Bakeologie

Puppy face

2012-01-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

So my honey decided it was high time to get a new puppy... his name is Koda.

And he's lucky he's so cute because I haven't really slept in two days but my honey has. Funny how that works. Well he's delegated to pick up the poo so I guess I can loose sleep in return.

Wait.... maybe I should rethink this?

TWD: Kids Thumbprint Cookies

2012-01-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

This is literally the last cookie standing from our great Tuesday with Dorie adventure. Closing the recipe book as it were to Baking From my Home to Yours.

Last week I flew to the East Coast to visit my two boys in New York and Cape Cod so I'm just getting back to normal. My brain is still on EST and my house is a jumble but I still needed to bake on Tuesday, late or not. Somehow I feel like this weekly ritual will help me get things back in order.

For the last recipe these were perfect pick by Dorie herself, reminding me how my love of baking grew in the first place. Thumbprint cookies always remind me of baking with my grandma. I would always pick these to bake when I was little because I thought they were the fanciest cookies to make for the holidays. You can get the full recipe from Dorie here and read a great little wrap of of what this group was all about. I haven't been here from the beginning but I loved the time that I did get to bake with everyone and I look forward to starting the new book in February.

TWD: Shopping

2011-12-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

Ok so I'm of the belief that we shoulda had the option to skip this weeks recipe in lieu of shopping. But this is mostly because I'm super behind in the shopping department....but my waistline is never behind in the eating of yummy treats department.

I went on a super shopping spree with the Moms this weekend and now random gifts, bags and whatnot are strewn about the house, no room for baking!

Even tho I didn't bake I wanted to give a shout out (has anyone got a good replacement for that over-used phrase?) to our hostesses this week Laurie from slush chose the Unbelievably Good Chocolate Blueberry Ice Cream and Julie from Someone's in the Kitchen chose the Puffed Double Plum Tart.

Catch us in our last few recipes at Tuesdays with Dorie and happy shopping!

TWD: Earl Grey Madeleines

2011-12-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

Now I don't know if the baking gods were smiling upon me (because it's my turn to host) or my pleas to Madeleine from a few weeks ago did me good but these cookies slipped right out of their little shell cups like a dream!
Now I did buy something I never ever buy.... baking spray, with flour. In this case the Pillsbury type and as soon as I put it in my cupboard the other "all natural" ingredients shoved its chemically laden butt right off the shelf and it smashed to the ground and the lid broke into a million pieces (true story) and so I figured it was the beginning of the end. I assumed my little buttery mini cakes of goodness were doomed....but alas they came out beautifully. So thank you; can of things I can't pronounce, or baking gods or general crying and whining to Madeleine because what ever it was my cookies came out great. They are buttery and floral and perfectly yummy. I used Stash Tea Double Bergamont Earl Grey and if you haven't had a cuppa this you should. It's my current favorite and I've been telling people about it all week...they probably think I'm crazy... or English.

Anyhoo enough about that....on to the recipe!

Earl Grey Madeleines
Makes 12 cookies ~ Page 169 from Dorie Greenspans BAKING From My Home to Yours

5 tbsp unsalted butter (2.5 oz)
2 tbsp Earl Grey tea leaves
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (3.25 oz)
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

To flavor the butter with the tea, melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat or in a microwave oven. Stir in the tea and allow it to infuse for 15 minutes. Line a small sieve with a double layer of damp cheesecloth, then strain the butter into a small bowl; discard the tea leaves.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Put the sugar and lemon zest into a mixer bowl or in another large bowl and using your fingertips, work the zest into the sugar until the mixture is fragrant.
Working with a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and zest together until pale and thick, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the honey and vanilla and beat for 1 minute more. Switch to a rubber spatula and gently fold in the dry ingredients. When they are incorporated, fold in the butter. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the batter and refrigerate for at least 3 hours for for up to 2 days. This long chill will help the batter for the hump that is characteristic of madeleines. (For convenience, you can spoon the batter into the molds, cover and chill, then bake the cookies directly from the fridge; see below for instructions on prepping the pans.)

Getting Ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter 12 full-size madeleine molds, dust the insides with flour and tap out excess. Or if you have a nonstick pan, give it a light coating of vegetable cooking spray. If you have a silicone pan, there is no prep needed. Place the pan on a baking sheet.
Spoon the batter into the molds-don't worry about leveling the batter, the oven's heat will take care of that.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the madeleines are golden and the tops spring back when touched. Remove the pan from the oven and release the madeleines from the mold by rapping the edge of the pan against the counter. Gently ~~pray~~ pry any recalcitrant madeleines from the pan using your finger or a butter knife.
Transfer the cookies to a rack to cook to just warm or room temperature (and try not to eat them all yourself, be nice and share.)

Thank you Dorie for not only teaching me how to be a better baker but also teaching me a new word this week. I work with many people who are recalcitrant and up until now I didn't know what to call them.

TWD: Sourcream Pumpkin Tart

2011-11-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

I learned three very significant things while making this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. But I just forgot one of them while I was writing this so I will give you two.....

1. This makes way to much filling for one measly tart, and I should probably review the recipe because I might have messed something up.
2. Pumpkin pie isn't horrible if you didn't just eat your weight in turkey, stuffing and gravy!

I wish I could think of the 3rd thing because it was really important but its been a long long long day. We had open enrollment at my work and me being the HR bossy boss of such things I am super beat so I will leave it at that before I write something really stupid.

Oh frick I just remembered! Apparently my brain is not as mushy as I suspected.

3. Leaving out 2 tablespoons of butter really doesn't matter when you have a cup and a half of heavy cream in a recipe!

Go see Miss Judy for the recipe this week over at Judy's Gross Eats because this is anything but....

Make sure you join me next week as I get to be the AND/OR host for one of the very last recipes. Good gosh I hope my Madeleines don't stick!

December 6, 2011 – Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table chose Honey Almond Fig Tart on page 373 AND/OR Nicole of Bakeologie chose Earl Grey Madeleines on page 169.

TWD: Bittersweet Brownies

2011-11-14T20:45:00.000-08:00

Were going to have a lot of lasts over @ Tuesdays with Dorie... and this is the last brownie. I would be sad but its not possible. If this is the last brownie you ever make tis a good one fo sho.

Now I talk a lot about brownie belly, and for some reason this brownie doesn't do that. Not that I couldn't have gone back for seconds and fourths and inflicted brownie belly on myself by just plain eating too many because they is goo-ood. But somehow, they are truly satisfyingly perfect forcing you to pace your brownie intake over several delicious days instead of just one day of glutenous punishment.

If you want to try some brownie perfection head over to see Leslie... she's got the goods over on her blog Lethally Delicious hmmmmm seriously fitting blog title for this recipe no?

TWD: Mini Madelines

2011-11-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

Oh Madeline... why must you stick? I take every precaution and your cakey goodness still taunts me. Maybe I need to do the unthinkable and ditch my current Madeline pan for silicone but its so hard to get rid of what should be a good decent pan. I have to peruse all the other Madeline baker posts this week to find out what they did to avoid the stickage because the thought of silicone makes me cringe.

Well regardless of their reluctance to leave the coziness confines of the pan, they were yummy and possible worth the trouble. Should you be so inclined you can get the full recipe from Di over at Di's Kitchen Notebook this week.

Pirate vs Ninja 2: Pirate Bob's Revenge

2011-11-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

This is the second installment of the Pirate vs Ninja cake series... haha I kid there is no series... but this is the second Pirates vs Ninja themed cake I've done. The first year (clicky click here if you want to reminisce) it was unclear who the would be the victor, but in the second cake its pretty clear who has the upper hand. You can go check out the details here.

Since the pirates had the upper hand I needed a second hand and recruited my mom to help. She helped make the ninjas heads for while I made the full body pirates, if you see the more serious ones were hers. Mine were the country bumpkin ninjas. She also made all the doubloons that were stacked inside the cake and the swords and legs for the ninjas. She drew the line at making hands... unless I wanted Canadian ninjas with mittens on she wasn't going to make them. I finished up all the details and painting of eyeballs and tiny things a couple of days later. It was really fun to get her involved, she's super creative but I think she's scared of cake... I might convert her yet!

TWD: Honey Nut Scones

2011-11-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure about scones. I know people that love them but I just find them sorta boring. So boring that I forgot them in the oven while I was watching the last episode of Top Chef Just Desserts. They just need more... more fat, more flavor, more moisture... eh I dunno. The last time I liked a scone it was full of bacon and Asiago cheese so I think there maybe no pleasing me when it comes to scones unless its full of bacony goodness.

So, Halloween! How was yours? Ours was as fun as can be expected when you don't have little ones running amok. The hubster answered the door most of the night as I was super exhausted from the company Halloween Potluck. I didn't have the energy to be cheery for the cute little whipper snappers that came in search of treats all evening. Not to mention the strength to stop myself from smacking all the surly (un-costumed) teenagers.... geesh at least make a darn effort, lazy shits!

Anyhoo this was the dessert table at work.... I made the (un-costumed...hehe speaking of lazy) red velvet in the middle with an experimental cream cheese butter cream that I will tweak to make perfect because it was super delicious and can be delicious-er with a few adjustments. I have no idea how many cupcakes we ended up with, I think everyone that didn't officially sign up for the potluck ended up bringing in cupcakes, I think there were twice as many as in this photo! It was quite the choice to be made.

Baby Bag Cake

2011-10-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Before I get behind myself, I better post this finished cake from September....

I've been on a tufting kick for awhile and after this cake I think I'm done with tufting for awhile, holy crap its been a lot of tufting, I'm surprised I didn't tuft the shoes or the bag too.....

You can see some more closeups here http://www.nichicakes.com/baby_bag.html

TWD: Flip-Over Cherry Cake

2011-09-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

So my ~~plum~~ cherry cake is in the oven cooking right now. I wasn't going to make this until I saw Andrea's version with Morello cherries and the pictures changed my mind. I'm kind of scared tho, the Morellos from Trader Joe's are pretty blah... but maybe that's always the case with canned cherries. I honestly don't know what you'd use canned cherries for so its not something I typically buy. But you put enough butter and sugar on anything and its bound to be good right? right! Because I was using the canned cherries I cut out the sugar your supposed to toss the plums in and cut out a bit of the butter because really it seems like a lot even with my Paula Dean standards on butter (I swear I'm keeping Costco in business just from the amount of butter I get from them).

The verdict...

Well it sure isn't photogenic but its mighty tasty. Mine turned out sort of like a sticky cakey cobbler and it would be amazing with ice cream or a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

Considering how easy it is to make, its a perfect good friends over for dinner sort of thing. You know the sort of friends you don't have to impress with a pretty dessert.

You can grab the full recipe from our hostess (mmm... hostess cherry pie...that's what this sorta tasted like) this week, Becky from Project Domestication.

Queen Esther

2011-09-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Finally finding a few minutes to edit and post some finished cake photos to my website. Check it out ;)

A few close ups here http://www.nichicakes.com/queen_esther.html

TWD: Salt & Pepper Cocoa Shortbreads

2011-09-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

Salt in a cookie sure, but pepper? Very intriguing, like those savory chocolates from Vosges I'm to chicken to try.....

I used Black Onyx cocoa but cut it down to 1/3rd of a cup because I know how this cocoa can just zap the moisture out of anything. This would be a fun recipe to mess around with because they are easy to make. The Fluer de sel is addictive and the texture of the shortbread is melt in your mouth delicious. If you crave salty chocolately goodness these are the perfect PMS food. I should seriously keep these only for the girls at work and hand them out when necessary. Tho the boys do get PMSy too, I don't think chocolate and saltyness has the same ability to thwart a crying bitch fit for them.

I'm gonna go have another cookie :) but you can go make your own by getting the recipe from Buttercream Barbie.

TWD: Classic Brownies

2011-09-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

Truth be told I should be making icing for decorated cookies... but always the procrastinator... I would rather write about Brownies for this weeks Tuesday with Dorie recipe. Besides I haven't had the time to join the group lately, be it sweltering temperatures or lack of time keeping me from my duty to bring you tasty treats.

Heck there probably isn't anyone reading this darn blog anymore as it is but its still is fun to write and with some the crap I say its probably best if it is only me reading it anyhow ;)

This recipe is brought you by the letter C for super Chocolately and the number 2 which is how many times Miss Anne Strawberry, who was out picker extraordinaire for the week, has gotten to choose a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe! You can grab the recipe from her here.

BTW, this is 4 points on the WW Richter scale if anyone cares to know, recipe as written, sans nuts.

September Cakes

2011-08-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

The summer has had me very busy making lots of special order cakes and cupcakes and spending the rest of the time trying not to be hot which includes not turning on the oven unless someone is paying me! So no TWD lately :( boo! Oh and we are getting new windows in our house Saturday! Im most excited, I will have to share the before and afters.

I have two more upcoming cakes in September which will be lots of work but lots of fun too.

The first is for a gal that is having her very first birthday party and the very young age of 70!

The second will be for a baby shower with an Orange and Pink Dress theme. This one will a lot of cute baby paraphernalia and some cute dress cookies to accompany it.

Kat's First Birthday

2011-08-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

This is one of my most favorite cakes that I've made in a long time. The colors just made me happy and her parents loved it.

You can read a little more about this cake and see the detail photos here http://www.nichicakes.com/kats_first.html

Tufted Rose

2011-08-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

This little bridal shower cake was for my nieces friend... the idea that my niece is old enough to have a friend that is old enough to be married just makes me feel old old old...

You can see more photos here http://www.nichicakes.com/tufted_rose.html

Lemon Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

2011-08-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

These were for my friend Jenn's Surprise Birthday party on Saturday. They turned out so tasty and were a little hard to ignore sitting on the table all night.

The cake was Perfect Party Cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from my Home to yours. It really is a perfectly nice cake for any occasion. Since the recipe has lemon in it, I paired it with a Lemon Vanilla Bean Butter Cream below. They turned out nice and light and citrusy.

Lemon Vanilla Butter Cream

8 oz. Granulated Sugar
4 oz. Water
4 ea. Egg Yolks plus enough egg whites to make 4 oz. (This is roughly 3 yolks plus 1 whole egg, give or take the size of the yolks)
1 ea. Vanilla bean (you can use a bit of extract if that's all you have, should result in the same mellow flavor with out the specks)
1 lb. Unsalted Butter - Softened
1 ea. Large Lemon (juiced)

Put sugar and water in a stainless steel pot and set it on the stove to cook to 238 degrees. While the sugar is cooking, separate your eggs and start to whip in a stand mixer until light and fluffy. The airy-ness of the eggs usually reach their proper consistency by the time the sugar is cooked to the right temperature, for me anyways. With your mixer on high, slowly pour the sugar mixture into the eggs and continue to beat on high until the whole thing is cool to the touch. While your egg/sugar mix is cooling, reduce the lemon juice down to a syrup consistency and scrape your vanilla bean. I usually scrape the vanilla and stick it onto the butter, so that I don't loose any of those precious beans, its easier than trying to scrap them off a knife into the mixing bowl. Add the butter to the cooled sugar/eggs mixture a little at a time, making sure to incorporate it before adding the next nub of butter. Lastly add in your reduced lemon juice and incorporate completely.

This was plenty of butter cream for 30 regular sized cupcakes.

Mango Cranberry Chutney

2011-08-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago we went out to help my parents with their rental house. They live in the Devils Inferno of Southern California, aka the High Dessert. As my reward for helping and somehow not bursting into flames the entire weekend my mom gave us a couple of Yellow Mangoes which I found out are called Ataulfo Mangoes. They are super tangy compared to the everyday mangos I'm used to so chutney immediately came to mind.

I set out last weekend to turn them into just that.

Mango Cranberry Chutney
Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes

2 C. Granulated Sugar
1 C. White Vinegar
6 Ataulfo Mangoes (peeled and cubed)
1 C. Maui Onion (finely chopped)
1/2 C. Dried Cranberries
1 tsp. Minced Garlic
1 tsp. Dried Ginger

Stir everything together in a large heavy pot and cook for about and hour and a half on low until the mangoes break down and the mixture thickens.

To can your delicious chutney you pour the mixture into sanitized jars and process in a water bath for 15/20 minutes. I got a total of 9 half pint jars from my batch.

In hindsight it might have been funner to make some Chicken Curry and invite some friends over for a party......

Oreo Cupcakes

2011-08-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

Oreo cupcakes lined up like little solders for a co-workers party!

I wasn't quite sure what really qualifies as an Oreo Cupcake in the first place. When in doubt Google it! There are so many variations on the web it boggles the mind! Oreo crushed and cooked into the batter, whole Oreo placed in the bottom for an oreo surprise, minis, filling, pudding, whip cream, cream cheese... the ideas go on and on. Ahhh deep breaths...

In the end I topped my best chocolate cake with luscious Oreo butter cream and crowned the whole thing shebang with a whole Oreo for good measure. I got a thumbs up this morning! I'll have to take his word for it because I was a good girl and made just enough ;)

Ni Hao!

2011-08-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

This sweet little Ni Hao, Kai-Lan cake was for my friends daughter Lorraine who was turning 2. It's a simple 8 inch chocolate layer cake covered with almond vanilla butter cream. The little Kai-Lan character was a bear to duplicate. Odd proportions and her eyeballs set in her head like ET required a plethora of cutters and serious dexterity to get her finished. For awhile she was looking an awful lot like Tommy from Rugrats but in the end I think I captured her likeness pretty well and I hear little Lorraine was a happy girl!

TWD: Sour Cream Chocolate Cake Cookies

2011-06-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a lot of time lately to bake with the TWDers. With special cakes to make and being all Hawaii Five 0 for a for a quick minute... sadly a lot of fantastic recipes have past me by never to be seen again.

This week I really wanted to make the effort and bake along with everyone. The recipe sounded really good but really these cookies were a pain in the arse! They stuck to whatever I tried to bake them on, until finally I gave up.

You see that little plate there with approximately 6 little itty bitty sandwich cookies... that's all I managed to finish.... hmph! whatever sticky cookies from hell. I shall rewind a few weeks and make a date nut loaf instead just to spite you.....:P

Despite my shady outcome you can always give it a try yourself by going over to Spike Bakes for the recipe... I'm sure they didn't dare stick to a thing in her kitchen.

Princess Hailey

2011-06-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Finally getting this posted..... just a couple of weeks and a Hawaiian vacation later!

If you want to see the full cake you can check it out here. A few elements never made it to the cake and a lot of rearranging happened but I still loved it in the end.

Cakey Sneak Peek

2011-05-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is a cake I'm making for this weekend. Can you guess what movie its from?

There's been a few changes to the design so it won't look exactly like this in the end, and I think I might add another tier just for the heck of it.

I finished sculpting the frog last night. He looks really ghostly with no color. I was really frustrated with this little guy, he started out looking like HR Pufnstuf then looked like Slimer from Ghostbusters before he had his arms & legs. I wish I had gotten a bit of a better tilt of his head but sometimes i just doesn't work out that way and you have to let the sugar do what it want to.

TWD: Maple Cornmeal Biscuits

2011-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

If your anything like me, your not at all opposed to breakfast at any time of the day. Nothing is quicker and more comforting after a long day of work than a good plate of scrambled eggs. Add a side of bacon and a little gravy drizzled with Chipotle Chalula and I'm a happy girl. It maybe odd for some, but for me its just the right thing.

These biscuits are perfectly sweet in my opinion. Almost like someone already put the honey on it for you. You can find the full recipe on pg 24 of Baking from my Home to Yours or visit Lindsay at A Little Something.... Sweet. Excellent choice Lindsay!

TWD: Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

2011-05-10T19:07:00.000-07:00

Not much to say about this yummy little bundt cake. I used almond for the nutty bits and replaced 1/2 of the A/P Flour with whole wheat for good measure. The brown sugar lent enough moisture that it wasn't obvious at all... or maybe it was all the butter that disguised it.

This recipe begs to be made again and again because it was really easy and from all the other posts this week, its fun to dink around with and switch things up.

You can grab the recipe this week from Peggy over at Pantry Revisited.

Nick's 16th

2011-04-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

Finally had time to show off this fun cake! You can go see the details here and read all about this cake here....

Nick's 16th

If you wanna be a follower, please go "like" me on Facebook too!

TWD: Cornmeal Shortbreads

2011-04-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Ok I'm going to be honest with you guys. As I was mixing up these cookies my honey was in the kitchen hanging up a new ceiling fan and I said "Wow we really are coming down to the shit recipes now...." he grumbled something like "stupid ceiling fan... fricken fracken wife and her projects" ok he didn't say that but was probably thinking it when he really said something like "What are you making?" I say "Cornmeal Shortbreads" heavily laden with a snort of skepticism because how could these be good? Well I must eat my words... these are SOOO GOOD! Goods not even good enough... they are stupendously buttery and crunchy and oh so yummy! So maybe we aren't down to the shit recipes... maybe we are really down to the hidden gems!

To accommodate my laziness and lack of patience...... I baked a 1/2 (stupid stupid me!) recipe pressed into a 8x8 pan lined with parchment, about 1/2 way thru I poked holes and cut the shortbread into 9 pieces.....that I must go hide from my honey because he just walked by and said "those are pretty good cookie thingies".... I will throw him off the trail with mediocre chocolate chip cookies...

You can get the delicious recipe from Valarie at Une Gamine dans la Cuisine. DO it! Go now to make them!

TWD: Tourtely Apple Tart

2011-04-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

I feel sort of ashamed to put that tile up there... I can feel it mocking me because I really really winged the apple tart thing this time.

I made the nutty crust but not the top and opted to put on a sort of almondy crumble. I threw in some Calvados instead of cider and I didn't cook the apples to a smooshy consistency because it just really didn't appeal to me last night. The worst part was the whole thing really stuck in the pan, so you can see in my photo the edge there is a cavernous gap in the crust. Well regardless of my free wheeling on this recipe and my pan loving crust, it was super yummy. I really should try and stick to the recipe sometimes.....

If you want to see what this was really supposed to be, check out the post from our host Jeannette from The Whimsical Cupcake.

Cakey Sneak Peek

2011-04-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

A little peek into what I'm working on for this weekend. It will change a little from the original sketch by adding a few more key elements.

The cake will be made of 8 inch rounds of red velvet with vanilla bean butter cream for the drum and 10x10 squares of vanilla chocolate chip with mocha butter cream for the base tier.

All the stuff is about 1/2 the size of regular items but its pretty cool that I even faked myself out a bit because the candy bar looked real but tiny.

TWD: Honey Nut Brownies

2011-03-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

So I've been either way way under the weather (understatement of the year!) or way to busy (like always) or just plain old disinterested (sorry February hosts!) in the choices of recipes this month ... but who can skip Brownies! So I actually made mine early... on Sunday night and then almost forgot to post this!

An easy peasy brownie recipe; just like Dorie Greenspan's recipes for brownies always seem to be. Makes me wonder why anyone ever makes cardboard box brownies! One of my coworkers said he felt duped... and I tend to agree, he saw the word brownie and of course expected a brownie but that's not really what he got....they were very cakey and very un-brownie like. I'll have to go see everyone else's to find out if I mucked up the recipe or if they were supposed to be there way. I personally could have used a bit more of a chocolately punch but they were yummy because the tangy honey flavor really shined through.

So busy!

2011-03-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

I've been crazy busy with work lately and updating my cake website too. So since I don't have any time to bake, I thought I would share some projects I did awhile ago.

Pirate vs. Ninja

2011-03-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

Pirate vs. Ninja

Sometimes in my cakey life..... I make some things that I love so much that I don't want to send them away to be eaten... this was one of those times. I just wanted to keep the pirate and put him on a shelf and all the details were so fun to make. You can see more of the details here. And even tho Ninjas are stealthy little effers, I think pirates win because they have cooler outfits...ha that's such a girlie opinion isn't it!

Red Bull Formula One Cake

2011-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

Red Bull Formula One

This Red Bull Formula One was for my ever challenging friend Lynndy. Not that she is personally challenging but what she thinks I'm capable of and what I think I'm capable of are never one in the same, but it always comes out cool. She also challenged me to make a dinosaur grooms cake for her wedding... you can see her wedding cake and the Stegosaurus grooms cake here.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Drops

2011-02-15T01:00:00.000-08:00

Packed with loads of chocolate, cinnamon and a little oatmeal to take away the guilt. These were like little easy bake brownies.

Thanks to the gals over at Bake with Us for choosing such a simple tasty treat for Valentine's day week. You can find the full recipe here.

Oatmeal Crumb topped Apple Bars

2011-02-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

Soooo you know how at Costco you can get these great big trays of apples? Where this is what begot these apple bars over the weekend.

I'm very picky about my apple consumption....they have to be perfectly crispy, juicy, sweet and tart all at the same time. We had a tray of some sort of apple I knew nothing about and I didn't care for so I decided to cook them up ala Cinnamon Apples from Chilis.

One thing lead to another and as luck may have it when I was looking for a cupcake recipe (which I never made by the by) I came across the More from Magnolia cookbook. I have no idea how long I've had this book and I don't think I've ever baked anything from it but there it was and this book is chock full of cool little things like these bars....which were super tasty. The bottom was a whole lotta crumbly but I think that was baker error not because the recipe is flawed in anyway.

You can google your way to the recipe by searching for Apple Bars with Oatmeal Crumb Topping or clicky click here. I promise its worth the trouble, especially if you have a whole tray of apples lying around.

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T12:17:00.000-08:00

TWD: Great Grains Muffins

2011-02-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

It's about 8pm on a Tuesday night... not the ideal muffin baking hour... but alas here I am with muffins baking away in the oven with some dairy free chocolate cake. My oven might give out with all this healthy crap baking at one time. Its not used to this sort of pressure!

I made mine according to the recipe with chopped apricots and some extra fruit and walnuts scattered on top with a bit of sugar. They tasted like super buttery slightly sweet corn muffins. They would be great with a little maple butter.

You can grab the full recipe here from Christine at Happy Tummy

TWD: Long Winded Bundt Cake

2011-01-25T19:18:00.000-08:00

Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake... that's a bit much for a recipe name. Its so long I had to go pilfer it from our host this week instead of trying to remember what it was called.

You can visit Jennifer at Cooking Comfort for the full on recipe and be sure to visit the other bakers at Tuesdays with Dorie for a better example of how to get your swirl on.

TWD: Tangerine Poppyseed Muffins

2011-01-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

Have I ever told you guys that my honey doesn't like seeds? Yeah.... probably because he really really hates them. The only good benefit to this for me is that I get all the fresh strawberries I want without sharing... and I get extra props if I ever give him seed free strawberry butter cream which is delicious with or without the seeds but he is extra appreciative if he can enjoy it sans-seeds.

Well you can't really make seed free poppyseed muffins, so of course I had to toss in the seeds. I think he was really loathing seeds on Saturday morning... eh oh well! These were just OK anyways and nothing to write home about even if you like seeds. Maybe the lemon version has the right kick that these lacked for me and I found them a little denser that I was expecting too. I could easily chalk this up to my not halving the recipe properly, or over mixing.

You can get the full recipe from Betsy our host this week over at A Cup of Sweetness.

Accessory temptation....

2011-01-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Do I really need a glass mixing bowl? Probably not, but I'm so tempted to get one. I blame it on Martha Stewart and her fancy pants show with their glass bowls....

When I was in culinary school, we started out with big white professional Kitchen Aid mixers and for some reason the school, in their infinite wisdom, took away all the Kitchen Aids and gave us these ridiculous Hamilton Beach mixers. The Hammies, as we called them, were big pieces of crap. I would stare longingly at the locked racks of Kitchen Aid mixers in the storage area when I walked by them everyday.....

Maybe this is why I am lucky enough to ~~horde~~ have two Kitchen Aid mixers. A 5 Quart Blue Boy that I got from my in laws many years ago and a Professional 600 I call Bertha. What kind of mixer do you have?

TWD: Midnight Crackles

2011-01-05T19:29:00.000-08:00

So I've been telling everyone at work that my New Years Resolution is to be a slacker.... so getting these cookies done on Wednesday falls right into my evil plan.

I used Black Onyx Cocoa which made them extremely chocolatey. They are a little tedious to make but worth the trouble and truly worthy of the Tuesdays with Dorie's 3 Year Anniversary! Thanks to Laurie of Slush and Julie of Someone's In the Kitchen for picking the recipe and keeping thing running for us all.

TWD: Grinch Blondies

2010-12-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

So how do you get a 15 year old boy to help you bake? You agree to make your food in hideous colors.... so I give you Grinch Blondies!

These are a rewind of Chewy Chunky Blondies. This time around we used white & dark chocolate chips and caramel nuggety things, which didn't give the batter much to cling to, but despite the horrifying color, they are really good.... and they do give you brownie belly so I guess we did something right!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2010-12-22T07:46:00.001-08:00

FFwD: Sweet & Spicy Cocktail Nuts

2010-12-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

Hey lookie there! I have a post! I guess the holidays are taking advantage of me.

Well no excuses because these sweet and spicy nuts were super simple. The only real hurdle is figuring out how much and which spices you will toss in.

My honey is convinced the finished product is full of evil things that are really bad for you because they are really really addictive. (I promise there is absolutely no bacon in there.)

You can find the recipe for Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts, on page 18 in Dorie Greenspan's book Around my French Table. And be sure to join the club by becoming a member of French Fridays with Dorie.

Oh hey did you guys catch Dorie on the Martha Stewart Show... it was pretty great. She seriously made Martha look like an Amazon woman.

TWD: Maple Tuile... Crumbs...

2010-12-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

Uhm yeah so my maple tuiles are not very tuile like at all.... obviously! I won't bore you with the details of how this came to be.

You can go see how these really should look by visiting our host this week Clivia at Bubie's Little Baker.

TWD: Rewind!

2010-11-23T13:58:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to rewind very far, but I'm going to add a little twist. I'm not going to be the one baking it! Ha!

My friend and co-worker Lizzy Liz [Hi Liz if your reading this!] is coming over to help me make pies tonight and to learn a little something in the process. She wants to make an Apple Pie for her family, so I will be helping her make the All-American Apple Pie from a few weeks ago. I'm sure we will up the ante with a gorgeous double crust.

Hey you think you can have a double crust and a crumb on the same pie?! I just thought of that... yum!

Wish us luck!

Thanksgiving Dessert

2010-11-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

Uber cute Turkey pops by Bakerella-

What are you making for your Thanksgiving Dessert?

Every year I make pies for my co-workers to raise a little extra dough for Christmas gifts... and usually the pies run the gambit from Apple to Lime... this year everyone seemed to choose the exact same thing. Pumpkin Cheese cake or Banana Cream Pie.... yes really Banana Cream Pie! I'm completely surprised by this, it seems so off the wall for Thanksgiving.

Brown Sugar Spice Cake w/Hazelnut Buttercream

2010-11-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

I made a few cakes this week to take with me to my last weekend of business class. Because the business class was full of foodies, everyone else had brought in something for us to try and critique. There was some fantastic eats to be had. I'm still craving the pesto a gal brought in. Even though she told me the next week it was made out of cilantro and I hate cilantro... at least I thought I did ;)

I felt I should step up to the plate and get some opinions. After all I was freely giving mine even though I sometimes felt bad about it after wards... I'm sure they all think I'm a jerk. Eh whatever... they won't be the first, or the last. But hopefully they took it as constructive criticism.

Anyhoo... I made this spicy cake up on they fly and I wanted to share the recipe. I think it would be great to take to a party this holiday season.

Brown Sugar Spice Cake

9 oz. Cake Flour
2 tsp. Siagon Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Fresh Ground Nutmeg
1 tsp. Cardamom
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Vanilla
4 oz. Whole Milk
4 oz. Vegetable Oil
4 oz. Water
5 oz. Light Brown Sugar
2.5 oz. Granulated Sugar
1/4 tsp. Salt
1 ea. Whole Egg

Sift or whisk together dry ingredients and set aside. Mix together, oil, milk, water and vanilla and set aside (I usually measure these all out in the same measuring cup so they are already mixed.) In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together, sugars, salt and egg. Scrape down the bowl then alternately add the dry and the wet ingredients until combined. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake at 350 until the cake springs back when you touch the top.

I baked this in an 8x8 square pan then torted the cake and cut it in 1/2 to got 4x8 layers. I layered this with a buttercream spiked with Hazelnut Liquor and more of the Siagon Cinnamon. I would double up the recipe and put it in a bundt pan or something like that, maybe slathered with a really great cream cheese frosting.

TWD: Cranberry Shortbread Cake

2010-11-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

Oh guys I had this idea when I was making my Cranberry Shortbread Cake! Ok so you know how I'm super lazy, I was like dreading separating the dough, and getting out the rolling pin and all that crazy stuff. This lead to a lazephiphany.

I lined my tart pan with plastic, pressed in 1/2 the dough to an even thickness then wrapped it up and popped it out of the pan to chill on a plate. Then pressed in the bottom 1/2 and put that into chill. Then I just had to unwrap the top and pop it onto the filling and it fits perfectly. No stinking rolling pin.... w00t! Hows that for easy? Alright, its not genius... but it took less time to do than to write down how to do it. And word on the street is that this is nummy! At least that's what was hollered down the hallway by the taste tester as I was finishing this post...... so I should go try some. ;)

This weeks host was Jessica from A Singleton in the Kitchen, she cranked out two versions of this just because she loves her friends, so much like most of the TWDers I wish she was my neighbor!

FFwD: Potato Gratin

2010-11-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to bore you guys with lame stories from Culinary School but its all I got some days....

The last week or so of school is pretty boring. It's supposed to be like our introduction to the production kitchen or something to that effect. But really what it was was a smorgasbord of food. I think since we were becoming pastry chefs, we (ok maybe just me) were ravenous for savory food. So we scavenged things from the school pantry and cooked things... just to eat. One of the instructors I can't remember who introduced us to the wonderful world of Gruyere, with potatoes, and cream and onions. I think it was Chef George, who also made us Ginger Beer and I will never ever get over it, I wish I had a chilly glass right now. I've been making it ever since.... the potatoes that is, not the beer (but oh how I wish!). I made it last year for Thanksgiving, it almost caused a riot because I didn't have mashed potatoes. Until they tried them and they were immediately converts. I don't think I have to make mashed potatoes. Ever. Again.

Dorie's are a little bit more refined with all the garlic infused herbi-ness but just as good in a different sorta way. Maybe I will merge the two this year for the holidays... a Gratin Hybrid. You can get with the program and buy Around my French Table where you can find the recipe for Potato Gratin, on pages 360 and 361. Join in the fun over at French Fridays with Dorie... hey you don't even have to have a blog! No one reads them anyway ;)

TWD: Peanuttiest Blondies

2010-11-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

The hostest with the mostest this week is me! Woo! Hoo!

I really thought that by the time I got around to it, we wouldn't have any recipes to choose from... but here it is and there was plenty to pick from! Hopefully you all appreciate a little fall fruit break and found the time to bake along!

I chose these because they just sound amazing, and it was a reason to buy chunky peanut butter. I heart chunky peanut butter! Sadly, I live my life in family inflicted chunky peanut butter deprivation. In my parents house, no one else liked it and the mass majority of the peanut butter in our house went to the making of peanut sauce for satay, chunky satay sauce is not good eats! So never a jar would appear unless ~~I slipped some in the cart~~ my mom accidentally bought it. My honey doesn't care for the chunky either...unless you count me... hehe cuz I is chunky.

I have a confession... (besides the whole chunky butt thing) I forgot to add in the baking soda! Yikes! Hmm well I just noticed as I was typing up the recipe. They still came out deliciously yummy, just as I imagined like giant thick peanut butter chocolate chip cookies! I will just have to make it again... you know, for the sake of doing things properly.. maybe with toffee bits instead of chocolate next time.

Peanuttiest Blondies

Dorie says...

Made with peanut butter and bolstered with lots of salted peanuts and chocolate these blondies are big, firm, sweet, satisfying and definitely members-in-good-standing of the chewy branch of the brownie family. They're real kid fare, great with milk, malteds, or hot chocolate, and so good with ice cream.

1 C A/P Flour (5 oz)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 C Peanut Butter (5 oz) Crunch or creamy - not natural
5 tbsp Unsalted Butter (2.5 oz)
3/4 C Granulated Sugar (6 oz)
3/4 C Brown Sugar, Packed (6 oz)
2 Large Eggs (4 oz)
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 C Chopped Salted Peanuts (5 oz)
6 oz Semi-sweet or Premium Milk Chocolate, coarsely chopped, or 1 C chocolate chips

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9-inch square pan with foil, butter the foil and put the pan on a baking sheet. [I used parchment to line an 8-inch pan instead.]
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
Working with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the peanut butter and butter together on medium speed until smooth. Add both sugars and beat for 1-2 minutes until well incorporated into the butter. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each goes in. Beat in vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer to low and add in the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear into the dough; the dough will be thick. Add the peanuts and chocolate and give the mixer a few turns to stir them into he dough. If the chunky ingredients are mixed in after a few seconds, just finish the job with a sturdy spatula-don't over mix the dough. Scrape the dough into the prepared pan.
Bake blondies for 40-50 minutes, or until they turn a deep honey brown and a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature.
When its completely cool, carefully lift the blondies our of the pan using the foil edges as handles, and turn them out onto the rack. Peal away the foil and invert onto a cutting board. Use a long knife to cut into 16 bars, each roughly 2 1/4 inches on a side.

TWD: All American Apple Pie

2010-10-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

Culinary school or not, I still learn a lot from my TWD adventures. But I couldn't really figure out what I could possibly learn from making another apple pie. Well.... then it dawned on me, that every time I make an apple pie... I have to ship it off to a ~~paying~~ well deserved customer and then hear about how delicious it was. Don't get me wrong, I'm a total praise whore, so I love that they love my apple pie. But what I really want to do is sneak a slice! So I made this out of sheer pie envy....to hell with the learning!

I went with the crumb because all the TWD bakers had so many droolworthy crumb toppings today that I just had to! Mine was a little butter, brown sugar, oats, flour, cinnamon and pecans.

You can cruise on over and visit Emily at Sandmuffin for the whole recipe. Next week its my turn to pick the recipe! Woo hoo! Happy Dance!

FFwD: Hachis Parmentier [Shepard's Pie]

2010-10-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

This was so damn good... no really, really good. We ate 1/2 of it and I'm sure it was meant for a family of more than two people. I can't wait until tomorrow so I can has leftoverz.

Me and my honey made the quick version when we got home from work today. It didn't take that long to put together which is cool because we will be making it again

We threw in some peas for good measure and used some Dubliner Irish Cheddar, if you've never tried this cheese you should right away.

If you haven't gotten your book go here and get it already! And join the group of other cookers at French Fridays with Dorie. I promise you will not be disappointed ;)

TWD: Caramel Pumpkin Tart

2010-10-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

I usually have a great time tweeking our TWD recipes because they usually come out really really tasty. Dorie's recipes are cool like that, they tend to be so good in the first place that any thing I manage to do to it won't muck it up to badly. This week, I wasn't so lucky....

I opted for a ginger snap crust pressed into a tart pan. How could that be bad right? The mahogany filling with a crisp cookie crust was mouthwatering. But sadly filling just gets into a total brawl with the crust, creating two great flavors that become horribly overwhelming together. Sad but true. I will have to try this again with a regular crust because it has the makings of something really fantastic.

You can get the full recipe from our host this week Janell from Mortensen Family Memoirs.

FFwD: Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

2010-10-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

I finally got my book around my french table from Amazon! Pretty funny that the first recipe I get to make for the new group French Fridays with Dorie is Vietnamese...

Anyhoo... I actually love making soup, I whip up soup all the time because I can somehow make it out of pretty much anything we have around and we eat like ~~kings~~ peasants for a few days because there's always some leftover.

I think the most exhaustive thing about this soup is the ingredients, I couldn't find coriander seeds, white pepper or ginger. Well I found ginger but it looked like a science experiment so I just left it in the store. Fresh and Easy wasn't living up the 'fresh' part today. Other than that its a breeze to make. It did smell a little funky I must admit, probably the fish sauce or something but it did taste good in the end ;) I think I would leave the fishes out of it next time.

TWD: Fold-over Apple Torte

2010-10-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

I was pretty convinced that this was all about the crust. I mean why else would you leave the crust just laying on the top of the torte unless it was just so you could have more crust to eat? Or because your just lazy... and since I have to raise my hand on both occasions I was happy to oblige. I swapped the pears for apples and since I heard lots of TWDers mention they would have liked more innards (of custard that is) I nixed the nuts and the whatever else was supposed to go in there.

The apples rose to the top and reminded me a little of corn when this was about 3/4 done. And anyone who knows me, knows I don't like surprise unnecessary cornage.... so I was a little grossed out by the whole thing until it was finished. Because when it was finished it was golden and yummy looking. I let it chill out in the fridge until today and it was perfect. The custardy part is not really like giggly custard, its got some heft to it, some yummy heft. I'm glad I got rid of all the extra stuff, because this is simplified and perfect.

You can of course get the full recipe from our hostess this week by clicking here.

My Favorite Things

2010-10-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to catch up on cakes that I've made this past year and update my website. This cake is almost a year old! Yikes I'm a procrastinator.
The hard thing about posting something like this is all the great detail photos that I have to choose from. Finally I just had to make a decision... you can go see the details if you clickity click here.
I love that this cake was so specific to the birthday girl. It could never be duplicated for anyone else and mean so much.

TWD: Apple Bundt Cake

2010-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

I turned on the oven and started to make this recipe when I got to the part about the apple butter... er what?! So with the oven preheating (don't worry my honey was home paying little attention to anything but his computer games, I'm sure he would have smelled a fire.... maybe) I ran to two stores in search of Apple Butter with no luck. But what do they say "necessity is the mother of invention!" or some shit like that, so instead of trekking to yet another store I decided to head home and make due with what I had on hand. And it was fricken' fantastic my friends!

I'm going to include the recipe tweaks and technique below but you can go visit Lynne at Honey Muffin and I'm sure she will fix you right up with the recipe as it should be.

Apple Bundt Cake

Preheat your oven to 350. Prepare a bundt pan by spraying with oil and dusting with flour. If you have a nonstick pan do this anyway because if your bundt pan is an evil tease like mine, it does not like giving up the goods when the baking is done.

For the filling:
3 Medium Granny Smith Apples
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
1/2 tsp Cardamom
1/4 tsp Grated Nutmeg
1 tbsp of Calvados

Peel, core and grate the apples. Sauté in a medium skillet with the spices, adding in the Calvados last. Let mixture cool while you mix up the batter below.

Cakey bits:
6 oz Unsalted Butter
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar

2 cups AP Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda

2 Whole Eggs
8 oz Sour Cream

Cream together sugars & butter until fluffy. Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl. Then whisk together sour cream and eggs in another bowl. Alternately add the dry and the wet into the butter/sugar concoction. Once this is well combined add in the cooled apple mix and stir in a cup of chopped nuts if you'd like. Spread evenly into prepared pan and bake until its done. Cool slightly and turn out onto a rack.... weep tears of joy when your cake slips easily from the evil bundt pan of doom because you were prepared!

Now when everything is cooled this is the most important part....don't eat it yet. Mix about 3 tbsp of powdered sugar with a little warm water and vanilla this should be the consistency of like pancake syrup. Brush this onto the surface of the bundt then take more powdered sugar and dust the surface, let the sugar dissolve into the wet surface and dust it again until it stops dissolving I did this like 6 times or so. Let it sit for about 30 minutes or as long as you can stand it to dry. This made the surface like glazed donuts so totally worth every effort! Slice that bad boy up and enjoy.

TWD: As if...

2010-09-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

No that's not a radio station...that there was the temp. in town around noonish yesterday. When I got into my car to go home around 4:30pm, that read 116! I was laughing like a lunatic so I didn't have time to take another picture. Maybe the hysterics were because my brain was boiling out my ears. You know what I find super funny is the day was sweltering but it was gorgeous, the bluest of blue skies, quaint little white clouds and no smog, even the LA smog thought it was too fricken hot to go outside I guess.

The gorgeous recipe for Tarte Fine was chosen by Leslie at Lethally Delicious you can find it at there as well as loads of lovely looking tarts on the TWD blogroll.

TWD: Coffee Break Muffins

2010-09-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

This was a super easy recipe to mix up that took me forever to actually bake. Since I didn't want to turn on the oven I baked them in a mini-muffin pan in my trusty toaster oven in like a billion batches... ok it just felt that way but by the second pan I was cursing my laziness!

I think this is a recipe best the next day, they mellowed out in flavor and the texture is much nicer.

You can grab the full recipe from our host this week Rhiani over at Chocoholic Anonymous.

When I was arranging the muffins for their glamor shot I picked up a muffin that had me rolling with laughter....

Why so serious?

TWD: Nectarine Upside-Downer

2010-09-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

Ok you see that little nugget... that one there that fell off the side of the cake? Yeah that one there... that's the best part! Oh and the nectarines... and the cakey part too! Ok its all good I promise!

I used some delicious yellow nectarines we had picked up at the farmers market swapped out a bit of brown sugar for white and threw in some cardamom for good measure.

Excellent recipe I loved it even tho my cooked fruit o'phobe honey didn't even have a slice... ah well you cant win them all.

You can grab the full recipe from Sabrina over at Superfuluous. She's got some great photos of the luscious cranberry version there.

Hey Muffin Head...

2010-09-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Felt the need to bake this morning so I whipped up some carrot laden muffins for breakfast. Like any quick bread recipe you can toss this into a loaf pan if your not feeling muffiny that day. These were great with a little slather of softened butter... but hey what isn't right? right!

Carrot Almond Muffins

2 Cups AP Flour
1/2 Cup Sliced Almonds
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Sweetened Coconut
2 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
3 each Whole Eggs
1 tsp Salt
1/2 Cup Oil
2 Cups Shredded Carrots (thank you inventor of the food processor)
1/4 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Raisins
1 tsp Almond Extract

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 18 muffin cups or line with paper liners (or grease a loaf pan).
In a very large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients to break up any clumps then stir in the carrot, raisins, nuts, coconut.
In a separate bowl, beat together the wet ingredients until smooth. Stir the wet into the dry until moistened. Scoop into prepared muffin cups or pour into loaf pan. Sprinkle the top with a few almond slices and sprinkle with sugar tossing into the oven.
Bake until the top springs back or a toothpick tester comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Take a fantastic picture and add your blog link in a comment to tell me if you like them ;)

TWD: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses~Gluten Free Style!

2010-09-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm no glutenfreegirl by any means but I happened to pick up some Peanut Flour at Trader Joe's just because I found it intriguing. With no plans for what I would do with such an odd item in my kitchen it was a fluke to run out of regular all purpose flour when faced with the prospect of having to make some Peanut Butter cookies. I swapped the AP for Peanut and voila Super Peanut Butter Crisscrosses! These were awesome with coffee tho a little dryer than the original might be I totally loved them.

You can find the real recipe over @ Jasmine Cuisine below is a 1/2 recipe of my rendition.

Gluten Free~
Super Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

1 1/4 c. Peanut Flour
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. Salt
4 oz. Salted Butter
4 oz. Peanut Butter
1/2 c. Brown Sugar
1/3 c. Granulated Sugar
1 ea. Whole Egg

A bit of extra granulated sugar to roll your cookies in.

Preheat oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Cream together butter, peanut butter & sugars until fluffy. Mix in egg until well combined. Whisk dry ingredients well (the peanut flour is pretty clumpy so this may take a bit of doing, if you not lazy like me, sending everything thru a sieve might be better) add to other ingredients and mix to combine. This mixture comes out really really dry but can be easily scooped (#40 makes 20 cookies) and rolled in sugar. Place them on a parchment lined baking pan and smoosh with a fork in a crisscross pattern. Bake until bottoms are golden brown, cool and enjoy.

TWD: Espresso Chocolate Shortbread

2010-08-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

The weather has smiled upon us and the temperature plummeted to a tolerable level over the weekend. Can I get wOOt wOOt!

With the ability to willfully turn my oven on, I made the Espresso Chocolate Shortbread (chosen by Donna over at Life's to Short ) on Sunday night. They are ... uhhh how do you say....not good. This totally makes me sad because they smelled delicious when they were baking. Like dreadfully addictive good kind of smell but they are just blah. This is probably not due to the recipe, but the ingredients I used. The chocolate was very dark and the shortbread recipe doesn't call for much sugar so they are just bland old bittery hunks of nothingness. Eh... whats a cookie monster to do! I guess god can bless you with good weather so you can bake.... and then he thoughtfully puts you on a cookie diet so you can still wedge your butt into your office chair. Thanks for looking out G!

TWD: No Custardy Crunchy Peachy Tarts

2010-08-25T16:01:00.000-07:00

Aye I forgot to post this blog yesterday! See the heat is getting to my brain.....

Well its flippin' hot here right now...its supposed to be like 111 degrees or something insanely hot like that. Since it is so hot and I have no real A/C, at least not in the kitchen, unnecessary baking of any kind is on the back burner.....

The Custardy Crunchy Peachy Tarts were chosen by Rachel at sweet tarte, you can find the full recipe here.

TWD: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

2010-08-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we got together with my sister-in-law Tahnee and her family for a brunch before we headed over to Cousin Gayle's for a family get together later in the day. It was bound to be a day of eating (allot) and of course we couldn't go empty handed so I made the Oatmeal Breakfast Bread to take with me to brunch and a big batch of these Snickerdoodle Blondies to take with us later to the party.

The only flaw in this breakfast bread was that the topping wanted to fall off when I was taking the loaf out of the pan and again later when I was slicing it. A tragedy to be sure because the topping is always the bestest part! So when I make this recipe again I might make it muffins so that all the goodness stays intact.

Excellent choice from Natalie over at Oven Love you'll be able to find the recipe over on her site if you want to make this yourself.

TWD: Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

2010-08-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

I always wonder why I never make ice cream after I make some. It's fairly simple straightforward and easy to do every single time. Maybe its because there is patience involved and you know how I feel 'bout that....waiting is not my strong suite.

It came out a little grainy, probably because of the chocolate that I used but otherwise it was pretty delicious. I mixed in some mini dehydrated marshmallows because I'm stuck with a gigantic bag of them. Never underestimate the power of dehydration because a pound of mini dehydrated marshmallows is shockingly bigger than one would imagine. At least to me it was...... A fresh baked sugar cookie cup and a little squeezy chocolate out of the fridge finished it up quite nicely.

Great choice this week from Katrina at Baking and Boys! you can find the full recipe on her blog here.

Nostalgia

2010-08-03T16:29:00.000-07:00

I was in the toy section at Target the other night browsing for god knows what... we don't have any kids young enough for toys but we go play with stuff in there anyways..... in the nostalgia section of the department they have been adding cool little things... slinkies, sock monkeys and crap like that. Meh... nothing exciting.

But then.... I saw this...

Monchhichis! I must have them! They don't have any cool outfits.... but they are just too cute!

My honey didn't understand my excitement over these little balls of fur... so I texted a picture to my bestie from when way back when and she was just as excited as me so :P!

And if the Monchhichi song isn't already stuck in your head...

TWD: Chewy Chunky Blondies

2010-07-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

The mix-ins for these Chewy Chunky Blondies seemed to exceed the actual batter. I suppose if your into chocolate, butterscotch, pecans and coconut.... such a ratio would be pure bliss. The were true to form leaving you with what I like to call "brownie belly". That oh man I shouldn't have eaten that feeling, but then you go back for more even though you were forewarned with the first piece you had.

If you'd like to establish your own brownie belly.... head over to see Nicole @ Cookies on Friday, she's got the recipe to fix you right up.

TWD: Lots-of-Ways Peach Cake

2010-07-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

Well I didn't have any bananas which is unusual for my house. I did however have a can of peaches, for what... I don't know. We don't eat canned peaches, or fresh peaches for that matter. It might have been for a long past TWD recipe that never came to fruition.

Heh... so sub in peaches for bananas and 1/2 the recipe for the ol' toaster oven (man that thing is getting major mileage lately) and you've got something that looks like this.

Not to shabby if I do say so myself! It is pretty tasty, I could have used a few more spices, like cardamom or cinnamon and a little more salt to give it a bit more kick.

You can get the real recipe from our Tuesdays w/Dorie host of the week Kimberly over at Only Creative Opportunities or you can follow my recipe tweak below.

Peachy Coconut Cake
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan~Baking from My Home to Yours (Page 204 & 205)

Pour out syrup from a 15oz can of peaches and puree, I left it a little chunky. If you have a stick blender you can do this right in the can.

Preheat your toaster oven to 325 degrees and grease an 8 inch cake pan, dust with flour and tap to remove excess.

For the cakey bit:

1 1/3 c AP Flour
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
Pinch of Nutmeg
3 oz. Unsalted Butter @ room temperature
1/4 c Packed Brown Sugar
1/2 c Granulated Sugar
1 e Whole Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 c Peach Puree
1/4 c Coconut

Sift together dry ingredients. Cream together sugars and butter until fluffy, then add in egg, vanilla and peach puree. Mix in dry ingredients and stir in coconut. Pour into the prepared baking pan. You can skip to the baking portion of the program here, or use the leftover puree to make the topping.

For the topping:

1/4 c Peach Puree
2 tbsp Sugar
1/4 c Sliced Almonds

Mix together puree and sugar, swirl on the top of the cake and top with sliced almonds.

Bake at 325 for 30-45 minutes or until a tester comes out with a bit of crumb. You can tent this with aluminum foil if the top starts to get to brown.

Snickerdoodle Blondies

2010-07-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

I was trying to figure out where this recipe came from, but like most recipes floating around in the blog-o-sphere this was adapted from an adapted adapted recipe. So I know not whom to give credit to, I can just tell you I got it from the Brown Eyed Baker and the full recipe is here.

It being 100+ degrees over the weekend it was all about toaster oven baking. I tweaked it to fit in my toaster oven by halving the recipe and added cinnamon chips for fun.

It will fit perfectly in an 8x8 square baking pan which fits nicely into my little oven. I turned the temp down to 325 and about 1/2 way thru the baking, I tented the blondies to keep them from getting too dark on the top. My honey loved these and asked that if he dies from eating too many, that I bring some to his graveside so he could still have them in the afterlife..... morbid I know!

Hawaiian-bread Pudding

2010-07-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have this hate/hate relationship with bread pudding as explained here. But with alot of things in life...it never hurts to give it a try again. I had some Kings Hawaiian Bread leftover from the 4th of July BBQ so I decided to mix up some bread pudding. It tasted fantastic, I wanted to pick off all the top of the pudding and dunk each piece into caramel.....

Hawaiian-bread Pudding

Liberally butter a glass baking dish and pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees.

1 C. Whole Milk
1/2 C. Fat Free Half & Half
2 Egg Yolks
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Cardamom
1/2 tsp Salt
8 Hawaiian Bread Rolls
1/4 C. Sliced Almonds
4 tbsp Butter
Cinnamon/Sugar (optional)

Whisk together the first 6 ingredients. Cut the Hawaiian bread into quarters, dunk them into the custard and pour into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with sliced almonds, cinnamon sugar and dot with butter. Bake in a baine marie until custard sets. Slice and serve with warm caramel sauce.

TWD: brrr...ownies

2010-07-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Go grab a big glass of cold milk kiddies cuz your gonna need it this week! Dark rich chocolate brownies wrapped around chunks of peppermint patty that turned oozy & gooey in the oven. A sinfully delicious way to have chocolate...

You can find the recipe for the brrr...ownies over at Crazy Blessed Life.

...little patience, mm yeah, ooh yeah,

2010-07-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

Need a little patience, yeah
Just a little patience, yeah
Some more pati... (ence, yeah)

Ok truth be told I've never had enough patience to listen to that Guns N' Roses song in its entirety....so I always thought the title was sadly appropriate.

To make your own Vanilla Extract you'll need:

6 Supple Vanilla Beans
16 oz Vodka
A whole crapload of patience.....

8 weeks of patience!

I scraped the vanilla beans, cut them up and tossed everything in a big mason jar. Closed it up tight and put it in the cupboard, with instructions for the honey to shake it like a polaroid picture if he happened to notice it sitting there. 8 or 9 weeks later (I lost count and interest) the hubbie's patience ran out and he claimed the experiment triumphant as he had opened the jar and spiked his morning coffee with a little of the extract.

Waiting for anything has never been my strong suite. That's why I'm not a big fan of making bread... to much waiting, too much patience. But as with bread making our own vanilla has rewarded us with something pretty fantastic. Give it a try if you have allot of Vanilla Beans hanging around, for some reason I do... well that's because I'm kind of too stingy to use them.

TWD: Apricot Jam Chocolate Cake

2010-06-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

My Dressy Chocolate Loaf cake turned into an Apricot Jam Chocolate Cake. I only made 1/2 the recipe and baked it at 325 in my toaster oven using a 5x3 round cake pan. It came out perfectly filling the whole house with an enticing chocolate odor.
When it finally cooled, I sliced it into 4 layers. Adding apricot jam to two of them and a 1/2 recipe of this super shiny gooey glaze for the third layer and finally topping. Interestingly enough, for the glaze I subbed in agave syrup because I was out of corn syrup. I may do this every time, it was far less sticky with a different kind of sweetness that went nicely with the super moist cake.

TWD: Cinnamon Swirl Bread

2010-06-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

After this was finished I was left wondering why I don't make more bread. Bread is easy. The only intimidation is time and the crossing of your fingers & toes in hopes that your yeasties will work for you. Which they usually do... I may jinx myself by saying they always do so I will stop at usually.

This delivered a good punch of tasty flavor with a bare minimum of effort because sitting around waiting for dough to rise is a pretty lazy thing in my book.

You can grab the full recipe over at food.baby the bloggy home of Susan.

I can't leave without adding a link to the obnoxiously burping yeasties from the Alton Brown episode Dr. Strangeloaf.

Carrot Raisin Quick-bread

2010-06-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you come back from a Hawaiian vacation? Well most unpack and wash their laundry..... I had to bake! We were lucky enough to have a washer & dryer in our condo so we brought home only a teeny tiny bag of clothes that needed washing. Woo hoo!

Carrot Raisin Quick-bread

1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/3 Cup Butter [softened]
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Juice [Orange, Apple etc.]
1 2/3 Cup AP Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Cardamom
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1 Cup Carrots [grated]
1 Cup Raisins
2/3 Cup Walnuts [chopped]

Direction: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and oil a loaf pan. Grate the carrots. Soak raisins in hot water to plump them up.

In a big bowl using a hand mixer combine the sugar and butter until fluffy, then add in eggs and juice. Sift or whisk together the dry ingredients and mix into the wet just until no more dry remains. Drain off raisins and add them with the carrots & walnuts folding gently with a large spatula. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and sprinkle with a little sugar on top to give the crust a nice crunch.

Bake until a tester comes out clean 45 minutes - 1 hour depending on your loaf pan.

TWD: Un-White Chocolate Brownies

2010-06-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

Marthe of Culinary Delights chose White Chocolate Brownies this week for Tuesdays w/Dorie. Since I don't particularly care for White Chocolate, I switched it out for dark chocolate. I also was worried about all the super gooey reports, so I added about 1/4 cup more flour to the mix because gooey brownies are not my thing either. The whole thing came out so un-brownie like that they can't even really be called that anymore. They were light and fluffy and moist and yummy and nothing like a dense brownie at all.

Chocolate Cheesecake

2010-05-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

When I was in culinary school they had us make cheesecake in a regular cake pan. This was a little scary at first because sheesh I've used a spring form pan most my whole life, how the hell are we going to get a cheesecake out of a regular pan!

Here's what you do...line the bottom of a regular cake pan with parchment just like making a cake. Par-bake your crust, and bake your cheesecake like usual. Let the cheesecake chill out overnight in the pan in the fridge. The next day, take your pan put it directly over your burner on a high flame, and spin it around for a few seconds to slightly warm the crust, run a knife carefully around the sides then invert (yes really) the cheesecake onto a cardboard or plate, it will plop right out. Turn it right side up on your serving plate. Voila! Easy cheesy! You will never have to buy an uber-expensive spring form pan or try and keep your water bath from seeping into it or find a place to store the blasted thing.....

This was the Low & Lush Chocolate Cheesecake from Baking from My Home to yours page 243. The crust is a combo of sugar cookies, almonds and turbanado sugar. The sugar stays crunchy because there isn't much to dissolve the granules when you make a press in crust. This was great to add a little crunch to the creamy texture of the filling. The top was a dark chocolate 50/50 ganache poured on after it was cooled down a bit.

TWD: Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie

2010-05-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

No pie for me this week. But you can find this weeks recipe at Spike Bakes.

TWD: Apple-Apple Bread Pudding

2010-05-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

However delicious this sounds... bread pudding reminds me too much of the buffets at culinary school. And that just makes me wanna yack! I don't know why those buffet days riveted within me these harsh feelings towards cupcakes and bread pudding... but it did.
I've kind of gotten over the cupcake thing, hell its been like 4 years or something... you eventually have to let things go right? But my bread pudding feelings are still strong, probably because I haven't given any bread pudding chance in hell. The big cambros filled with stale cake and bread just awaiting the dunk in custard to form a glutenous mass of bland carbs that not even a delicious sauce could make edible just can't be ripped from my brain.
Well... if that doesn't inspire you to go make it yourself I don't know what would! You can find the recipe over at Cake or Death? and to be honest Liz' looks fricken delicious.....

TWD: Quick Classic Berry Tart

2010-05-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

A super simple berry tart was chosen by Cooking with Cristine this week for Tuesdays with Dorie.
I was this close to skipping it...... see the hubs doesn't like berries, because they are too seedy. His distaste for strawberries is almost cause for divorce but I came to realize that it really just means more strawberries for moi! So I made this tart anyway. With a dastardly plan to keep his slice berry free. To please his pallet I made chocolate pastry cream instead of vanilla by tossing in 2 oz. of chocolate into a 1/2 recipe. And I lined the tart with a slather of white chocolate before filling it with the cream which gave the crust an extra snappy texture. So everyone is a wiener!

Zero Calorie Sweet Treats

2010-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share this saweeet new collection of wallets made by Christian Marie. The Confection Collection is adorable and she has lots of other creative bags too.

I'm totally loving the Wedding Cake Zipper Wristlet. I don't know if its because I want to use it, or duplicate the cake designs!

And the super cute Lemon Clutch, food related but not sweet, unless you sprinkle in a little sugar. So summery!

Check out her entire collection by here, and she does custom orders too! I may have to get that wedding cake fabric made into a tote... how ~~deceptively~~ put together would I be if I went to a cake consult with that!

TWD: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

2010-05-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

You know when your out camping and you make your first roasted marshmallow of the trip? The kind that you rush through (and maybe light on fire a few times to many) and its way to charcoalie because the fire is to high? So you set your mind to making the perfect one and you take your time to really crisp up the outside to the perfect dark brown and its been on the stick so long its just practically oozing off because its molten marshmallow all the way to the center...you pop that marshmallow in your mouth and its so very perfectly perfect? This is what this ice cream taste like.... but cold.... cold perfection.

Go visit Becky over at Project Domestication for the super easy recipe.

TWD: Chockablock Cookies

2010-04-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

However yummy these cookies sound, I have to pass because I'm making lots of other cookies (and various other things) this week.

I'm going to be a vendor at a Quarter Auction! Yikes so scary for me.... and old friend talked me into it (bitch!). If I had know I actually had to get up in front of 100+ people and hock my wares I probably would have never signed up! I don't even like when people watch me set up cakes and I don't even have to talk during that. Eh well what can you do... I have to shake off my shyness and make it work (as Tim Gun would say- OMG wasn't the finally of Project Runway the best!)

Anyhoo....I will share pictures next week of what I make because I'm totally bringing on the cuteness.

Oh yeah for TWD, you can grab the Chockablock recipe over at Popsicles & Sandy Feet.

Oye too much Mt. Dew today!

TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

2010-04-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

The easiest recipe on the face of the earth and of course I muck it up. Well ok maybe not totally, they were edible... but they were like cookies instead of biscuits. I had no cream so I used some 1/2 & 1/2. They turned out really thin and since I left them in the oven too long they were also very crunchy. They were good... but not a biscuit, unless I was from New Zealand or something then the biscuit/cookie cookie/biscuit business would make sense. I topped them off with a sprinkling of sugar before baking and then slathered them with honey butter after they were ~~over~~ baked.

You can find some properly made biscuits on the Tuesday with Dorie blog roll here. And you can find the recipe over on Love at First Bite or on page 23 of Baking from My Home to Yours.

Lavender Sweet Sixteen

2010-04-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

This cake wins the award for the most dragees on one cake to date! A fairly easy setup of square cakes but the intricate designed on each layer made it a challenge that I was really happy with in the end.

This was my first attempt at quilting on a cake, with nothing more than a cardboard triangle, it was rough going and I had a few spots that were less than acceptable. I think if I had to do quilting again I would opt for one of those quilted mats to save time. I would have been supremely happy with this if I were 16 again!

A few other shots here, I took these at the last minute as my camera was running out of juice.

Oh and here is the original sketch of the cake. I like to get the end result as close to the idea as possible.... I love it when a plan comes together.

TWD: Swedish Visiting Cake

2010-04-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

Oh my lordy those Swedish people are geniuses.... first Ikea (mmmm Lingonberry juice) now this! Ok well I'm sure this cake came before Ikea, but you know what I mean.
This cake is so easy and so very good. I made only 1/2 the recipe in my little mini skillet and topped it with sliced almonds and pearl sugar. The pearl sugar stays crunchy when it bakes so you get the incredible texture of the almonds then a bit more crunch from the sugar. Perfection!
Visit Nancy over at The Dogs Eat the Crumbs for the full recipe.

TWD: Mocha-Pistachio Bundt Cake

2010-04-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

Today was a gloomy chilly Sunday. A perfect day for filling the house with the warmth of the oven and the sweet smells of baking. A sweeping contrast to our 90 degree temps of last week which deemed it too hot to bake.
I couldn't pass up last weeks recipe without trying it. I have to say that the chocolate portion is my favorite part. I swapped out the walnuts for some pistachios that I already had ground-up from another project and slathered the exterior in a gooey chocolate glaze. You can find the recipe over at When in Doubt....Leave it at 350. And since there is never enough chocolate... the recipe for the glaze is below.

Super Shiny Gooey Glaze

4oz. Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 oz. Un-salted Butter
1 tbsp. Coco-Powder
1 tbsp. Vanilla (or get your booze on)
2 oz. Corn Syrup

Melt the chocolate and butter over a baine marie. Measure corn syrup and vanilla/booze in a glass measuring cup. Once the chocolate has melted remove it from the heat and warm the corn syrup and vanilla/booze by placing the glass measuring cup directly into the hot water bath. Sift coco-powder into the warmed syrup and stir to combine. Pour that whole mix into the melted chocolate and stir until its shiny. Spread onto bundt cake immediately as this sets up pretty quickly.

Marsh's Golden Anniversary

2010-04-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Its always harder for me to create web pages for cakes I really love. Narrowing down the photos to just a few shots is excruciating for me because I want to share them all. The photo here was taken by my sister-in-law Tahnee. She is a professional photographer and it certainly shows. I have the same shot, and mine doesn't look nearly as nice.
I love this cake because it was for my inlaws, they are awesome people. I couldn't have been blessed with marrying into a better family. Much like my own folks they are so sweet and genuine.
I also loved that I learned a few things while making this one. The entire surface of the cake is airbrushed, creating a smooth layer of color was difficult. Patience to add color layer by layer is not my strong suite and I paid for it when I was putting the fondant ribbons on the cake with quite a few blemishes. Next time I will have to try a different technique.

You can see a few close up shots here.

TWD: Coconut Teacake

2010-03-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Ok so in the other room Siobhan (the girl with the name that just makes no sense to me) is murdering an R&B song. Oh poor girl, usually I really love her but man did she tank! Anyway to the cake! Coconut cake with a coconut milk glaze. Yum! It did not tank... very very yummy! Carmen chose this week, so you can find the recipe over on her blog Carmen Cooks. I made my straight up I think I will try it again with a little citrus kick, I think it would have benefited from that for sure.

Oh how nice they are making excuses for the bad singing shocking I know... they never do that on AI..... off to watch some other people sing ~~badly~~ some R&B.

Get your pie fix...

2010-03-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

You Want Pies with That? is back in action for April! I have a confession.... I just saw the movie (Waitress) that inspired this group a while ago when I was stuck at home with the plague. I use the word inspired lightly because I don't think the intention of this group is to celebrate villainous husbands and/or adultery. I think its taking inspiration from the good things (or exceedingly crappy things in this characters case) in life and creating something fantastic from those experiences.

Aprils is SPRING!

It's that time of year when the flowers and trees are blooming, everywhere you turn people are outside playing frisbee, Easter candy is everywhere, and the best thing of all - you can dust off those flip flops! Get those toes pedicured because it's SPRING! This time of year, it seems like everyone can't wait to start cooking and baking with light, bright flavors like lemon and fresh herbs. That's why we chose a "Spring" theme for this month. Get in the kitchen and come up with the freshest, brightest Spring-inspired pie you can think of - whether it's inspired by your childhood Easter basket, or something with lots of fresh, fragrant herbs. You'll have a lot of wiggle room for this one (sweet OR savory!) just make sure the pie is fun and "Springy"!

Joe & Sandy's 20th Anniversary

2010-03-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

This is by far one of my favorite cakes to date. I love the colors and opening my fridge to see these little guys peeking back at me just made me happy. I never did find out if the happy couple found these at all unflattering... it's always a little scary to make people especially when it's cartoony people. Its kinda like when you go to the fair and your get one of those GiantHEadeD cartoon drawings done and you look at the freshly minted drawing of what is supposed to be you and you like hey my nose isn't that big! is it?!

You can see a few more close-ups of this here.

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

2010-03-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Knowing how to make Dulce de Leche from a can of sweetened condensed milk is an evil skill. Thanks to the little tip posted here, I learned you can buy it (bah to easy), boil it (to dangerous) or even make it from scratch (too time consuming). Somehow the slow cooker method just seems devious and cunning to me (right up my alley). A delicious magic trick if you will....

Go get the full recipe from Jodie over at Beansy Loves Cake. The cookies are super yummy! I added mini chips to 1/2 of the batch but I liked the plain version better. The flavor or the Dulce de Leche just comes out more clearly without any chocolate to muck it up.

I just noticed something... my cookies do not look like everyone else's cookies... I didn't put any Dulce de Leche in the cookie batter! haha... I swear that part was not in MY recipe book! I like my version a whole lot so I better go note it in the book!

Next week were making coconut teacakes... not sure about this one, sounds sorta prissy...

Pole Dancer Cake

2010-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

My Tuesday's with Dorie Tart shells sits empty on my counter because all of the sudden its too hot to bake. We had a little 4.4 tumble the other morning and I think it was California shaking in disgust that its already getting hot.

Eh...well no matter, instead I shall bring you apeek at a cake I made a while back and have just posted on my website... The Pole Dancer Cake. How do you take something that could be conceived as tawdry like pole dancing (~~stripper cake anyone?~~) and make it cute and charming? You make it pink of course!

I love how this turned out, even though it wasn't the original concept I think it came out even better. I actually had to tell the customer that I just couldn't do what we originally thought of without it looking clunky and cheesy (cheesy lame not cheesy cheddar). A difficult thing for me to do because I hate to disappoint anyone. The coolest thing on this cake was that the silver bit on the top was a turn table, so the 30 turned 180 degrees and back again so you could see the other side that looked like this ~>

Striped Electric Guitar

2010-03-15T20:38:00.000-07:00

I'm trying really hard to catch up on editing photos and posting cakes I've done in the past few months. Trouble is I'm a shit photographer so I have to go thru a gillion pictures to get a few good ones. Thank the stars for digital cameras!

This is the second guitar cake I've done (here's the first one) so I knew a little of what was getting into. Making the detachable neck so it could fit in my fridge to all the tiny details. But what I didn't know was what was going to happen to the painted surface.

Because of the detail, I decided to hand paint the stripes then airbrush the edge and up the sides for the faded effect, this initially created a horrifying deeply pitted orange peel effect. Short of bawling my eyes out (which isn't allowed in baking my friends...) I decided the next best choice was to paint it. Scary thoughts of puddled brush marks ran thru my scrambled brain but I had no choice but to try or worse case rip off all the fondant and start over. A big soft brush laden with deep black vodka did the trick and it created a nice glossy finish to the guitar! You can see some other photos here.

TWD: Blackberry Thumbprints

2010-03-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

When I was just a wee little kiddlet I always wanted to make thumbprint cookies with my grandma. I don't know why, they are kindof a pain. I'm sure she sighed a little each time I wanted to make them because if my attention span was anything like it is now.... I probably didn't do much to help in the end.

These were only about 1/2 as bad, because you don't have to roll them around in nuts (hehehe that sounds kinda dirty!) I used almond flour and filled the thumb holes with seedless blackberry jam prior to putting them in to bake. I like how the jam on gets reduced and tacky around the edges and sorta sticks to your teeth. I'm sure filling them after wouldn't have had quite the same effect.

This weeks recipe for Thumbprints for us Big Guys on pg 164 was chosen by Mike over at Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude. These were very linzer cookie-ish... what in the hell wait a second looking back in my archive this is so 6°sofkevinbacon (mmm bacon...) I made that dough into thumbprints way back then and the linzer sables were chosen by a guy too... and the guy is in the Netherlands and that's where my grandma is from... whoa.. ha groovy! Didn't make that up just noticed this as I'm typing and no I'm not smoking anything! Cross my heart!

TWD: Honey-Wheat Cookies

2010-03-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

Playing a bit of catch-up on my Tuesdays with Dorie recipes. The worstest part of having to skip some things, is that the things I've skipped, I really wanted to make! So it was time to double up and get ir done....

I read fantastic reviews about the Honey-Wheat Cookies. These were hosted by Michelle at Flourchild a few weeks ago, you can click on the links to find the recipe there.

When I gave these little guys the initial sniff test they smelled super wheaty, and not to terribly appealing. I tentatively gave the honey a cookie as I bit into mine, not expecting much but a mouth of wheat laced sawdust....but they taste incredible! The honey and lemon really shine thru and the texture is downright addictive.

Of course I opted for cookies this morning with my coffee (breakfast of champions donchaknow) and I think they only got better after a little beauty sleep.

We the Jury.....

2010-02-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

Just when you think you may have merrily skipped through you appointed jury duty by just calling in... they slam you upside the head and make you go on a Friday! Seriously!

I'm already busy this week so I don't have time for this crap. I would love to do my part and all that but really... does it always have to be when I'm super busy?! Now I have to go into work at 6am so that I can terminate an employee then get to the courthouse by 8am to happily sit on my arse for several hours. Well I guess in hindsight I won't have as bad a day as that termed employee so I should just quit my bitching!