Grad show pictures... finally!

The spread...

Chocolate work

Plated dessert - white chocolate mousse with crunchy and passionfruit glaze

Apricot tart

Chocolate macaroons

Foccacia

White choc passionfruit

Palmiers, bowties, william tells

Sacher

Croissants - regular and chocolate

tartes.tartes.tartes

Apricot Tart

Pear Tart

Spinach Bacon Feta Quiche









Creme Brulee


















Fruit Tart


















Chocolate Pecan Tart









Lemon Tart









Chocolate Tart
Dark chocolate tart









Clafoutis with Chocolate Ganache
Sweet dough tart filled with berries and vanilla filling, topped with dark chocolate ganache.


















Crokapple
Hazelnut tart shell filled with chocolate ganache and carmelized apple chunks, topped with praline mousse and praline chocolate disc.

Pecan Pecan Pie!

In honor of my mother who will be in the U.S. in just a couple of days! her favorite, Pecan Pie.

Pastry for 9-inch one crust pie
1/3 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare pie pastry.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy; gradually add brown sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add corn syrup, pecans, salt, and vanilla extract; stir until well blended. Pour into pastry-line pie plate.
3. Bake approximately 40 to 50 minutes or until the pie center has a slight jiggle to it when shaken. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack before cutting and serving.

I realized that nowhere in my blog is there a pie pastry recipe to link to. Here's a great one from Simply Recipes: Perfect Pie Crust Recipe

Berry Cherry Pie

For the first time in Winnie history I made a pie just wingin' it by the seat of my pants. I have to say, I am happy with the results. Granted I didn't make my own crust, I bought the store-bought, bring-to-room-temp-and-unroll kind, but the filling I ad-libbed and took notes. Here's how it goes.

Berry Cherry Pie
1 recipe pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie
3 cups cherries, pitted**
1 cup mixed berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc.)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Make pastry and refrigerate (or let pastry come to room temperature).
2. Macerate (basically, marinate) cherries in sugar, wine, flour for 1 hour. Drain and reserve liquid.
3. Roll out pastry shell and put in bottom of the pie dish. Pour in cherries, cover with the reserved liquid. Cover with top pastry shell. Make sure to cut slits to vent. Lattice top crust if preferred. Brush crust with milk.
4. Bake 30-35 mins until lightly browned. Cool before serving.

I've never actually had Cherry pie before so am not sure if the liquidness is common. If you prefer less liquidy filling I suggest simmering the reserved liquid over the stove to a more goopy mixture before adding it to the pie.

** Oh, P.S. I hand pitted my cherries because I had a whole bunch left over that weren't being eaten. From what I've heard you can buy pitted cherries by the can in any grocery store, or I believe there are pitting "machines" out there. Manually pitting my cherries was not the highlight of my day. By the end it looked like I had slaughtered something, my hands were so covered. I'm talking drippings down practically to my elbows drippings (alright, alright, maybe not all the way to my elbows....) But whaddya gonna do to save a buck or two (or twelve)? Hand pit cherries.
I had used a paring knife and halved the cherries. I read somewhere, of course after I had baked my pie, that using a plastic straw is a good way to pit cherries "by hand" and still keep them whole.

"I didn't have a cherry pitter, so my husband came up with a great, cheap solution after seeing me pitting the cherries with a knife (very tedious, and it halves the cherries which doesn't like as nice as whole cherries in the pie): plastic straws, like the kind you get at any fast food place. Hold the cherry in one hand and gently push the straw through the top of the cherry until you feel the pit. Gently push the pit through the bottom of the cherry. Do this over a bowl to catch the pits and the juice; put the pitted cherry in another bowl."

Voila!