How To Make Mouthwatering Homemade Salsa!

Posted on 2 September 2009 under Ethnic Recipes, How To Articles, Low Fat Recipes, Mexican Dishes, Quick & Easy Recipes, Spanish Dishes | 2 Comments

If you have ever had homemade salsa you know there is just no substitute. Just smelling the peppers and tomatoes, the onions and cilantro as you cut and mix them is a delight. Whether you are looking for a new recipe with great instructions, or you have never made this delightful companion for Spanish and Mexican dishes, you should check out: How To Make Salsa. Your taste buds will thank you!

Candied Flowers on Your Cake??

Posted on 1 June 2008 under Cake Decorating, Desserts, How To Articles | No Comments

What About Candied Flowers For Cake Decorating…

Edible flowers are often used as a garnish or as an ingredient in salads. Not all flowers are edible, however, there are many varieties that are. Very few supermarkets carry edible flowers, but they are available at specialty markets that carry gourmet produce. These flowers can be stored up to a week in the refrigerator if they are wrapped well. This will work fine if they are intended for use in salads, but for cake decorating they will need to be fresh.

Be sure to know the source of your flowers or how they were grown. Organic is best, as you should never eat flowers that have been sprayed with pesticides. Here is a list of  some of the most popular edible flowers:

  • Nasturtiums - have a Peppery flavor
  • Chive blossoms - taste like a mild sweet onion
  • Roses
  • Violas
  • Pansies - which taste a bit like grapes
  • Apple blossoms
  • Almond
  • Lavender
  • Borage
  • Chamomile
  • Lovage
  • Lemon blossoms
  • Orange blossoms
  • Plum blossoms
  • Peach blossoms
  • Squash blossoms
  • Daisies
  • Chrysanthemums
  • Geraniums
  • Marigolds
  • Jasmine
  • Lilacs
  • Violets

Making Candied Flowers

Candied flowers are great for desserts and in cake decorating.  Here is a recipe to make your own.

Time to prepare: 8 hrs. and 15 minutes
Yield: 2 dozen flowers.

1/4 cup beaten egg whites
1/2 cup superfine sugar
2 cups edible flowers of your choice

Clean and blot flowers dry with a paper towel. Using a food paint brush, brush on a thin layer of egg white on each side of the flower petals or blossoms. Place flowers into a shallow bowl of superfine sugar and sprinkle more sugar over the flowers to coat them. Make sure the entire flower has been sprinkled with sugar. Remove the flowers and place them on a sheet of waxed paper. Sprinkle each flower with another layer of sugar, and make sure the entire flower gets a layer of sugar.

Allow flowers to dry on the waxed paper for 8 hours. Store these tasty treats in an airtight container at room temperature until they are needed.

More real flowers and fruit are being used in cake decorating than ever before. The addition of these wonderful edible treats gives the cake an elegant look. Whatever the occasion may be, you will get many compliments on your choice of decoration.

Cake decorating can be a bit frustrating and time consuming. But once you learn the techniques and use the newest ideas when cake decorating, you will find that it can be fun, rewarding, and lucrative. Most cake decorators have an artistic background or artistic talent.

If you are thinking of starting a cake decorating business in your home, you will need to keep up with the latest trends in cake decorating so that you can offer your clients new unique and wonderful choices.

Gourmet Desserts - What are they and how in the world do I make them??

Posted on 27 February 2008 under Desserts, Gourmet Cooking, How To Articles | No Comments

Gourmet desserts- types and methods of preparing

A dessert can only be called gourmet if it is made with high-quality products- fresh dairy products, fresh in-season fruits, nuts, fresh eggs and so on. A gourmet dessert can finish off a meal with a flair and leave a great impression for those you share it with.

Types of gourmet deserts

There are various types of gourmet desserts. The common denominator is the richness of flavor and the quality of ingredients, which make the desserts a special treat. Some examples are listed below.

Banana mango- this gourmet dessert might get topped with a cream cheese icing. A sticky toffee! It may be called a sticky date cake, a likable gourmet dessert. Mango cake with mango chunks for a flavor burst with moist banana fruit.

Lemon Cheesecake- This gourmet dessert is generally topped with tangy lemon curd, also baked with lemon and vanilla cheesecake.

Cappuccino Cheesecake- a delicious gourmet dessert. Once you taste it, you will absolutely want it again.  A real crowd pleaser! This gourmet dessert is baked with vanilla cheesecake and also flavored with a layer of coffee in crumbs of chocolate.

New York Cheesecake- This is one of the tastiest gourmet desserts to serve with dinner. Traditionally, this has been baked with lemon and vanilla cheesecake, with a base of cookie crumbs.

How do you prepare a gourmet dessert?

Although so many types of gourmet dessert are available in the market, preparing your own gourmet dessert may bring great joy to your family dinner and elegance to your next dinner party.

Here is a popular recipe of Berea’s Best Yellow Cake-

To make this you will need:

4 separated eggs
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. butter
1 ½ c. sugar
2 c. flour
1 tsp. Vanilla
3/4 c. milk

Beat the egg whites nicely. Add half of the sugar. Add the remaining sugar and the butter, then refrigerate. In a separate bowl, add egg yolks and beat continuously. To this add milk and flour, alternating between the two. Finally, fold this mixture with the beaten egg whites. Now bake the batter in two 9” round pans at 350° for at least 25 minutes without any disturbance. A toothpick check will tell you when it is baked thoroughly. If you want to top off this gourmet desert, then go for “Maple” icing, caramel frosting, or Butter Cream Icing.

Another gourmet dessert recipe is Mom’s Cherry Delight. In this gourmet dessert, cream cheese is one of the main ingredients.

You will need:

one large can of Cherry Pie Filling
1 env. Dream Whip Desert topping
1 Graham cracker crust
1 c. sugar
3 oz. Softened cream cheese

This requires a very simple procedure to produce an elegant gourmet dessert. First you mix the cream cheese and sugar together until it is nicely blended and set it to the side. Next, prepare the Dream Whip according to the directions. Now it is time to fold the creamed mixture into the prepared Dream Whip and pour the folded mixture into the pie shell. Smooth it out to make a fragrant gourmet desert. Now put the pie filling over cream mixture and serve it after chilling.

These are just two examples of gourmet desserts. There are many, many different recipes out there, but with these two recipes you can see how easy it is to have a fast, elegant dessert for your next gourmet meal.

Basic Cake Decorating - How To Make Your Icing Smooth And Even

Posted on 21 February 2008 under Cake Decorating, How To Articles | No Comments

If you want to become an accomplished cake decorator, you will need to be trained and have some practice. Once you have perfected cake decorating you make a name for yourself in the cake making industry. If you are a creative person you could go far when it comes to cake decorating.

Even a person who is new to cake decorating would want their cake to look beautiful. My mother made cakes and frosted them, she may have added sprinkles, and she wrote a message with icing. Those were our cakes. They may not have been well decorated, but they were tasty. This article will give you ideas and tips to make your cake look much better than Mom used to make.

You can get a list of the equipment needed for cake decorating before you start. The list can be found in a craft store or pastry supply. The basics are several pastry bags, icing tips, and a coupler to hold the tips in the bag. You might find that a cake stand could help, as it swivels so you can frost all sides of the cake, and bring the cake up and closer to you. You should also have several sizes of cake dishes, a rubber spatula, a short and a long metal cake icing spatula, a sharp knife, and a baking tray. These are the basic supplies needed.
Icing is the most important ingredient in cake decorating. The icing should be quite stiff, and if it is too stiff to work with you can always thin it out. When you are making the frosting, make a large amount. You will need it for other decorations on the cake. Make sure you have plenty of food coloring, as you will need it to color the icing for different cake decorations.

When you make the cake, it is very important that the batter is level in the baking dish before you put it in the oven. Check the cake every 20 minutes to make sure the cake is baking evenly. If you see that one side of the cake is higher than the other, you should turn the dish around so it will rise evenly, or you could use a knife to even it. You should do this while the cake is still warm.

The cake should be cooled for at least a day before you decorate it. The outside of the cake may feel cool, but the middle of the cake may stay warm for hours. Frosting the cake before it is completely cool can ruin your decorating.

After the cake has cooled, turn it upside down on a cake board; you will have less crumbs this way. To avoid crumbs all together put a thin layer of icing on the cake. Once you have covered the cake with this thin layer of frosting, you can cover that layer with a normal layer of icing. Make sure the icing is smooth and even. You can dip your metal icing spatula in cold water and go over the icing, and this will make it smooth.

When you are ready to start decorating your cake you will need a few pieces of equipment. You will need more than one pastry bag, and the icing tips you will be using for the decorating you want to do. These you can buy at craft stores and cake decorating supply store. If you have the basic supplies listed at the beginning of this article, that should let you get started.

To start with, choose the tip you will be using first. Hold the pastry bag with the hole down and place the tip inside, as far as possible. You should use about a cup of icing in the bag at a time, and start it out in a bowl, that way you can thin the icing with a little milk if you need to, before you put it in the icing bag. The icing should be thin enough to go through the tip, but thick enough to make the designs you choose. If you are still new at cake decorating, you should practice making the decorations on waxed paper before you try to put them on the cake.

When you have the first layer of frosting completed and are ready to decorate the cake, you will need to hold the bag with both hands and apply steady pressure. Applying steady pressure makes sure that the icing will come out in an even strip. Unless you are making a long strip of piping, you should place the bag closely over the cake, start squeezing and count to three, then stop squeezing and lift the tip up and away from the cake. If this decoration looks the way you want it to, move on to the next one, and if it doesn’t look the way you want it to, keep practicing until you get it.

If the cake decoration stays in the shape you intended, then you have the frosting at the right consistency. If it does not hold together, the icing is too thin, and if it was hard to push it through the tip or the cake decoration cracks, the frosting is too thick.

Although cake decorating can be frustrating at times, it will pay off in the end when you realize the beautiful cake on that stand is something that you created. With a little bit of patience and a hopeful attitude, you will become an accomplished cake decorator.