Decadent Desserts Class with Tina Bacon

About a month ago I had the opportunity to attend a baking class called Decadent Desserts at Well Seasoned. The class was put on by Tina Bacon, owner and founder of the Pink Spatula. Tina is a fantastic pastry chef and creates the most amazing hand crafted marshmallows I've ever tasted (peanut butter ripple marshmallows anyone?!! - try that in a s'more!!). Check our her website for beautiful photos of her dessert offerings and where to find her hand crafted marshmallows.

During the class we made Individual German Chocolate Cakes (pictured above), oreos (pictured below), burnt sugar ganache mini tarts, and butterscotch pots de creme topped with dark chocolate pudding. It was an ambitious evening full of delicious, calorie-laden treats, handy tips and great recipes. Tina kindly allowed me to share the recipe for the burnt sugar ganache mini tarts with you (thanks Tina!!). I made them at home again yesterday to make sure the recipe turned out as well under my hand as Tina's professional hand and sure enough, it was a slam dunk!! Delicious and addictive. :)

First step for these delicious little guys is to make the miniature sweet tart dough (makes about 32 mini tarts):

Miniature Sweet Tart Dough
Recipe by Tina Bacon

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 3/4 cups (12 1/2 oz) all-purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
• 5 1/2 tbsp (2 1/3 oz) sugar

Method:

1. Cut butter into small cubes and set aside.
2. In a small bowl stir together egg and vanilla with a fork.
3. Measure flour, sugar and salt into a food processor bowl. Pulse together a few times to combine. Add butter and pulse till it's the size of rice. While still pulsing, slowly pour egg/ vanilla mixture through tube and mix just till it begins to form a dough. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead a couple times to form a smooth dough.
4. Portion all of the dough first using a 1 1/2 - 2 tsp measure. Next, roll all the dough into balls and place in a miniature muffin pan (see photo below). Form into tart shells using either a tart tamper or your fingers to form a thin, even crust.
5. Bake in 350F oven for about 10 minutes or till edges are golden. Allow to cool in pan 10 minutes, then place tart shells on a rack to cool completely. Store airtight. Can be frozen.

Burnt sugar ganache tartlets made by Tina in her class

 Next up, make the burnt sugar ganache. Please note that I have adapted this recipe slightly - it originally called to make the caramel using the dry method, but having had a couple of really bad experiences in the past with this method, I opted instead to use the wet method. :)

Burnt Sugar Ganache
Recipe from Tina Bacon (Tina adapted the recipe from Pierre Herme's Faubourg Pave)

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups (305g) chopped dark chocolate
• scant 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 4 tsp unsalted butter
• pinch of fine sea salt
• scant 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups (12 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

Method:

1. Place sugar in a pile in the middle of a saucepan. Carefully pour water in around the pile of sugar. Over medium high heat, gently and carefully stir the water and sugar mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved, stop stirring. Let it bubble until it reaches a nice golden brown colour and remove from heat. Stir in first amount of butter and salt until melted. Add cream (careful - it will bubble like crazy and puff up), stirring well. Return to a boil, remove from heat.
2. Pour half of caramel over chocolate, stir to create ganache. Stir in remaining caramel till smooth. Set aside to cool till only slightly warm, about 10 minutes. Beat butter till malleable. Gently stir small amounts at a time into ganache with a wooden spoon till smooth. Don't use a whisk for this part - you don't want to incorporate air into this mixture.

Adding butter to the flour for the pastry dough

 To assemble your tarts - pour burnt sugar ganache into each tart until full. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Allow to set up. Enjoy!

Dough balls waiting to be formed into tart shells

Baked tart shells (my at home attempt)

Burnt sugar ganache tarts (my at home attempt)

This was a fantastic class and I would highly recommend attending any of Tina's baking classes at well seasoned. You'll learn a lot and get to sample loads of delicious food along the way (remember, calories don't count on cooking class nights).

This post has been linked up with Whatcha Baking Wednesdays over at Cajun Sugar Pie.

Happy Baking my Friends!

Hello Cupcake! Featuring pastry chef Tina Bacon!

On June 22nd my sister and I attended the Hello Cupcake! class at Well Seasoned Gourmet Food Store in Langley, BC. This awesome class was hosted by Tina Bacon of the Pink Spatula. I had only heard of the Pink Spatula when I purchased some marshmallows from Well Seasoned around Christmas time. If you haven't tried these marshmallows, you are missing out!! They are so good and they come in all different flavours.

Any way, back on topic- we soon discovered how creative and talented Tina Bacon really is. You can check her out on Facebook too under The Pink Spatula. This class was great! Can you believe that in a two and a half hour class we had six different kinds of cupcakes to take home? With no pre-baking or pre-making icing!! Now that shows some mad skills!

Here are some of the lovely flavour combinations we tried:

• Chocolate cupcakes brushed with Baileys, topped with an espresso swiss buttercream icing and garnished with a chocolate covered coffee bean.


• Chiffon cupcakes brushed with a rum simple syrup, topped with a lime swiss meringue buttercream, sprinkled with shredded coconut.


• Vanilla cupcake filled with caramel, topped with very vanilla easy buttercream, drizzled with caramel, and finished with a sprinkle of fleur de sel & toasted pecans.


• Chocolate cupcakes filled with peanut butter filling, topped with cocoa easy buttercream and rolled in toasted peanuts.


• Vanilla cupcakes topped with espresso vanilla easy buttercream icing and sprinkled with sliced toasted almonds.

Can you say delicious?! I think so! Needless to say, I left the class so inspired with all these amazing flavour combinations running through my brain.

I'm going to share Tina's Chocolate Cupcake recipe with you along with her swiss meringue buttercream icing recipe. You can flavour the buttercream however you want! We added espresso so some of it and lime zest to some of it so we had two flavours from one batch of buttercream. You can also freeze the buttercream - which is super handy because this recipe makes a huge batch of icing!!!

Tina Bacon's Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 1 cup cake flour


• 1 cup plus 2tbsp granulated sugar


• 2/3 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 1/2 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (or 1/4 butter and 1/4 oil)


• 1/2 cup freshly brewed coffee


• 1/2 cup buttermilk


• 1 large egg


• 1 large egg yolk

Method:

1. Preheat over to 325. Fill 12 muffin tins with cupcake liners.


2. Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Heat butter and coffee in a small pot over medium heat until the butter has melted. Pour into a medium bowl. Whisk in buttermilk, egg and yolk. Then add sifted dry ingredients and whisk until incorporated.


3. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs, 20-25 minutes. Cool for a few minutes in pan. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

Tina Bacon's Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 10 large egg whites


• 2 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp sugar


• 2 1/2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

Method:

1. Place egg whites and sugar into a metal bowl that will fit over a saucepan. Fill saucepan with an inch or two of water and bring to a low simmer. Place bowl over pot and whisk constantly until mixture is hot to the touch, around 130F. Pour into a stand mixer fitted with whisks and beat on high until it is thick and glossy and feels room temperature. It will probably be close to 90F. This can take up to ten minutes.


2. Meanwhile, chop butter into walnut-sized chunks. When egg mixture has cooled, remove the whisks and use paddles with your machine set on low. Add butter a couple chunks at a time while beating continuously. As you continue to add butter it may look quite liquid. Nows' the time for the magic!! Turn your mixer on high and keep beating until it breaks and then becomes thick and fluffy. At this point, reduce the speed to low and add whatever flavour you like (i.e. up to 1/4 cup vanilla or liqueur, 2/3 cup dark chocolate melted and cooled, a paste of 2 tbsp instand expresso powder and 2 tsp vanilla).

Tina shared so many great recipes and tips with us that I can't fit them all into one post! I'm sure you'll see tidbits pop up over the next couple of months as I get the chance to try out some of her techniques in my own kitchen.

Thanks Tina for such a wonderful class and for so kindly providing me permission to blog about and your class and share your recipes. It was an absolute pleasure to meet you and I hope to take some more of your classes in the future!

Happy Baking my Friends!