Posted on 12/15/2017 4:39:44 PM PST by Jamestown1630
While enduring a ‘bug’ this week that left me unable to do much but sleep or sit in front of the TV, I happened upon Clarissa Dickson Wright’s series, ‘Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner’, which you can find on YouTube, and which is a really interesting history of how our 'three squares', and the ways we partake of them, have evolved over time.
In the Lunch episode, she featured a pasty (yes, no 'r') crust design, executed by food scholar Ivan Day. This was so beautiful, I had to find the design, and know more about it.
On the way, I found some interesting stuff – including Day's great website on historic food:
http://www.historicfood.com/portal.htm
The pasty design seems to have been derived from Edward Kidder’s ancient ‘Receipts of pastry and cookery, for the use of his scholars’, published in 1720 (you can still buy a copy on Amazon ;-):
http://www.historicfood.com/Edward%20Kidders%20Lamb%20Pasty.htm
I’m not personally a fan of British pasties; but it seems to me that we could decorate our sweet or savory pies just as beautifully – it just takes practice, and starting small! And you don’t need cutters to do this; just find a design, make a cardboard cutout of it, and find a sharp knife to cut the pastry to each of the shapes; then do some detail on the pieces.
Food52 has a lot of starter ideas for ‘fancying up’ your pie:
https://food52.com/blog/8744-9-ways-to-fancy-up-your-pies
-JT
Cute story.
A really cute one is the ‘castle’. I’m waiting for it to show up in the thrift store, where I’ve gotten all my others.
Someone at work made this for a party, and put little flags/banners on the turrets:
I’ll search for it…
It’s worth a try. I would because I hate throwing things away. You could always throw it out it when it doesn’t turn out right. And maybe you won’t even have to.
OK I saw 12 snowflake plans! And ones from Nordic come in three different sizes… all cute though. Those are great because all they also need is a dusting of powdered Sugar. I’m not really into decorating. Nor do I like the taste of all that sweet stuff. There’s always next year…
I do want something I can make off-season though. Hubby is a car buff and I thought he could take some classic car cakes to his Saturday night car show. Just got a Dodge Viper and I’m sure will be heading to the show regularly when it starts in the spring.
This Christmas present plan from Wilton is adorable:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0055DD3J2/ref=psdcmw_289717_t3_B01IF2PIGK
Although there weren’t any pictures of the cakes. I really like it when the reviewer’s post pictures. The large Nordic snowflake pan had some pictures and they were spectacular.
I like the wreath pan also:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004O3USQ0/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513715475&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=wreath+pan&dpPl=1&dpID=515mvXif2yL&ref=plSrch
Wow. I never knew that.
Love the castle. I’d make it with a strawberry batter to get natural color.
Do they have classic car molds? That would be awesome.
We need a good cake recipe that we have tried and succeeded with for these molds.
“Look what you made me do” - Taylor Swift
Now I want that bug pan, and I have to get the heart cakes pan (have a son born on V day), and dang it, they have a skulls cake pan and one son was born on Day of the Dead....
I was playing with cake mixes and borrowed the idea from a blog and took it from there. They come out like pound cakes with good detail.
I posted this photo B4 but here's the ideak. My grandson just loved it w/no frosting. Never made more though but would.
My thought was you would avoid the darker areas like what that ridge across the top of a roof is called. Or maybe you can set the silicon in a water bath but would have to protect the tops from soggieness, with foil or something, don't know if the silicon pans would be strong enough.
The following pound cake came with the DH mixes back in the 60's, made this one over and over but had been more or less forgotten. There was an orange one but probably lost the little card for it. Just like the chocolate cake only with vanilla pudding mix, you can figure it out.
I modified the glaze recipe which is very simple and fast, tastes good and is a little like a ganache, make the whole thing in a little saucepan. Recommend sifting the powdered sugar, didn't do that for years but makes it silkier imo.
You can't see as well as I'd hoped, but with the spray, the detail came out great. I appreciate your homemade one, but I'll pass for now, too much on my plate. Maybe I posted this one, too, can't remember. And if you go to the link for the how-to's, I have a nasty habit of getting bogged down in minuteae.
Re the spray taste. For a lot of things, I wipe most of it off with a paper towel but has to be pretty liberal for a cake.
https://www.duncanhines.com/recipes/cakes/agless/devils-food-pound-cake-w-chocolate-glaze/
Sorry I haven't been able to keep up, too much to deal with on the personal front right now.
If I don't get back to you sooner, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
And to Yaelle: Happy Hannakuh and warm wishes for a Happy New Year.
Well then you can’t possibly get a heart cake mold without getting the skull mold! They actually have a skull one? That is amazing.
Yeah, a tried-and-true recipe would be good. I think a lot of the reviews said they used a pound cake recipe and it worked out. Maybe they didn’t actually eat them yet.
i think the gingerbread recipe I made turned out the best. It was fairly dense but it was done inside. I had to cut off the little bottoms and they were actually pretty good. And the detail came out OK. Unfortunately I don’t care for the taste of ginger so I wonder what it would be like if I left it out. Maybe put an extra nutmeg and vanilla.
yum, that chocolate pound cake looks decadent. And those other cakes are so pretty.
I was reading about that Baker’s Joy spray, and it said that it tended to cause holes in the cakes, which I noticed and was annoyed with. But it also causes burning on the top. So maybe I can eliminate those burnt ridge lines on the roof if I use something else. I don’t what though...The water bath is a great idea. That works for lots of other delicate cakes. I went ahead and splurged and ordered the metal pan, so that would work in a water bath for sure.
Sorry I didn’t get back to your non-cooking pain. As you can tail, I’ve been obsessed with these little village cakes. Making them, researching, finding more pans...The neat thing is that I’ve always loved the little Christmas villages. I put up a tree and my village this year and that is all. I have about eight or 10 houses and I just love looking at them. So when we started talking about the little village cakes, it became an obsession pretty quick.
My posts were just ideas; you can tweak your favorite recipes and get pretty much the same results, can't remember if I had spray when I made those steamed cakes, always loved that pudding mold. Other one was I think my 1-1/2 quart remekin-like covered casserole.
The pudding mold I always liked to make my Boston Brown bread but have switched to 3 large cans with nice interiors which fit wonderfully well in an old large big pot and alum trivet that just fits the bottom.
Appreciate your sharing about the nutmeg. Don't know why but we like molasses, probably a family thing; my dad's family used a lot. And we all LOVE nutmeg. I sprinkle it on my oven rice pudding when about done and let it bake into the top.
For years I think it was a missprint in the cookbook and I was only using one cup of buttermilk which made mine turn out a little dry. Only a few years back did I notice it was 2 cups buttermilk. And I'll share the link if anybody is interested even though I don't use the smaller cans.
Can't find it now. I prefer the white flour, corn meal or even polenta, and whole wheat or graham flour.
King Arthur flour has that pudding mold, slightly more bulged than mine. Also a few people "pinned" my steam cakes (and a few other of my cakes.
Instead I'll share my rose petal pound cake. It's pretty with the 2 colors and powdered sugar. Don't care for the rose flavoring I got though, tastes soapy to me. And a little dry. Steaming that might have worked better. The rye flour I tried once, doesn't taste as good in brown bread but love rye regular bread.
https://www.duncanhines.com/recipes/cakes/agless/rose-petal-pound-cake/
Wish I had the ambition to play with that lovers' knot stitch. That's aa simple shawl I made and needed something to cover up my round oak table that needs refinished.
Betty Crocker’s version.....a princess castle.
“I use that Kerrygold Irish butter”
I gotta stock up on Kerrygold when (or if) I see it on sale through out the year. My office and my kids loves shortbread and I’ve baking it for Christmas since I was in high school. Next year I want to use “real” butter.
I’m afraid I’ll like it so much I won’t want to eat the cheap stuff anymore!
“K2”?
K2 is a synthetic marijuana. I really, really doubt that’s where you were going! LOL!
What is your K2?
“I just remember thinking I hope I don’t survive the Zombie Apocalypse if we can’t find powdered cocoa.... or semi sweet chips.”
Oh my. Hadn’t thought about that. After 10 seconds of thinkin about it... I agree.
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