Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing sneak peek

This weekend was truly awful in the weather department — it was gloomy, rainy, cold and windy, so apart from some usual grocery shopping, I opted for staying home :-)

I also had a plan to master the cheesecake icing, that gave me so much trouble earlier the week, and since I got my food coloring gels, I decided to try them too! As you can see, the mission was a success, and I ended up with 24 delicious strawberry-colored cupcakes with strawberry jam filling, and creamy, super-sweet, delicious cream cheese icing :-)

Check out some of the sneak peek images I took, because the recipe is coming soon:

Braided apple tart sneak peek

My work colleague likes these kind of cakes, so I decided to make one for his birthday this week — it is an apple tart with beautiful pastry decorations: the grid, braided edge and some flower-shaped crisps.

Vanilla-butterscotch cupcakes sneak peek

Oh my, look at these irresistible cupcakes! They look like they are just vanilla, but there's some butterscotch in there for a seriously amazing sweetness ending... So perfect!

Banana meringue cake: part 1

I got an idea for a fluffy, delightful cake made with bananas — it started as an idea for a tart, but I decided I'd like something a bit more luxurious (but still simple).

The tart crust would be too stiff and hard compared to the soft, fluffy consistency of a meringue cream, so I decided to try my luck with lady fingers (technically Italian Savoiardi) — I made a tin-high fence around the tin's edge and laid another layer on the bottom, with crumbs filling some holes. So far so good, although the bottom was too thick and I will make crumb-bottom next time, with some butter and honey to keep it together as a nice, crunchy shell.

Then I made a meringue cream with egg whites, caster sugar, honey and bananas, but apparently they need more care. The banana cream turned out a little bit grainy, and next time I think I'll sieve it through a mesh strainer, to remove any bits that will prevent the meringue cream from being perfectly smooth.

The stiffness was good though and after some proper chilling in the fridge, the cake has sweet, distinctly bananas taste. I think next one will be perfect, fool-proof and ready for you! :-) You can see the first try on the pictures:

Pressed cookies

When I make a tart with a cookie shell, I'm always left with the leftover cookie dough that I don't know what to do with (except for eating it :-P) — I recently got a mooncake press, which is required for making traditional Chinese cakes, and it turns out it's perfect for pressing the cookie dough into cute little shapes! :-)

They are beautiful, just follow the recipe for simple cookies or leftover of the crispy apple tart dough.