Here’s a quick excerpt that Jane sent me:

I just reading your posting requesting for help–I’d love to contriute articles to your site.

I have a food blog that I’ve just started to be more active in: http://butteredup.blogspot.com and I’d love to be more involved in the food blog community. I love desserts in particular, but I also love cooking too.

Ginger Pecan Scones

Most of my first year of university was spent being homesick. My parents were halfway across the world in Shanghai, while I was in Montreal, missing the comfort of home. On weekends, I went to my cousin Sandra’s apartment, desperate for some company. Without realizing it, she helped distract my troubled heart and jerk start the glutton in me.

We studied cookbooks (Donna Hay’s Instant Cook was our favourite) trying to decide on our weekend project. We sampled buttery croissants at Premiere Moisson on Mont-Royal. We trekked through a snow storm just to pick up a 10lb Rockaberry apple pie. I remember losing all sensation in my fingers and toes carrying that damn dessert and then eating two servings even though I’m not fond of pie, but just to make the walk seem worth it. Clearly, we shared a love for food.

There was one thing that Sandra made that was insanely addictive. They were dried cranberry lemon scones. Buttery lumps of dough studded with ruby fruit, speckled with yellow zest. I really couldn’t resist eating only one and I found lots of good reasons to eat a few for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No, I wasn’t eating my feelings of homesickness, though they definitely made the brutal winters more bearable. There was something magical about those scones, how they fall apart in your mouth, in a way that only cream and butter is able to do, and the dried fruit was chewy, inevitably wedging between your teeth.

A few years ago, Sandra moved to Shanghai. We haven’t talked since she moved (she’s difficult to keep in touch with) and I haven’t had those cranberry lemon scones since. I have however, tried other scones. There were cheddar and chive scones to pair with a juicy salad, but they were unremarkable. I’ve sampled Hungarian paprika scones, which is an entirely different animal; yeasty pull-apart breads that stain your fingers a beautiful rust color and pair perfectly with stew.

And there were these ginger and pecan scones. Hoo boy, they are good. So good, I want to rename them Dreamy Scones. They’re light and fluffy, and so crumbly, it will be hard to keep your table crumb-free. Three types of ginger are used here, ground, crystallized and fresh, but don’t shy away from ginger, the butter casts a spell on its heatness, toning it down. The pecans add a nutty crunch to the scones, making it hearty and breakfast worthy.

I promise that just one scone will make your troubles go away.

Ginger Pecan Scones
From Bon Appétit via Epicurious

I don’t buy buttermilk. I don’t want to purchase one ingredient if I’m not going to use it anytime soon. Instead, you can make buttermilk at home. Really, it’s a breeze. For 1 cup of buttermilk, add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar (even rice vinegar works) to 1 cup of milk (I use 2% and it’s fine), allow to sit for 5 minutes before using.

I only have heart shaped cookie cutters which I used to shape my scones, but you can use any round cutter you like, just make sure it’s about 2 inches in diameter.

Makes 12 scones

Ingredients:
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) chilled unsalted butter
1 1/3 pecan halves, toasted, chopped coarsely
½ cup plus 3 tablespoons of chopped crystallized ginger
1 cup plus 1 ½ tablespoons of buttermilk
1 ½ teaspoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Line large baking sheet with parchment. Whisk flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking powder, ground ginger, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and baking soda in large bowl. Add butter; using fingertips, blend butter into flour until coarse meal forms. Toss in pecans and 1/2 cup crystallized ginger.
2. Whisk 1 cup buttermilk, grated ginger, and vanilla in measuring cup. Form well in center of dry ingredients. Add buttermilk; stir with fork until moist clumps form. Transfer to lightly floured surface. Knead just until dough comes together; roll out dough into a 12-inch round (about 1/2 inch thick). Using a round cutter cut out scones and arrange about 1/2 inch apart on baking sheet. Gather and gently reroll scraps. Cut out more scones and arrange on baking sheet.
3. Bake scones until golden and toothpick inserted horizontally into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool scones on wire rack.

Cupcakes continue to remain popular over the years. Small cakes with a little lot of frosting in various flavor combinations will always be a hit with young and old alike. While American-style desserts aren’t my specialty, everyone needs to have a go-to cupcake recipe.

I found this White Velvet recipe from an old post on Curious Cupcakes. Like most cupcake recipes, it’s super simple, there are a few ingredients, and they cook real quick. I’ve already made these several times and every time I make them they come out fantastic. If you’re still making cupcakes from a box, you really should try these out!

White Velvet Cupcakes
courtesy of curious cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
- 2 large egg whites
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (important! make sure you use cake flour and not all-purpose flour)
- 3/4 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F
Fill one 12-hole cupcake tray with cupcake liners

In a medium bowl, combine egg whites, vanilla and 1/8 cup milk.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix together to blend. Add the butter and remaining 1/2 cup milk. Mix on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed (high if using a hand mixer) for 1.5 minutes. Then add the egg, vanilla and milk mixture in three equal parts, beating for 20 seconds between additions.

Pour the batter into prepared cupcake trays. Try to fill each cake with an equal amount of batter. Try using an ice cream scoop to help make scoops of batter even. Each cupcake wrapper will be about 2/3-3/4 full. Place trays in the oven for 15-20 minutes, remove when golden yellow and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then place on a cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting.

Cakes, as you may already know, aren’t a specialty of mine. When I do get the opportunity to make a cake for someone, I usually like to try something new out. In this case, I made an old classmate’s Red Velvet Cake and went the fondant route.

This cake I made for my team mate, Paul, on the request of his girlfriend. I learned that Paul’s favorite cake was red velvet. I’ve never tackled one of these before but with a good recipe (thanks Rianne!) it was a snap.

If you want to steal the recipe, venture over to her website and look it up!

I have to admit, I was going to skip this month’s challenge. I have so many excuses, “I’ve done them so many times”, “I don’t have all the ingredients”, “I don’t have the time”, “I don’t want to”, etc…After seeing that several of my macaron posts were referenced in the most recent challenge, I felt like a goat for not at least trying this one out. It’s three days after the challenge was supposed to be posted, but here goes…

I just so happened to have the makings of macarons already in my pantry, albeit with my not-so-favorite, unblanched, skin-on, almond meal from Trader Joes. This stuff works fine but the specks both me; it’s all I had on hand so please excuse the mess. The other ingredients, the sugars and the eggs, are things that I always seem to have on hand; it looks as if one of my excuses was a lie.

The recipe, as it so happens, isn’t all that different from past efforts: (Forgive me as I hack it up here)

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

I took the liberty of halving this recipe, just in case things went south with the method, the recipe, or my lack of practice. The big difference in this recipe is the lower amount of granulated sugar in the the meringue. I’m sure this will affect the sweetness as well as the difficulty of incorporating the egg white mixture with the dry goods. A stiffer, more sugary meringue will be a bit more forgiving, but alas, I gave it a go.

The general method of combining wet and dry ingredients is pretty much the same: incorporate the dry into the wet in three separate additions, make sure the ingredients are fully incorporated yet don’t completely destroy the meringue in the process. There’s also a hairy little secret most people don’t divulge: if you don’t mix enough, you get meringue cookies instead of macarons. Most of us have the opposite problem of overmixing the batter and getting wonderful, cracked, exploding macarons that break your will, yet we go back into the kitchen for another beating

The cooking of these macarons is where things get a bit interesting. Instead of allowing the macarons to dry at room temperature on the counter, the recipe has them cooked at a low temperature to dry them out first, then they are completed at a much higher temperature.

Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C).

Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

I’m a bit weary of this step but it could prove useful in speeding up production. Even when I made them in a restaurant kitchen with a fancy-shmancy convection oven, we always let them dry for hours before we baked them off. This high cooking temperature runs the risk of browning the macarons if they aren’t watched carefully.

Even with my doubts, I got the feet. They weren’t as pronounced as previous efforts, but they did come out. As expected, though, the macarons browned a little bit while waiting for them to be fully cooked. Even with about five extra minutes of cooking, I don’t feel like these baked as well as they do at a much lower temperature. The skin on the top of the macarons is so unbelievably thin that, even carefully taking them off the silpat, they cracked.

Yet another macaron recipe that works but not quite good enough, for me, to switch from my most recent efforts. I was happy to see them come together and form, and that, for most of us, is good enough.

It’s the beginning of summer and the Daring Bakers throw me an easy one: Bakewell Tarts. These little beauties are loaded with frangiapanne and a touch of jam. I’d almost have to say that these guys were a little bit too easy, but they’re just too yummy to pass up!

I decided to stray away from the normal jams I usually keep in the house and grab a few flavors I don’t usually stock: Black Currant and Apricot. I thought both jams would go pretty well with the almonds and was not surprised when I tasted them. I’m a huge sucker for just about anything with frangiapanne so these will most likely make a comeback in the future.

As you can see, these little tarts are easy to dress up and not at all hard to make. There’s a small time commitment in making the dough but even that isn’t all that hard. The flavors are easily varied and the shapes and sizes can be mixed up, too!

Don’t be too worried about the lengthy recipe. It looks scary, but all of the elements are easy to make and the instructions are well-written. The best part about pastries like this is they go together very quickly and the ingredients are almost always on-hand!

Bakewell Tart…er…pudding
Makes one 23cm (9” tart)
Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements)
Resting time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes
Equipment needed: 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges), rolling pin

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)
Bench flour
250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)
One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Jasmine’s notes:
• If you cannot have nuts, you can try substituting Victoria sponge for the frangipane. It’s a pretty popular popular cake, so you shouldn’t have any troubles finding one in one of your cookbooks or through a Google search. That said, our dear Natalie at Gluten a Go Go has sourced some recipes and linked to them in the related alt.db thread.
• You can use whichever jam you wish, but if you choose something with a lot of seeds, such as raspberry or blackberry, you should sieve them out.
• The jam quantity can be anywhere from 60ml (1/4 cup) to 250ml (1cup), depending upon how “damp” and strongly flavoured your preserves are. I made it with the lesser quantity of home made strawberry jam, while Annemarie made it with the greater quantity of cherry jam; we both had fabulous results. If in doubt, just split the difference and spread 150ml (2/3cup) on the crust.
Annemarie’s notes:
• The excess shortcrust can be rolled out and cut into cookie-shapes (heck, it’s pretty darned close to a shortbread dough).

Sweet shortcrust pastry
Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)
Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Jasmine’s notes:
• I make this using vanilla salt and vanilla sugar.
• If you wish, you can substitute the seeds of one vanilla bean, one teaspoon of vanilla paste or one teaspoon of vanilla extract for the almond extract

Frangipane
Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

I’m not sure where I learned about melonpan, but it was probably on a blog just like this one. I probably stumble on the recipe and just decided to make it one day.

Melonpan is a sweet Japanese bread covered with a crisp cookie crust. The tops are scored into a cross-hatch pattern to simulate the look of melon skin. When cooked, there is a mixture of soft bread texture combined with the crispy, sweet cookie on the top. Oddly, melonpan has no melon in it and is not usually melon flavored at all.

Melonpan isn’t all that hard to prepare. If you can manage, you should keep the dough relatively sticky so the dough will stay soft. Keep in mind that this should be a light and fluffy bread, not a tough, dense bread. The cookie crust is a snap and is nothing more than a basic sugar cookie. I like to add a few drops of food coloring to the tops just to add some color.

Melon Pan
(makes 9)

Bread Dough
200g bread flour
2 tablespoons dry yeast
20g butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2c warm water (about 100F)
1/2 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cookie topping
120g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
40g butter
50g sugar
1/2 egg
extra sugar for dusting tops

Combine the yeast and the warm water and let sit for five minutes.

Combine yeast and water, sugar, and half the flour in the work bowl of a kitchenaid and mix at low speed it until everthing comes together.

Add the butter and the egg and start kneading the extra flour into the dough. Keep kneading and adding flour until you have a slightly sticky dough that pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Remove the dough from the bowl and place in a lightly oiled container and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 45 minutes at room temperature.

While the dough is rising, make the cookie crust.

Place the butter and sugar in the kitchenaid fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix at high speed, scraping down the sides, until the butter and sugar are fully combined and turn to a pale yellow color.

Incorporate the egg at low speed. Add the flour and the baking powder and mix until just combined.

Remove from the bowl, shape into a log, wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm.

Assembly

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Remove the dough from the bowl and cut into nine equal pieces.

Roll each dough piece into a tight ball and set aside.

Remove cookie crust from refrigerator and cut into nine equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a circle and, with the back of a knife, make a cross-hatch pattern in the dough. Place cookie on top of roll. Repeat eight more times.

Sprinkle sugar over the cookie crust on each bun.

Bake in 350F oven for 20 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Cool on wire racks.

Strudel is a magical dough. Some flour, a little bit of water, a touch of butter kneaded together into an unassuming dough. You would never know that this little lump of dough would be able to amount to so much, and then you stretch it. You pull the dough to, what you believe, is the limit only to realize this magic dough needs wants to be stretched even further.

The dough starts off just like any dough, a dense ball. Slowly the ball is rolled and stretched and stretched some more until it starts to get really thin. At this point you might think you can’t stretch it anymore, but you can and will. The dough is continuously stretched and pulled until you can see through it. When the dough starts to slightly tear a little bit, you’re almost there.

This dough was stretched to about four feet by six feet and was paper thin. When it was the size of my table, I trimmed the edges, filled it was a wonderful apple filling, and baked it off like anything else. While the end dessert was good, pulling the dough was definitely the highlight of this dessert.

The other day I decided to try turning a Quebecois favorite, the Tourtiere (or pork pie), into a Spanish hand-held treat, an empanada.

Growing up, these pork pies were almost always a winter food; more specifically, Christmas food. I’m really not sure why but my dad says that’s just the way it was in his house and that’s pretty much the way it was in ours. Even wikipedia agrees with my dad citing, “It is a traditional Christmas and/or Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dish in Quebec”, so he must be right, non?

So what is this Quebecois pork pie thing? Usually a tourtiere consists of cooked ground pork and potatoes heavily spiced with cloves, allspice, and sometimes cinnamon all wrapped up in a double-crusted pie. I thought they’d make for a good filling for an empanada so I gave it a try.

The filling is a piece of cake to make, brown up some pork, add some spices, stir in the potatoes, and you’re done. The empanada pastry was a little bit more work, but with the help of a kitchen-aid it wasn’t all that bad. I was expecting something more like a pie dough but once it started coming together it was obvious that it was more like a bread dough. The bread-like dough made over-stuffing the pies all the easier (which is a good idea).

The verdict? I think they were a success. I would have preferred more of a pie-like dough, but they still were very good. They were a bit more work than just making a few meat pies but they were worth the effort. This tray of pies fed me for dinner and then a few lunches during the week!

Tourtiere filling

1 lb ground pork
3 potatoes peeled and cut into 1 inch dice
1 tsp fresh ground cloves
1 tsp fresh ground allspice
salt and pepper
3 tbls oil

Place potatoes in a large pot of cold water and cook until fork tender. Drain the water and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and sautee the pork until lightly browned. Add the spices and potatoes and check seasoning.

Remove from pan and cool before filling the dough.

Empanada dough

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup warm water

1 cup of oil for frying

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, add all the wet ingredients.
Mix for a few minutes until well combined and dough ball forms.

Take it out and knead for about 3 minutes. Let the dough rest wrapped in plastic-wrap for 15 minutes.

Divide into 12 pieces, then roll into 4 inch circles.

Place 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of filling in the center of each circle. Gently fold over the dough to from a half circle. Seal edges tightly with a fork. Repeat until all the dough is filled. (all the filling may not be used)

Pre-heat the oil in a frying pan at about a medium temperature.
Fry for about 5 minutes on each side until golden brown.

What can I say? It’s choux-time again. This time the Daring Bakers made me do it.

This month our challenge recipe is from none other than Pierre Herme, the king of macrons himself. I’m sure it’s been a long time since PH himself churned out batches of choux, but it’s nice to see that he doesn’t shy away from the classics.

I’ve tackled choux before…many times. It was one of the first things I learned how to make in pastry school. It was one of the first things I made in the restaurant. It is one of the first things I think of when I want to make a quick pastry. I was a little bit surprised that we’d dare to make one of the basics, but if if Pierre was up to the task, then so was I.

Choux, in its most basic form, is a flour, butter, and water roux fortified with eggs. This mixture is usually piped out and baked until golden brown and delicious. We were provided PH’s basic choux recipe but I couldn’t help but spice it up, just a little. Choux lends itself well to additional mix-ins: cheese, herbs, compound butters, or in my case, cocoa powder.

I substituted 40g of coca powder for 40g of the flour and just mixed it in like normal. No special tricks – nothing. I proceeded to beat in the eggs and pipe as normal. Everything worked as planned, they puffed, they cracked, they came out great.

I couldn’t resist tasting one of the unfilled eclairs right out of the oven. It was warm, crisp, and overwhelmingly chocolate. A bit too much chocolate, actually. The cocoa powder did its job very well but the end result was a little more bitter than I anticipated. A plain vanilla or chocolate cream would not suffice here so I went more exotic.

Inspiration hit me as I searched my freezer: passion fruit. As luck would have it, I had passion fruit puree buried in the back of my freezer. I checked the pastry cream recipe provided and realized I could alter it for my purposes while still keeping with the spirit of the original.

First, I cut the recipe in half because I had a feeling there would be just too much. Then 75g of passion fruit puree was substituted for 75g of the milk. I finally decided to go with white chocolate in the pastry cream – I just love white chocolate and passion fruit. Other than the ingredient changes, everything else remained the same. After a quick trip to the stove and an hour in the refrigerator, the pastry cream was ready to go.

I went out on a limb and created a quick passion fruit fondant glaze. A very small amount of white chocolate ganache was added to the glaze just to help it set up better.

End result? Success. The dark, bitter chocolate choux blends nicely with the creamy white chocolate-passion fruit pastry cream and the sweet passion fruit glaze finishes everything nicely.

This time around the challenge was a rich laminated yeast dough: The Danish Pastry braid. I’ve made both croissants and danish years ago in pastry school, but I’ve always shied away from making these at home. You see, laminated doughs and me are good friends, but once yeast joins the party and starts puffing things up in my warm kitchen, all bets are off. Adding yeast to these doughs, I’m told, makes laminating them easier. Personally I don’t find this the case and would rather do double turns of puff pastry dough until my hands fall off…but the mice are gone and I haven’t been the most productive Daring Baker so I soldiered on.

We were given some leeway with the fillings of our braid. The challenge provided a recipe for an apple filling but we were allowed to substitute anything we could think of if we wanted. Since apples are a fall fruit and it’s now just summer, I decided to come up with my own filling – blueberries and frangiapanne.

The recipe we used was pretty spot on and typical for a laminated dough. There’s lots of down-time in this recipe, but if you know what’s going on, you can cheat the rest times and save yourself at least an hour or so. I decided to make the dough and complete all the turns one day and shape, proof, and bake the braid on the following day.

It was quite surprising to see how much the dough expanded during the overnight rest in the refrigerator; it probably doubled in size. Before I rolled the dough out to its final size, I gently flattened the dough down to a more manageable size. Once it was flattened, it easily rolled out into a very large thin sheet.

The full sized braid just barely fit on my half sheet pan, but it at least fit. I was slightly worried that after proofing it would overhand the sides, but that never happened. Even with this large sized braid, I had enough scraps leftover to make a few small round danish. The scraps were cut into long, thin strips, twisted, and then coiled into circles. I made indentations in the center of each so there would be room for filling after they baked.

Both pastries proofed quickly in the early summer heat, probably less than an hour and they were doubled in size. The small danish baked off rather quick, about 10 minutes while the braid probably only took 15-18 minutes, tops.

After baking I lightly iced both pastries and filled the small danish with a strawberry compote. The recipe was pretty good. There’s a bit too much stuff in it for my liking – cardamom, orange zest, orange juice, vanilla bean, vanilla extract…One or two of these are a nice addition, but all of these together seemed to have gotten lost. I even skipped on the oranges and I still thought it was too much stuff. Overall things turned out well; if I made this again, I’d make some adjustments to the recipe – double turns to save some time, less stuff, and probably more shapes. The braid is nice but I’m a real sucker for the small, individual pastries.