Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

  Chocolate Doughnuts  with Vanilla Glaze and Fondant Hearts On this Valentine's day I decided to make a small batch dessert that still felt special. We hadn't had home made doughnuts in a long time, so that gave me the idea to make Chocolate Doughnuts . I used  this recip e from Preppy Kitchen. I followed it to the letter but cut the amount to only make six doughnuts. Here they are right before going into the oven. Filling doughnut pans is always a bit of a pain to me, so I only enjoy making them in small batches. Doughnut batter in the pan. I was surprised, since our new oven bakes so hot, that the doughnuts took a full 12 minutes to bake. I checked them at 8 minutes, which is the minimum baking time according to the recipe. But they were raw inside. Not wanting them to get dry, I turned oven down to 340 and checked again at 10 minutes then at 12.  At 12 minutes a toothpick came out clean. After the doughnuts were cool I coated them with a vanilla glaze. I love...

 Recently I made a Banana Bread from a different recipe that uses less butter.  Here it is: Ingredients:  2 cups flour  3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup butter 2 eggs 1 cup mashed bananas 1/3 cup yogurt 1 teaspoon vanilla Directions 1. Combine dry ngredients. 2. Beat butter and sugar 1 minute. 3. Add eggs, one at a time. Add bananas, yogurt and vanilla.  4. Bake 1 hour at 350F. Modifications I made: 1.5 cups whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour. Slightly less banana because that's all I had. Two teaspoons vanilla instead of one. Dash of cinnamon It turned out pretty good! Denser than my usual Martha Stewart recipe, so a little bit dryer. I'd bake it a little less next time, or at a lower temperature. But it's also a bit more filling than my usual recipe. Great for mornings when I have to rush to art class in Connecticut and eat breakfast in the car.

Galette des Rois I volunteered to make a Galette des Rois for my book club and then I began to have second thoughts. Puff pastry has always intimidated me and I've never worked with it.  But I couldn't backtrack, so I did it. It came out pretty good too! I made the frangipane the day before. Here is the recipe I used:  108g almond flour 1.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour 100g sugar 100g butter, room temperature 2 eggs, room temperature 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon almond extract 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1. Cream butter and sugar for 3 minutes. 2. Add eggs, vanilla and almond extract 3. Add dry ingredients 4. Beat until smooth 5. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight. I didn't want to make the dough myself, so I bought Dufour pastry sheets. First and last time, too, because it was damned expensive.  I needed two boxes, and each box was $13.99 at Whole Foods. Ouch! Each box contains one 9/14 x 13" sheet of 1/4 inch thick dough. So, there's minimal rolling out to do...

Vanilla sponge and chocolate "Charlotte". On this day of Epiphany 2026, we're not having our usual festive dinner.  We're all still tired from the holidays, my elbow is injured, R* has to work late, on and on.  We're just having salmon patties and a salad, so it's extra important to have a nice dessert. And yet, I haven't been to the store and am trying to avoid shopping, so I needed to make do with what I have at hand. Pantry ingredients, 3 squares of bakers chocolate, and 1/2 cup of whipping cream.  I thought of my Nordic Ware Charlotte Cake pan! It's easy to make a sponge cake and it looks beautiful right out of the pan. I didn't have any fruit for the topping but a bit of chocolate ganache and some whipped cream will put it over the top! I found  this recipe  on the Nordic Ware website. Here are the directions: From reading the reviews, it was evident the recipe makes too much batter and the pan overflows.  I modified the recipe as follows: 3 e...

Since I didn't get to make a Buche de Noel this Christmas I decided to make a roll cake for New Year's Eve.  Originally I wanted to try  this  Lemon Roulade recipe by David Tanis which appeared in the NEw York Times.   Here is that recipe and the picture that seduced me: For the Lemon Curd 1 teaspoon orange zest 1 tablespoon lemon zest ¾ cup/150 grams sugar ¾ cup/170 grams unsalted butter   ¾ cup/180 milliliters lemon juice (from 5 or 6 large lemons) ¼ cup/60 milliliters orange juice (from 2 large oranges) 4 large eggs, at room temperature For the Sponge Cake Softened butter, for greasing the pan 4 large eggs, at room temperature ⅔ cup/130 grams sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup/130 grams all-purpose flour or cake flour 1 teaspoon baking powder Pinch of salt For Frosting 1 cup/240 milliliters heavy cream 2 teaspoons sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla extract Preparation Step 1 Heat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare the lemon curd: Put lemon zest, orange zes...

Here is a recipe I tried for Candied Lemon Slices . I made these to decorate the Lemon Roll Cake I made for New Year's Eve 2025.  Ingredients: 2 Lemons. Choose the firmest lemons possible. 1 cup water 1 cup sugar Directions: Slice the lemons as thinly as possible, 1/8 inch is ideal. Dissolve the sugar into the water on medium heat, about 2-3 minutes. Lower heat to achieve a gentle simmer and drop in the lemon slices. Cook without stirring for 30-40 minutes until soft, glossy and translucent. Let dry, preferably overnight, on a piece of parchment paper or if they are holding their shape on a wire rack. I used organic Meyer lemons and had no luck with the mandoline because they were a bit soft, so I ended up slicing them with a knife. They ended up being of varying sizes but it was the best I could do. My lemons were on the smallish side of I used 3/4 cup each of sugar and water and it was sufficient. It took a half hour to cook. I could tell at that point the water had turned into ...