Diva Boutique Bakery & Cafe: September 2011

Wow Wow Wow!

fantastic news! our seeded loaf has earned a medal! yeah! we're not sure which medal: gold, silver, or bronze. but we do know that out of probably 100 different loaves from around ireland we are getting a medal! this weekend we are bringing more loaves to the irish taste awards in dingle, along with loads of lemon meringue tartletss for the judging. what a buzz!
hope to see some of you there!

Seeded Loaf

we are entering our seeded loaf into the Irish Taste Awards this thursday!

for those of you who haven't tried our best selling loaf, its made with our base sourdough bread, then folded with sesame, poppy, fennel, and sunflower seeds. stop by for a loaf of your own, or to just wish the loaf good luck in the competition! if it's selected we will then be bringing the loaves, along with our lemon meringue tartlets, to the finals in dingle next week!

taylor

Wedding at Glebe House...

This June we catered a wedding at Glebe House, we also provided the wedding cake and some cupcakes and lemon meringue tarts for the occasion...I have just received a link from the photographer of the wedding... Her photo's are fantastic!! Here is a link to her photo blog...keep an eye out for the wedding cake...http://www.igstudio.ie/blog/.....

PS... Iwona and her assistant are great to work with!

Lemon Meringue Tartlet!

we have just received news that our lemon meringue tartlets have gone through to the National Irish Food Award finals!

Ice Cream!

This week I wanted to put homemade ice cream on the dessert menu for dinner, but I ran out of time! With really good ice cream it is important to let the creme anglaise "rest" over night or for 12 hours..

Here is a recipe that I have used several times...it makes great ice cream...and one thing I have learned is to use cream AND milk...I tried a recipe that called for cream only and I felt it tasted kind of cheesy but maybe that was just me...

1 pint whole milk

1 pint cream

10 egg yolks

10 oz sugar

vanilla bean

2t vanilla extract (pure)

What I do first, is whip the egg yolks and sugar until very pale..

Then I heat up the cream mixture over a bain marie until hot(steaming)

Next, I temper the eggs by adding a bit of hot cream to the eggs, stir and then add egg mix to cream...

Now, if you want to make vanilla ice cream, you slice the vanilla bean in half and simmer with the cream, you can also add the extract to the egg mix before tempering...at this point you have to let the creme anglaise rest for 12 hours or overnight...

For my ice cream I wanted to try two flavours...

A plain ice cream with a chocolate swirl, but as soon as I added the melted chocolate to the cold ice cream it seized up! Duh! Hot and cold don't mix, so I have to work on that swirl trick...

The second was a plum and lavender. I added lavender buds to the creme anglaise over night,

and stewed the plum with honey and a small bit of water...I strained the lavender buds out of the creme anglaise, started freezing in ice cream maker then, when it was half way finished, I added the plums...tasted good...the colour was beautiful and it tasted like lavender and plum! Yum