Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

Strawberry Blueberry Crisp. Here's a recipe I made this past August while my Sister was visiting. I had so lots of strawberries I needed to use up, so I made a Strawberry/Berry Crisp from a recipe I found online. Here it is: INGREDIENTS: Topping: 1 cup flour 1/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon cardamom 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled Filling: 2 lbs fresh strawberries 3 tablespoons cornstarch, plus 1-2 additional teaspoons if berries are very juicy 1/3 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon vanilla Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350F. 2. Make topping: Stir flour, both sugars, salt, cinnamon and cardamom together in medium bowl. Pour butter on top. Stir until crumble is evenly moistened. Squeeze together with fingers to form clumps. Let wait in the refrigerator. 3. Wash, quarter, and stem strawberries. Place in large mixing bowl. Add cornstarch, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla. Stir to combine. Transfer to...

Pineapple Upside Down Cake. On a recent nice summer evening my French conversation group met at our house for a Summer potluck.  This Summer has flown by, and we've hardly had a chance to host people on our patio. I tried to organize something with this group a couple of weeks ago, but had to cancel due to the weather. I rescheduled and had amazing luck with beautiful weather on the new day! I considered making eclairs, because with 12 people coming it would have been an opportunity to make a large-batch dessert and they would have enjoyed it. But ultimately, I realized I wasn't going to have time. So looking at old recipes I hadn't made in a while, I decided to try Pineapple Upside Down Cake . It's very good, summery, and an old-fashioned recipe you don't see often. I used Sally's Bake Blog  recipe . I'd used it before, and when I checked her blog it had been updated.  I went with the new version, using cake flour and egg whites only to make a less-dense ca...

 Last weekend we had a get-together with several of the ladies from my book club at a local vineyard.  We got so lucky with the weather delivering a beautiful summer evening!  There is usually a food truck at this vineyard, but as it happened not on this day.  We organized a light and casual potluck and I decided to bring a Strawberry Cornmeal Cake .   I love making this cake because it's so easy to make, looks very pretty and is so summery.  It's easy to bring to places, easy to portion. Best of all, it tastes delicious, and with half the sugar of a regular cake. Following the usual recipe, the cake needed 39-40 minutes to bake, so a bit longer than the 30-35 it calls for.  This is the first time I made it in our new oven, so that is perhaps why. I was able to cut it into 16 squares, each looking very nice with a strawberry in the middle. I sampled one piece and left one square each for R* and Bubby to enjoy. The 13 pieces left fit easily into my...

Raspberry Linzer Torte This week a friend invited me to a potluck dinner at her house. It was her turn to host a group of French speakers she belongs to. I've heard of these dinners for years and was very happy to go! I offered to bring a main course or a dessert and she opted for me to bring a dessert. That was music to my ears! I knew I wanted to make a tart and I knew I wanted it to look impressive. I thought of a fruit tart, but having to drive a half hour in a heat wave with a tart filled with creme patissiere seemed like a bad idea. So it was a perfect time to try making my first Linzer Torte ! I've been looking for an occasion for years, so this was very exciting.  I had no idea how different it would be from other tarts I've made! I looked around for a recipe that fit in a 9" tart pan and that use only almond flour. I had almond flour at hand and didn't want to have to buy pistachios or hazelnuts to grind. I finally settled on  this recipe  from the website...

Flan Parisien on heirloom cake stand Recently I was in Paris and, after seeing lots of pictures of Flan Parisien online, I really wanted to find a good one.  I tried 3 or 4 of them, I think, and none of them bowled me over. So, I decided to give it a try for my birthday.  Coming right on the heels of Bubby's birthday, and will lots of cake still left in the fridge, I knew I didn't want to make another cake.  I also, more and more, miss my mother who always used to visit us for Bubby's and my birthday, and flan was one of her specialties. So that was another reason why I wanted to make a flan, really. I looked at several recipes online and finally settled on  this one  from Cuisine Actuelle.  Most of the recipes I saw online called for both milk and heavy cream. But I wanted my flan to be a bit less rich, and I didn't want to have to buy heavy cream.   Here is the recipe I used: 1 vanilla pod 4 eggs 1 liter of milk 125 grams of sugar 85 grams of c...

  A birthday cake for our recent vacation! It seems unreal that Bubby is turning 22!  Last year we had a big party for his 21s birthday, but it feels like that was only 6 months ago. This year we elected to travel to Grandpa's area and spend the day with him.  So as to not have to cook, we'll eat at a Mexican restaurant and we'll sing happy birthday with a dessert from their menu.  The weather forecast is for hot and rainy weather. Not ideal for traveling over 2 hours with a frosted and decorated cake.  But we can't have Bubby not have a birthday cake!  I came up with the idea of having a "Birthday Eve" cake.   Bubby couldn't think of what flavor cake he wanted.  In the end I suggested an Oreo cake , and he liked that idea. Since I wanted to make a 6-inch cake, for just the three of us, I went with  this recipe  from Sugar and Sparrow. I've made it before, in two 8-inch pans.  It does have a sizable amount of batter for a cake ...

Hulking-bunny cake. Dieu merci this Easter we are not going to Grandpa's house. For a variety of reasons, and I am thrilled to stay home. It's much less work, and last year's blowout with SIL still rankles me. We simplified our plans further, from the initial thought of inviting friends over for brunch, to deciding to make a simple brunch for the three of us. On the menu: asparagus, green salad, cod cakes, And for dessert, Carrot Cake ! I decided to go with  this recipe  from Sallys Bake Blog. I've this cupcake recipe before in two six-inch pans, hoping to get tall layers and not have to use too much frosting in between. Results have been mixed, with sometimes the cakes coming out perfectly, others with a dry exterior and not entire cooked middle. It's a lot of batter for two pans, so I decided to try it in three pans. It worked very well in terms of amounts! I followed the recipe to the letter and baked it in three 6-inch pans. The baking time was almost 25 minutes...

Chocolate cupcakes with basketball decoration. It was the end of another season for Bubby's basketball team and after the last practice there was a pizza party to celebrate. We were asked to contribute desserts.  Last year it was so much fun to make a cake, but this year I only had time for cupcakes.  But they were fun to make too! And best of all, quick. I used  this recipe  for Chocolate Cupcake s from Sugar and Sparrow. It's so easy and uses all pantry ingredients.  The batter is very liquid, and last time I made it the cups were 2/3 full and the resulting cupcakes were too big. This time instead of 12 I made 13. And even then, some of them were a bit too tall. So I think with this recipe I can try for 14 next time.  As it is, when they came out of the oven I had to smush down the tops of some of them that had domed a bit. I needed to be flat. I used  the usual recipe  for buttercream, from Preppy Kitchen. I made one batch, reserving some to co...

  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...