on the menu:
chocolate tarts filled with chocolate ganache
vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream
mini pear/strawberry hand pies
colleen made the fantastic strawberry pudding; emily made the delicious eclairs; lauren provided the fun decorations; michael whipped up a fruit punch!
chocolate tart shells (adapted from martha stewart living)
1 c flour
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 t salt
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temp
1/4 c sugar
1/2 t vanilla
1 egg yolk
whisk together flour, salt and cocoa powder; set aside. beat butter until light and fluffy, then beat in sugar and beat an additional several minutes. beat in egg (note: martha did not call for this, but my dough was very dry... i'm glad i had egg yolks on hand leftover from my buttercream!).shape dough into two discs and let it chill for 30 minutes. roll dough out to 1/4" thickness. press into desired shapes (i used hearts of various sizes). bake on greased cookie sheet for 20 minutes-- baking time should stay the same regardless of tart size.
the vanilla cupcake recipe i used is a pretty good one (from the chopping block), but very basic. any vanilla cupcake recipe will do. i took this recipe straight out of the class packet-- it wasn't until i had measured out 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of buttermilk, and 1 cup of milk that i realized this recipe certainly was going to make more than a dozen. oops.
i used this buttercream recipe. (i think... i looked at so many.) it was pretty easy, but tasted slightly more buttery than i would have liked... so, i just added a bunch of powdered sugar until it looked and tasted right. my only complaint is that this buttercream is not white. sigh. the perfect and pristine cupcakes of my dreams were not meant to be... regardless, these cupcakes (and especially the frosting) got rave reviews.
i hope everyone had a good weekend! and here's to more frequent blogging!
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