Ricotta Cranberry Custard

Hello! For my final blog post, I have chosen to make "Ricotta Cranberry Custard" from my book, Petite Sweets.

This recipe was chosen by my dad and older brother, Austin. I think my brother chose this because the picture from the book looks like cheesecake, and he loves cheesecake. But let me tell you, it's definitely not cheesecake. But we'll get to that later.

Ricotta Cranberry Custard from Petite Sweets (Ojakangas 98)

To start, I gathered the necessary ingredients: 

Custard: 

• 12 ounces (1½ 8-ounce packages) cream cheese
• ¾ cup ricotta cheese
• 2 large eggs
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ½ cup sugar 
• ½ cup heavy cream

Sauce: 

• 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar

First I preheated the oven to 250°F. Then I added the cream cheese to the electric mixer. 

But that's when I realized I only had one stick of cream cheese, instead of two, to complete the one AND one half ounces of cream cheese needed. 

Now that my whole recipe was off due to lack of one ingredient, I had to problem solve. I really wanted to get this done that day because the rest of the week I would be busy and I didn't want to put my mom in a bad mood by making her go all the way to the store just for one stick of cream cheese so, I did the only thing I could do. I adjusted the whole recipe. 

Since I only had 8 ounces of cream cheese instead of 12, I knew 8 divided by 12 was 2/3. That meant I would have to multiply my whole recipe by 2/3. 

So, I did. Except the eggs, which I just left at 2. 

Now that I was back on track, I started adding my ingredients to the electric mixer again; ricotta, eggs (one at a time), vanilla, sugar, and cream and mixed until combined (Ojakangas 99).

Once everything was smooth, I spooned the batter into two ramekins. After they were evenly divided among the two, I placed each one into a large, transparent baking dish. Then I poured "enough hot water into the baking [dish] around the ramekins to reach about halfway up the sides" (Ojakangas 99).

Carefully, I placed each baking dish with the ramekin inside into the oven and set it for 40 minutes. When 40 minutes had passed, I took them both out of the oven. "The top should not have changed color at all" (Ojakangas 99) and since it didn't, I knew I was on my way to making a successful dessert.

After they had cooled slightly, I wrapped both of the ramekins with saran wrap and placed them in the fridge, where they would stay and chill for about three hours. 

In the meantime, I started working on the sauce. Though, that didn't take long either. 

But I'm 90% sure I messed up the sauce too. My mom had gotten me a cranberry sauce can where all I had to do was heat it up and mix it around, but I didn't realize that so I put that in a pot and heated it up and mixed it around, as well as adding one cup of water and one cup of sugar. It came out fine though so nothing too problematic. 

So I wrapped that up like I did with the ramekins and placed it in the fridge where it would chill for three hours as well. 

When everything had chilled for three hours, I took it out of the fridge. 

And then I scooped the cranberries on top of the custard (I probably shouldn't have added so much cranberry to the first one).

What I learned from this experience is that custard ≠ cheesecake. I went into that first bite thinking something solid, but my spoon went through it like goo. Keep in mind that I hadn't really read the title of this recipe, I just saw the picture and went "ooh la la" and wanted to make it. I know what custard is... now. 

If I were to do this again, I'd probably try to find something better to do in those three hours where all I did was wait. Also, I would've made sure I had all my ingredients ahead of time.

I would recommend making this dessert if you have a lot of free time and like custard. Me? I don't like it so much. 

Have you ever tried a food that you thought would taste totally different based on it's looks? 

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.

Chocolate Dipped Almond Biscotti

Hello! For this blog post I have chosen to make "Chocolate Dipped Almond Biscotti" from my book, Petite Sweets. 

This recipe was chosen by my mom because she loooves biscotti. She says it's perfect to eat in the morning with your coffee. I think it's just an excuse to eat some tasty dessert for breakfast. My mom also makes these around the Christmas time and dips the chocolate covered part into crushed candy canes for decoration (and taste).

Chocolate Dipped Almond Biscotti from Petite Sweets (Ojakangas 138)

 To make the Biscotti, I first had to gather all the ingredients I would need:

• ½ cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
• ½ cup almonds, chopped
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Before I started baking, I preheated the oven to 350°F. 

Then, using the electric mixer, I creamed the sugar, butter, and eggs until smooth (Ojakangas 139). Because my family isn't a huge almond fan, I left out the chopped almonds and also added a little less than the recommended amount of almond extract. When everything was smooth, I poured in the flour, baking powder, and salt. 

When everything was combined together, I split the dough in half and rolled out each half on a floured board. 

Once that was done, I transferred the dough onto a cookie sheet.

Then I baked the dough for 20-25 minutes. When it was firm, I "removed from the oven and let [it] cool slightly" (Ojakangas 139). Once it was cool enough for me to handle, I sliced both pieces of dough diagonally. 

 After slicing them, I evenly spread them out on the baking sheet and placed them back in the oven for 10 minutes.

 Then I took them out again, flipped each one, and placed it back in the oven for another 10 minutes, or until it was lightly browned and toasted (Ojakangas 139). 

Since the biscotti part was done, it was time to work on the chocolate dip. I took a small bowl, filled it with chocolate chips, and placed the bowl over boiling water. Every so often I stirred the chocolate chips until they started to melt and from there on I continued to stir them so they wouldn't burn on the bottom. 

When the chocolate was fully melted, I took each slice of the baked biscotti and dipped each one into the melted chocolate and voila! You have your biscotti.

If I were to do this recipe again, I would maybe think of a way to jazz it up, such as a decoration on top like my mom's crushed candy canes (but something different since I've already tried that) or maybe incorporating something into the dough like chocolate chips so you get them throughout the whole biscotti.

This recipe was a lot easier than my previous baking attempts, since I have perfected it by watching my mom in the past and getting her help during the process. I recommend this recipe if you want something good to go along with your coffee in the mornings. 

What recipes have you perfected? How did you perfect them? Did it take time and help?

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.

Chocolate Dobos Torte Rolls

Hello! For this blog post I have chosen to make "Chocolate (Dobos Torte) Rolls" from my book, Petite Sweets. 

I made these on a day when I was bored and wanted to make something easy. Based on the amount of ingredients and how simple the final product looked in the book, I thought it would be something I could whip up really quick and enjoy. Unfortunately, things definitely did not turn out the way I had planned. This probably turned out to be one of the harder recipes I made.

Just so you know what I had planned on eating at the end of the day, here's an image from my book:

Chocolate (Dobos Torte) Rolls from Petite Sweets (Ojakangas 30)

Looks good, right? Now take a look at the ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 large eggs, separated
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons milk 

Chocolate Filling:

• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, soft

These are all common baking items so of course I already had all of them in the pantry and fridge ready to go. To start, I turned on the oven to 375°F. Then, in an electric mixer, I beat the egg yolks (that I had already separated) and powdered sugar. Once the mixture was thick, I "beat in the flour and milk until [the] batter [was] smooth" (Ojakangas 31). Once completed, I folded the mixture into a bowl with beaten egg whites. 
When everything was smooth and folded together, I spread the batter evenly over the parchment paper (Ojakangas 31) that I had already laid out. 

I placed the batter in the oven for 5-6 minutes. 

I wish I had mixed the egg more so that it didn't show as much in the final product, but it was edible, so I continued on with the directions. 
Or, I would have, if I had actually been able to peel the cake away from the parchment paper. Me, being the bad reader that I am, totally skipped over the directions which clearly stated, "Coat [the parchment paper] with nonstick spray and dust lightly with flour" (Ojakangas 31). 

I love having to do everything all over again. 

So, after throwing out my first miserable attempt at these chocolate rolls, I started my second batch. 
I repeated the whole process, this time making sure to mix the batter well instead of just folding the ingredients together in the last part. Oh, and I also sprayed the paper with nonstick spray. 

When evenly dispersed on the parchment paper, this batter clearly had less egg whites that were unbeaten compared to the last one. But, of course, one mistake was not enough for me. I had to be an unbalanced klutz and therefore, I accidentally made my batter run all over the baking sheet as I was traveling to the oven, so it wasn't as proportionate as I would've liked. This disaster resulted in... 

Many, many uneven spots and burning. The bottom of the cake was fluffier, which I think was how the whole product was supposed to be, and the top part barely had any batter so, with the extensive time in the oven, it burned. 

But I wasn't about to throw away this disaster yet. I took my spatula and cut out all the burned parts. Then I poked at each side of the paper slightly, and got it to separate. Now I was one step further than I had gotten last time. 

Since the cake part was finished, I started on the chocolate filling. This was the simple part. I placed a bowl on top of a pot of boiling water and filled it with the butter and chocolate chips. I stirred the two together and continued to do so until they were melted together. 
With both the cake and filling done, I started to spread the chocolate onto the cake. I didn't think ahead, though, and ended up spreading it on the whole thing. This didn't work out because, since I cut out the burned part, when I finished off the recipe by rolling the cake, some of the chocolate part wasn't covered by cake, as you can see below. 

Obviously, the end product looks nothing like the picture in the book. It's not as fluffy and cake-like. To me, it looked more like a tortilla. I thought it would be more pound cake-ish.

If I were to do this again... well, I wouldn't. But I guess I would make sure not to burn my cake (and maybe try to make it look more like a cake?) so when I rolled it, it would look semi-decent.

I would only recommend this recipe if you're master chef level or want a serious challenge. I don't think everything I went through was worth it in the end. I don't even know who ate the rest of it, my mom might've just thrown it in the trash when I wasn't looking 😢

Is there a recipe that you completely and utterly failed at making, like I did with this one? How did you try to fix it? 

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.

Crispy Cream Puffs

Hello! For this blog post I have chosen to make "Crispy Cream Puffs" from my book, Petite Sweets. Just a heads up— this recipe takes time to make and there are many parts to it, but it's something I would make again because it's so good.

Since I have to make at least five blog posts and, including me, there are five members in my family, I wanted to make something for each member of the family. The first recipe I made was chocolate velvet cupcakes, which was the recipe I chose to make for myself.

The next recipe was chosen by my little brother, Alex. He wanted me to make this recipe because when we were younger my mom used to make cream puffs for us and we would fill them with ice cream and eat them, so this would be like a recreation of that.
To make things a little more fun, I had help making these with my best friend, Hannah.

The end result was supposed to look a little something like this....

Crispy Cream Puffs from Petite Sweets (Ojakangas 126)

To create the cream puffs, I first had to get all the ingredients I would need:

Cream Puff:

• 1 cup water
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ teaspoons sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs

Cream Glaze:

• 5 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract 
• 4-6 tablespoons hot water (I used 6)
• ½ cup milk chocolate chips
• 1-2 tablespoons chocolate sprinkles (for garnish- optional. I did not use this) 

The first thing I did was make the cream puffs. I started with preheating the oven to 425°F.

Then, in a saucepan I combined the water, butter, salt, and sugar. When it started to boil I took the pan off the stove, added the flour, and stirred it until "all the flour [was] incorporated" (Ojakangas 124). After, I placed it back onto the stove over low heat and stirred for "about 2 minutes to evaporate some of the moisture" (Ojakangas 124). When the dough was ready, I moved it from the saucepan to a mixer. Once I turned it on, I added all the eggs one at a time.

I then prepared the two baking sheets and lined them with parchment paper. I took a spoon and scooped 1 inch (in diameter) balls of dough from the mixer bowl and placed them so they were evenly spread out on the baking sheets (Ojakangas 124). When I finished, I placed the pans in the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes.

While the cream puffs were baking, I started making the glazes. To do this, I mixed the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and hot water in a bowl (we'll call this bowl #1). I would recommend not adding all the hot water at once because, if you do (like I did), the butter will not melt all the way and you'll need to place your bowl in the microwave for a couple seconds until the butter is melted to fully mix the ingredients.
Anyhow, I then took a saucepan, filled it with water, and set it on the stove over medium-high heat. I placed another bowl (bowl #2), which was full of chocolate chips, on top of that saucepan and started stirring the chocolate chips around in the bowl with a wooden spoon. When all of the chocolate chips were melted, I poured half of the mixture in bowl #1 into bowl #2 with all the melted chocolate chips and mixed those two together. 

As you can see, the white bowl (bowl #1) contains the first glaze and the black bowl hidden in the back (bowl #2) is filled with the glaze + melted chocolate chips. These will go on top of the cream puffs.

Speaking of cream puffs, after 15 minutes of baking in the oven, I reduced the temperature in the oven to 375°F and continued baking the cream puffs for another 10ish minutes. In the book it says 25 minutes, but my cream puffs were already browning so you may want to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn. 

After however many minutes, I took out the cream puffs and let them cool just enough so when I picked them up I wouldn't burn myself.

This next part got messy, so what I should've done was start by getting two large plates or cooling wracks (with paper towels underneath!!). Unfortunately, I'm not the kind of person to think ahead and I took out two cooling wracks with just my counter underneath. Let's just say I had a lot of cleaning up to do afterward and my mom was not happy about the mess. 

I picked up my first cream puff and dipped it into bowl #1, the original glaze. I placed the cream puff on the cooling wrack so the glaze could settle and continued this process until all cream puffs are covered. 

Side note— using the glaze it totally optional. If you want, you could stop there, fill it, and eat it! But I think the glaze adds more flavor and it's veryyyy good.

When all the cream puffs were covered with the first glaze, I picked up a cream puff and dipped it into bowl #2— the chocolate glaze. I continued this process until all the cream puffs were covered with chocolate glaze. Again, this step is optional.

Finally, I took a cream puff, split it in the middle, and filled it with ice cream. Many people fill it with pudding, custard, or etc. but my favorite is ice cream. At the moment all I had was Cookies and Cream, but anything's good with these! 😍 

If I were to do this again, I would definitely try to clean up along the way and try not make a total disaster of the kitchen. I might even try making the "Fruit Filled Cream Puffs" (Ojakangas 125), which is the same recipe for the cream puffs but a suggested ricotta and fruit filling. 

I would highly recommend making these if you're ever hungry and/or want a tasty dessert. Although they didn't look as good as the picture in my book did, they tasted amazing! 

And this time my dad didn't get to eat them before I was done, but he sure did ask me when they would be done a lot. 

Is there a recipe that you make a lot that brings back old memories? 

Or is there something you like doing with your best friend that makes time seem to fly by? My best friend helped me along the way and made the wait and hard work for preparing these a lot easier and more enjoyable 🙂 

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes

Hello, my name is Ashlee Gormley and for my blog posts, I have chosen to do baking. 

Truthfully, I only chose to do baking so I could eat the project after I took pictures. But I also really enjoy it. There are a variety of recipes to choose from, and even then your options aren’t limited to just those. You can improvise and recreate the recipe to your liking.

In addition, I took creative cooking last year and I really liked the different foods we got to eat. We made pizza, salads, muffins, and more. But for this project I am specifically making desserts.

I thought it would be fun to make cupcakes for Thanksgiving, but unfortunately time was not on my side. So, instead, I made them just for my family that weekend. Looking through the book I chose to base my project off on, Petite Sweets, the Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes stood out to me the most (definitely because the picture looked so good). It was a really light brown cake with a white frosting. Really simple, but really delicious.

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes from Petite Sweets

So let’s begin with the steps I took to create this cupcake!

To start with, I gathered all the ingredients:

Chocolate velvet cake:

• 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 1½ teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Vanilla frosting:

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ½ cup milk
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

To start with, I set the oven to 350°F so that the oven would be ready by the time I had mixed all the ingredients together.

To start the cupcake batter, I took an electric mixer and creamed the butter and sugar together until it was "light and fluffy." Then, I beat in the egg and mixed in the cocoa powder. 

In a second bowl I mixed the flour, salt, and baking soda. 

In a third bowl, I mixed milk, vinegar, and vanilla. 

I didn't have buttermilk like the recipe called for, so I used regular milk in the last bowl. As I said you could always do before, I improvised! The buttermilk only adds to the red color, so using milk didn't alter the final product besides appearance. 

Anyhow, after all those ingredients are mixed together, I added the second and third bowl to the electric mixer alternately. I mixed the batter until it was smooth and then spooned the batter into an already-prepared muffin tin. Then I placed the muffin tins (I ended up with about 20 cupcakes- 2 muffin tins) into the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. 

As the cupcakes were baking, I started on the frosting. I took a saucepan, combined the flour and milk, and stirred it over medium heat. Over time, the liquid mixture thickened. When it was totally thickened, I covered the saucepan and placed it in the fridge. 

In a cleaned electric mixer, I beat the sugar, butter, and vanilla. When the mixture in the fridge was completely chilled, I added that to the electric mixture and creamed them together. 

At this point, the cupcakes in the oven were done so I took them out. 

Then I took a container to put the icing in so it would be easier to frost the cupcakes.      

And finally I frosted the cupcakes, placed them in cupcake liners, and even added some decorations to make them look nice.

Ta-da! Complete! The process of making the cupcakes took a while, but it was really fun to decorate the final product. 

If I were to do this again, I would probably do it when my dad wasn't home so I wouldn't have to keep shooing him away when he'd try to eat the uncompleted cupcake. I'd also apply more cooking spray to the muffin tins because the cupcakes would not come out of the tins, so the tops kept tearing from the bottoms. 

I would highly recommend making these cupcakes if you're looking for something easy to make. They were all devoured within two days. I'm definitely going to make them again sometime (hopefully) soon.

What's your favorite dessert to make? Have you ever added your own little spin to the recipe? How did it turn out? 

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.