Chantilly Swans

Spring is finally here again.  The first seasonal baking project that popped into my mind was of course, Swan Cream Puffs.   

A few years ago I got this recipe from Princess Cruise Lines.  I have to admit, mine didn’t come out tasting as good as theirs, but they still look nice.  They were easy to make, don’t require any fancy cooking utensils, very few ingredients, and don’t take much time to make.  

Makes 12 swans
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 eggs
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
Berries (for garnish)

Bring the water and butter to a boil.  Add the flour and salt and stir vigorously.  Reduce the heat and continue to stir until the mixture is a smooth paste and pulls away from the side of the pan.  Remove the pan from heat and allow to cool slightly for approximately 2 minutes.  With a hand mixer, add the eggs one at a time stirring well to incorporate. (If you don’t have a hand mixer, you can do this by hand) The mixture should be smooth and stiff.  Let cool to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Place 1/4 of the mixture in a small piping bag with a small plain tip. Pipe the shape of a backwards S onto the baking tray to form the head and neck. 

Place the remainder of the pastry  in a piping bag with a medium sized star tip. Pipe 12 egg-sized balls of mixture onto a separate baking tray.  Place the trays in the oven.  The neck pieces will bake in approximately 5 minutes, remove once browned and firm.  Bake the balls for the body approximately 5 minutes longer, then reduce the temperature to 350 F adn continue to bake 10 to 12 minutes.  The bodies should be golden brown, dry and firm to the touch.  Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

Whisk the cream, vanilla and sugar together to a medium peak.  Taste and adjust sweetness.  Place the cream in a piping bag with a medium star tip.

To create the swans, cut off the top half of the body using a serrated knife, then split teh top piece in half for the wings.  Dust the wings with confectioner’s sugar.  Fill the bottom of the body with the chantilly cream.  Place the head and wings and garnish with berries. 

Can also be served with a chocolate sauce.

Sugar – Refined or Unrefined?

No matter how you dice it or slice it, or should I say scoop it or spoon it, sugar is bad for you.  The number of calories are the same regardless of whether it’s refined or unrefined.  They’re both equally sweet too. So what’s the difference?

Sugar cane contains phosphorous, calcium, iron, magnesium, and potassium.  The process to refine sugar strips these minerals and nutrients.  In addition, the chemicals Phosphoric Acid, Sulfur Dioxide, and Formic Acid are added.   

Unrefined sugar is brown but is not the brown sugar you see in the store.  It’s made from the juice from the sugar cane that is released by pressing sugar cane stalks.  It is 50% less processed than white sugar and therefore contains slightly more molasses.  Unrefined sugar maintains the minerals and nutrients whereas white sugar is all carbohydrates.

When deciding which sugar to buy consider that unrefined sugar is much more expensive.  However, with no nutritional benefit to refined sugar, a spoonful of empty calories isn’t worth the cost cutting.  All sugars should be used in moderation anyway.

‘I Love Boobies’ Cake

I Love Boobies are wristbands young girls are wearing for Breast Cancer Awareness.  Even though this cake doesn’t look anything like the wristband, this was the first thing I thought of while making it.

For over a month I wanted to make a boob cake but didn’t know where or how to begin.  With a little research both on the internet and the old fashioned way, looking through books, I figured out how to do this.  After looking high and low on Youtube and through numerous cake decorating sites, no one had any tutorial on how to make this cake.

So here goes mine.  I would like to add that if you never worked with fondant before, you would benefit by first taking a fondant cake decorating class first.  I takes getting used to.

Pans
I used two pans for this cake.  An 8 inch heart pan and the mini-ball pan made by Wilton.

Fondant
Fondant is an icing that is of clay consistency.  It’s very sweet and not as good as buttercream but it’s used to cover a cake smooth and for molding shapes.  It’s also pricey.  You can either buy the pre-made fondant or make your own.  I used a homemade marshmallow fondant which tastes very good…for fondant.

Bake your cakes, fill, and assemble.

A crumb coat is the first step when icing a cake.  It’s a very thin coating of icing around the cake.   The purpose is to seal in crumbs so that the second and thicker coating will be smooth and crumb free.  When working with fondant a crumb coat is used to hold the fondant onto the cake.  So here I am making sure every nook and cranny is coated.

I also have a good amount under each boob to hold them on in place.  

The cake was then covered with Ivory tinted rolled out fondant.

Made the bra with Rose tinted fondant and rolled out using a dot stencil.  Then attached with piping gel.  The dots are just a guide as they will be filled in with white Royal Icing later.

Made sure I included the straps on the side

Added some white detailing.

Then I filled in the white dots and the rose criss crossing lace in the center.  With a wooden spoon, I poked an indentation for the navel and attached a silver dragee.  The only non-edible part of this cake is the bow in the center of the bra.  Not seen from these pictures are the bra straps at the top.

A Festive Feathery King Cake

I placed one of my Mardi Gras mask cookies on top of a mini-King Cake.  Using a glue gun I attached feathers to the plastic wrap.