Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

Norwegian Skolebrod custard buns Earlier in the week I'd made a French Fruit Tart and I had a good amount of pastry cream leftover. I didn't want it to go to waste, and it's not something you can really freeze. Although I've never tried to freeze pastry cream, I've read that it separates when it thaws, and trying to reconstitute it sounds like a pain.  So, I decided to make Skolebrod Custard Buns .  The word Skolebrod is Norwegian for "school bread" and I've read this is a traditional treat schoolchildren would enjoy when they got home from school, or maybe they were sent to school in their lunchboxes.  Apparently in Norway you find them in every bakery. I've made them before, and they're delicious. Here  is the recipe I used. It was already in my recipe binder.  This time, I decided to halve it because it looked like I only had 7 spoonfuls of pastry cream.  However, I wish I'd made the entire recipe and  made smaller rolls.  Each bun ended

It's been kind of a funny summer. Between the long heat wave in June, the construction on our patio, and friends traveling, we've had very little opportunities to entertain. So when we finally had a friend coming over, I wanted to make something special. Not sure why but French Fruit Tart with pastry cream popped into my head, and I just had to make it. I think because I've enjoyed the Triple Berry Pies I've made recently and wanted something similar. And I know this friend really enjoys dessert. French Fruit Tart is so beautiful and impressive looking but couldn't be easier to make. It's perfect to make ahead, as well, in fact you need to make the dough and pastry cream the day before. I like  this recipe  from Martha Stewart for my pate sucree and it's the one I always use. I halved it for just one tart.  I rely on  this recipe , also from Martha Stewart, for my pastry cream. It never gets solid bits of egg and it's so easy it deserves the name she ga

  Delicious, whatever it's called! It's that time of year when Fall starts to let you know it's on its way. It's warm and feels like summer but school is starting and here and there you see colorful leaves appearing.  I both start to wonder where much of the year has gone, and looking forward to crisp Autumn weather and Fall activities.  But mostly, there is an urgency to make the most of the fleeting Summer days. With all this in mind we decided kick off our weekend with a short (1.5 mile) hike in a lovely woods preserve not far from the house. We saw all kinds of huge mushrooms on this walk, some as big as pancakes! After the hike we noticed the weekly farmer's market was happening in town that afternoon so we had to stop in to check it out. And what do we find but a farmstand offering an amazing variety of fresh, local mushrooms.  We couldn't resist and knew we'd be having them immediately for dinner.  I wanted to cap off the day's adventure with a ni

 We've been having lots of dairy recently, so when I wanted to use up a couple of spotted bananas I had, I decided to make no-butter banana muffins. I had an unopened jar of applesauce in the pantry, so I decided to also forego the sugar.  I looked around quickly online and found  this recipe .  I decided to omit the sugar and use a cup of applesauce instead of half a cup. The only other change I made was to add a teaspoon of vanilla.  The muffins baked up in about 13 minutes and in spite of the rave reviews they receive online I found them to be just OK.  It's not that they're bad, but rather that they just don't have much taste!  I ate mine with fruit, and R spread his with strawberry jelly.   There's just no substitute for butter or sugar. Sigh! ** Update I made the recipe again today (9/25/24) using this time 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 2 tablespoons of avocado oil, 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of brown sugar and in each muffin I put 1/8 teaspoon flax meal and a couple o

Vanilla Strawberry "Olympic" birthday cak e This year, R* wasn't sure what he wanted to do for his birthday but he knew he wanted it to involve ice cream cake. However at the last minute, we had a family emergency and had to spend his birthday weekend out of town.  Since ice cream doesn't travel well, I decided to make him a small birthday cake. He requested a vanilla cake, and I suggested we complement it with strawberry frosting since that's his second favorite flavor.  A Vanilla and Strawberry Cake was in order! Looking for recipes for small-batch vanilla cakes I came across  this one  from Butternut Bakery. I'm a fan of their Instagram page where everything always looks delicious, and the recipe got good reviews. I also liked that it was only a 2-layer cake, so that I'd have to make less frosting when I put it together. The cakes baked up in 25 minutes, it seems my oven is now running too hot, whereas before it wasn't heating up enough!  My oven t