasting your spices and ingredients and developing a sense of which flavors and textures will go well together. Afterwards, we’ll cook a few dishes based on the flavor combinations we’ve discovered.

Whether you’d rather learn some of our specialties, or explore a new cuisine or experimental recipes with us, we look forward to cooking with you!

So, go bid! You’ve got until Dec 21 to buy your tickets. Just go to the First Giving Menu For Hope site and follow the instructions (as described below). To be in the running to win our cooking class for two!, you’ll need to enter the code ‘UE31′ in the personal message section.

To Enter

If you’re interested in buying into the raffle, here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Of course, you all want my cooking class (Prize # UE31), but here’s a simpler example:

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02. Example:

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday, January 9 for the results of the raffle.

Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!

It has been a week since I last posted, which is longer than I like. I am sorry about that. Still, as I mentioned before, things have been busy around here lately. I’ll have some exciting news for you in a few weeks. While it’s very hard for me to keep my mouth shut about this one, I can’t make the announcement quite yet.

This is my slightly belated entry to Sugar High Friday #28: Sweet Seduction.

I asked my partner if he would consider himself seduced by these cookies, which I actually made just because I had a spare grapefruit in the fridge that I didn’t want to let go to waste. He doesn’t much like sugar cookies or grapefruit in general, but he declared these cookies “surprisingly inoffensive”. That counts as a seduction by the cookies, under the circumstances!

Me, I’m seduced by pink grapefruit juice every morning. It’s the only thing that really gets me up and ready to start my day.

Pink Grapefruit Ginger Cream Cookies
(adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe)
For the dough
Grated zest of 1 pink grapefruit
1/4 C freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
1 C sugar
2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp teaspoon salt
1/2 C unsalted butter
2 large egg yolks
For the cream filling
1/2 C unsalted butter
2 C confectioners’ sugar
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp freshly grated ginger
3 tbsp freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice

Preheat your oven to 350°.

In a small bowl, combine zest with 1 tbsp sugar, and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set that aside.

Beat butter and remaining sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, and beat until combined. Beat in the zest-sugar mixture. Beat in the flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the juice.

Separate the dough into two equal parts, and shape each into a 1″ thick disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap, and refrigerate them until firm, at least 30 minutes.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out each disk in turn to 1/8″ thick. Cut out cookies of whatever shape you like, and place them 1/2″ apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake, rotating sheet (from top to bottom and from front to back) halfway through, until edges are golden, about 14 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack, and allow them to cool completely.

Make the filling by beating the butter and sugar together until, again, light and fluffy. Beat in the grated ginger and honey. Add the juice 1 tbsp at a time, only so much as you need for the filling to become properly creamy.

Spread about 1 tbsp filling onto the bottoms of half the cookies. Gently sandwich with remaining cookies, since the filling can be pretty oozy. Store in the fridge.

When is a bread not a bread? When it’s a monkey! Life has been pretty stressful for me lately, with some hard decisions still left for me to make, so my partner Dave and I decided to spend a recent evening just monkeying around.

We dipped balls of risen, yeasted dough into melted monkey butter (not really; Dave griped when I suggested buying organic cultured butter, even), then into monkey filling (ground chocolate, ground pecans, and sugar), and layered them into a bundt pan and allowed them to rise again before baking. It was not unlike building a croquembouche, in fact.

Pulling off balls of soft pastry covered in caramelized crumbles of ground chocolate and pecan to devour was a ton of fun. It would be even better as a party treat, since Dave and I can’t demolish a whole monkey bread on our own before it goes stale. (At least, we shouldn’t. Which didn’t stop us from scraping caramelized monkey filling out of the bundt pan to nibble on while waiting for the monkey bread to cool.)

I usually use cookbook recipes as a starting point, adapting them to my own tastes. This time, I directly followed the recipe from The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. No changes, no adaptations, just the comfort of following directions from a cookbook that I know that I can trust.

Monkey Bread
(from The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg)
For the dough
1/4 C warm (but not hot) water
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
3 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
8 tbsp unsalted butter
1 C whole milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 C granulated sugar
4 C all-purpose flour
For the filling
2 1/2 oz. pecans (3/4 C when coarsely chopped)
4 oz. 70% bittersweet chocolate (also 3/4 C when coarsely chopped)
1/2 C granulated sugar
8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Create the dough.

Combine the water and yeast and set aside for about 10 minutes, or until foamy. This is basically to wake it up and give it a nice head start.

Heat the butter and milk together just until the butter melts, then mix into the egg yolks until combined. (If you are using a stand mixer, as I tend to, use the paddle attachment and keep the speed on low.) Mix in the salt, sugar, and foamy yeast/water mixture until combined. Add 2 C flour and mix until just incorporated, not worrying about the last few lumps. Add the rest of the flour (another 2 C) and mix for 30 seconds, then raise the speed to medium and keep on mixing until the dough is smooth. This should take about 5 minutes. The dough will still be sticky at this point.

Butter a large bowl, then transfer the dough into the bowl. Flip it around a bit to coat it with the butter. Lightly cover and leave it to rise for 1 – 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Create the filling.

Grind the pecans, chocolate, and sugar together in a food processor until sandy in texture.

Build the monkey bread.

Prepare a bundt pan by buttering and sugaring it.

Prepare that melted butter and keep it nearby in a small bowl.

Pull off small pieces of dough, rolling them into balls about the size of a golf ball. Coat each monkey ball in melted butter, then in the filling, then place it into the bundt pan. Fill the bundt pan with coated monkey balls that way until all the dough is used up, trying to keep the top layer fairly flat, as it will be the bottom when you flip the thing out in the end.

Cover and allow to rise for about an hour, until doubled in size or until it is terrifyingly close to overflowing your bundt pan and the dough doesn’t really bounce back when you poke it.

Bake and devour the monkey bread.

Preheat your oven to 350º.

Brush the top of the monkey bread with any remaining melted butter (if you have any, that is, else don’t worry too much about it).

Bake 40-45 minutes, until the top is dark brown and a cake tester inserted into the center (of a doughy bit, not through the empty center of the pan, of course!) comes out clean.

Let cool for about 5 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack, remove the pan, and let cool for another 15 minutes before serving.

I want to thank and congratulate all of you. When I set the Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art challenge for this month’s Sugar High Friday, I was afraid I would scare people off, intimidate them out of just going ahead and having fun. Instead, you went ahead and made an extraordinary array of gorgeous treats, any of which I’d be proud to show off. This round-up is an incredible resource for anyone looking to decorate their table come time for dessert. Thank you so much for playing along with me this month!

Also, an extra thank you to all the people who wished me a happy birthday when sending in their entries. I’ll be turning 26 tomorrow, and your company and inspiration have made it a happier birthday for me already.

The photo up top is my 12 year old brother, Jordan, with the croquembouche we made for New Year’s Eve. Dave made one with a friend a while back, but I missed out, so this was my excuse to finally build a tower of cream puffs held together with caramel. Creating and then devouring that monstrosity was a wonderful way to bring in 2007. (We sent the leftovers to another party in Queens.) Happy new year to you all!

Now, on to the entries! They are posted in the order in which they were received.

Cranberry Mousse
Kevin from Seriously Good
 
 

Swan Raspberry Eclairs
Cenk from Cafe Fernando
 
 

Painted Sugar Cookies
Elf from Kosherblog
 
 

Mäuseköpfe
Brigitte from Küchendunst aus Singapur
 
 

Mom’s Peanut Brittle
Andrea from Andrea’s Recipe Box
 
 

Orangettes
Gerda from Dinner for One
 
 

Orange & Cardamom Mentine
Ales from Preserveless
 
 

Raspberry and Mascarpone Mousse Verrines — Verrines de framboises et mousse à la mascarpone
Bea from La tartine gourmande
 
 

Nog ‘n Log Blog
Alwyn from Tsokolate!
 
 

Nougat Orange Treats and Havana Pralines
Meeta from What’s For Lunch, Honey?
 
 

Tri Sugar Tryst
Y from Lemonpi
 
 

Super Marzipanario
Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas
 
 

Almond and Pine Nut Cookies
Rinku from Cooking in Westchester
 
 

Birthday Cupcakes
Macky from Delectations
 
 

Honey Glazed Roasted Pears
Veronica from Veronica’s Test Kitchen
 
 

Croccante and Meyer
Lemon Sugarland
Virtual Frolic
 
 

Trinidad Goolab Jamoon and Sarina’s Passionate Mint Tea
Sarina Nicole from TriniGourmet
 
 

Chocolate Christmas Tree
Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once
 
 

Mr. Bear’s Teaparty (with a Blackberry Galette)
Ellie from Kitchen Wench
 
 

Tronchetto di Natale
Staximo from Lo Spazio di Staximo
 
 

Cardamom Meyer Lemon Créme Brûlée Bubbles
Danielle from Habeas Brûlée
 
 

Almond and Orange Cake
Ulrike from Küchenlatein
 
 

Bûche de Noël Pastorale
Julie from A Finger in Every Pie
 
 

Rose Cake
Dilek from À La Dilek
 
 

Gingerbread Houses
Smita from Smita Serves You Right
 
 

Just Coffee Cake for New Year’s
Brandon from Brandon Eats
 
 

Pomegranate Kisses
Debi from Dejamo’s Distracted
 
 

Bûche de Noël with meringue mushrooms and candied rosemary
Gloria from Vers l’absurde
 
 

Sweet Memories (Rolled Fondant)
Jennifer from The Domestic Goddess
 
 

Spooky Sugar Art
Chrispy from Experimentation of Taste
 
 

House Sweet House, Literally
Riana from For The Love Of Baking
 
 

El Bulli’s Frozen Chocolate Air
Rob and Rachel from Hungry In Hogtown
 
 

Holiday Cookies
Kathy from Start Cooking
 
 

Sparkly Chocolate Star Cookies
Michelle from Je Mange La Ville

This is my entry for Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art. Today is the last day to post entries, so please get them up and email me about them soon! I’m really excited about all the entries I’ve seen so far, and would love to see what the rest of you can come up with, too.

These are blown bubbles of caramelized sugar, filled with a standard créme brûlée custard flavored with cardamom and meyer lemon zest. Edible art, they are probably the prettiest and most elegant dessert I know how to make, and among the most delicious as well.

We taught ourselves to do this after seeing photos of Alinea’s take on créme brûlée. (Yes, their custard is powdered. Ours is not. As you can see, if you blow the bubbles too thin, the custard starts to melt through eventually – so blow thick bubbles, or serve them quickly. I prefer the latter.)

Although we later learned that they shape their bubbles by coating balloons with caramel and then popping and removing the balloons once the sugar hardens, we decided to blow ours, because the photo reminded me of glass-blowing and I thought it might work. It did.

If you can imagine the two of us dancing around the kitchen for a couple of hours, whirling like mad, burning our fingers, wrecking tubes that were too narrow, and ending up with every available surface covered in ragged bubbles and strands of unintentionally pulled sugar, well, then, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the learning process was like.

Cardamom Meyer Lemon Créme Brûlée Bubbles

Make the custard (recipe below). Let it chill. Make the bubbles (recipe below). Pipe custard into bubbles. Don’t bother with piping tips; just cut a very small hole in the corner of a ziplock bag, or something like that. Very, very small.

If your bubbles are so perfectly blown that they do not have any holes in them, heat up the tip of a knife with a kitchen torch or gas stove and use that to carefully melt a hole in each bubble through which you can pipe the custard.

Cardamom Meyer Lemon Custard
2 C heavy cream
1 C milk
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
Zest from 2 meyer lemons
6 green cardamom pods
6 large egg yolks
1/2 C granulated sugar

Heat the heavy cream, milk, and spices in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and steep until strongly flavored.

Beat the yolks and sugar together until pale yellow. Pour about 1/2 C of the cream mixture into the egg mixture and beat to incorporate, then slowly pour the rest in while you keep on beating.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Strain the custard base into a set of small ramekins, and place the ramekins in a high-walled baking or roasting pan lined with a small dish towel that covers the bottom (but not the sides). Pour enough hot water into the pan to come up half way on the sides of the ramekins. Loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack for about 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through.

The custards are done when they are slightly jiggly in the middle, but not very. Remove them from the pan and cool on a wire rack to room temperature before covering and refrigerating for at least a few hours.

Caramelized Sugar Bubbles
3 C sugar
1 1/2 C water
2 tsp cream of tartar

You’ll need a few special tools for this – some aluminum (or any other metal, really) tubes, maybe 12-18″ or so long, about 1/4-1/2″ in diameter. These are easy to find at Pearl Paint, or whatever your nearest arts & crafts supply store may be. Also, a kitchen torch and a knife.

Mix all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Have an ice water bath (in a bowl large enough to contain the bottom of the pot) ready nearby. Heat the pot slowly until the caramel reaches a nice gold color, not too dark, then remove the pot from the heat and dip the bottom into the ice water bath to stop it from cooking further.

Wait until the caramel cools a bit. You want it thick enough so that you can gather up a ball of it at the end of your metal tube, and touch it a bit with your fingers when necessary, but not so thick that you will be unable to blow it out. I end up reheating it as it cools too much, and waiting when it is too hot, trying to catch moments where it is at the perfect consistency.

The idea is to gently blow bubbles of sugar through the tube, patching holes with your fingers as they form, or just cradling the bubble until it cools and hardens. Blow softly. Be patient. It takes a while to get the knack of it. When things are going particularly well, I shape them best by dancing, whirling with tube and sugar kept buoyant by my breath around the kitchen letting gravity do the work for me, letting the sugar flow into the shape I wanted without ever touching it at all.

The kitchen torch and the knife come in handy when trying to clean out any sugar hardened in the tube in between bubbles.

If you won’t be serving them right away, store them in a covered container lined with parchment paper, with a small dish or pile of salt in there to absorb the moisture.

Sugar High Friday, SHF

This month, I am hosting Sugar High Friday, a traveling event that was originally created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess. Last month, Johanna of The Passionate Cook had the wonderful idea of inviting us all to make chocolate truffles, and oh, my, did everyone produce some tasty looking treats.

In fact, they were so beautiful that I feel very confident in my choice for December’s theme, Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art.

It’s time for the holidays, so let’s decorate the internet with our beautiful creations! You don’t have to do any complicated or fancy pulled sugar or sculpted marzipan – just make us a dessert that you think is cute or pretty or just plain fun to look at, and I’ll be impressed and pleased as can be. If you want to blow swans made of hollow sugar, go right ahead, but marzipan kitties, throwing a few toys among your cookies, or even the beauty of a sprinkling of powdered sugar meets this theme just as well. So rev up all that creative energy, remember how you used to do arts and crafts as a kid, and let’s play!

You do not have to be a great photographer – or even a photographer at all – in order to participate this month. If you don’t want to use a photo, feel free to describe in words what makes your dessert fun to look at, or the techniques you used to make food into art.

Now, the rules:

Your post must go up by Friday, December 29, 2006!

Don’t forget to mention and link to this announcement in your post and if you can, also include a link to the round-up once it is up.

Send an email with the following information to habeasbrulee-AT-gmail-DOT-com:
Your name
Your blog’s name
Your blog’s URL (homepage)
The title of your entry
Your entry’s permalink (individual URL)

Since the deadline is right in the midst of the holidays (in fact, it’s 4 days before my birthday), I won’t have the time to scour the internet searching for your entries – you must email me to notify me of them by the 29th!

If you don’t have a blog, send me your picture and write-up anyway, but be sure to do so as far in advance as possible so that I can publish it before the 29th.

It was hard, trying to figure out what to do for Sugar High Friday #25: Truffles. After all, we all know how to make truffles – either you throw together a ganache and roll it in something, then keep it in the fridge, or you take out your chocolate molds and create chocolate shells into which you place whatever filling you please. There is a lot of room for creativity with truffles, and for tastiness, but it all basically comes down to a filling and a coating.

I’ve made a lot of truffles over the years. I wanted to do something more interesting for Sugar High Friday.

So, I made a single truffle. Entirely from scratch.

When I met John Scharffenberger a few weeks ago, I told him about my interest in making chocolate, and also my lack of interest in buying all the complicated machinery.

He told me that I could make chocolate in an Indian spice grinder at home. Easy schmeasy, no?

So, I took some Venezuelan Ocumare cocoa nibs, sorted through them, and removed all (well, most) remaining bits of husk. I scattered them in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, and roasted them at 220º for 18 minutes.

I put some of them into my spice grinder, which is really just a standard, cheap coffee grinder. I ground them into powder, and then added a dash of confectioner’s sugar.

I kept grinding them, stopping often to scrape down the sides of the grinder. Once, I took my proto-chocolate out and microwaved it for a few seconds in a small bowl to heat it up, then returned it to the grinder and kept going.

This is how to make chocolate at home. Easy schmeasy, and damned tasty.

To turn my tiny quantity of homemade chocolate into a truffle, I heated it up with a small splash of heavy cream and a tiny amount of butter, stirring it into the emulsion we call a ganache. I put the ganache in the fridge to chill, then rolled it into a sphere once it was solid enough to hold its shape.

I crushed a few more of the roasted cocoa nibs by placing them inside a sheet of parchment paper folded in half, and going over them with a rolling pin.

I rolled my sphere of ganache in the crushed cocoa nibs to coat it.

And that was that. One ocumare truffle, made from scratch.

One bite.

Yum.

Sugar High Friday, SHF

This is another collection of food blog posts which have really caught my attention and struck me as worth and saving and, in the case of the recipes, worth trying out. I highly recommend taking a look.

This particular set of posts had a certain shared quality to them, an emotional intensity and history. There were a few old family recipes and stories, long instructions on how to make some very comforting stock, an essay on the love of food, and even someone’s very favorite cookies. It fits very well with the theme for this month’s edition of The Spice is Right VII: Seasons of Love.

Melissa made a stunning fig and goat cheese clafoutis.

Eat on a door, an essay about how to eat and why, reads like a love poem. Do you recall Neil Gaiman’s introduction to that one edition of Lord Dunsany’s masterpiece, The King of Elfland’s Daughter? He said (and I am holding the book in my hands now and laughing still at the jam roll that saved the child from going to Elfland) that “[Dunsany's] words sing, like those of a poet who got drunk on the prose of the King James Bible, and who has still not yet become sober.” Patti writes like a woman drunk on the passion of Brillat-Severin, and I can think of no higher praise than this.

Stephen made charred tomato pesto after his oven-roasted tomatoes seemed to have gone horribly wrong, turning his trash into tasty, tasty treasure.

Barbara put together a detailed, illustrated, and utterly thorough explanation of how to make chicken stock. This knowledge is more precious than rubies. Chicken feet are also more precious than rubies.

Barbara also made red cooked beef with turnips a while back, though I only just noticed the post while searching through her archives. This is her take on a recipe which originally came from a cookbook I just purchased and am loving very much, Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking by Fuschia Dunlop.

Anita gave us the recipe for her favorite cookies ever, Korova cookies. That’s praise I can’t pass up. Looks like they have a very interesting, crumbly texture that I fully intend to try out.

Ivonne told us the tale of what it means when her family decides each year that it is time to do the tomatoes. I want to come visit some September and help out! Please, Ivonne, please can I? I’ll bring you loads of foodie gifts to make it worth your while.

Lisa very generously shared her grandmother’s recipe for pecan pie.

Molly has an exciting apricot recipe I can add to my collection! Oh, I do so love apricots. She made chocolate chip cookies with dried apricots and espresso. Bonnie and I made these with extra cocoa powder and extra espresso powder, and they turned out really well.

Helene made creme brulee in egg shells, a beautiful presentation of a classically delicious dessert.

I am fascinated by this recipe for sunnundalu over at Cooking Medley. I’ve never had sunnundalu, and I don’t really know what they are like. But they involve ghee and cardamom, so I would love to find out.

Saffron Hut made almond halva, another recipe involving plenty of sugar and ghee.

Meeta has an explanation of how to make gnocchi in sage garlic butter that I will have to make sometime when Dave isn’t home. (He doesn’t like potatoes. I have to sneak them around the edges, cook them in small portions, and hope to have potato-loving dinner guests.)

Ximena’s drawing of the chef holding a knife and whisk fighting the lanky boxer is simply the most charming image ever.