Public Service Announcement

This is just a public service announcement to remind all my subscribers that tomorrow (March 14) is Pi Day! Please remember to eat some pie and do some fun math!

Jessica

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Passion Fruit and Mango Opera Cake

Good afternoon! I had a lot of fun with this bake. It looks difficult to get right on the show (because it is), but the results can be fantastic. This past weekend, I baked/created/sculpted the French opera cake. Traditionally, an opera cake is made with thin layers of coffee syrup-soaked jaconde sponge, coffee buttercream, and chocolate ganache. A la Great British Bake Off , I mixed it up a bit. I had a lot of fun going for mango syrup to soak my sponges with, passion fruit buttercream, and white chocolate ganache... and I added two layers of mango jelly into the cake. Creating the cake and all its elements was not tricky; the assembly and sculpting was the difficult part. For the ease of assembly, I tried to make all possible elements in the same 8" x 8" brownie pan. This made for a slightly smaller cake than those seen on the show, but it enabled me to have ample control over the end result (without too much cutting). When I tried to bake the sponge in a standard j

Spiced Pear Frangipane Tart

Wow. I have had quite a hiatus from this blog... from baking as a whole, really. My entire world has turned upside down since October 2019. I got pregnant shortly after that point, and my early pregnancy nausea and sensitivity to smells definitely caused me to cut back on my baking for a little while. Once I was over that, the pandemic started. As much as I love baking, I prefer not to bake when I cannot give the finished products away. Now I have a wonderful 6-month-old baby, who takes up all my time. I made some cookies the other day, and it took most of the day to bake and decorate them due to the fact that I had to keep stopping to take care of the baby. I still am not baking that much. It's too much that I cannot share easily, and it typically takes more time and/or energy than I have. I will, however, try to make something and post it every once in a while. We just might not have any massive showstoppers until I can invite some people over to partake. I did, however, bake a

Mandelbrodt- Jewish Biscotti!

The signature challenge for Series 6, Episode 2 of The Great British Bake Off is to make two dozen biscotti. Biscotti are traditionally an Italian cookie distinct for its twice-baked hard exterior. Fillings are somewhat variable. An eastern European Jewish variation of biscotti is called mandelbrodt. Mandelbrodt literally translates to English as "almond bread". Except for when I make mandelbrodt for my aunt, who is allergic to all nuts, I always include almonds and some almond extract. These biscuits are very hardy and are a good, easy crowd-pleaser. The recipe which I use calls for oil rather than butter, making them pareve (neither dairy nor meat). They are good to serve as a dessert for a crowd, or are good to bring as a snack on road trips. Due to the fact that they are rather hard, they do not easily go stale, and will stay fresh for a while. For once, I will not disclose the recipe which I used. The recipe is, I believe, my great-great-grandmother's; it

Jessica's Bake Off Challenge

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