Berry Eton Mess Dessert Shots

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // July 4, 2016 // 27 Comments

Layers of meringue, fresh whipped cream and berry compote make up these adorable Berry Eton Mess Dessert shots. These dessert shots are not only a treat for the eyes, they combine the deliciousness of Eton Mess with homemade berry compote all in one cute, individually portioned dessert! These little Eton Mess desserts only take 15 minutes hands on time to make, and they’re no bake – making them the perfect summer get together dessert!

Watch me and Betty from Slow The Cook Down make it together

Phew! What a crazy few weeks it has been over on the British side of the pond! Whether you live in the UK or not, I’m sure you’ve not been able to avoid all the drama surrounding the UK’s decision to leave the EU! It’s not the smartest decision the country has ever made as a country, but I think we’ve all heard enough about that! And I have the perfect post-Brexit treat for you all today – it’s delicious, it’s adorable, it’s no bake and it really couldn’t be easier. Seriously, I’m fairly certain these Berry Eton Mess Dessert Shots are the easiest recipe on the blog to date!

They take 15 minutes hands on time to make (I say “hands on” as the berry compote does need extra time to cool, but if you make that a day in advance you’re laughing!). What could be better than this? A dessert that will impress even the fussiest of guests that takes you almost zero effort? I think we all need more of that in our lives!

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German Cinnamon Stars (with a Georgia Twist)

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // December 24, 2014 // 24 Comments

German Cinnamon Stars are a classic German Christmas cookie, these delicious meringue cookies have been given a Georgia twist and are made with toasted pecans! Chewy, delicious and totally festive!

Merry Christmas Everybody!! It’s finally almost here, Santa is coming tonight yay! I’m bringing you a gift myself today and it’s Day 10 of my Countdown to Christmas recipes, in the lead up to Christmas I have been posting a festive recipe every day – Day 1 was Spiced Caramel, Day 2 was a Chocolate Peppermint Milkshake, Day 3 was Peppermint Puppy Chow, Day 4 was Mince Pies, Day 5 was Christmas Spiced Chocolate Cake, Day 6 was Frosted Shortbread Christmas Cookies, Day 7 was Spiced Chocolate Orange Puppy Chow, Day 8 was a Spiked Black Forest Milkshake and Day 9 was Christmas Spiced Pudding Cookies. My final festive recipe of the year are these ridiculously delicious German Cinnamon Stars.

The yummy little cookies are traditionally made with almond flour and I first heard about them from Ginger and Ginger and Bread and I pretty much fell in love with them, I knew I had to make them soon. I made mine with pecans instead of almonds though because man, I just love pecans and I couldn’t pass up that opportunity! Plus, I’m spending the holidays in Georgia so it only makes sense to use pecans, right?! I swear I don’t purposefully just stomp all over baking traditions, I just can’t help but put my own stamp on them! I will make them with almond flour one day though, because these are too yummy not to make again and again, all year round!

These are kind of like Germany’s answer to France’s macarons (I have no idea which one came first, so maybe it’s the other way around!) – they’re made basically with meringue and almond flour (or pecan flour, in my case), just like a macaron. These go much heavier on the nuts though so they’re much more robust and definitely feel way more German – none of that delicate French nonsense (disclaimer: I love French patisserie, no offense meant haha) just good ol’ fashioned deliciousness in a nice, chewy cookie that could hold it’s own in a fight!

I read quite a few recipes for these in preparation to make them and most of them mentioned they were a pain in the butt to make, so when mine came together really easily I was sure I had messed them up somehow! I guess I was just lucky though because they came out beautifully, I really can’t say enough good things about these cookies – they’re so much flavour and such a gorgeous texture for only a few ingredients, it makes me stop and appreciate the art of baking even more than usual! It’s crazy though isn’t it? How you can put just a few ingredients together in the right way and you come back with something so delicious?

I did have one little problem with these is and that is I rolled a few of them out a little too thin so they over baked a tad, so a couple of them don’t have that gorgeous chewy centre. But it’s okay, I have enough of the thick, chewy ones to go around and keep everybody happy!

I know I said these came together pretty easily for me, but they do take a bit of prep. The night before I toasted the pecans to bring out their wonderful flavour, I like to do mine on the stove top so I can keep a close eye on them. I left them to cool over night and then threw them in a food processor to blitz them into flour, I did it in two batches with a 1/2 cup of icing sugar in each to help stop it clumping together and starting to turn into butter. You can process them as fine as you dare, mine was a little coarse as it started to clump a little but I really liked that texture. Once that’s done you just have to whip up the egg whites, add the sugar and whip until you have a nice stiff and glossy meringue. Then add your nut flour and mix it all up. Once your dough has chilled in the fridge for about an hour, you roll it out and cut out stars. Then top with some meringue and bake! Even after it’s chilled the dough is pretty sticky and can be quite hard to work with, it’s best to roll it out between two sheets of parchment. I didn’t have too much trouble with mine that way. This is not a cheap cookie to make either, I used a 1lb of pecans in one batch and pecans are not cheap (lucky for me, Leah’s mum bought me a 2lb bag from Costco) – you will get about 50 amazing cookies out of it though!

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Pistachio Macarons

by giraffescanbake // April 5, 2014 // 2 Comments

I have a baker’s confession to make; I have lived in the south east of England for the majority of my life and I have never once been to Paris. It’s shameful, I know. I’m just a train ride away from so many beautiful and classic baked delicacies and I’ve never taken advantage of it. I don’t know how I live with myself to be quite honest (Note: I have been to France, once, but not Paris). It’s okay, I understand if you want to publicly shame me for this, you can do so in the comments!

My second confession as a baker is I’m not a huge fan of macarons. You can argue with me about the correct spelling, but in England a macaroon is a coconut cookie (see here). Okay, back to the French cookie, I don’t dislike them but they’ll never be my first choice and I don’t really get what all the fuss is about. Yet, I still made it my mission to make successful macarons – just to prove I could. Baking is kind of a competition to me, where I’m competing with my own self doubt. And when my self doubt wins, well I tend to throw a little tantrum and refuse to attempt it again for years! The first time I tried to make macarons it was a bit of a disaster, that was about 3 years ago. Fast forward to 2014 and here I am, a successful macaron baker! Yay me!

Okay, so they’re definitely not the prettiest macarons but they ARE macarons. These pistachio macarons are light and fluffy, they have feet and they’re super tasty (according to the macaron lovers I had taste test them!). My biggest issues in making this were trying to grind the pistachios in a mini food processor (I definitely didn’t have a smooth enough batter) and my oven temperature in Atlanta is a bit wonky so baking time was a guessing game! Overall though, I’m very pleased with how they came out. I had planned to never make them again after I got them right, but I think a couple people may have something to say about that unfortunately! Oh well, I bake to please!

Before making these I did lots of internet research to find tips on how to make them successfully and found an excellent post from Food Nouveau. That post is definitely your one stop shop on the world of making macarons, it has everything you need to know with really clear instructions! They also have a link to a bunch of different flavour recipes too! One of the tips they give is to make plain macarons your first time out, of course I didn’t listen! I really like pistachio and I thought this was going to be my only time making them. I’m a rebel, what can I say! That being said, if this is your first time making macarons, I implore you to read that whole post before attempting this recipe as I won’t be able to go into as much detail as they did.

Another rule I didn’t follow is the ageing of the egg whites. I’m an impatient fool and I wanted to make them right then! Honestly I don’t think it’s entirely necessary (but who knows, maybe I would have had a smoother batter if I’d aged them). What I did was place the whole eggs in warm water for about 3 minutes before separating them. One tip that is important to follow though is exact measurements for the cookies, you need a scale rather than cups to be as accurate as possible.

[recipe title=”Pistachio Macarons”]
Ingredients

For the cookies:

3 egg whites, room temperature
205 g icing sugar
125 g powdered almonds (almond flour/meal)
20 g unsalted and shelled pistachios
30 g caster sugar
Green gel food colouring

For the buttercream:

45 g unsalted and shelled pistachios
1 cup icing sugar
6 tbsp butter, unsalted
½ tsp vanilla extract

Method

To make the cookies:

Finely grind the pistachios in a food processor. Add the icing sugar and powdered almond and grind for a few minutes. Sift the mixture into a large bowl to ensure no larger lumps remain, throw away anything that doesn’t make it through the sieve. Set aside.
Whisk the egg whites on a medium/high speed in a stand mixer for a couple of minutes, then add a tablespoon of the caster sugar. Continue to beat while you slowly add the remaining sugar. Beat until the egg whites are stiff and creamy.
Fold in the food colouring gently with a rubber spatula, add a few drops at a time until you get your desired colour.
Very delicately fold in the nut and icing sugar mixture in a few additions. Make sure no pockets of dry ingredients remain but do not beat!
Prepare your baking sheet by lining with parchment paper. I also slipped a template underneath to get my cookies evenly sized (this is the template I used), just make sure to slide the template out before placing the baking sheet in the oven
Spoon your batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip and pipe rounds of batter, evenly spaced. They can be close together as they won’t expand much.
Let your macarons rest on the baking sheet for a minimum of 20 minutes, I left mine for about 45 minutes. Make sure a skin has formed before baking. Preheat the oven to 300F/150C.
Bake macarons for about 15 minutes. You can test them by gently tapping the top, they are ready when they are firm on their feet.
Leave the cool while you make the buttercream

To make the buttercream:

Finely grind the pistachios in the food processor. Add the icing sugar and grind some more.
Cream this mixture with the softened butter until you reach a buttercream like consistency.
Blend in the vanilla extract. If the mixture is too thick, add a little bit of cream or milk until you get the right consistency (and vice versa)
Pipe the buttercream onto the flat side of one cookie and sandwich with another, repeat for all cookies
Store at room temperature in an air tight container. They’ll taste even better the next day!

[/recipe]

Happy Birthday to Me!

by giraffescanbake // March 29, 2014 // 1 Comment

Yep, today is my birthday. I’m a little upset about creeping closer and closer to the big 3-0, but it’s nothing a little cake can’t fix!

That’s right, I did make my own birthday cupcakes, but that’s okay. Really it’s just an extra treat for me! These are some beautiful fudgy devil’s food cake cupcakes, but the recipe I’ll be sharing with you today is the devilishly sweet frosting on top. It’s called white cloud frosting and it tastes like marshmallow in frosting form! I won’t lie to you, I’m definitely more of a buttercream girl but this is still a yummy one! If you like your sweets teeth achingly sweet, this is definitely the one for you!

The sweetness of the frosting is a great compliment on the deeply chocolatey devil’s food cake too. Don’t worry, I will be posting the cake recipe tomorrow. Two posts in one weekend, I’m going wild I know! But tomorrow is Mother’s Day here in the UK and I will be making my mum a special devil’s food cake with fresh whipped cream for the occasion! So you won’t have to wait long if you want to pair these two beauties together like I did!

This frosting doesn’t contain any butter or icing sugar, it’s sweetened with syrup and of course the meringue like texture comes from whipped egg whites. Most recipes you find online will call for corn syrup, that’s not something we have much of in the UK so I used golden syrup. You could also use maple syrup or liquid glucose. I used liquid glucose in my first batch, which failed miserably because I have a really terrible stand mixer (if anybody wants to donate me a kitchenaid or other decent stand mixer, please feel free!!) I used up all my glucose in the first lot, so the second batch I used golden syrup. I was worried I would lose the bright white colour you want with this frosting, but while it was slightly golden at first it went white once it was finished!

It’s nice and quick to whip up too, especially compared to my fave – swiss meringue buttercream. You beat egg whites until foamy and then slowly add a little caster sugar, beating until soft peaks form. Then you boil the syrup and pour into the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. The heat of the syrup will cook the egg whites enough so you don’t have to worry about raw eggs in your frosting! Then just stir in vanilla and you’re done! This recipe makes enough to frost about 12 cupcakes, it doesn’t keep very well so you want to use it all up! Don’t be shy with that frosting!

Today I don’t think I’ll do much else but eat cake and drink some wine. I think I’ll cook up some black bean and kale burgers too! I’m getting boring in my old age, I know!

[recipe title=”White Cloud Frosting”]
Ingredients

2 egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup golden syrup
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Method

In a clean, dry bowl beat the egg whites and salt on a high speed until foamy. You’ll want to use a stand mixer if possible, but I used a hand mixer with my second batch and it works just fine (you just might get a bit of arm ache!)
While the mixer is running, slowly add the sugar. Beat until it forms soft peaks.
Put the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Once its come to boil, remove from heat. While the mixer is running on high, slowly pour the syrup into the egg mixture (be careful, the last thing you want is boiling syrup on your skin – trust me!). Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form, this will take about 5 minutes.
Add the vanilla and stir to combine.
Use the frosting right away. Add sprinkles asap as a thin layer will form and your sprinkles won’t stick (and what’s a birthday cake without sprinkles?)

[/recipe]
Have a great day, I’ll see you all tomorrow!

Black Forest Pavlovas

by giraffescanbake // January 6, 2014 // 2 Comments

Yummy single serving meringue desserts from down under!

Happy New Year everybody! I hope this year is your best one yet, I know it’s going to be mine! My first post of 2014 is going to be the dessert I made for Christmas day. It wasn’t actually eaten on Christmas day because I had work and then there were presents and dinner so by the time I finished baking it was 10:30pm! But they were enjoyed on Boxing Day.

Pavlova actually originated in Australia (or possibly New Zealand, I think they still argue over that). There are three good things to come out of Australia, they are: Heath Ledger, Chris Hemsworth and Pavlova. Since Heath Ledger is dead (sad face) and Chris Hemsworth is married, I’ll have to settle for eating pavlova! I actually only discovered that pavlova was Australian fairly recently, it’s always been a very British dessert in my head, probably because we eat it a lot and Eton Mess is basically a smashed up pavlova! This favourite dessert of mine consists of three main ingredients; meringue, fruit and cream. And it is open to so many different variations, you could never get bored with it!

Black Forest, on the other hand, is German. It started with a dessert called Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte in Black Forest, Germany and eventually worked it’s way into my heart as my favourite ever cake! It consists of chocolate, cherries, cream and kirsch (a cherry liquor) and it is divine. If you’re European you no doubt grew up eating it, if you’re not European then you may never have even tried it. If that’s the case, get down to your nearest quality bakery and get something that’s black forest flavoured, you can thank me later!

While Black Forest cake is my favourite cake, pavlova is my favourite dessert. So I have no idea why it took me so long to mix the two together, perhaps I was afraid of too much pleasure at once! Either way, it was a great Christmas present to myself I must say! This is a slightly sobered version of true Black Forest though as I could not find Kirsch for the life of me. I also could not find black cherries (I swear there’s a cherry embargo on me, whenever I try to buy them in any form I can’t), I did managed to find black cherry pie filling though and it actually worked really well even if it was a bit of a cheat!

[recipe title=”Black Forest Single Serving Pavlovas” servings=”12″ time=”Approx 3 hours”]

Ingredients

For the meringue:

8 egg whites
400g granulated sugar
2 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the topping:

500m double cream
2 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder
1 can black cherry pie filling
Dark chocolate curls*
Dark chocolate shavings**

* To make chocolate curls, run a clean potato cleaner peeler down the edge of a bar of chocolate.

** To make chocolate shavings, use a microplane or fine grater

To make the meringue

Preheat oven to 220C/430F/Gas 7. Line baking sheets with baking paper.

Separate your eggs and make sure you don’t get any yolk in your egg whites as it will prevent them from foaming up properly. You also need to make sure your equipment is grease free.

Beat your egg whites until stiff. Then slowly add sugar one tablespoon at a time and add the vanilla, keep beating at a medium speed until it forms stiff peaks. If you want to test they are stiff enough, turn the bowl upside down, if they stay you’re good! Obviously be careful as you do this in case they’re not stiff enough! Sift the cocoa powder into the raw meringue and gently fold in. You don’t want to fully incorporate the cocoa powder, you want to leave streaks (or not, it’s your life man).

Now you need to get your meringues formed on the baking sheet. Personally, I like to pipe them on, I find I can get them more evenly sized and better circles. Do it however feels easiest for you though. I piped 6 rounds per baking sheet (it makes 12 total), starting in the middle and circling out. Then I use the back of a spoon to create a well in the centre for all the filling to go in. I also use the back of the spoon to rough up the tops, you don’t want them to look piped, pavlova meringue is supposed to have a messy kind of look to it.

Place meringues in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 120C/240F/Gas. Bake for 50 minutes or until meringues are starting to go slightly golden on edges (try not to open the oven if you can help it though). Turn the oven off and leave the meringues in there until the oven has cooled.

To make the filling

Beat the cream with cocoa powder until stiff peaks form. Spoon scream into the middle of the cold meringues. Spoon over the cherry filling and top with the chocolate curls and shavings. Nice and simple.

If you’d like to make your own cherry and sauce mix it’s pretty simple. You need a large jar of morello cherries or even black cherries in kirsch or syrup. Drain the cherries, saving the syrup/kirsch. Set aside the cherries. Heat the syrup in a pan over medium heat and reduce it down to a honey consistency (5-10 minutes). Stir in the cherries and heat for a couple more minutes. Spoon over the top of the cream and meringue. You can also do the the cherries and syrup separately but I prefer mine to be all kinda mushed together! If you’d like to add real kirsch, add it to the syrups are you’re heating it. If using black cherry pie filling, mix a couple tablespoons of kirsch in with it before you spoon it over the meringues.

Enjoy.
[/recipe]

This recipe was adapted from Tanya Zouev’s Black Forest Pavlova with Espresso Cream