Today was a great day! The morning started off making pineapple pate de fruit. It’s really quite simple here’s the recipe:
Adapted from Chocolates and Confections by Peter P. Greweling another great book no home should be without.
Pineapple Pate de Fruit
1 cup of puree pineapple
1+1/2 cup sugar
1 envelope of liquid pectin
1+1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar for coating
I used a ganache mold to get the perfect little squares, but you can use a 8″ square pan which will need to be lined in plastic wrap and lightly oiled. Place the sugar and the pineapple puree in a pot stirring constantly brining to 238F. Add liquid pectin and return to boil for 1 min (stirring constantly). Stir in lemon juice and pour into molds (or pan). Sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on top than let sit for at least 2 hours to cool. Invert molds (or pan) if your using a pan cut into little squares than dip into sugar to coat so all sides are covered.
Pineapple Pate de Fruit
Then Andy started on a new batch of cupcakes. This time he found a recipe at Martha Stewarts.com, Irish Coffee cupcakes. They came out amazing, so much better than last nights. He did an excellent job and I am so impressed for his second go in the kitchen.
Andy's perfect cupcakes
Then we decided to try another one of Martha’s recipes Yellow buttermilk cupcakes. We had a huge amount of batter from the recipe so we didived into three portions. One we left as the standard recipe another portion we added coconut extract, lime zest and shredded coconut and the last portion of batter we added orange zest and orange oil to the batter. The recipe was amazing! Light and fluffy and quite moist. So to compliment the cupcakes I created a keylime lemon curd to add to the leftover unflavored buttercream from last night to make a keylime buttercream to go with the coconut cupcakes. And I also added orange oil and Cointreau to last night Vanilla Buttercream To go with the orange cupcakes.
Keylime Curd
Adapted from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1.5oz keylime juice
2 tbsp softened un-salted butter
1 tsp lime zest
Coconut and Orange cupcakes
Place egg yolks in a saucepan mix extremely well. Cook over a medium/low heat stirring constantly up to 196F (but not to the point of boiling or it will curdle) the mixture will thicken and should coat the back of a spoon. Strain into a bowl and add softened butter. Blend completely add lime zest and your done.
Then if that wasn’t enough I had to start my orange and Grand Marnier ganache tonight so that it will dry out by tomorrow for dipping.
I’m beat so that’s it for now!
