What are you baking? June 2022

I probably shouldn’t show you this, then, which is one of the most outstanding strawberry things this strawberry-obsessed person has ever put into her mouth: homemade strawberry milk.

strawberry milk

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Oh! I’m glad you did share! I’ll have to try that when our berries come in.

It’s been raining for weeks with more predicted in the near future, which does not bode well for a good crop. Hope springs eternal, however! Strawberry milk is now on my list.

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Rhubarb and white chocolate blondies. I’ve been putting rhubarb in everything these days and while nothing beats straight rhubarb pie for me, these are pretty tasty. I usually find blondies too sweet but the rhubarb helps temper that. I’m not a fan of white chocolate, but had some left from another project, so decided to include it. Next time I would go with almonds or pistachios, because I occasionally tasted it, and it added to the sweetness. I had extra rhubarb chopped, so mine are probably a little damper than ideal, but still delicious. https://new.milk.org/Discover-Dairy/Recipes/Ultimate-Rhubarb-White-Chocolate-Blondies

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I didn’t think I’d be baking choux again, but I made some mango namelaka and thought I’d use it to fill cream puffs. Mango season is officially off to the races and we have gotten many mangos from friends and neighbors, of all sorts of varieties. And I don’t actually like eating mangos much because I find them too sweet. So I like to make things with them, which is how I ended up making these mango cream puffs with coconut craquelin. The mango namelaka is so smooth and creamy, and paired with the pieces of mango tastes intensely of mango. I intended for them to have coconut-infused whipped cream, but no matter what I do, I simply cannot get the UHT 35% cream sold here to whip. I can freeze the bowl and whip attachment, whip over ice, the result is the same. I should probably have just taken a shot at whipping coconut cream, but our canned coconut milk isn’t that great.



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You know, I’ve never used my Breville’s emulsion disc meant to whip cream and now I’m thinking maybe I’ll give that a try and see if magic happens.

I’ll often use my immersion blender to whip cream. It works really fast. Vitamix will work, too.

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Immersion blender doesn’t work. I like it for whipping cream in normal conditions, but it doesn’t work with the cream here. I used the stand mixer today which I never do for whipping cream just to see if it would make a difference. Same result as usual— incapable of reaching even medium peaks, will eventually look curdled the way over-whipped cream does (though not quite as much) if you keep whipping. The food processor I’ve only ever used for freeze dried fruit whipped cream, but it is supposed to whip plain cream pretty fast, and my Breville also comes with a disc specifically for whipping which I’ve never used. I don’t have much hope, but it can’t hurt to try.

I tried using gelatin once in a hot climate, but didn’t get great results, soft peaks at best. But some people swear by that method.

Gelatin helps to stabilize already whipped cream (though it’s not great at high temperatures), but it can’t really make cream that won’t whip achieve peaks, so I’m not surprised it didn’t do much for you. In general I’ve resolved to use mascarpone when I want a whipped cream frosting, but it’s not a suitable substitution in many cases, and it’s expensive.
I can also get something like ganache to whip thanks to the chocolate.
It’s too bad the locally produced pasteurized (not UHT) 40% cream isn’t sold in this town anymore because the supermarkets stopped carrying the company’s products due to poor sales. :pensive:

Gelatin helps to whip milk for some people: https://www.diyncrafts.com/11670/food/no-whipped-cream-in-the-fridge-make-it-yourself-from-milk-and-gelatin

I didn’t have luck with milk or cream.

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One thing I’d been considering with the cream is if the surface exposure to heat was mucking things up. As much as I used an ice bath and chilled all the bowls and whatever utensils I was using, I often found the cream would be fairly warm by the time I managed to fail yet again. Today I decided to try whipping it in my room with the AC on. Success!

I’m the time I’ve been back in the kitchen with the cream still in an ice bath, it has become noticeably less thick and dense, so yeah, I feel pretty good about my hypothesis that the air simply being too oppressively hot was keeping my cream from whipping.

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Oh yeah I’ve seen similar videos on YouTube of people promising you can make whipped cream with cornstarch and milk, and tons of comments complaining about how it didn’t work. :laughing:

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I wanted to reach right into my screen and take one, those look absolutely delicious!

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Wow, that looks beautiful and delicious. I love choux pastry and pastry cream filling in any iteration.

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I’ve made this strawberry milk a zillion times and I agree; it’s absolutely delicious.

For those of you who don’t have fresh strawberries yet, frozen will work fine in this recipe.

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I make this Crispy Peach Cobbler pretty much weekly during stone fruit season. It’s a favorite in our household. I tend to prefer fruit desserts where the fruit is not cooked prior to being baked. This recipe is especially nice because the fruit isn’t sweetened.

So far in 2022 I’ve made it once with peaches and once with mango nectarines and Blenheim apricots.

I halve the recipe. I don’t halve the lemon zest juice; I use the zest and juice from a whole lemon. I don’t reduce the sugar although the Smitten Kitchen blogger recommends that you do.

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I have a friend who adores home baked sweets, but is trying out a dairy free diet. I made this Strawberry Granola Crisp for her.

I’ve made this recipe many times. It is easy to make, delicious and it accommodates many dietary restrictions as it’s vegan.

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Careful, double check frozen organic strawberries, big recall, hep A?

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Argh, another recall.

Where I live, Los Angeles, CA, we can get fresh strawberries at the farmers’ markets virtually year round so I never buy frozen strawberries.

I also rarely buy organic.

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Thanks to SallyT for suggesting this recipe: strawberries and cream bars from Jessie Sheehan’s new cookbook, snackable bakes https://www.amazon.com/dp/1682687376/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
I have been making a strawberry and cream cookie recipe for about 10 years, which is tasty but can be fussy. This recipe will definitely be replace my old one for the combination of white chocolate and freeze dried strawberries in a cookie, which I think is magic. I browned the butter to be a bit extra but I think that this would be wonderful without it that extra step as well. Recipe here: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2022/05/21/strawberryncream-bar-cookies

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