Ash Wednesday is here and the last few King Cakes are trickling out of the door leaving me with something to say…

Thank You.

Really, thank you. It has been a tremendous King Cake season, much better than I had hoped for way back at the start of the season. We tripled the number of cakes we made from last year, and I’ve spent the last two weeks wonderfully, crazily busy.

As a neophyte business we have no advertising budget, we’re doing well when we can treat ourselves to some new cookie cutters. Our advertising is you guys.

That means we did so well this Mardi Gras because you went out and told your friends about us, your neighbours, your colleagues. And for that we are grateful. We can only hope that we provide the best product and the best service we possibly can so you continue doing so.

As an aside, we would like it known that we have no objections to making King Cakes all year round; Easter is coming – we can make them pastel shades, UT game – burnt orange and white, Halloween – purple, black and orange. You name the colour scheme you want and we’ll be there!

We’ve been members of the Austin Food Bloggers Alliance since it’s inception. While we don’t get to take part in events as often as we would like to, it is a group of wonderful people that support each other and the community as a whole through classes,  and social and philanthropic events.

Last year a cookbook was announced and a recipe writing workshop was held. Since I couldn’t make it to the workshop I felt unsure about submitting any of my recipes for the book. But later, a call to arms was made, for more recipes and I decided to bite the bullet and go for it.

In the Autumn recipes were tested. Everyone was assigned someone else’s recipe to test and then we held a potluck as an excuse to get together and try as much as possible!

The book has been submitted to History Press and has a release date of April.

Clicking on that picture will take you to the AFBA blog and let you know all the recipes that are going to be in the book. We’re very excited that both of our recipes were accepted. Our recipes aside, read that list, that’s some damn tasty food right there, I dare you to read that list and not be drooling by the end of it!

While of course you can wait until it’s published to buy it (because you are going to buy it right?), you could be super awesome and pre-order one through the AFBA right here for the nifty price of $25 (or $100 for 5 books if you’re feeling enthusiastic!). If you need to think about it for a while that little button to the right hand side of the page there will take you straight to the pre-order page without having to find this post again.

After prodding and poking my tech guy (also known as my husband) repeatedly, we can finally unveil our new menu.

You can follow this link right here to go and admire how pretty it is now *grins* or if you look under that big logo at the top of the page there’s a tab there.

We’ve made it live, but we still might be tinkering a little bit, so don’t be surprised if little bits and pieces get changed about

We’re no strangers to the slow food movement, we adore taking the time to make things ourselves. We’re also big fans of keeping our respective food cultures alive and kicking, and spreading the joy to anyone who can’t get out of the way fast enough. *grins*

I recently undertook the task of discovering how to make an item that is nearly unique to, but is all but lost to my hometown of New Orleans: creole cream cheese. Once made in almost every kitchen of my grandmother’s generation, it has since become a hard to find item (made and sold at only one old-school grocery store in town, and pretty much nowhere outside of New Orleans), and rarely ever made in the home any more. There’s a rant in here somewhere about how we evolved into a ‘convenience society’, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Creole cream cheese is a ‘farm cheese’, and a distant cousin to the commercial cream cheese you can find in stores today. The significant differences are that it is softer, less sweet, and has a very distinct tangy tartness. Back in the day it was frequently served with a splash of cream, a sprinkling of sugar and fresh fruit. Somewhere between the tang of the creole cream cheese and the sweetness of the cream and sugar lie a perfect balance of flavors. It can also be fashioned into a dynamite cheesecake, and an even better ice cream. It has also been known to be enjoyed spread on buttermilk biscuits in the English cream tea style of scones and clotted cream.

At its heart, creole cream cheese is milk that has had the curd separated from the whey and fermented briefly using the same helpful bacteria as modern cultured buttermilk — hence the tangy tartness. Once the curd has had sufficient time to separate, it is then allowed to drain to remove as much of the whey as possible.

Once that is done, you’re left with a smooth creamy mass that has the same firmness, once chilled, as commercial cream cheese at room temperature. Serve plain, with cream and sugar, or use as an ingredient in your favorite recipe.

Valentines Day is only 3 weeks away, time to start considering what goodies you want to spoil your sweetie with.

Chocolate is synonymous with Valentines so of course these are a chocolate sugar cookie base. Pastel pink royal icing forms the base of the decoration and I decided to try a light brown icing for the flourishes.

It’s still January, but my sweetie certainly enjoyed these treats!

Call (512-465-2879) or email (info@curiousconfections.com) if you’re interested in ordering cookies for Valentines day.

Not interested in cookies, how about these white chocolate raspberry cupcakes?

It’s that time again, it comes round so fast!

Mardi Gras season runs from Epiphany (January 6th) til Fat Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday – the day before Lent) and King Cake is acceptable all throughout the season.

Now, Easter comes early this year, meaning that Fat Tuesday is in February, the 12th to be precise. That means that you only have 3 more weeks to get your King Cake!

We offer two sizes of New Orleans style King Cake, a small, that will give 8-12 portions depending on how polite you are, and large, that serves 16-20, and we have several flavours on offer -

Traditional (cinnamon sugar) – small $10, large $20
Cream Cheese – small $12, large $24
Lemon Curd – small $12, large $24
Apple – small $12, large $24
Pecan Praline – small $12, large $24
Chocolate Hazelnut – small $12, large $24

We’re experimenting with a new filling, check back soon and we’ll let you know when that’s ready to be released on the public.

Call (512-465-2879) or email (info@curiousconfections.com) to order your King Cake now!

This is the Groom’s cake that went along with yesterday’s Wedding cake.

A chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling it’s technically lots of small cakes. Each segment of the body was individually shaped and covered and then assembled on site.

Congratulations to Nikki and John!

We were honoured to be asked by our niece to make her wedding cake. We made it here in Austin, then took a nerve wracking  drive to Louisiana to set it up at the beautiful Laura Plantation.

We went with the traditional almond cake but filled with a chocolate creme patisserie, a chocolate custard. Covered in a milk modelling chocolate, almost akin to a chocolate clay the final touches were added with a white chocolate ganache.

Congratulations Nikki and John!

Still coming up with ways to use up eggnog that doesn’t involve drinking it! Plus I had some new cutters that I was just dying to try out *grins*

My sugar cookie recipe uses a good amount of liquid, in the summer I usually use some lemon or lime juice but there was no reason that eggnog wouldn’t work just as well. As seems to be my trend with anything eggnog flavoured I added a dash of nutmeg to the dough.

Once baked I flooded the cookies with royal icing and then used a thicker royal icing to pipe on some decorations. Edible glitter, decorative coarse sugars and some dragees all added finishing touches.

If you move quick and call us now, you might just be able to get some of these for Christmas.