Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

 I didn't get a picture of the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Bars I made for my French groups gathering.  We had a potluck on my patio, and I wanted to provide a variety of desserts.  I had leftover raspberry sauce in the refrigerator, and several white chocolate bars I needed to use up.  So I decided to try  this recipe  from Sallys Bake Blog.   The recipe calls for a 9"square pan, which I don't have. I decided to make them in my 9 x 17 pan.  It's a plus that this pan has a lid so storing in the refrigerator overnight would be easy. Instead of regular Oreos like the recipe calls for, I used Whole Foods brand "Oreos".  They have better ingredients than Nabisco. I followed the recipe and processed 22, including the filling, but it far exceeded the 250 g called for in the recipe.  They were dry and made for a stiff and crumbly crust that wasn't coming together as it was supposed to. I had to eyeball adding more melted butter wi...

 A friend who is dear to me obtained her residency and was throwing a party to celebrate. I was delighted with the occasion and just had to make a cake for her!   I considered making some kind of "card" cake but couldn't come up with a design that pleased me. Instead, I decided on a sunflower decoration. This past Spring I gave her some faux-sunflower shoots, 

  Someone took a bite out of the star bread! On a lovely Fall Saturday we were invited to a friend's milestone birthday party and were asked to contribute a potluck dish. The party was at an outdoor picnic pavilion in the afternoon and we weren't    quite sure what to bring. So, I decided to make a Star Bread . Although it has a several steps, it's a reliably easy recipe and always makes an impact. I got up early the morning of the party to get the dough going for this recipe  from King Arthur Flour. Pretty soon I realized that the last time I made a savory star bread I had plenty of pesto and prosciutto at hand whereas now I did not. Instead, I decided to make an Herb-Parmesan-Kalamata Olive Bread since that's all I could find for the filling!  I followed the instructions to brush each layer with egg wash and also brushed it very lightly with olive oil.  I sprinkled dried thyme, garlic powder, shredded parmesan and olives on two of the layers and on ...

  Peach Pie Bubby asked very nicely why we haven't had pie, specifically Peach Pie , this Summer.  I know the feeling, the Summer of 2025 was difficult and disappointing in several ways for us and we didn't get to do a lot of our usual activities.  Over the past few years we've had summer get togethers with the extended family and I've usually brought pie.  When I spotted some beautiful organic peaches at just the right ripeness at Trader Joe's, I knew it was time to make that pie Bubby had been wanting! Lovely peaches in my vintage Jadeite bowl I've used  this recipe  from Sally's Baking before. I was confident that aside from the work involved in following all the steps it would be pretty straightforward to make the pie. How silly of me! The plan was to make the pie crust on Tuesday to let it sit in the fridge overnight, make the pie on Wednesday, and enjoy it on Thursday evening. I used  this recipe  also from Sally's Baking for a butter pie cr...

  Lemon Almond Biscotti Our French language group was meeting at one of our members' homes, but we didn't want to have a large potluck. However, the plan was for a few light snacks. Biscotti seemed like the ideal idea! I decided to try  this recipe  for Lemon Almond Biscotti from King Arthur Baking.  I'm a fan of their  vanilla biscotti  recipe and I reasoned the lemon almond one would also be good.  I followed the recipe to the letter but, sadly, I found it rather disappointing.  First of all they were a bit overbaked even before the 30 minutes of the second bake were up.  Next, the glaze curdled and looked unappealing.  Worst of all, I found them to be rather bland.  The lemon flavor was too mild, and you couldn't taste the almond at all.   "Curdled" looking glaze It was still nice to bring them to the event because they were the only sweet treat there. Everyone said they loved them and I was very happy about that....