My Valentine's Day sweets

I'm resigned to the fact that the week or so before valentine is a very busy time for me. And last week didn't let me down. Started out with my meringue kisses dipped in chocolate ganache and sprinkles. And . . . I forgot to take a picture of it. I didn't do the technique I tested a week before--too messy and sticky so I stuck to the pale pink kisses. 

I brought back the old favorite --red velvet cupcakes filled with chocolate ganache and topped with cream cheese frosting. I need to make another batch tonight all gone in 3 days. I guess they missed their favorite cupcakes.

red velvet cupcake--everyone's favorite

I was talked into making this next dessert by the chefs, wait staff and friends. I didn't think it would do well but I thought I'd try. Although it is one of my favorite sweet, most people don't like the the chewy texture of chi chi dango. Chi chi dango is a sweeten mochi made with mochiko [sweet rice flour], coconut milk and sugar, flavored with vanilla and tinted with food coloring. I used a this recipe from justjennrecipes. Really simple and makes a lot.

Decided to fancy it up cut the dango into heart shapes and added matcha and raspberry sauce with a strawberry. [all the extra dango I sliced up for samples for the customers and the any extra for the restaurant staff]

slightly creamy and bitter

plated!

I made two more desserts for the valentines weekend--chocolate molten cake and coconut lime pie. No time for the cheesecake or the flourless chocolate sesame cake, it was just too much.

But I did me something on Sunday--Korean sweet potato doughnuts. These are made with mochiko and has a chewy texture similar to mochi. I posted about these doughnuts here. I was inspired by friend's post on doughnuts. This is what I made. Shared with the staff at the restaurant. I think I made the happy.

getting golden brown

cinnamon sugar coated

Valentine's Sweet Testing

Valentine's Day not my favorite holiday but now that we have the restaurant, it's kind of my dessert/sweets day. This year I'm running behind my testing because of my stupid head cold. Now that I'm better, I need to get going.

This year I'm making the meringue kisses, flourless black sesame chocolate cake with raspberry coulis and red velvet cupcakes. What I'm testing are the meringues because they are taking a different form, like a hershey's kiss. So I need to practice my piping skills and I'm also painting the piping bag, so they have pink strips on the meringues.

Here's what I got so far:

• under whipped the meringues--not good
• don't paint too much food coloring becomes sticky and needs a lot more time.
• not to happy with striping becomes one color
• will go with pink and white meringues, dipped in chocolate and sprinkles
• when piping, keep tip of the pan, slightly above
• press, count to 3, then release and twist

striping technique

white kisses

supposed to be strips

Next up pear butter cake, 2 loaves baking in the oven. I'm using this apple butter cake recipe from Sugar Dish Me. I've made this apple butter cake and everyone loves it. Easy especially if you have homemade apple or pear butter in your refrig. 

buttermilk and my homemade pear butter

Happy Valentine's Day!

Got up early to finish up my goodies for the restaurant--raspberry coulis at 7 in morning. I jumped in the shower, packed everything up, dug out the rest of the snow that came overnight then off to the restaurant. Whew! I'm tired just writing what I did this morning.

Here's the plated version of  my Flourless Chocolate Black Sesame Cake for Valentine's Day.