Silky French buttercream is like a Swiss meringue buttercream, except it uses egg yolks instead of the whites. Basically, you are creating Pâté à Bombe and adding butter. What could be more intense in flavor than that? Perhaps adding the seeds from a vanilla bean? What is a pâté à bombe? It's...
Learning how to make Swiss meringue buttercream will change your life. Are you looking for a beautiful cake icing that isn't cloy like American buttercream? And isn't as bland, chemical laden and oily as the whipped icings made by store bakeries? This may very well be your next best friend. It's a...
Now that you have learned the basics of meringue making, let's make what some people think is a difficult dessert: an angelic angel food cake. It really isn't difficult when you learn that most recipes steer you wrong. When learning to make this dessert, I have to warn you first and foremost:...
This post will walk you through how to make a Swiss Meringue. You may ask yourself why do I want to make Swiss version when it is more work than French meringue? There are two main reasons: stability and food safety. By heating the eggs to 160F (71C) you will kill off most bacteria that may be...
In order to make many desserts, you'll need to learn how to whip egg whites and make french meringue. This is one instance where I highly recommend an electric beater. It doesn't have to be fancy, but hand mixing becomes very tedious and can take more than an hour if you are whipping up a large...
Razzmatazz raspberry buttercream frosting is a mouthful both figuratively and literally. And it is so incredibly fun to say aloud. Try it. I'll wait patiently. Didn't I tell you? It's just as pleasurable to eat as it is to say so let's get started. Tart and sweet just go together. Raspberry is a...
If you want to use the microwave to temper chocolate, this post that goes into depth on how to temper for each of the various chocolates. However, if you do not own a microwave, or you are having overheating issues trying that method, this tutorial is for you! It will also so you how to fix bloom...
Tempering white chocolate doesn't have to be difficult. But exactly what is it? White chocolate is cocoa butter with milk and sugars added. Some people argue it's not chocolate at all because there is only cocoa butter, not actual cocoa in the candy. That's up to you to decide. One thing that is...
Now that we've learned the basics on tempering chocolate, let's learn to temper milk chocolate. I like to practice with baking chips, pretzels and cereals to make a delicious candy bar that doesn't need much work. That way, all the chocolate is used up after practicing and you can break it up and...
Tempering semi-sweet chocolate doesn't have to be difficult. If you want to learn about the basics of what tempering is, you can read my post on it here. Otherwise, let's move on. You'll want to know the basic temperature for the type of chocolate you are working with as noted in the table below:...
Tempering dark chocolate is the process of making chocolate smooth, shiny, durable and snappy. You can read more here. In the meantime, think about how sometimes you buy a chocolate bar and it's streaked with white, is bendable and melts just touching it. That's because the chocolate became too...
You can't grow up around Ohio or Herd country without getting buckeyes shoved in your face. They were created by a graduate of Marshall University in 1964 named Gail Tabor Lucas. You can read her son's blog about it here. The long story short, her mother sent her a recipe for peanut butter balls...
Let's make some spiced pumpkin bread this afternoon, shall we? It was in February that I had an idea. I had just finished making banana bread and it occurred to me: What if I just simply replace the bananas with pumpkin? Let me tell you, this was ingenious. I have since found you can take this...
Fat-Free Rice Krispie Treats Recipe without butter is an easy modification. Since there is no butter in this recipe, this is also a dairy-free rice krispie treat recipe. Kellogg® brand puffed rice cereal and high quality marshmallows are recommended, but you can also use generic and they turn out...
Chocolate macarons are amazing simply because they combine the flavors of meringue, almonds and cocoa. They remind you of brownies, chocolate silk pie and almond candy bars all at once. They are the perfect treat for chocolate lovers. We are all crazy about chocolate macarons. This recipe is...