Welcome back to our comprehensive guide on How To Be A Master Chef for beginners and food enthusiasts! In today’s posts, we’ll go over how to make puddings, tarts, cookies, mousses and more! Your family will love these delicious desserts, so let's get to it! If you’ve ever wanted to be a master chef, the time is now, so let’s get started!
Don't forget to read Super Sauces for Beginners: Creating That Perfect Homemade Sauce!
Dreadfully Delicious Desserts
Desserts are loved by everyone, but when they're easy to make and delicious, we consider this a win-win! Over the course of this section, we will go over some awesome desserts and how they are made. If you like puddings, we have plenty of information about them. Perhaps you're more into crisps, tarts, or cobblers… we have you covered! Maybe you enjoy cookies and cakes… Well, count us in! We'll go over all of this during this post, and you will be the Dalai Lama of desserts by the end of this chapter!
Pleasant Puddings
Everyone loves desserts, but when desserts are made easy, we're even happier! This section is dedicated to one of the easiest desserts to make: puddings. Everyone has had pudding before, but the best part about it is that it tastes great and is easy to make. Why bother baking a cake when you can make a pudding that will satisfy anyone's sweet tooth? We have a recipe for chocolate pudding that is out of this world! Check this recipe out:
Chocolate Chocolate Pudding
Prep Time: 10 min, Cook Time: Around 8 min, Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
- 2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
- ¼ cup water
- ½ cup sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup milk, warmed
- Pinch of salt
- 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
- 1 ¼ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups heavy cream
- Whipped cream to top it
Directions:
- Take a small bowl and combine the cornstarch and water until the cornstarch dissolves and the mixture is completely smooth.
- Take a heavy, medium saucepan and combine the cocoa, sugar, and salt. Take a wooden spoon and stir the warm milk into the mix to create a paste-like substance that is smooth.
- Put the saucepan on medium heat and allow the mixture to boil. Make sure to stir it constantly for around 3 minutes. Then, add the chopped chocolate and stir it till the chocolate melts.
- Put the heavy cream into the mix and stir. Take the cornstarch mixture and put it into the chocolate mixture as well.
- Stir the mixture on medium heat for another 5 minutes, allowing the pudding to thicken and boil. Make sure to use the spoon on the bottom and sides of your pan to ensure it will not get lumpy or burn!
- Reduce the heat to low and cook it for another minute. Make sure to continue stirring it!
- Take the saucepan off of the heat and put the vanilla in.
- Put the pudding into a serving bowl and put plastic wrap directly on the pudding surface. Refrigerate it until it is cooled down completely.
- Top with whipped cream
Maybe you're more into mousses? Well, we've got the hookup! Check out this recipe for a mousse that is sure to make your mouth water:
Chocolate Mousse
Prep Time: Around 10 min (plus time to chill), Cook Time: Around 10 min, Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients:
- 6 eggs, separated
- 3 tablespoons water
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups heavy cream, chilled
- 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
- Whipped cream
Directions:
- Chop the chocolate up in a coarse manner using your Chef's Knife. Put the chocolate into a saucepan and set it over an even bigger pot that has some simmer water in it. Cover the pot of chocolate.
- Take the egg yolks and put them in a saucepan with the water. Put the saucepan on very low heat and whisk the mixture vigorously. Once the yolks begin to thicken, take the saucepan off of the heat.
- Once the chocolate is melted, stir it with the whisk and add it to the egg mixture. Blend this thoroughly and scrape everything into a large mixing bowl.
- Take a hand-held electric mixer and beat the cream in a chilled bowl until it is the texture of whipped cream. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar once you are nearly done and then you will fold this fluffy mixture into the chocolate mixture.
- Take a clean bowl and beat the egg white in it until soft peaks are formed. Beat the last 4 tablespoons of sugar into the egg whites until they are rather stiff. Fold this into the chocolate mixture as well.
- Add whipped cream to the top and serve.
Crisps, Tarts, & Cobblers For Any Occasion
Crisps, tarts, and cobblers… oh my! These dessert recipes are delicious and incorporate fruits, allowing you to get some nutrition with your sweets! This section is dedicated to giving you an understanding of these desserts, allowing you to take some fruits from your garden and make them into delicious desserts! Read on and learn about these awesome and fruity desserts!
Crisps make it so the fruit is baked underneath a crumbly topping. The crumbly topping is typically made using butter, flour, and sugar. Oats, spices, and nuts are sometimes incorporated into it as well. These are loved by everyone and are always a major hit when bringing them to a party!
Tarts utilize pastry crusts that are covered in slices of fruit. The crust is made with egg yolk and sugar to make it rich and sweet. This forms a dough that is rather cookie-like. The tart is baked, making the fruit soft and delicious and the pastry golden brown. These are scrumptious!
Cobblers use the sweetness of the fruits combined with some sugar to sweeten them. The dough is biscuit dough, meaning the dough is not sweet. This is made in a baking dish, making it similar to a dessert lasagna with fruit as the innards, biscuit dough as the pasta, and everything else included in place of the sauce, cheese, and ricotta!
Here is a little bit of information about the ingredients you will be using in these desserts. When making recipes that call for baked fruit, we recommend using spices such as ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. These spices seem to go extremely well with fruit. Also, using butter is much better than using margarine because it tastes better. Make sure to use unsalted butter to avoid making your desserts less sweet. If you want to, you can use a combination of butter, margarine, and shortening to get a lighter and flakier texture to your pastries. Lemon juice is also used in baked fruit recipes to keep the fruit from changing to an unappealing brown color. The acid found in lemon juice slows down the process that turns fruits a different color.
Baking Cookies & Cakes
Cookies and cakes are a way of life for some dessert lovers, but many of them do not know how to make them from scratch. This is such a shame because the boxed cakes and cookie mixes do not do these desserts justice! Making these desserts from scratch can be both fun and rewarding. Following these recipes isn't too difficult, and the end results are typically cookies and cakes that are worlds apart from the cookies and cakes you get in a mix. This section will go over how to transform some of your yields into delectable desserts!
Baking sheets are imperative for cookies. We prefer to use insulated baking sheets because they have two layers of aluminum with a space between each layer, making you less likely to burn your cookies to a crisp! You can also opt to use stone cookie sheets. These are comparable to the pizza stones except rather than being round for a pizza; they are rectangular like a cookie sheet. You'll get evenly baked cookies every time with these stones! Nonstick is always an option as well! Make sure to always grease your sheets unless you are using a nonstick sheet.
Chocolate cookies are a classic dessert option. Adding a bit of lemon zest to your chocolate chip cookies actually helps a lot, and it is a good way to use your lemons if you have a lemon tree! We have heard that the lemon zest provide a lemony oil that is utilized by bakers throughout the world. This oil intensifies the flavors found in the cookies, as well as other desserts. Grate the peel to get the zest and make sure only to take the colored part of the skin off of the citrus. Try throwing lemon zest into all of your baked recipes!
Perhaps you have a lemon tree? Make some lemon bars! Lemon bars use lemons in a way that makes delicious rectangles of lemony goodness! The recipe below is one we found here.
The Best Lemon Bars
Prep Time: Around 15 min, Cook Time: 40 min
Ingredients:
- ½ cup white sugar
- 1 cup butter softened
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 lemons, juiced
Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Take a medium mixing bowl and combine the softened butter, ½ cup sugar, and 2 cups flour. Take a 9×13 inch pan and press this into the bottom.
- Bake this for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Watch it to make sure it does not get too dark. You want the dough to get firm and golden. Using another bowl, take the 1 ½ cups sugar and ¼ cup flour and whisk it together. Whisk the eggs and lemon juice in as well. Pour this over the baked crust.
- Put the pan back in the oven and cook for another 20 minutes. Once the pan is removed, allow it to cool for a bit. As the bars cool, they will firm up.
- Cut into 2-inch squares and serve.
If you're more into cake than lemon bars, try taking your garden-fresh carrots and making this easy-to-make carrot cake we found here (we made some changes to the original recipe to make it even better).
Easy Carrot Cake
Prep Time: Around 30 min, Cook Time: 1 hour and 10 min, Yield: 16
Ingredients:
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 1 package of yellow cake mix (2-layer size)
- 1 cup of homemade whipped cream
- 4 eggs
- ¼ cup water
- 2 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ cup chopped walnuts
- 1 package of cream cheese softened
- ¼ cup butter softened
- 2 ½ cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest and 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Beat the cake mix, whipped cream, eggs, water, and cinnamon with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes. After, stir in your carrots and a cup of the nuts.
- Pour this mix into a 13×9-inch baking dish. Make sure the dish is sprayed with cooking spray before you pour!
- Bake this for 35 to 40 minutes, inserting a toothpick to check if it is done. Once it comes out mostly clean, you can removed it and cool the cake.
- Take the butter and cream cheese and beat it together in a bowl until it is completely blended. Take the sugar and beat it into the mix as well. Add the lemon zest and juice, mixing everything together. Once this is done, spread it onto your cooled cake and distribute the rest of the nuts over the frosting.
- Serve that cake.
Follow the Table of Contents to catch up on our series or refresh your culinary memory:
Chapter 1: Be A Master Chef in 10 Days
Chapter 2: Kitchen Storage Ideas
Chapter 2.1: Main Kitchen Appliances
Chapter 2.2: Creating a Safe and User-Friendly Kitchen
Chapter 2.3: Essential Pots, Pans and Cookware
Chapter 3: How To Organize and Stock Your Kitchen Pantry
Chapter 4: How To Buy and Use Your Kitchen Knives
Chapter 4.1: Knife Cuts – Chopping, Dicing and More
Chapter 5: How To Steam, Boil, Poach and More
Chapter 6: How To Saute and Make Homemade Sauces
Chapter 7: How To Braise Meat and How To Make Stew
Chapter 8: How To Roast Meat, Veggies and Poultry
Chapter 9: How To Grill Steak, Chicken and Veggies
Chapter 10: How To Bake Goods and Desserts From Scratch
Chapter 10.1: How to Make Pie Crust, How To Bake Cakes and More!
Chapter 11: Cooking for Beginners – Breakfast
Chapter 11.1: Breakfast Bread – How To Make French Toast, Pancakes & Waffles
Chapter 13: How To Cook Perfect Pasta and Hearty Grains
Chapter 14: How To Make Sauces From Scratch
Chapter 15: Easy To Make Homemade Desserts For Beginners
Chapter 16: How To Make Single-Pot Recipes From Scratch
Chapter 17: Thinking Like A Chef – Cooking Tips for Beginners
Don’t forget to catch the next part of our guide to How To Be A Master Chef In 10 Days! We love hearing your feedback and comments, so let us know if you have any other tips for beginner cooks or your thoughts on this series. HomemadeRecipes.com was founded to create an online community where foodies, epicureans and chefs can share recipes and learn new ones! We need your help, however, in creating this community where you can come, share and learn. If you love to cook, love food or have some great recipes and ideas you’d like to share with us, shoot us an email and make sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest! We’re always looking for contributors and want to hear from you.
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