Baking weekend - June 11/12

I ended up baking a couple of items this weekend.

I've started receiving a Freshbox again to take advantage of the local produce this summer. Even though I work here, I don't always have access to the stuff that is brought in. Sometimes, there's just not enough surplus for the employees to get some of the goodies. So, as long as I'm getting a Freshbox, i'm sure to get all the fruit and veggies available that week.  Last week, we got some fuji apples and the first round of peaches. The BC apples, were crisp, juicy and wonderful, as usual. The peaches were underripe, so stuck them in a paper bag for a couple days to ripen enough to use for the tarts.
I had some Frangipane paste made earlier in the week, so incorporated that with some sliced apples and peaches for some mini tartlets. The apple tarts are covered in cinnamon sugar, and the peach are topped with cardamom sugar.

Also, DH was looking for something sweet last night, but wasn't sure what he wanted. So, I decided to make some mini chocolate turtle cakes. - that's homemade caramel on these babies. SOOO YUMMY!! I'll definitely be making these again.

Chocolate Raspberry Joconde Cake

Chocolate Raspberry Joconde Cake, a photo by clashfan77 on Flickr.

Birthday cake for a former co-worker

My First Daring Baker Challenge!

 The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House 

Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they 

prepared at a restaurant in Seattle. 

So, I've never done a marquise - come across a few recipes for it, but had never tried it.

 Instead of making a square pan and having to cut it into squares, i lined a silicon muffin pan.

 Mise for the marquise with my chocolate base in the background.

 I had some leftover sponge strips from a joconde cake i did last week, so used them to line the pan.

 MMMMarquise ready to go into the freezer!

 So this was a different meringue than I was used to doing. Instead of whipping hot syrup into the egg whites, you actually heat all of the ingredients on the stove first before whipping. No problems at all, I really liked this method - I think I'll use it more often for my meringue.

 Can't really see the joconde under that caramel. I wish I could take better photos!

But here you can see it on the edges, sort of. I think I'll try to get some better photos.

It was really yummy! I used rum instead of tequila for my flavouring. 

So, i enjoyed the first challenge, really looking forward to the next one!