Unsalted Momma

Valentine's Day Fun!

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:01:22 -0500

Valentine’s day was a lot of fun for our family this year. Instead of my husband and I going out on a date, we had a family date night at home. I spent most of my day baking and decorating for the event. The kids were excited and I looked forward to spending time all together.

First I made Foodie Crush’s heart shaped rice krispies. If you have never made your own rice krispie treats, you are definitely missing out. There is nothing quite like mixing freshly melted marshmallows into a bowl full of rice krispies and then eating the left overs right off the spoon. Normally I melt the marshmallows and butter down in a pan on the stove, but this recipe suggests using the microwave. I put the marshmallows and butter in a microwave safe bowl and cooked them for 2 minutes on high. I had quite the marshmallow mountain and did not need to melt the mallows any more. Quickly, I added the food coloring and mixed the fluff into the cereal. After I pushed it down into a buttered dish and let it cool, I used heart shaped cookie cutters to cut them into shapes. I brushed melted white chocolate on top and coated with sprinkles and confetti. Ta-da!

Once the rice krispies were done I got to work on the cupcakes. I made red velvet cupcakes with a cream cheese and mascarpone frosting. They are my favorite cupcakes to make, and I have even blogged about them before. They come together quite quickly and make 12 perfect cupcakes. While they baked I got to decorating the dining room.

Once the cupcakes were done baking and cooled, I whipped up the frosting. I must say, this is my favorite cream cheese frosting. Instead of butter, mascarpone cheese is used. The mascarpone cheese gives it a super smooth texture and the whipped cream makes it light and fluffy. Plus, its a dream to pipe onto the cupcakes.

After all the baking was done, I whipped up some spaghetti and meatballs, my husband and son’s favorite, and the girls and I headed upstairs to make ourselves beautiful for the boys. Our dinner was full of kisses, laughs, slow dances and delicious food! It was a fun tradition that we hope to continue every where. Hope you all had a great and lovely Valentine’s Day! Enjoy!

Heart Shaped Rice Krispie Treats

from Heidi Larsen of Foodie Crush

1 10 ounce package large marshmallows

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon red food coloring

6 cups rice krispie cereal

8 ounces white chocolate or vanilla candy melts

candy sprinkles for decorating

Place butter and marshmallows in a large bowl bowl and heat on high in a microwave for 2 minutes. Remove, stir and heat for another 2 minutes. Take the bowl out of microwave and stir really well until marshmallows and butter are combined. Add food coloring and mix well. Add rice krispies to the bowl and stir to combine, working fast.

Press mixture into a buttered 9 X 13 inch dish wish wax paper, let cool slightly and cut out heart shapes with a cookie cutter and set aside.

Melt candy coating in a small sauté pan according to package directions. Spread a thin coat of the chocolate on the top of the heart shapes and serve.

Cakes, Smitten Kitchen, and Seesaw Decisions!

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 15:46:29 -0500

My, my, it has been quite some time since I have written a blog post. Honestly, I hit a wall right during the Christmas season and felt overwhelmed with life. My three kids are amazing, but exhausting! Each one has such a unique personality and so many different needs, that by the end of the day when I normally write posts, all I wanted to do was lose myself in the TV and not think about ANYTHING. Never the less, I have baked all the while, trying new recipes and enjoying lots of deliciousness.

My husband is co-founder of Seesaw, a new decision making iPhone app. Seesaw is a great tool especially when trying to decide which new pair of shoes to buy or what great dessert to bake next! I put it to the test to get myself inspired to write a blog post. The decision, which Smitten Kitchen cake should I bake, Olive oil ricotta cake, Grapefruit olive oil pound cake, or Intense but tiny chocolate cake? And the winner????

By a slim margin, the chocolate cake! This cake, as well as the other cakes, comes from the Smitten Kitchen’s new cookbook. I will admit, I’m glad that the chocolate won the majority vote because I had just spent a small fortune on raspberries and was looking forward to eating them with chocolate. For those of you with gluten intolerance and allergies, this cake is perfect. Its simple and straight forward to make and absent of flour.

Here are a few tips when baking this cake. Not to get all Ina Garten on you, but use “good” semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate. My favorite brands to use are Ghirardelli or Scharffen Berger. Also, make sure that your eggs are room temperature. The egg whites will whip to stiff peaks much easier when they are a little warm. To quickly bring eggs to room temp, simply place them into a bowl of warm/hot water from the tap. I needed to bake my cake for closer to 35-40 minutes rather than the 20-25 minutes recommended. Once you have cooked your cake, you may notice that the top is cracked. Not sure what to do that other than flip it onto the cake plate so you cannot see the cracks!

Once the cake is cooled, top with freshly whipped cream and fresh raspberries! I’ll admit I was a little too excited to wait until it completed cooled so my first piece/pieces were a bit warm. The cake was not as intensely chocolate as the flourless chocolate cake I’ve made from the Food Network, but it was a perfect balance and not overbearing. After it cooled I stored it in the fridge and had a piece the next day. It was almost like the texture of a fudgy cheesecake. Needless to say, this cake did not last long, thankfully it was only 6 inches! For now, please get yourself a copy of this cookbook to find the recipe. I have emailed the Smitten Kitchen to see if I could have permission to share the recipe so I will keep you posted. Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Fall for Pumpkin Cheesecake!

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 11:46:00 -0500

First of all, I was a little bummed about yesterday. For a long time now I have been on a search for the most amazing pancake recipe ever. I am a sucker for buttermilk pancakes and I believed that I had found it! When I sat down yesterday to write about them, I could not find the recipe anywhere! Ugh, I searched high and low and could not find it. Shame on me for not pinning it when I had the chance. As I continue my search, I can share with you about the most amazing cheesecake I have ever made.

We have a lot of birthdays in the month of November in our family. Lucky for me, I am able to bake to my hearts content with special requests! This time it was for my mom’s birthday. She requested a pumpkin cheesecake. In the past, I have made the pumpkin cheesecake from the Libby’s pumpkin can and have often been underwhelmed. This time I wanted to make a truly amazing cake.

After much searching, I settled on the Food Network’s Almost Famous Pumpkin Cheesecake. This recipe is supposed to be as close to the Cheesecake Factory as you can get. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to let the cheesecake become truly awesome by letting it cool and refrigerate long enough to set perfectly. Normally when I make cheesecake, I scramble the day I want to serve it to make it. The whole time I am baking, I stress out about it not cooling in time, which it usually doesn’t, and though it tastes good when I serve it, it totally tastes better the next day when it is as cool as it should be. So, to avoid all the stress, I made the cake the day before my mom’s birthday.

Because I wanted to make this cake more unique and special, I decided to make a homemade gingersnap crust. When I think of fall, I obviously think of pumpkin, changing of colors, and gingersnaps, a long time favorite of my mom and I. To my great happiness, the Miette cookbook offers a lovely recipe for homemade gingersnaps, complete with three different types of ginger, so you truly get a rich taste of ginger. I whipped up a batch of these cookies, let them cool, and put these pretty little cookies in the food processor to make crumbs. Once they were a fine crumb texture, I added 2 tablespoons of melted unsalted butter, mixed that up and then pressed the cookie crumbs into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan. I cooked the crust for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees F.

While the crust cooled, I prepared the cream cheese filling. The cream cheese needs to be at room temperature otherwise the cream cheese will be lumpy, no matter how much you try to blend it. There was nothing incredibly tough about combining the ingredients. Once they were all mixed in my stand mixer, before I poured into the cooled crust, I pushed the cream cheese filling through a fine mesh strainer. By doing this, I further eliminated the possibility of lumps and hoped to create a completely smooth filling. If you do not have a fine mesh strainer, you can use a colander that you use to rinse fruit and veggies and what not.

One of the most important things you need to do when baking a cheesecake is place it into a bain marie. A bain marie is when you bake something in a water bath. This technique is used for delicate dishes such as souffles, custards and cheesecakes. After your crust cools wrap the bottom of the spring form pan with foil. Then place that pan into a roaster pan large enough for the cheesecake to fit into. Once you have poured the filling into the springform pan, put the whole thing into the oven and fill the roaster with boiling water, but make sure not to get water on the cheesecake itself. Bake this cake for around 1 hour and 45 min, mine was closer to 2 hours. Once the cake is set around the edges and a bit wobbly in the middle, turn the oven off, prop open the door, and let the cake remain in the oven for another hour. Pull it out and let it cool completely before putting it in the refrigerator. These steps are important to get the best possible cheesecake, especially if you do not want it to crack!

When I took the pan off from the cake, I was very pleased. It looked perfect! No cracking on the top, and perfect height all around. I could not WAIT to dive in. I whipped up some fresh whipped cream and then prepared to cut the cake! To help make smooth cuts, make your knife wet. This will prevent the cheesecake from sticking to the knife. Once we had the cake served up I heard nothing short of, “Yum,” “OMG,” “Amazing….” you get the idea. The cheesecake was smooth and creamy with a perfect balance of sweetness. I was pleased with the crust because it added a delicious crunch and a dash of fall. After we all finished our first pieces, my family looked around to see who would make the first move for seconds. I have no shame, so I went in! YUM!

This cheesecake was the best pumpkin cheesecake ever made and possibly the best I have ever had. Serve it up for a delicious fall treat! Happy baking and enjoy!

Almost Famous Pumpkin Cheesecake

From the Food Network

I used Miette’s Gingersnaps for my crust, though you could follow the recipe below and replace the graham cracker crumbs with the crumbs of store bought gingersnaps.

Graham Cracker Crust:

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 3/4 cups sugar
Salt

Cheesecake Filling:

2 pounds cream cheese, at room temperature

1/4 cup sour cream

1 15-ounce can pumpkin

6 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 cups sweetened whipped cream

1/3 cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F

Brush a 9-inch spring form pan with some of the butter. Stir the remaining butter with the crumbs, 1/4 cup of the sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the pan, packing it tightly and evenly. Bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on a rack, then wrap the outside of the springform pan with foil and place in a roasting pan.

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, beat the cream cheese with a mixer until smooth with paddle attachment. Add 2 and 1/2 cups sugar and beat until just light, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beaters as needed.

Beat in the sour cream, then add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, 1 teaspoon salt and the spices and beat until just combined. Pour into the cooled crust.

Gently place the roasting pan in the oven, but do not pull the rack out. Pour the boiling water into the roasting pan until it comes about halfway up the side of the springform pan.

Bake until the outside of the cheesecake sets but the center is still loose, about 1 hour 45 minutes. Turn off the oven and open the door briefly to let out some heat. Leave the cheesecake in the oven for 1 more hour, then carefully remove from the roasting pan and cool on a rack.

Run a knife around the edges, cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight. Do not remove the spring form pan ring until about an hour before you are ready to serve.

Serve with whipped cream and enjoy!

Happy Fall from some of the cutest kids around!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 21:43:19 -0500

When cooking and baking, I try not to make it a habit of wasting ingredients. After dinner last night I had just about a full can of pumpkin puree to use up. What better way to use it up than a whoopie pie?

Traditionally, a whoopie pie is made from two chocolate cookie cakes with a sweet white frosting in the middle. There is a great debate over whether the whoopie pie was created first in Pennsylvania, Maine or New Hampshire. To stake it’s claim, Maine went ahead and named their state treat the whoopie pie. As resident of Amish country almost my entire life, you would think that I would have made tons of these little treats. Surprisingly, this is the first time I have ever made them.

Pumpkin whoopie pies are my favorite, though ONLY when with a cream cheese frosting. I was glad for an excuse to make these and found a great recipe from Epicurious. You need only two bowls to mix all of the ingredients in. As for the frosting, I did not love this recipe and needed to modify it a little bit. It seemed a bit loose so I added 4 extra tablespoons of cream cheese and 2 extra tablespoons of unsalted butter. What I did like about this recipe was adding bourbon instead of vanilla extract. YUM! Next time I make these, I will use my mascarpone cream cheese frosting.

When I pulled the cakes out of the oven, they puffed and round. After they cooled, I used a frosting filled ziplock bag, snipped off the end, and piped a dollop of frosting onto the cakes. What I love about a whoopie pie is that its like a cupcake that has an equal and balanced distribution of frosting with each bite. In fact, when I eat a cupcake, I break off part of the bottom and make it look like a whoopie pie! These cakes were perfectly moist and the frosting had a perfect balance of sweetness.

Enjoy these delicious treats in your home, straight from Amish country.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

From Epicurious

Cookie-cakes:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin (not pie filling)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and spices in a bowl.

Whisk together sugar, oil, pumpkin, egg, and vanilla in a separate large bowl until well combined, then stir in flour mixture.

Using a small ice cream scoop or small cookie scoop such as the small pampered chef scoop and drop cookies onto waxed paper 2 inches apart. You should be able to get around 20-24 cookies.

Bake until springy to the touch, 12 to 18 minutes. Transfer cookie-cakes to rack to cool.

Cream Cheese Filling:

Modified from Epicurious

10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
1 1/2-2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional; substitute 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Combine cream cheese and butter in stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment and mix on medium high for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. Turn to low and slowly add confectioner’s sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl then add 1 T of bourbon or pure vanilla extract.

If mixture seems loose, try places in refrigerator before piping onto cookie cakes.

*Store extra whoopie pies in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Oh My Ganache, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake!

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:48:00 -0400

Within the last week we had two birthdays in my family, my father in law and my husband. Two separate occasions and I made the same cake both times! Why the same cake? Well, this was not just any cake, it was a three to four layered chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and a chocolate peanut butter ganche slathered on top. Did you drool reading this?

I figured this cake would be a home run with my in laws. They love just about anything peanut butter. When my husband and I first started dating, it was not unusual for them to put peanut butter on vanilla ice cream. It was quite early on in our relationship that I learned that my new family loves a giant piece of dessert. They also love nuts in their desserts, which is a whole other story. Sorry kids, I just have a hard time with nuts in my brownies. I was so glad for the family birthday get together because I love an excuse to bake a cake that I have been dying to try!

Of course I found this recipe through Pinterest from the Smitten Kitchen. For my first attempt I made the full recipe using 9 inch pans for a three layered cake. The second time I made the cake, I halved the recipe and used just two 6 inch cake pans then sliced the cake rounds to make a 4 layered cake. This cake was probably one of the easiest “from scratch” cakes that I have ever made. The whole cake can be mixed in one bowl, which is awesome because I love to bake but hate to wash dishes.

The cake baked quite quickly, just 30 minutes for the 9 inch pans and around 40 minutes for the 6 inch pans. If you are planning on making the cake and serving in the same day, I would not whip up the peanut butter frosting until the cakes are in the freezer to chill them a bit. Chilling the cakes allows the frosting to coat the cake easier. The frosting came together quite nicely. When making this frosting, make sure that all of the ingredients are at room temperature. This allows for a smoother texture. I felt that the frosting was a bit thick so I added 2 tablespoons of heavy cream to loosen it up a bit. Plus, who doesn’t love a little bit of heavy cream? And for the record, I replaced the half and half in the chocolate peanut butter ganache with heavy cream as well.

Speaking of ganache, both times I made this cake, I prepared the ganache right before I frosted the cake with the peanut butter frosting, but I think next time around, I will fully frost the cake then make the ganache so it is slightly warmer when I pour it over the cake. The peanut butter frosting was the perfect amount to frost between the layers and then to do a thin coat around the cake. I chose to not only pour the ganache around the cake to drizzle down the sides, but I wanted the cake to look a bit cleaner, so then I smoothed the ganache to completely cover the peanut butter frosting, which differs a bit from the original. For my husband’s cake, I then donned the cake with some fun sprinkles and placed it in the fridge for 30 minutes to set the ganache.

This chocolate peanut butter cake is pure joy. It is one of those cakes that you dream about eating for days after you have taken the first bite. I will be honest, I am not sure I have seen my in laws or my husband enjoy a cake as much as this one. The chocolate cake was perfectly moist and the frosting and ganache were not overly sweet. I would recommend slamming this baby down with a tall glass of milk. After we left my in laws my husband said that if I had not won his family over before then, I sure did with that cake! You know, not because of my awesome personality and the last 11 years of our relationship….

Because that cake was literally one of the best cakes I have ever eaten, I was so glad to make it again for my husband’s birthday! We enjoyed it just as much and this time did not have to share! One of my favorite comments about this cake, just from Instagram was that it looked, “freaking amaze balls yum.” And it was, freaking amaze balls yum. Pretty sure I even said something along the lines of, “Oh my ganache I love this cake!” It was divine. Make this cake for someone you love, share one piece, and then eat the rest yourself! Just kidding, but for reals, make sure you save yourself at least 2-3 extra pieces for later. Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Ganache

from the Smitten Kitchen

Makes 3 9 inch cakes for a three layered cake or half recipe and use 2 6 inch pans

Cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch process
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup neutral vegetable oil (I used Smart Balance)
1 cup sour cream (I used Daisy Lite)
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 9-inch round cakepans. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine them well. Add the oil and sour cream and water and whisk gently to blend. Mix in the vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs and beat until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and be sure the batter is well mixed. Divide among the 3 prepared cake pans.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let cool in the pans for about 20 minutes. Invert onto wire racks, carefully peel off the paper liners, and let cool completely.

Once cool, wrap individually in plastic wrap and place in freezer for at least 30 min to firm the cakes prior to frosting.

To frost the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or large serving plate. Spread 2/3 cup cup of the Peanut Butter Frosting evenly over the top. Repeat with the next layer. Place the last layer on top and frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting.

To decorate with the Chocolate–Peanut Butter Glaze, put the cake plate on a large baking sheet to catch any drips, and it will drip a lot! Simply pour the glaze over the top of the cake, and using an offset spatula, spread it evenly over the top just to the edges so that it runs down the sides of the cake in long drips. If you chose, use the offset spatula to smooth the chocolate around the cake.

If using sprinkles, top the cake now before you place in the fridge.

Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes to allow the glaze and frosting to set completely. Remove about 1 hour before serving.

Peanut Butter Frosting
Makes about 5 cups

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter (do not use peanut butter that separates such as natural brands that require mixing prior to use) 2 T heavy cream

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended. Finally add cream and beat until just combined.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream

In the top of a double boiler or in a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the heavy cream, beating until smooth. Use while still warm.

Roasted Corn, Chicken and Ricotta Enchiladas

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:38:00 -0400

A few months ago I stumbled onto the Naturally Ella blog. Her food posts are seasonally vegetarian and often vegan if you lean that way. I’ve tried a few of her recipes but one of my favorites so far is the Roasted Corn and Ricotta Enchilada, and it also happens to be gluten free!

This recipe boasts a combination of unique ingredients and offers your palette salty, sweet, and spicy all at the same time. Because I am not vegetarian and I wanted to give the dish a bit more substance, I added three grilled chicken breasts, which were diced up and mixed into the ricotta and corn filling. Keeping with the enchilada theme, I marinated my chicken breast for 30 minutes prior to cooking with lime juice, olive oil, cumin and some tequila. Make sure you leave extra time to prepare this meal because you will need to roast the corn, cook the chicken, make the sauce, and grill the tortillas prior to putting it all together. I always make sure to grill my corn tortillas with a dash of olive oil on my grill pan to give them a bit of a crunch.

When I make this dish, I like to serve it with a side of rice, an avocado salad and extra limes. This delicious combination is not only quite tasty, but good for you as well! Enjoy!

Roasted Corn and Ricotta Enchiladas

Avocado, Corn and Black Bean Salad

-1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

-3 avocados peeled and diced

-1/2 red onion, diced

-1/2 cup roasted corn

-1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

-Juice of 1-2 limes

-1 tsp cumin (optional)

-Salt to taste

Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. Season with juice of 1-2 limes, salt, and cumin if desired. Enjoy!

Petit Apple Pies and Hand Pies

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 21:15:00 -0400

For as long as I can remember, every fall, my mom, sisters and I have gone apple picking. We went to the same farm every year, chased kittens around the barn, and ate apples to our hearts content. I even learned to drive at an apple orchard, at the age of 14…shhhh! Since I have gotten married, had kids and even lived in California, my mom still managed to get me out to the orchard. This year we packed all three kids up, piled into the van and prepared to pick to our hearts content! Our varieties of choice, Empire, Golden Delicious and a sparse picking of Jonagold.

I am pretty sure that each kid, minus the baby girl, polished off 4-5 apples. That made for some funny bellyaches later on! With my plethora of apples in hand, I headed home and began to plan all the baking that could use up over a bushel of apples!

As I have already made an apple pie, I decided to experiment a bit. My first idea, mini pies! I whipped up my favorite pie crust recipe, rolled the dough out, and used a 3 and 1/4 inch fluted biscuit cutter to make individual crusts. I lined a mini muffin tin with 24 crusts. Once I lined the pan, I placed it in the refrigerator to keep the crust cool while I prepared the apples.

For the apples, I used about 2 pounds of empire apples, and modified Ina Garten’s deep dish apple pie filling. Since I only used half of the apples, I halved the other ingredients. The apples were dice up into tiny pieces, as I was making tiny pies! I also added a few shakes of ground ginger for some extra spunk! Each crust was filled with about a tablespoon of apple filling, then topped with a fall leave crust cutout.

Each petit pie received a light egg wash and a sprinkle of raw sugar. These cuties baked for 25 minutes at 375 degrees and came out perfectly!!

I am happy to report these petit pies tasted just like their big sister! Delicious apple pie without the guilt of a full piece, that is, unless you eat 5-6 mini pies like my husband. They were adorable, buttery and the apples were perfectly softened. Oh, and by the way, these tarts used only one pie crust, not two which is what the pie crust recipe makes.

Because I still had one crust keeping cool in my fridge, I decided to make some hand pies. Hand pies are similar to a petit pie except they are completely closed up, making them easy to eat with your hands. I used 6 empire apples, which was about 2 pounds and made the same filling as with the petit pies. This time I added even more ginger and it was yummy! I used a 4 inch diameter cutter and filled each pastry with about a tablespoon of apple filling. Because of various imperfections when trying to close the hand pie, I decorated them with an acorn crust cut out. Then I cut a little vent to let the steam out so the filling juices would not bust out of the crust. I baked these little treats at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes, until they were golden brown.

As you can see, they turned out wonderfully! There were ten total, and well, 8 left now… If you have picked apples, have no idea what else you could possibly make besides apple pie, apple crisp and apple sauce, this should give you a few ideas of where to go next. I was nervous to try these out, what with all the apple peeling and coring and dicing but everything came together perfectly! Not sure how much longer I will be loving apples, but look forward to more apple goodies! Enjoy!

Sugar Free Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:50:00 -0400

A few days ago I made the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes from Shauna Sever’s Pure Vanilla cookbook. When I posted the picture on twitter, my pastor jokingly asked if they were sugar free. I laughed and said, sure, and fat free too! He, unfortunately, cannot have real sugar. Like any good pastor, he reminded me that this month is “Pastor Appreciation Month,” which got me thinking. How would these amazing vanilla cupcakes taste with Splenda? I know, “gasp!” Splenda! Lets just say I will not make this a habit, but for those of you who may need a sugar free option, these cupcakes were great!

When you bake with Splenda, make sure to read the back of the back of the package for tips. Also, buy the granulated Splenda. Use the recipe right from the Pure Vanilla book, but swap the sugar out equally with Splenda. Everything came together nicely, the taste of the cupcake batter was definitely a little different than with regular sugar, but not in a bad way. I was able to scoop 13 cupcakes from the batter. The original recipe suggests you bake the cupcakes for 20-22 mins, but with Splenda, the time needs to be decreased by about 10 minutes, as the Splenda cooks faster than regular sugar. Baking the sugar free cupcakes for 10 minutes was perfect!

The smell of vanilla in my kitchen was delightful. Now for my next task, the frosting. I would have loved to make a vanilla buttercream, but I was not sure how to do that without confectioner’s sugar. Because Splenda is pretty light, I may have been able to use it, but I did not want to risk a mess up, at least not today. Instead, I found a sugar free frosting from Allrecipes. It was quite simple, with just 4 ingredients, sugar free vanilla instant pudding, milk, cream cheese, and lite frozen whipped topping. I ended up modifying the recipe a bit. Instead of cream cheese, I used mascarpone cheese and instead of the lite whipped topping, I made homemade whipped cream, sweetened with Splenda. All in all the frosting tasted quite good, though I felt it was a little bit thin. It still piped onto the cupcakes well, but needed to stay cool.

The complete package was warmly received. Here is a direct tweet from my pastor, and yes, he tweets, Just had two “ultimate Vanilla” cupcakes - incredible! Thank you from a grateful, sugar-free pastor! #splendaforever. Fear not sugar free friends, there is an ultimate vanilla cupcake out there for you. Enjoy!

Vanilla, Pure Vanilla that is

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 22:44:00 -0400

When I first moved to San Francisco, it was hard to find new friends. Luckily one day, there was only one other mom and her little girl at the park. We began chatting and I learned that she was a food blogger! Desserts mostly. Enter, The Next Door Baker. It was fun getting to know her and her daughter through various playdates and zoo visits. Our friendship inspired me to become a better baker, first through her blog and now through two of her cookbooks!

Pure Vanilla is Shauna’s newest cookbook. It is a book full of, you guessed it, vanilla! Not only are there amazing recipes, but you will also find interesting facts about vanilla. Did you know vanilla actually comes from a vanilla orchid and vanilla beans are the second most expensive spice?

I love baking for friends and family. Really, I love any excuse to bake. After reading Pure Vanilla, I was bit by the vanilla bug! Within two days, I whipped up 3 recipes! The first, Triple Vanilla Pound Cake. Who doesn’t love three forms of vanilla? The recipe included, vanilla sugar, vanilla extract and vanilla caviar. What is vanilla caviar you may ask? That is what you scrape out of the vanilla bean. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise with a sharp knife. Then, use a spoon to scrape out the middle. This is the caviar.

I have to admit, my house smelled a bit like heaven when this cake was baking. With the left over vanilla bean pod, I worked on recipe number 2, Homemade Vanilla Sugar. This only takes a few moments. When the cake is done baking, about 70 minutes, let it cool a bit until it is still warm to touch. Then you add a double glaze and then let it cool completely. The thing with pound cake is that the longer it sits, the better it tastes! This cake was absolutely delicious, and went so quickly I could not get a picture of what the sliced cake looked like, or people enjoying it!

In honor of this vanilla book, and its beautiful cover, I purchased the cutest cupcake cups. It has been over a week since I bought the cups, and finally, today I had an excuse to use them! Our babysitter brought her family over after her senior college soccer game. I figured, who wouldn’t love a cupcake the celebrate such a special day?

The cupcakes were easy to make with only one modification. The recipe called for sour cream, which I was fresh out of, so I replaced it with plain greek yogurt. The results were amazing. Honestly, these were the best vanilla cupcakes I have never had. Normally I find vanilla cake a little dense. This cake was light and buttery with a slight tang from the greek yogurt. I loved how the vanilla rewarded my palate with deliciousness. Luckily the cups I bought were little, so the three cupcakes I ate probably equalled about 1.5 regular sized ones.

Thank you Shauna for re-igniting my flame and love for baking. Love the book and look forward to using it in the future! To my readers, please buy this book, you will love it! Cheers!

Buttermilk Poppy Seed Rolls

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:13:00 -0400

For dinner tonight I made a delicious filet with a sherry mushroom sauce, grilled asparagus, and meant to also have mashed potatoes and buttermilk poppy seed rolls. The mashed potatoes were a disaster and kind of chewy..seriously, how do potatoes get chewy? Well, dinner was delicious, we replaced the potatoes with some leftover butternut squash soup.

As for the rolls, here is where I went wrong. As I read the recipe, I stopped reading after it said the dough needed to rise for 2 hours. After that point, the dough needed to be punched down, which I did, then rolled into balls and placed in a 9 inch cake pan, which I also did. Then I continued reading, mind you, it was already 6pm, “cover rolls with oiled plastic wrap and let rise for 1.5 hours.” Crap! Then, they needed to bake for 20-25 minutes! At this point we decided to have the rolls for dessert.

After they rose for 1.5 hours, I brushed the tops with an egg wash, topped with poppy seeds, and popped those buns in the oven.

After about 15 minutes my whole house smelled heavenly. Ten minutes later, with a delightful aroma in the air and golden tops, I pulled the buns out of the oven to cool a bit.

These buttermilk rolls are probably the best homemade rolls I have ever had. They were warm, lighty, fluffy, with a hint of sour. I ate three. I am not going to lie, I would love to eat another. Okay, okay, I did eat another! The picture speaks for itself.

Enjoy!

Poppy Seed Buttermilk Buns

From Gourmet Grilling Summer 2011 Special Edition; makes 20

-1 tsp active yeast

-2 T warm water

-3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk

-1/2 cup heavy cream

-2 T sugar

-2 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

-1 tsp salt

-1 large egg, lightly beaten with pinch of salt

-1 tsp poppy seeds

Stir together yeast and water in small bowl and let sit for 5 minutes, until you see foaming

Mix buttermilk, cream, yeast mixture, sugar, flour, and salt with mixer at low speed until flour is incorporated. Increase speed to medium and beat for 5 minutes. (The dough will be sticky)

Transfer dough to a lightly oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover witha kitchen towel and let rise in a draft free place at warm room temp until doubled in size. About 2 hours.

Generously butter a 9 inch cake pan.

Punch down dough and transfer to a floured surface and halve. With floured fingertips, gently pull each piece into a 10 inch long rope. Cut each rope into 10 pieces, dust with flour, and form into balls. Arrange balls seam side down in cake pan.

Loosely cover buns with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temp until they have risen 1/4 inch above cake pan, about 1.5 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Brush buns gently with the lightly beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake until tops are golden brown and underside of pan sounds hollow when tapped, 20-25 minutes.

Let cool in pan for 5 mins then continue to cool right side up on cooling rack. Serve immediately.

Me Oh My, Concord Grape Pie!

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 21:54:00 -0400

A few years ago, a neighbor of mine shared a recipe from her Mennonite cookbook, concord grape pie. I was baffled. Grapes in a pie? Quite intrigued, I made the pie, served it way too early, and though it was delicious, it was a hot mess, literally. I did not give it time to set up, so it spilled out of the crust and looked like grape soup with some crust in the middle. So here I am, a few years later, a much more experienced baker, and I ran into some concord grapes at our local market. My mind immediately fluttered back to that original pie, and I had to redeem myself!

To create a grape pie, it is easiest to make the crust first. My favorite crust to use is, My Favorite Pie Crust, from my friend, The Next Door Baker. It is an easy crust to make, especially if you have a food processor. Plus, you get 2 crusts, which is what you need for the grape pie. I have used this crust for everything from apple dumplings to quiche. It is quite versatile and rolls out like a dream! Once you have completed the dough, make sure to get it into the fridge for at least 30 minutes before rolling out.

Now let the fun times begin! The pie calls for 3 cups of grapes, I ended up using 4 cups because it did not seem like I had enough to fill the pie. When I measured, had the grapes “overflow” a bit as well. A quick note, do not use a deep dish pie pan for this recipe, use a regular pie pan. As you bake the pie will puff up a bit, but not enough to fill a deep dish pan. I used a 9 inch pyrex pie dish.

You will need about 30 minutes for the next part, separating the pulp from the skins. It is not hard, just a little bit time consuming. Take the grape and pinch it gently and the pulp should pop right out. Be sure to save those skins! You will need them later.

Once all of the pulps are out, put them into a small sauce pan and simmer them for about 5 minutes. When the pulps have begun to break down, push them to through a sieve to remove the seeds. I found it easiest to use a firm rubber spatula.

While the pulp simmers, combine the sugar and flour and add it to the reserved grape skins. Strain the pulp into the skins and add the remaining ingredients. The rest of the recipe is easy as pie! Get it? But seriously, I rolled out the dough and filled the pastry with the grape mix. To get a bit more “wow” out of this cake, I decided to go with a lattice top. I bought a crimped edge pastry wheel a while ago, so I thought it would be perfect to cut the strips. It just made it look extra pretty. Then, because I love fall and my new pie crust cutters from Williams Sonoma, I added a few leaves around the inner edge of the crust.

I put a light egg wash on the crust and sprinkled a bit of turbinado sugar for extra fun.

Ta-da! Redemption! There you have it folks, grape pie. My house smells like what I imagine a Welch’s grape vineyard would smell like. This pie is an unexpected fall treat, and once you take a bite, you will wonder why you have never made a grape pie before. Sweet and juicy, this pie will make your mouth water. As tempting as it is, make sure to let the pie cool before you serve it. This is the difference between grape soup and grape pie. The middle needs time to set after it bakes. Okay, if you really want to, it can be a little warm. Whip up some fresh whipped cream and have at it! Add this pie to your “to bake” list. It is amazing and your friends will love you for it. Enjoy!

Concord Grape Pie (from the Mennonite Cookbook)

-4 cups Concord grapes

-1 cup sugar

-3 T flour

-1 T unsalted butter, melted

-1 T lemon juice

-2 pie crusts

Egg Wash

-1 egg white

-1 T water

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wash and stem grapes. Separate the pulps from the skins. Place the pulps in a small sauce pan and simmer for 5-7 minutes. When the seeds start to separate, push the pulp through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl to remove the seeds. While the pulp simmers, combine the sugar and flour and add to the grape skins. Then add the lemon juice and melted butter. Mix in the strained pulp and then pour into a pastry lined pie plate. Cover the top with crust or lattice strips. Brush crust with a light egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes until top is golden brown. Let cool completely before serving.

PS: I snuck a second piece after I finished this post…

Triple Chocolate Cookie aka, The Tribbiani

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 23:28:00 -0400

I am not going to beat around the bush here, I LOVE chocolate. When it comes to cookies, I love a good traditional chocolate chip cookie, a little crisp outside and soft and chewy inside. Rosie from Sweetapolita posted an amazing triple chocolate cookie that she baked for her daughter’s birthday, complete with colored sprinkles. Well, its not my birthday, but I HAD to find out if these cookies were as special as they looked.

“How you doin’?”

The recipe was quite simple and quick, essential for a momma of three kids. Things that make this recipe awesome include, chocolate melted with butter then lovingly blended into the batter, bittersweet chocolate chips, and chocolate glaze. Like I said, I LOVE chocolate. Any time you need to melt chocolate, I recommend using a double boiler. Microwaves are convenient but its easy to overheat the chocolate and cause it to seize up.

After everything was mixed together, I used a medium cookie scoop to scoop out the cookie dough. I was able to make 18 cookies, which I thought would spread while baking. To my surprise they remained in their ball shape. I was worried that they would be undone in the middle, but after a thorough taste inspection, they were perfect! And by perfect, I mean PERFECT, a little crisp and crackle on the outside, and fudgy goodness on the inside.

While the cookies cooled, I made the chocolate glaze. As if the cookie was not chocolately enough, the glaze included more bittersweet chocolate and more butter! The glaze turned out delicious, but a little thick. It was tough to just dip the cookies so I had to dunk and drag them. Not a big problem, a dip verse a dunk, not sure how to explain that. Any who, here they are!

Of course just as I was wrapping up, the kids came out of alone time and had to taste test them. I was unable to capture pictures of them holding the cookies because before I could get my iPhone out and ready, the cookies where gone! Well almost.

If you love chocolate, you will love this cookie. Imagine that a chocolate chip cookie married a fudgy brownie and they had a baby. This is that baby. I am going to go out on a limb here and rename the cookie. From now on, I am going to call them Tribbianis. Maybe you Friends fanatics can figure it out. When I look at this cookie, it catches my eye, much like Joey Tribbiani and says, “How you doin?” Who can resist? Enjoy!

The Tribbiani (aka Triple Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies)

Cake Ball Cake and a Baby Gender Reveal!

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:38:00 -0400

Gender reveal parties are all the rage right now for new mommas. The parents-to- be entrust a friend to know the gender of their child and at a party amongst friends and family, the baby’s gender is revealed. This can be done multiple ways but my favorite is through cake! A few months ago a friend asked me to bake her a gender reveal cake, which was so fun. When one of my closest friends announced that she was pregnant, I basically demanded that she let me make her a gender reveal cake, okay, I did not demand, but I strongly insisted. This special friend of mine just happens to LOVE cake pops. You may think, yeah, they are tasty, but this girl LOVES them. Because of this, I offered to make a gender reveal cake ball cake.

I had never seen a cake ball cake in person, nor had I ever constructed one before so I knew it was going to be a challenge. Thanks to good ole Pinterest, I was able to find a few examples and one website that provided some instructions for constructing the cake. I did not take pictures as I went along to give more detail to the actual putting together of the cake so here are some detailed instructions instead.

1. Make the Cake Balls:

What you need: 2 boxed cake mixes, 1 can complimentary flavored frosting, 2 bags of each pink, white and blue Wilton Candy Melts, piping bag and small writing tip to decorate, parchment paper, toothpicks, cocktail skewers (for places the balls on the cake), PATIENCE

I use Bakerella’s technique in rolling the balls, which includes baking a box cake, crumbling it up once cool, adding frosting and rolling into balls. Once the balls are chilled in the fridge, you can dip into melted candy melts. I dipped equal amounts of pink, blue and white balls and decorated the pink and blue with a white question mark. My favorite cake to use is the Betty Crocker’s Vanilla cake and vanilla frosting or Betty Crocker’s Devils Food cake with chocolate frosting. For this occasion, because I was definitely feeling a bit like fall, I used a Spice Cake mix with cream cheese frosting. You may ask, “Why don’t you use a homemade cake?” I figured, why go through all the trouble of making a cake from scratch when I am just going to crumble it up anyway.

For a two layered, 9 inch round cake, you will need around 72 cake balls. I think it actually ended being around 21 balls per row. It is nice to have extra since mistakes are inevitable! For your sanity, make the balls 1-2 days ahead of when you plan to use them. That way, if anything goes wrong or you get sick of rolling and dipping balls, you have a few days of flexibility.

*If you have never made cake balls before, be sure to practice prior to constructing the cake. Also, I did not make cake pops, just cake balls. To do this, you drop the cake ball into the candy melts, roll it around to coat, use a spoon to remove from the chocolate and then “drop” the ball onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

2. Bake the Cake

In the past I have used a vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream as the base for my gender reveal cakes. This time, I chose to make a Snickerdoodle Cake. The snickerdoodle cake is a cinnamon cake with a brown sugar buttercream frosting. When this cake is done baking, your house will most definitely smell like a cozy fall day.

3. Make and Color the Frosting

When I tested the brown sugar buttercream to see if it would hold a pink or blue food coloring for the reveal, it did not go well. I decided to make a vanilla buttercream for the middle of the cake to color and then the brown sugar buttercream for the outside of the cake. You will need 2 batches of the brown sugar buttercream, and 1 batch of vanilla (use your favorite recipe, mine comes from the Primose Bakery cookbook.)

4. Build and Frost the Cake

Build your cake on an 8 or 9 inch cake board, this way you can transfer it easier onto a cake stand after decorating. You can create your cake with as many layers as you would like, but I chose to stick with a simple 2 layer cake. Use the colored vanilla buttercream between the layers. Start with the frosting in the middle of the cake and spread towards the outside. Frost the whole inside of the cake evenly leaving about a 1/2 border unfrosted. You will want to use the brown sugar buttercream for that part so that no colored frosting can be seen. Do you see what I mean? This way when you frost the outside of the cake, you will not have to worry about bits of the blue or pink frosting peaking out. Place the second layer on top and begin to frost the cake. Do not worry too much about crumbs in the frosting, as the cake will be covered in cake balls!

5. Place the Cake Balls

Before you start putting the cake balls into the cake, guestimate how many you will need to go around. My cake used 21 balls per row, and I decided on 3 rows. The cake balls will have a flat side, which was sitting on the baking sheet. That side is where you stick the skewer to go into the cake. Be sure to “clean up” the bottom of your balls by removing excess chocolate around the base. You can either put the skewer into the cake then push the cake ball into it, or visa versa. I thought it was easier to push the skewer into the cake and leave enough sticking out for the whole cake ball to fit onto.

When you start the next row, be sure to have the cake balls “sit” between the ones below. That way you will have a better fit and the cake will look more complete. Depending on how much your cake rose, the size of your cake balls, etc, the third row of balls may need to be stuck into the rim of the top of the cake if they are unable to go into the side. You can make modifications as you go along. Because I did have some cake balls that breached the top of the cake, I chose to pipe a line of frosting around the balls to disguise their ugly behinds! It worked out great.

6. Place your Topper

If you chose to make a topper, do that last! I decided to be trendy and use the flag banner with 2 long skewer sticks. To make the banner, I used card stock that I folded in half then cut into triangles. I used a piece of kitchen twine and glued the triangles around the twine.

Ta-da!!!!

I will just say that the cake balls and I were not on good terms by the time they went onto the cake. It was a bit of a frustrating process and involved uncooperative candy melts. However, I will say, this was one of the most rewarding cakes I have ever constructed. It turned out beautifully and the imperfections of the balls made the cake unique. Let me tell you, this cake was a beast and as we drove it to the gender reveal party, I thought my arms were going to fall off holding it up, praying that any of the bumps would not make the balls fall off. Go ahead and giggle now, if you have not already, I do mention balls multiple times.

We arrived at the party and it KILLED me to be the only person who knew the gender of the baby! After all the guests arrived, had a few snacks, took some pictures of the cake, we were ready to go! To make the cake easy to cut, I removed several balls so a piece could easily come out.

Let the cutting begin!!

This was one nervous Daddy-to-be!

Beautiful shot taken by a friend, such joy!!

It’s a..

Boy!!!

Congrats to my dear friends! I was so happy to make this special cake for you on such a fun day!

For the rest of you, if you have decided to make this cake, you will want to removed the rest of the balls to cut up the cake for your guests! Enjoy!

Late Summer Stone Fruit

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:26:00 -0400

Every summer I look forward to fresh peaches. I am in love with the peaches from the Brook Lawn Farm stand on the Lititz Pike here in Lancaster County. While living in California and visiting PA, I made sure to make a special trip for those delicious peaches. This last trip I definitely bought way too many for us to eat, so I’ve been mulling over what to do with them. Originally I thought peach ice cream, but then I came across a blog post from one of my favorite food bloggers, Irvin Lin of Eat the Love. I remember reading his post for a late summer stone fruit cobbler last September and I’ve been dying to try it since then. Luckily, its pretty easy to put together, so after the kids went down to bed, I got started.

For those of you that are unaware, a “stone fruit” is a fruit that has a fleshy exterior that surrounds a pit, or stone, that contains a seed. In addition to my peaches, I had about six apricots, one plum and a nectarine that really needed to be used as well. The good thing about this recipe is that you do not need to peel the fruit, just remove the pit and slice.

Once the fruit is sliced, put it into a bowl and mix it in with the rest of the filling ingredients. I halved the recipe because for reals, I need to keep dropping this baby weight! Be sure to use a good wine in the filling. I chose a Chardonnay we had on hand so not to add too much sweetness. In addition to the nutmeg called for in the recipe, I also added a few shakes of cinnamon and scosh of ginger. I love the little kick ginger can add to enhance flavor.

When the fruit is all mixed, it goes into a baking dish and into the oven. While that cooks for about 20 minutes, you have some time to get things cleaned up and then start on the cobbler top. The topping is reminiscent of a shortcake or a light biscuit and I’d venture to say you could just make up this dough and use it for a strawberry shortcake. The recipe calls for yogurt to hold the dough together, but to my dismay, I had run out of yogurt! Luckily, I had plenty of sour cream, so I subbed that into the dough and it turned out perfectly! I think it gave it a nice and delicate flavor. After the fruit is cooked, the dough goes on top and then back into the oven for another 20 minutes, to get the topping nice and golden.

Luckily I could watch the Olympics while waiting for this lovely dessert to cook, or I would have been pacing all over my house! I could not WAIT for it to come out of the oven. After you pull it out, you’ll need to let it rest for about 15 minutes before serving. We had both vanilla ice cream in the freezer and fresh whipped cream in the fridge; this felt more like a whipped cream night.

My first bite had a little bit of everything on it, the light and fluffy topping, sweet fruit and the cooling cream. I had to pace myself between each bite. I loved how the fruit flavor shined with barely any sweetening, aside from a bit of honey (and I used a bit of agave nectar as well). The topping was smooth and buttery, yet flaked quite delicately. As I finished up, I put down my fork and licked my plate clean!

Late Summer Stone Fruit Cobbler

Peanut Butter Cupcake Surprise!

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 21:10:00 -0400

Today I hosted a baby shower for my dear friend, Jamie. A few weeks ago I had the special and amazing privilege of baking her a gender reveal cake. She has a beautiful 4 year old boy and now she is preparing for a baby girl!

I’ve known Jamie for about 6 years and one fact you need to know about her is that she loves peanut butter. At first I thought I’d make her the peanut butter cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery cookbook, but as I looked through Pinterest, I found a delicious looking recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes from My Baking Addiction. As I read over the post, I’m pretty sure I drooled on my keyboard. Everything looked great until I saw two questionable ingredients, Devil’s food cake mix and instant chocolate pudding! What?? Even the blogger warns the “cake mix haters” that they may want to make modifications. I’m no cake mix hater, in fact, bake me a Betty Crocker Yellow Cake with milk chocolate frosting from a can, and I could pound the whole thing in a matter of minutes. I enjoy baking from scratch, but I figured, hey, why not give this a chance!

Lately, I’ve been doing all kinds of gourmet cooking and baking, so it was nice to have such an easy recipe to follow. The hardest part of the whole cupcake recipe was peeling the foil off the Reese’s peanut butter cup miniatures. Thats right, you put a mini peanut butter cup INTO the cupcake! Be sure to keep them in the freezer prior to using so the cups stay in place in the cupcake while it bakes. I used my stand mixer to mix the ingredients, but it could have easily been mixed by hand with a whisk or a hand mixer. Using Pampered Chef’s medium scoop, I was able to get 24 cupcakes, as well as 6 mini cupcakes, you know, to taste test and give to my kids. When you pull them out of the oven, the cakes will be puffed up around the peanut butter cup, but fear not, you will be able to cover that with frosting.

As the cupcakes cooled, I prepared the peanut butter butter cream frosting. Normally I am not into the whole 2 pounds of confectioner’s sugar thing, but I just went with the flow for this recipe. I’m so glad I did. The frosting came out quite smooth, though a bit stiff, so next time I make it, I will add another 2 tablespoons of heavy cream to see if that softens it up a bit. Otherwise, I was very pleased and it piped out quite easily. Oh, and by the way, I finally got myself a reusable piping bag! Thank you Williams-Sonoma for feeding my addiction.

The whole cupcake package turned out beautifully! My whole first floor smelled like a peanut butter cup, and I could not wait to dig in, so I did! The frosting basically tasted like a delicate and airy piece of peanut butter fudge, which happens to be my favorite type of fudge. Then as I bit into the cake, the peanut butter cup was soft and gooey and added a perfect salty component to the cake. This really enhanced the chocolate cake flavor. Did your mouth just water, because mine just did. Anyway, the cupcakes were a HUGE hit! One friend remarked, “This is the best cupcake I’ve ever had, and I know cupcakes!” Jamie was in peanut butter heaven, and I may be outing her here, but I believe she had 2! Its okay Jamie, I had 2 minis, one during the shower, then later on had another one with my family!

If you are a peanut butter fanatic, or just love a great tasting cupcake, make these delicious treats! On a side note, right before I started this post, I took out a spoonful of left over frosting from the fridge and it definitely felt like I was eating a piece of fudge. Yum.

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

Smoked Salmon Tacos with Avocado Salad

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:27:00 -0400

We recently returned from a family trip to San Francisco. It was my first time back since baby girl was born and I made sure to visit all of my favorite spots. One of my FAVORITE places to visit is the Omnivore Books On Food bookstore. You could say that I have a bit of a cookbook addiction. When I get in there my hands get all grabby, so many delicious choices, so hard to decide! I was immediately drawn to Very Fond of Food by Sophie Dahl, and Mr. Wilkinson’s Favorite Vegetables by Matt Wilkinson. Both books boasted beautiful pictures and simple yet elegant dishes. For this round, I chose Very Fond of Food.

*picture from the omnivorebooks.com gallery

After reading through my new book about three times, I settled on the Hot Smoked Salmon Tacos for our first meal. It fell in perfectly with my husband’s recent purchase of a Big Green Egg. For the salmon, he created a marinade with soy sauce, sugar, olive oil, and garlic and let that soak for around 4 hours. He then hot smoked the salmon for 3 hours at a temperature of 200 degrees on a cedar plank. Yum!

While the fish was smoking, I mixed up Sophie’s sour cream sauce which contained chili powder, cumin, lime juice and mayo. Then I diced up cilantro and red cabbage and sliced up few limes to squeeze on top. Once the fish was done, I prepared the corn tortillas. To heat your tortilla, use a cast iron skillet. Heat a bit of oil in the skillet and place the tortilla on top. Put a pan on top of the tortilla to keep it from curling. Cook about 15 seconds on each side, stack up and cover with foil until you are ready to eat.

Once my husband pulled the fish off the grill, we set up a little assembly line, first the tortilla, then a slather of sour cream sauce, a bit of flaked smoked salmon, red cabbage, a dash of cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice. When I bit into the taco, my taste buds danced. The tortilla had a slight crunch which was followed by the perfectly smoked taste of the salmon. With each bite I dreaded the end of the taco and could not wait to eat another. I easily ate 3 tacos. For our side, I made an avocado salad, which also tasted great in the taco! Enjoy this meal with some wine in the comfort the great outdoors. Cheers!

Avocado Salad (serves 2)

1 avocado diced into cubes

1/2 red onion diced into small pieces

Juice from one lime

Handful of chopped cilantro

Dash of Muldon’s flaky sea salt

"Healthy" Deep Dish Deliciousness!

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:21:00 -0400

A few months ago my sister made what she called a “healthy” deep dish chocolate chip cookie pie from the Chocolate Covered Katie healthy food blog. I wondered how a deep dish cookie pie could possibly be considered healthy. When she directed me to the recipe, I was pretty shocked to see, garbanzo beans as a primary ingredient. Ha! Garbanzo beans, what are we doing, making hummus? I bookmarked the link and moved on with my baking life. How could I make something so crazy as garbanzo bean pie?

Well, it came to pass that it was my turn to make the sweet snack at our small group. It just happened to be a friend’s 30th birthday, a friend who appreciates making a dessert healthy. We also have a friend with Celiac’s disease in the group so I figured, why not, lets try the dessert for small group, I just won’t tell anyone whats in it!

Basically, you open two cans of garbanzo beans, rinse them off and throw them, along with a few other ingredients into your food processor, process until smooth, fold in some chocolate chips, and then throw in in a spring form pan. Place that pan in the oven for around 45 min and you have yourself a deep dish chocolate chip pie! Be sure to use certified gluten free quick oats if you are trying to be “allergy” friendly. It actually looked quite beautiful sitting on my stove cooling off. Once it was cooled a bit, I popped open the spring form pan and placed the beauty on my cake stand.

When people started to arrive for small group they could not wait to dive into the pie, so I whipped up some whipped cream and cut her open! I’ve never seen a cookie pie disappear so fast! There were reactions of, “YUM!” and “This is amazing!” and the sarcastic, “Man, this is so bad, no one else should eat it, I’ll just take it off your hands because its so bad…(as they tried to steal the whole pie)” Excitedly I grabbed myself a piece. My first bite was amazing, nice and gooey, with lots of chocolate! I had to restrain myself from shoving my face into the rest of the pie and basically settled for licking my plate clean. At the end of the night, I gave the last two tiny pieces to the birthday girl and wished I had stashed a piece for myself before bed.

Next time you have a special event, make this pie, especially if you have friends who have food allergies, or even if your kids have them. You will find no eggs, dairy, or wheat here (just leave out the whipped cream)! Enjoy!

Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Pie

The PERFECT Spring Salad

Fri, 25 May 2012 21:39:00 -0400

As we approach summer, and I try to lose my baby weight, I’ve tried to become a bit creative/healthy with my lunches. One of my favorite sandwiches is the grilled asparagus sandwich I found on Pinterest. I basically have it once a week, and this week, I felt like shaking it up a bit. Why not try it out on a salad? I’ve actually made the salad twice this week, once with a hardboiled egg, once with a fried egg. Both were amazingly delicious!

To start, get yourself to your local farmer’s market and buy a mix of lettuce. I just bought a pound and a half of romaine, butter, and red leaf lettuce. Chop it all up together and put some on a plate. Take your asparagus and snap off the ends. Snapping off the ends, rather than cutting them, naturally removes to woodiness that is not fun to eat. Drizzle the asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper, and place on a heated grill pan. Do not have a grill pan yet? I am in love with mine. It’s an amazing tool to have in your kitchen. Anyway, put the asparagus on the pan and cook until you have a nice green color and a few grill marks. Slice them up on the diagonal and place on top of the salad.

The other toppings are up to you. I love peppers, especially red, orange, and yellow, and they just make the salad look pretty. Dice up some red onions and put them on top as well. Then comes the egg. When I used a hard boiled egg, I topped the salad with a vidalia onion dressing. If you chose the fried egg, just bust that baby open and use the yolk as your dressing. Top with some pepper, Muldon’s flakey sea salt, and some shaved parmesan reggiano cheese. I definitely enjoyed my runny yolk egg. Nothing beats that warm, creamy “sauce.” Make yourself this delicious spring salad and enjoy the bounty of the season. Enjoy!

The Morning Bun

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:58:00 -0400

Hey there food lovers! Its been a while. Life has been quite crazy here. We all have had quite an adjustment with baby girl, but things are finally getting back to normal. I have so many things to share with you from the last 8 weeks, so be on the look out for some new posts.

Today, I will talk morning buns, a treasure I discovered at the Tartine bakery in SF. The morning bun is similar to a cinnamon bun in that you roll it up with goodness inside, but different because it uses croissant dough, adds citrus and is tossed in sugar, after it gets caramelized while baking.

If you can’t get to The Mission District to enjoy this treat, fear not, you can make them at home! Be sure to get yourself the Tartine Bakery Cookbook for the croissant dough recipe and check out 7x7 for the morning bun recipe. When creating this masterpiece, give yourself at least 2 days for the total process. You could make everything in one day, but then you’d need to enjoy your fresh morning bun in the evening. It takes me at least two days to complete the process, but usually I stretch it to three.

I know what you are thinking, 3 days!?! Believe me its worth it. I will highlight a few of the steps and show a few pictures of the process here. The first thing that needs to be made is the preferment. This doughy, yeasty mixture is what allows the dough to rise. I always make the preferment the night before I make the dough because it needs 3-4 hours of rise time, or overnight in the refrigerator. It is easier to mix it and throw it in the fridge so you can start fresh in the morning with the croissant dough.

Once the preferment has risen, it is time to make the dough. This is the longest process as it needs about 4-6 hours of rise and rest time. The gluten, found in the flour, needs to rest so that the dough does not turn out tough and chewy. We are looking for flakey and buttery here. Speaking of butter, once you get through the waiting time, you’ll need to laminiate the dough. Lamination is a process where you paint your dough with butter then fold it and roll it out a few times. Please do not faint over how much butter is used. Without it, the dough will not have that delicious, peel apart, layer by layer quality that is ever so important to the integrity of a morning bun.

First, the dough is rolled into a long plaque. Then, use your hands to spread the butter over 2/3 of the plaque.

Next, fold the dough into thirds, as if folding a letter to place in an evelope, starting with the unbuttered end. Once folded, pinch the sides together, turn a quarter turn, roll out the dough again, and fold once more. After this is complete the dough needs to go in the fridge for about an hour and a half before making one final turn.

Once the final turn is made, the dough needs to be in the freezer for at least an hour. I leave the dough in the freezer until right before bed time, and then take it out and place in the fridge overnight to “thaw.” This way it will be ready for the morning.

In the morning, if you want to eat the buns around 10:00am, you will want to start around 7am. When you are ready to start, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out to the specified dimensions, paint with melted unsalted butter, then fill with the morning bun mix, including, sugar, brown sugar, and orange zest. The orange zest is key!

Then comes the fun part. Roll the dough into a long tube, try to keep as much filling in as you can. Then, cut the dough into one inch rounds and place in a prepared muffin tin. By prepared I mean, rubbed with butter and coated with sugar. This helps the buns caramelize while baking. Once the buns are snuggly in the muffin tins, they need to rise for about 2 hours, or until twice the size. They puff up pretty good!

One of the most IMPORTANT parts of baking is to place these buns on a cookie sheet, otherwise you’ll get a nice little fire in your oven from butter drippings. Place these babies in the oven and bake 20-45 minutes. In my oven, they only take about 20 min, but the recipe says 45 min. Keep checking on them so they do not over bake. You want them to be a nice dark golden brown.

Congrats! You’ve done it! Dump these buns onto parchment paper to cool a little and then toss in some sugar prior to serving, then ENJOY!

When I eat my morning bun, I like to pull it apart a little, layer by layer to enjoy the delicate fluff that formed from the butter. This way you can get hints of all the ingredients, a bit of crunch from the sugar and caramelization, soft gooeyness from the sugar mix, and a refreshing burst of citrus from the orange zest. Best of all, I save the middle for last! Talk about buttery goodness. My mouth is watering as I write this paragraph. Yum! Please try this recipe, impress your friends, and most importantly, enjoy!

Gender Reveal Party!

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 21:31:00 -0400

Today I had the amazing privilege of baking a cake for dear friends to reveal the gender of their newest baby! Up until today, I have never attended one of these parties, but they are getting more and more popular. If I had amazing will power, it would have been fun to do for one of our babies, but I have no will power! Her ultrasound was yesterday and she had her doctor’s office call me with the good news.

For the cake, I baked a delicious vanilla layer cake from the Primrose Bakery cookbook. Its a simple cake, with lots of butter and eggs. The recipe calls for the use of 8 inch pans but I only had 9 inch, so I doubled the recipe. This actually left me with enough batter to make a about 12 cupcakes.

For the buttercream, I used the Miette cookbook recipe. Its actually a meringue buttercream, so it is light and airy, as well as easy to to color. In the past I’ve used fruit juices to color the frosting, but for today, I just used pink food coloring gel.

To decorate I was inspired by the Baby Bosna gender reveal cake. I piped the colored buttercream into the center of the cake and then did an outer layer of white frosting. This prevented any peaking! For some fun, I used pastel chocolate melts in pink and blue to decorate around the outside of the cake. Plus, it was topped off with a chocolate melt question mark! Once that was done we headed to the party! I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Enjoy!

Getting ready to make the cut with big brother’s help!

Seeing the color!

Its PINK!

Proud papa :)

Happy family

Pink!

So glad to have been a part of this very special day! Congrats! Baby girls are quite a handful, sugar and spice and everything nice…