What did I bake for Christmas? :) Holiday Special

Happy Holidays Dears!

I let you peek into my baked goods for Christmas. 

Gingy house project

Hi Dears,

So, I baked Gingerbread the first time of this year.

I know it is not even winter, yet, and You don't want to hear about Xmas yet, (do You?), but I have a deadline for baking a gingerbread house for the Advent season.

We will have a Gingy town, a complete town from gingerbread houses, in a big shopping mall in the centre of Budapest (in the Bálna from December 6). So, I participated in this event, and I have to give this house to the city, so all the children, families , and any passers-by can see our creations in one beautiful gingy town.

I am so excited to see my little house in a complete mini-town.

I brought You some pictures about the preparation, and of course I baked "normal" gingies as well. :D

Toffifee Cake

Hi Dears!

I hope You are not sick, like me, now. I'm just sitting here with my headache and flue, sipping hot tea, and a thought just came to me, to post this recipe to You.

A good cake can be a medicine, right?

I baked this cake twice, two days after each other.

Both were birthday cakes for my fiancé. One for his colleagues (Such a good employee, I think working with him can be great, he even brings the cake for his own birthday :D ) 

And they liked it sooo much, that he wanted the same cake for the family celebration.

First, I was just experiencing, but for the second I baked it consciously, and the result was even better.

Hey, I became a pastry cook! A confectioner!

Hello Guys! :)

Finally my confectioner school ended, I passed the final baking exam, and now I have my pastry cook degree in my hands! :D

In this post I am writing about the exam, which was nearly 10 hours long. 

We knew that it would be a tough day, and it really was...

Cream Bun - Képviselő fánk (Congressmen Bun)

Hi Dears!

Today I brought another popular Hungarian confection that we call "Képviselő fánk", which means Congressmen Bun.

To be honest I didn't really care why it had its unusual name for a bakery product, we just call it like that, no big deal. 

But as I am writing this recipe for you now, I looked it up, and I found the explanation. This product became popular in the 19th century, when café houses were common, and people could afford to buy confections on a daily basis. Even the buffets had cakes and these creamy bakery products in their variety, and according to the legend, this was the most popular bun among the congressmen in the buffet of the House of Parliament. 

Now I wonder what is the menu there, if there are any buffets today... :)

Nero

Hi Dears,

Today, I brought You little, sweet sandvich-looking darlings, that you can find in all of the traditional confectioneries in Hungary. 

When I was a trainee in one of them, for almost half a year, I filled thousands of these with jam. The fun part (which I think is the fun part) is to create the shells with the decorating bag, was always the professional's job, as that was the part where the neros could go wrong. Each and every neros should be the same size to look beautiful in a plate.

The other big challenge while baking it, is actually the baking time. One second you see them unbaked, in the next second they are burned. 

If you ask any confectioners which product burns the most, they would answer the neros.  

However, the customers love them, and so do we.

Why? After you fill them with jam, give them 2-3 hours (in the confectioneries they even give them 2-3 days to let them soften) and you will have the softest, and the tastiest  little sweet sandwiches of the World. 

I don't really know why we have the 'Macaron craziness' everywhere, when we have a much more delicious sweet, yes if you like the colors, you can color this sponge, too. And yes you can use any kind of filling for this sweet, too, like ganache, cream, etc..

So, Neros I am cheering for You, to win over Macarons!!!

Cottage cheese Cake with nectarine

Hi Dears,

I have 2 months till my final exam at my pastry school, and I still have some pastries, cakes, and creams to practice.

Last week I baked two of them, neros (which are little soft biscuits filled with jam - you can have the recipe in my following post) and this Cottage cheese cake. 

We celebrated my fiancé's grandma's Name Day as well, so the cake was my gift to her. :)

I am short in time as now I have a full time job, and at home we are under a home renovation. 

If I had more time I would cover the cake side with cream and maybe cover it with almonds, it would make the cake even more beautiful and would give a finished look. Anyway, I didn't bake it, just to look at it, we cut it right away, I took it from the fridge, and believe me it was tasty! In this hot summer it was great refreshment as we cooled it for 3 hours in the fridge.

Baking projects, life updates...

Hello Dears,

Long time, no see, right?

But now, I have lot's of projects to show You!!!

Well, some of them you may had seen on our FB  page, but let's see them all..

Lot's of baking projects, cakes, competition, celebrations, a vacation and a new job!

Baking a Painting

Hello!

This is a nostalgic post from me, as I did this project years ago... But I think it is still one of my greatest creations of all, so I brought it to You.

One of my favorite painter was Pál Szinyei Merse, who lived in the XIX. century to the early XXth. 

I wanted to make a cake replica of his "Majális" painting. I used colored white chocolate for the background, and marzipan for the figures.

How to make a Cat Cake

Hi Dears,

Today I brought You an easy technique for making a cat shaped cake. :)

Little pies

Hi Dears,

I brought a new recipe for pies, and great personal news!

 I am the chosen cook of the week on the biggest Hungarian recipe sharing site - at Nosalty.hu! Yay! A whole article is about me, with my cakes... http://www.nosalty.hu/ajanlo/het-szakacsa-habcsok-mezi

But this recipe of the pies is only Yours, it's not on that site, yet. :D 

I baked them in muffin trays, but You can bake it in one big tart form, if you prefer those. I used fresh fruits for the filling, and the result was really tasty.

My pastry exam

Hi Dears,

It's only a small post about my baking exam I had this week.

Visiting the SÜTI. Home-made-style cakes, shop & manufactury

Hi Dears, 

It's time to introduce a really nice little Cake Shop & manufacture the SÜTI.  

I have visited it yesterday, and tried one of it's cakes...

Practising for the Baking exam & Mother's Day

Hello Dears,

I hope You all right, and didn't get any flu like me during these extremely hot days. I can only wonder how I managed to get this, when every other normal people enjoyed the sun, and they got tanned and I got a cold instead... :( 

Anyway I am recovering, I have some days off from my trainee program, so I am at home, reading books, and when I feel a little bit better I am baking of course. I have my first baking exam next week, with 5 types of pastries. 

Wedding Cupcakes with decorated cookies

Hello Dears, 

Last weekend, we were at a beautiful wedding ceremony, and party! 

(It was my second time to attend to one, and this time I was one of the bridesmaids, too! :) ) 

So as I am a pastry cook to be, what else could have been my gift, than some kind of desserts? 

The main color theme of the wedding was green with orange, that's why I've chosen the green cupcake liners, and even the cupcakes top were covered with green frosting.

Isler Cake

Hi Dears!

It's the end of March already? 

So much had happened since I last wrote here...

For example we had 3 birthday and 4 namedays to celebrate, for which I had to bake of course... :D 

I have 8-10, I don't really know for sure, how much, but I have a lot recipes to share with You! :) 

Another big happening in my life was to finish my internship in the Caffé I was trained for 5 months. Normally people would have a small break now, but me? Why would I? I'm starting tomorrow my extra internship in the hotel I was working before, as a receptionist, only now I will be confectioner trainee. :) 

But let's get back to this cake. This is my own idea, a revolutionary, to use the Isler pastry to make a cake.

The original recipe is here, for the little isler biscuits.

Visiting the Ice cream Exhibition

Hello! 

Spring is finally here, that means ice cream season starts as well. :) 

And to start it in a glamorous way the biggest ice cream exhibition was held for 3 days in Budapest. 

As a confectioner trainee I felt it's my duty to be there.

(And let's face it who wouldn't have gone to taste the new ice cream creations of the year? :D )  So I visited it with my fiancé. 

I brought You my little review of the event and more than 30 tasteful pictures of it! 

Pathés

Hi Dears, 

Do You know what's your nightmare cookie?

The pathé... It's so delicious, and moist, and it's only one bite right? You always want another one... So bye bye diet, it will kill that all...

But it worth it, I promise.

The best about them is the technique, as we can create dozens of different styles and forms, I studied this at school, so the recipe is their invention. :)

Let's see how to bake them...

Macaron challenge

 Hi Dears!

As You might know, I am not a macaron expert. 

I tried it a few times, the first became something totally different from a real macaron (pictures here), and the next was kind of a disaster (story here). 

But I found an easy-looking recipe on a Hungarian blog StreetKitchen. 

She makes it in a so easy way, I had to try it once more. I wanted to bake it for Valentine's Day for my fiancé.

The only question is, will I manage this challenge now? :D 

Confectionery studies - 13-14th week

Hello! 

Long time, no see, right?

But I try to navigate you in my past few weeks of pastry chef studies. We learnt so many goodies... As I didn't write about the last 4 or 5 ? courses, now I combine two lessons, which were quite similar to each other. 

4 pastries with 1 dough

Hello Guys! 

Today I will show a fabulous, multifunctional dough, that we can use for dozens of pastries. Both for sweet and salty. 

And what's even better, this is the original recipe that most of the pastry shops use as well. I learnt it in the confectioner school, and the professional name is the"Blundel- dough " 

( You can read more about it in this post where I wrote about that course. )

The pastries that I show here are the mini versions of the original recipes, as I thought these are more edible in small sizes if you are serving them for guests. 

My boyfriend was amazed how quick I could present 4 really different pastries which tasted so good, and they looked nice as well.

 Finally, I could feel proud. :D (You know it's still hard to compete with his mother and grandmother in baking projects... I can thank this to my confectionery studies. :) ) 

Confectionery studies - 12th week

Hello! 

Do You know the little ball or cube shaped, creamy layered little cakes, that are covered with colorful fondant? These are the mignons...

I have two different stories of their history. One of them is due to a famous Hungarian Confectioner of all time, Mr. Kugler invented it, and called them Mignons, as it means My Little Darling in French. Firstly, it was called Kuglers as the inventor, but now they are Mignons.

The other story is coming from France, from Mr. Mignot who placed poems in the middle of the sweet creation, which made it even more expensive.

Nowadays, you can find these in all of the confectioneries in Hungary (without poems) and they cost a little bit less than a cake slice, because of course the size is much smaller.

The funny thing, that you can't really find the recipe of these on the Net, because if you type it in, only the Gru's Minions are coming up. :D 

So let's see what beauties we had created that week...

Chestnut Cake

Hi Dears! 

I brought You one of my favorite cake, the one with chestnut purée and whipped cream. The sponge is a brown cocoa sponge cake, which is cut to 3 layers, and filled with this chestnut cream. 

The taste is amazing, the preparation is easy, so I can only recommend this recipe. :)

I was playing with the decoration, I hope I didn't overdo it. :D

 I decorated it with chestnut hearts, which have a circle of chocolate on them, and I draw chocolate pastilles on it, with a twist of the other cake, the Eszterházy's style. 

Let's see the preparation...

Confectionery studies - 10th week

Hi Dears!

I haven't posted of the last 5 weeks of my studies, as this period was so busy with all the Holidays, exams and working in the Café.

But now I will show you the details, because these courses were really exciting, and I learnt many many tasty desserts.

This is the second post about cakes. We learnt 7 different cakes that day. (I haven't got the chance to make a photo of the 7th, as it was quickly cut and we ate it... :) ) 

Apple Pie with walnut

Happy New Year! 

Any plans for the future?

I only had one vow for this year... I will do more sport activities! :D

I am lucky to gain only just a few weight while I'm baking and obviously eating a lots of cookies, cakes, pies... etc.

But anyway, I can see on myself the result.

A year ago I was quite sporty, as I did aerobics every week (even twice a week). Then I started working full time, and I was much more tired than at school. 

But this year, I will keep this vow. I even started with a full aerobic program, and my thighs are killing me now. :D 

But no worries, I won't start a diet, I will keep on baking. :D

Like this apple pie got so many praises from my family, then I have to share it with You the recipe. The base recipe was the original apple pie from my confectionery book. I only changed it at the decoration part.