As the MTSU men’s tennis team makes history within Conference USA, enjoy these delicious tennis-themed treats at your tailgate party! These tasty desserts will surely be a crowd pleaser.
London is gripped with Wimbledon fever, and one hotel is joining in the festivities by offering a luxury afternoon tea with tennis-inspired desserts from a pastry chef. Two desserts shaped like tennis balls will also be part of this menu that’s available to takeaway customers.
Spinach Cakes
This delicious green cake is an irresistibly colorful way to sneak some vegetables into their diets, perfect for children or adults alike! Once finished, its vibrant color stays intact while its delicious spinach-inspired taste fades to reveal vanilla cake-esque sweetness – yet its vibrant green hue remains stunningly visible!
Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s recipe, known as the “Le Gateau Vert-Vert,” or green cake. Monet was an avid gardener who also kept water lilies. However, he maintained a kitchen and kept recipes in Monet’s Table which was published by his great grandson in 1990.
This recipe creates an airy, light cake by coloring its icing with spinach puree and adding lemon ricotta to its batter. The result will surely please.
For this victory cake recipe, ingredients come directly from your pantry. This cake was popular during World War II due to rationing. Oranges feature prominently both as cake ingredients and frosting components, representing domestic American agriculture while reflecting this recipe’s waste-not, want-not philosophy of that era.
These bite-size cakes make the perfect breakfast, lunch or dinner to add veggies into any meal and can easily be prepared ahead of time. Enjoy warm or cold, they reheat well in the microwave and are easy to make; double or triple your recipe for quick meals on busy days; they also freeze well, perfect for packed school lunches! Two cakes count towards fulfilling one serving of veggies as recommended by Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Tennis Ball Cookies
Tennis Ball Cookies make an impressive treat for celebrating tennis team victories or any special occasion! Crafted with delicious butter shortbread cookies baked to perfection and hand iced with light lemon icing, our bulk-packaged Tennis Ball Cookies will impress guests at your next party or event.
Preliminary Heat
Bakers were assigned teams and required to create a spring pastime-inspired dessert for their preliminary heat competition. Natalie chose tennis and gardening while Juan assigned golf and putting greens as inspirations for Derek and Keya’s dessert. As part of the mid-round twist, Tom and Annabelle received bluebird and robin ornaments; Diego and Stephon chose Baltimore oriole and American robin ornaments; Romy and Dennis got cardinal and chickadee birds as birds of passage!
Main Heat
Each baking couple was assigned to create a dessert using both spring flowers and an ingredient from display, such as pink peppercorn from Cristina for Aaron to use, sesame seeds from Caleb, black pepper from Nacho and anise seeds from Heather for their respective partners to use in their creations. As part of a mid-round twist they also needed to incorporate prickly pear in their designs.
Bakers were given two hours to create desserts for a graduation buffet within two hours, pairing up via blind selection. An inspiration cart provided them with items including bundt cake, blondie, whoopie pie upside-down cake, Sohrob & Tati’s Icebox cookies + Brownies as well as Cory & Riccardo’s shortcake + Frosted Cupcakes as options for their dishes. A mid-round twist added an element of school spirit such as Sohrob choosing flamingoedo, Val chosen seahorses while Arin chose peacocks while adding edible pool floaties into their desserts!
Tennis Ball Cupcakes
Create something your tennis-loving friends and family will truly appreciate by creating these adorable Tennis Ball Cupcakes. Boasting an irresistibly gooey centre filled with lemon curd and finished off with adorable tennis ball decorations, these cupcakes are sure to become a smash hit!
To create grass buttercream, combine five tablespoons of icing sugar with water until the mixture can be piped. Spoon this into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle, and pipe onto cupcakes so they resemble grass.
Roll the white fondant out on a work surface dusted with some icing sugar (to prevent sticking) until it’s approximately 1 cm thick, cutting twelve five cm disks out with a pastry wheel or toothpick to mark them as desired.
To complete, dip each cupcake in nonpareils until their entire surface is covered, and top each with a fondant tennis ball. Serve on a platter lined with Reynolds Cut-Rite baking paper for easy clean-up and enjoy your masterpiece! For other tennis-inspired cakes to get you thinking: check out these tasty creations:
Tennis Court Cake
This week’s Technical Challenge comes straight out of one of Mary Berry’s antique cookbooks and challenges bakers to recreate a Victorian treat called Tennis Court Cake, a light fruit cake decorated with royal icing that looks like tennis court on top. Perfect after an exciting tennis match and sipping on some Pimm’s No.1 Cup or Rosie Lee (how spiffing!).
To create this cake, prepare the batter according to the recipe, and bake in a moderately preheated oven at 160degC/140degC fan/315degF/Gas 3 for approximately 45 minutes or until golden-brown in color and an inserted cake tester comes out clean. Allow it to cool in its tin for several minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely before pricking all over with a skewer and brushing with some white rum (Miss Windsor favors Wray & Nephew!).
As for the royal icing, spoon most into a piping bag fitted with a number 3 writing nozzle and pipe the outline of a tennis court onto your cake. Next, using any remaining royal icing in another piping bag fitted with a number 2 plain nozzle pipe the tennis racket strings and net inside of its outline on the cake.
To complete, spread a thick layer of icing sugar on top of the cake and decorate it as desired with marzipan roses or other flowers made from marzipan. You could also wrap narrow strips of licorice strap around each racquet frame to form frames; pipe “Happy Birthday” onto two of them using dark chocolate, and position them on your cake.
Fry Bar
Fry Bars are an engaging and interactive way to keep guests entertained during Game Day. Setting one up is simple – just bake up some french fries and set out make-ahead toppings like monterey jack cheese, oven crisped prosciutto, and ranch aioli for people to create their ideal combination of loaded fries!
James and Johanna Windon of Pittsburgh-based Buena Papa Fry Bar have made waves in the restaurant scene with their innovative restaurant concept. Launched as a student project through Penn State Greater Allegheny’s Launch Box program, their business now has multiple locations around Pittsburgh.
The Windons recently appeared on Season 15 Episode 4 of “Shark Tank,” seeking $400,000 for a 7% stake in their company, Buena Papa Fry Bar. After successfully raising that investment amount, their first location opened its doors in Raleigh in October 2022 as one of the official vendors at PNC Arena hosting Carolina Hurricanes hockey games and NC State men’s basketball matches.
Since that initial launch, their business has flourished quickly, garnering notice on social media and appearing on several food-focused digital shows. Now as it expands further, the Windons are seeking new markets for their concept while looking to establish permanent roots in Mckeesport.