Breadsticks look great & good job on reusing the parchment!
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Spice grinder instantly makes almond butter, how do you avoid this?
When you grind with sugar (or for other things, flour), it allows you to get a finer grind than if you grind them by themselves. You also need to work quickly so the grinder doesn’t heat up and make butter. I do it in small batches— enough to grind well, but not so much that the almonds aren’t moving. By grinding the almonds in the food processor first, you only need a few seconds in the grinder to get a fine powder. This is why I only ever used sliced almonds if I go straight into the grinder. Any other almonds (whole or slivered) I put in the food processor first to make the job faster and easier for the coffee grinder.
This is the one I typically use. I have a larger one, but like this one better.
I’m going to buy this one eventually to have a larger one:
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I think it must be my grinder. It never worked for me.
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Raymond Blanc’s lemon cake. Just the thing for the weekend.
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Half-recipe of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s excellent “triple lemon velvet bundt” for mom’s bday/mother’s day. Sorry the photo is so dark.
The cake was part of an elaborate surprise for my mother, involving an extremely unexpected visit from my brother who lives halfway across the country. It was so lovely to have the whole family together to enjoy this cake after her birthday dinner last night, and again today for Mother’s Day. Like most pound cakes, it’s markedly better the second day.
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That whole celebration sounds lovely! Thanks for the recommendation. We are all lemon lovers, and I see that this cake will make an appearance sometime soon. Just after my next Costco trip for 5 pounds of lemons. Yum!
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Rhubarb tart @Stef_bakes . I made the pâte sucrée from Molly Wilkinson for the tart, and as you mentioned, it is very soft. I think perhaps too much confectionery sugar might be the culprit. I also used the FP but did a couple of envelope folds rather than the fraisage. Made half of the recipe and cut that in half, I had enough for two 8” tarts. My guess is that it is going to taste very good. How did you find the galette?
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Nannybakes I found the crust baked up nicely and was easy to cut,didn’t fall apart. It had just the right amount of sweetness and had a nice crunch. We really liked the filling but I used a bit more flour because of the rhubarb. I didn’t frisage the dough either, just brought it together and shaped it into a disc. Will definitely try your method next time. Thanks.
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Hi all:
I rarely bake. But had some strawberries starting to go soft, so used them up with this recipe:
I find Sally’s site gives reliable results. There were techniques new to me: using strawberry puree in the batter and freeze dried strawberries in the frosting.
The flavour profile is different from the usual (to us) chocolate etc. I really enjoyed the result. The strawberry really shone through.
Family is happy to eat any cupcake. I made mini cupcakes trying for portion control, but am eating more of them. Hoping for more self-restraint tomorrow 
We don’t have a stand mixer or a hand blender, so I tried making the frosting using the immersion blender whisk. Even with a paper plate covering, it started to fly everywhere. So DH applied old technology and beat it all by hand with a fork. Worked fine and was a fine workout!
We don’t have patience for piping the frosting so I just applied with a knife. Not insta-pretty, but tastes great.
Seeking ideas to use up excess strawberry puree and white chocolate chips. Any suggestions?
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Date and pecan sourdough. As good as I remembered, though this version is pretty different from the last time. I increased the amount of starter from 4.5% to over 30% because temperatures here just make it impossible to have a dough bulk ferment overnight at room temp and I haven’t been all that happy with doing bulk ferment in the fridge for sourdough. I also wanted to make a less sour loaf, and since I can’t really control temperature, I figured increasing the starter amount would be the best option. It also helps that my firm starter produces less sour bread than 100% hydration starter.
With that change plus use of my stiff starter I had to do a little math to adjust the flour and water amounts, but it turned out well. The dough had a great feel.
It was pretty annoying that after all that and waiting hours for the dough to rise, the power went out shortly after I put this in the banneton. I ended up sticking the loaf in the fridge because the power was down for hours and this only needed a fairly short rise. I’m just glad the loaf still turned out well after all that, though my plans to give half the loaf away went up in smoke due to how late this was done. 
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I have collected a bunch of egg whites, which is never a problem for me since they last a long time and I always go through them, but I have more egg-yolk heavy things planned, so I prefer to use some up before I proceed. I have no desire for buttercream or layer cakes at the moment, which is how I often use up egg whites, but I still have plenty of ways to finish them!
I decided to make these coconut and vanilla financiers. I haven’t always loved financiers, but once I started baking them more often and making sure they were properly salted and not too sweet, I found them much better. Most financier recipes don’t include any salt at all, and if they do it’s a measly pinch. I don’t find them the least bit enjoyable. These are nicely salted (a must with coconut) and really tasty.
Next up on my egg white depletion list is a no-bake recipe, which is just the thing for the current temperatures here!
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the puree freezes very well, in case you can’t find a quick use for it.
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I can’t remember what you use to get the cakes out of pan perfectly; how long do they remain in pan once removed from oven?
Do you cut back on sugar? Use both glazes?
(I’m thinking of making this since you love it so)
Looks amazing Shellybean! Where is the recipe from?
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I used this recipe, with the addition of 2 g of salt then added a bit more once I tasted the batter. I like to make the batter a day before for financiers because I find the flavors are better and the eggy scent and flavor of the egg whites lessens.
She has a lot of really appealing recipes for financiers!
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All my baking time is taken up by wedding baking.
I’ve baked off all the cookies for the favors, which I’ll package with UHT milk for a corny “Go together like milk and cookies” type of thing. I decided on Atk’s brown sugar cookies & KAF’s almond thumbprints. Both very good recipes.
I tried a new to me gluten free cake recipe from Gluten Free On A Shoestring, usually I just sub cup4cup for into my favorite cake recipes and it turns out well but I wanted to try hers. It was nice and fluffy but not as tasty as my other gf practice cakes.
I’ve also been baking off the layers for the non-gluten free tiers. I’m using the a recipe from Sweetapolita for these. I’ve tried12 vanilla cake recipes and this one had the right combination of flavor, texture, and cut ability without crumbs.
Here is a photo of the cake so far, on a cake stand that is definitely not stable enough to use. I may just skip the stand all together.
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Lots of wonderful baking. Are you going to transport that wedding cake,yikes. Maybe get a large very sturdy cake board
Luckily, I won’t need to transport it, the wedding is taking place here. If I had to transport it, I would put each finished tier in a box and stack them at the venue. As it is, I might still stack it in place on the morning of the wedding, instead of ahead of time because there are some stairs the cake needs to go down. I can lift it now and I’ll use a center dowel through the entire cake but I’m not sure I want to try to carry it down any stairs, nor do I trust the men folk to do it for me. Maybe I’ll stack the bottom 2 tiers and leave the last 2 for the day of the wedding, we’ll see.
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Two different cream scone recipes, first time making either and both were big winners:
Stella Park’s Milk Chocolate Scone (thanks to @Shelleybean). I used turbinado sugar as the suggested sub for toasted sugar on top, and otherwise followed the recipe. I prepped the flour and butter mixture a day in advance, an option given in the recipe. I also chopped the chocolate and scaled the dairy a day in advance. With everything prepped and well chilled, it only took a few minutes to throw everything together on baking day. I used Guittard Milk Chocolate Baking Chips, which I chopped, but I think a chopped chocolate bar would make for a prettier scone. These were incredibly good, and a lot of bang for very little effort. I don’t like super saccharine baked goods, and even though these are very rich, they are not overly sweet. I loved them, and DH, our resident choco fiend, loved them even more. As good as anything you’d find in a bake shop, if not better. Will make again, especially if I’m trying to impress.
Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Flaky Cranberry Scones, a recipe which calls for bread flour and whipped cream. I used regular baking powder (not aluminum-free) and only had one lemon to zest (not two). Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe. A bit fussy with the whipping and zesting, and she wants you to cut the cranberries in half with a pair of scissors (really??!!). I chilled for 4 hours before baking, and experienced a bit of weeping, but not too bad. On a double sheet pan (recommended by the author), it took about 35 minutes to bake to the suggested temp and color (recipe gives 25 minutes). As she mentions, these were moist on the first day. As suggested in the recipe, I left a few out overnight at room temp. By morning the texture was much closer to something I’ve been pursuing, but which had thus far eluded me. To my taste, they were perfect the next day – flaky, cakey, and just a tad bit on the dry side. Maybe, then, whipping the cream is the key for me – I’ll happily settle for the extra work for a scone this good. FYI I found a similar recipe from Shauna Sever. I will try it soon, to compare.
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