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Friday, November 23, 2007

What I Baked

This cranberry-lime galette, from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking from My Home to Yours," is absolutely incredible. The balance of flavors, the texture, everything is just right. The filling is a blend of fresh and dried cranberries, lime juice and zest, ginger, brown sugar, ground pecans, and chunks of tart apple.







This turned out very well -- delicious and light, a perfect combination of textures. The three thin cake layers are a light sponge doused with Drambuie syrup; the bottom layer of mousse is chocolate and the top layer of mousse is caramel. I'm going to treat myself to a good, flat rectangular serving dish, as this platter wasn't quite cutting it.



Macaronapalooza. Unbaked:
Baked:

Sandwiched with lemon curd:



The piece de resistance. This is an entremet from my fall class at the French Pastry School in Chicago.




Shortbread base, a layer of vanilla cream studded with raspberries (hard to see in this photo), and a layer of chocolate biscuit, all surrounded by raspberry milk chocolate mousse and glazed with a milk chocolate glaze. Each element is fairly simple on its own; the challenge is in the construction. For my first attempt at this sort of thing in my home kitchen with make-do equipment (instead of hundreds of dollars worth of Flexipan molds), I'm pretty proud of it.

I knocked myself out pretty good with all this baking (and eating) and am ready for a long winter's nap. Happy Black Friday!

4 comments:

Heleen said...

Ruth, you're the dessert queen. My hat is off to you. What a fantastic job!!

Anonymous said...

Oh, man, you torture me again with pics and description of that lovely chocolate, raspberry creation. Mmmmmmmm!

That lime/cranberry gallette looks like something I can make and is going on my list for this coming weekend!

Ann

Phoebe J. Southwood said...

So I got really inspired by that galette, and ferreted out the recipe and made it last night for my birthday dinner.

I have a wheat-free friend, so attempted a couple of crusts using barley flour and oat flour. MAN. What a pain. They sure don't act at all like wheat! AT ALL !*#$%!

It was me against the crust for a while, and things got ugly, until I conceded defeat and got out the tart pan instead.

I used the oat flour crust and it came out wonderfully. A friend randomly showed up with high end blood orange sherbet - which was a great addition.

You were right - the flavors are so interesting! Everyone loved it, and I'm so happy to have this recipe in my arsenal.

I noticed you put the bread crumbs/nuts on the bottom. I mixed mine in. It was still good, of course!

Thank you so much for posting it!

RuthWells said...

Pheobe, I'm so psyched that you tried and enjoyed the galette! I'm like a missionary about this recipe -- I'm always looking for converts. : )