That Would Be Lovely

This Baking Blog is Moving... and the First Scone Recipe Is Already Posted!

2009-01-18T19:01:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of posting more frequently, Justin and I are merging That Would Be Lovely with our Foodspiration blog. What does that mean?

1. All of my future baking posts including one that I just wrote tonight on the cream scone recipe will now be at www.foodspiration.com

2. We will be posting 2 to 3 times a week instead of 1 to 2.

3. You should change your link from this blog to www.foodspiration.com

After all, baking is inspirational too! Please click over...I've got so many ideas in the queue: all three scone recipes, pavlovas, and did anyone see this month's Martha Stewart Living?? It's all about cupcakes- hooray! I'm definitely making cupcakes.

Thanks for your patience with this changeover!!

Coming Soon: In Search of the Perfect Scone... for Jam!

2009-01-12T20:52:00.001-08:00

Mmm...we just came into some delicious spreadable fruit:

Summer Sweet Peach & Rose Geranium Conserve from June Taylor Jams
Blenheim Apricot Jam from We Love Jam
Apple Butter which was a homemade gift from Nonna C
Ginger Pear Preserve which also was a homemade gift from Nonna C

And of course, I need something delicious to spread it on! So I am looking for the perfect scone recipe that is slightly crumbly, flavorful but plain enough to deserve one of these lovely spreads. If you have a favorite recipe, please send it my way...in the meantime, I'm considering:

Mummy's Sweet White Scones ( with milk)

Cream Scones ( with heavy cream)

Mary Hearty Bye's Scottish Scones ( with buttermilk)

Chicken and Mitten Cookies

2009-01-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

After Mama A and Little I left, I decided to decorate some of the chicken and mitten cookies a bit more elaborately. First, a few FAQs:

Q: Why chickens and mittens?
A: Because those are two cookie cutters that I have been meaning to try out...they have nothing to do with each other besides that.

Q: What does elaborately mean?
A: It means 5 colors or frosting: white, red, yellow, blue, green and black and two consistencies: outline- thicker for outlining and flow- to flood the cookie with frosting.

Which all equals- a very messy kitchen!

Q: You can buy black food coloring?
A: Yes, I highly recommend the gel paste food colorings because they are extremely concentrated and don't change the viscosity of your frosting as much. I have a gajillion colors thanks to Mama A who hit a sale at Sur La Table.

And here are the results:

Chickens... (some in more formal attire and wearing pearls)

Mittens...
Chickens and Mittens...

Just Mittens...
My buffet is full of mittens and chickens...to be distributed amongst my neighbors.

As you can see, I am still in holiday mode...and I will be until January 10th when the Boy Scouts come to pick up our tree. Christmas felt too short this year...plus I like to leave the Christmas stuff up until Epiphany which is January 6th.

Look What Little Hands Can Do!- A "First Cookie Decorating" Experience

2009-01-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I really wanted to do some low-key baking that wasn't for a party or work but just for me. It worked out really great because my friend,Mama A, brought her daughter, Little I, over to help with the cookie decorating! It was Little I's first time decorating cookies. Good thing Mama A brought their aprons!

First Mama A showed Little I how to put just a few sprinkles...

I baked the cookies ahead of time and used a royal frosting recipe that uses meringue powder. Raw egg whites are traditionally used but you can find meringue powder at Michael's to use instead (which won't have the salmonella risk). The icing will harden which makes it easy to stack these cookies once they are dry.

We had sprinkles, sanding sugar, and even edible glitter to put on these cookies! Mama A got their aprons at Anthropologie- on sale after Christmas! So cute!

Little I caught on pretty quickly and took over! She definitely had a vision for many of these cookies- which colors and sprinkles went on which cookie.

There's no time for laughing, Mama A, this is serious stuff.

Ok, maybe a little laughing...Little I was amazingly gifted at sprinkling cookies. Perhaps a future Martha in the making???

Voila! The results...And how did they taste? To quote Little I, "Crunchy!" Well, this was so much fun...there will definitely be more baking projects with Mama A and Little I in the near future!

Baking is for the Dogs: Peanut Butter and Bacon Biscuits

2008-12-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

Well, it can be. We have a black lab named Beaker who is 9 going on 10. Because we have no children yet, we probably focus a bit too much on our sweet dog- and we love doing it. Beaker has several dog friends in our neighborhood and for the holidays, I decided to bake them some homemade dog biscuits. Mindy, Maggie, Kinsey, Bailey, Izzy and Oscar will all be receiving a homemade Peanut Butter and Bacon biscuit.

Beaker seemed to know I was baking for her and kept me company in the kitchen. She gladly offered her quality control sampling skills for the bacon.

The rising interest in where food comes from and how it is made is not limited to people food- in fact if you go to a pet store, you will find quite an array of dog food and treats from standard kibble and biscuits to mix it yourself/ handcrafted food and treats. After seeing some really nice dog biscuits for a fairly expensive price, I decided that I could make them at home. I went to the library and found this book- which I bought.

I actually met the author at a food show and she was kind enough to autograph our copy.

This recipe for Peanut Butter and Bacon biscuits has great ingredients in it: natural peanut butter, oats, baking flour, whole wheat flour, uncured bacon, and water. In fact, we should probably be eating this instead of Beaker. Justin has pointed out that I bought more premium ingredients for Beaker than for ourselves.

Essentially, the dough is mixed and rolled...then baked and dried in the oven.

And the result is...voila! Peanut butter and bacon biscuits that look just like some familiar granola bars.

Did I try them? Of course! You saw the ingredients- nothing out of the ordinary. They actually taste pretty good- like a savory cookie. A little sugar and it could be pretty delicious.

Perhaps it can be a future flavor for people...after all bacon is in.

Are You Baked Out? The Last Christmas Cookie of the Year is a No-Bake!

2008-12-26T07:58:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to you! Here's the last Christmas cookie of the year: White Chocolate-Peppermint...and it's a no bake cookie if you want it to be! After baking and making

gingerbread snowflakes,

rosemary butter cookies,

chocolate crinkles,

lemon bundt cake,

and chocolate peppermint cake,

I was baked out and needed my last cookie to be simple. I originally planned to make the White Chocolate Peppermint cookies from scratch from this Martha Stewart recipe here. But I was running out of steam and needed a shortcut! I found these Nabisco Chocolate Wafers in the cupboard. They aren't easy to find but you can get them at amazon.com. These are known for being used in an icebox cake.
So, I decided not to bake my own wafers but instead to use these. I melted Ghirardelli white chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. I added a teensy bit of peppermint extract. I dipped the wafers into the white chocolate and put them on wax paper.

As the recipe suggested, I crushed some candy canes with a rolling pin and used a strainer to sift the pieces. This resulted in two sets of crushed candy: one that was very fine and one that was chunky.

This is was a great idea! I topped some of the cookies with the chunky candy cane and some with the fine.
These cookies were then transferred to the fridge where they did take a few hours to really harden. I kept them their overnight. They turned out very well and were a crowd pleaser (click the photo for a close-up).

Merry Christmas to you and your family! I hope you are enjoying the holiday as much as we are! Check out some of our other family holiday food traditions on Foodspiration.

The Cookie That Will Make You a Foodie: Rosemary Butter Cookies

2008-12-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

Once in a while you find a recipe that is so easy but tastes like it might have taken you all day. This is that cookie: Rosemary Butter. The profile is somewhat unusual- a delicate balance of sweet butter with sanding sugar on the edges, fresh rosemary and salt. It's a slightly savory cookie that is perfect for a party- surprising, unusual yet impossible to stop eating.

The recipe for this cookie came from my Martha Cookies book but can be found here. It is a basic dough with fresh rosemary that is shaped into a log and frozen. Once frozen, the log is rolled in sanding sugar, sliced and baked. You'll notice that I didn't have a perfectly round log but I think it gave the cookies some character. I also didn't have sanding sugar but used a coarser sparkling sugar. I went to three stores and called two others and learned that December is a bad time to look for white sanding sugar! But, I highly recommend this recipe for an exceptional yet simple addition to your cookie portfolio- which is a long way of saying you should try it.

Christmas Dessert Gets Simple: Peppermint Chocolate Cake

2008-12-17T23:38:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this lovely holiday-inspired cake that is easy to make and delicious to eat! I like it so much that I have made it three years in a row! This recipe came from Everyday Food a few years ago and it is much easier than cookies (which take lots of baking time) and pie (which can be tricky).

As you can see, it has a dense crumb which makes it even more decadent! I also love it because:

1) it takes one pan

2) it looks fancier than it is

3) it is peppermint, which just tastes like Christmas!

One adjustment: for the frosting, cut the peppermint extract by half as not to overwhelm the cake. You can also melt the butter and chocolate chips in the microwave using 30 second intervals and stirring in between.

So, give this recipe a try. It will wow your guests!

Finally, the St. Nicholas Cookies!

2008-12-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

You may have remembered my post about St. Nicholas' day and the special handcarved wooden mold I bought.

Well, I finally put it to use with my former neighbor's special St. Nicholas cookie recipe. When I was younger, she would bring over these cookies that were made in a special mold.

This year, I made her cookies which have a distinct flavor because of the spices- most notably cardamom. I must confess that I am still working this recipe out and it does have a variable addition of flour. The first time I made it, the dough was fairly firm and the cookies turned out fairly thick.

It is important the dough not be too soft as it needs to hold the shape and fine details but still release from the mold. Additionally, this recipe has no leavening in it, which is suspect also helps keep shape. I recall these cookies being thick as a child and I was worried that they were undercooked so....I accidentally overbaked them.

They looked great but the next day, they were hard as rock. I couldn't even take a bite.

So, I made them again and I didn't put as much flour so the dough was a bit softer. I intended for the dough to spread more with the force of pressing the mold which would result in thinner cookies. What actually happened is that they didn't keep the fine details after baking and they stuck to the mold! However, the taste and texture were about right.

You can see the cookies...the two overbaked ones are on the left and the less baked one that lost definition on the right. I also recall that my neighbor's cookies were also somewhat pale and not overly brown.

So, for next year, I should probably talk to my neighbor about the recipe a bit more. I think I might bake the dough again, using the higher amount of flour and erring on the side of underbaking rather than over.

Baking My Brains Out

2008-12-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

A new post is coming soon. I have been baking so much that I haven't been able to post. I've made St. Nicholas cookies, white chocolate peppermint cookies, gingerbread, rosemary butter cookies, lemon bundt cake, chocolate cookies and peppermint chocolate cake. Phew. And I am making more gingerbread tonight....

Bake-and-Make Christmas Ornaments

2008-12-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

As Justin and I were decorating this year's Christmas tree, I realized that we have some unique ornaments that we have made from food. This year's tree is 8 feet tall and our best by far!

Salt Dough Ornaments- circa 1999

My roommate, LG, and I made these ornaments out of salt dough during my first year of graduate school. We bought a fresh Christmas tree and didn't have many ornaments.We made the salt dough and rolled it out like cookie dough. We then cut it using cookie cutters. After baking them at low temperatures and cooling them, we decorated with paint. LG handpainted this heart ornament. We had hearts, angels, trees and some three dimensional ones like a birds' nest. I think we even used a garlic press to extrude the nest. Here is a link to the kind of recipe we used. I love having this ornament on the tree!

Macaroni Star Tree Topper- circa 2002

When Justin and I put up our first Christmas tree in Minnesota, we discovered that we didn't have anything to put on the top of the tree. Justin recalled making one of these in school and having it on top of his family tree. Out came the cardboard and some scissors to make the base. A little glue, a few kinds of dry pasta, and gold spray paint and voila- behold our tree topper until this day.

Christmas Cookie Ornaments- circa 2005

My tree decorating philosophy is to create a tree decorated with meaningful ornaments. I like multicolored lights with the eclectic collection but I also wanted to make a set of ornaments that had some continuity. Growing up, my mom had a collection of starched, crocheted snowflakes that were made by my Nonnie as well as a handmade angel. Because I can't crochet, I decided to bake these ornaments that I saw in a book called Decorating Cookies by Joanna Farrow. Actually, I had checked out this book from the library and I think it was called Decorating Biscuits because it was a UK version. The book seems difficult to find now and this was the only recipe I made.

The cookies took about a few days to make and frost. The intense colors of the frosting required time to set up so that the colors didn't mix and even so, on a few cookies you can see some color diffusion. I also experimented with the design as you can see (click on the photo for a close-up).

These cookies have lasted 3 years so far are holding up well. They are some of my favorites!

Look Alike Cookies that Don't Taste Alike

2008-12-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

I made my first cookie from the Martha book and it had to be one that was quick and had ingredients that were already in the house. So I chose Grammy's Chocolate Cookies (click for recipe)...they look a lot like my grandma's molasses cookies and the chocolate gingerbread ones that Marc recommended, but these are a simple chocolate cookie with a great flavor and a beautiful "sparkly" appearance.

No molasses in these but you do roll them- these were in sanding sugar which is a coarser grade than regular sugar.

I made some batches chewy and baked a few more a little longer for crunchy texture. Thumbs up to this tasty and pretty cookie!

Holiday Confessions: Cheater Rolls that are Easy but not Quick

2008-12-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

When it comes to the holidays, I love to make everything from scratch. However, I am going to confess that my holiday rolls haven't always been...but they haven't come from a can or the bakery either. I learned this wonderful shortcut that makes these rolls easy and delicious but not necessarily quick. They are the Rhodes or Bridgford frozen dough that you proof and bake at home. These premade dough pucks are perfect to make double rolls and fill the house with the smell of proofed dough and baked bread.

I made these the morning of Thanksgiving by spraying a muffin tin with some Pam, and putting two pucks in each cup. I brushed melted butter on top and put a bit of Saran Wrap and let them thaw and proof in an extinguished oven (set it to 200 and then turned it off) with a pan of water underneath.
Orient the dough pieces such that the flat parts are towards each other. I actually needed the oven after a while so I let the rolls finish proofing on top of the warm oven. The thaw and proof takes a few hours so leave yourself plenty of time.When I am really prepared, I thaw and proof them in the fridge overnight but this year I was distracted by pie. Once they had doubled in size
(a few hours), I took off the Sarah wrap and baked them.

They smell so good and are perfect for a turkey sandwich the next day as well. Make sure to make at least 2 per person!

For more ideas on how to make even fancier rolls with this dough check out the Rhodes website or this video on youtube. I might just do that myself or maybe I will find some time to make them from scratch...

Finding Good Pie Karma for Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T22:12:00.001-08:00

We hosted this year's Thankgiving dinner for twelve. For details about the dinner, go to Foodspiration. Well, I have a pie confession: I had some pie problems this year and I'm really not sure why except that I tried two new recipes and I suspect they were the culprits.

Pie #1: Pumpkin

Okay, how hard could this be? I have made pumpkin pie many times and this year I was following the Pies and Tarts Williams-Sonoma recipe. First, the crust slumped terribly.

This was the pre-baked crust.

And this was the post. Has this happened to you? Any suggestions? I followed the recipe to the tee and didn't even cheat on the chill time. Arrgh!

Then, I made the filling which seemed unusually thin- it only had 1 cup of pumpkin and over a cup of cream- and the color was more yellow than orange which I suspected due to the lack of pumpkin. It would not set up...it baked over 20 min longer which really darkened the crust (I just bought a pie shield to help with this). I was so frustrated. I looked up other pumpkin pie recipes and decided that yes, there wasn't enough pumpkin. Even the W-S website had a different pumpkin recipe that had more pumpkin and seemed more reasonable.

So, I did what any Martha-loving person would do. I tossed that pie and went back to my Martha's pate brisee crust and maple pumpkin recipe. And it baked exactly as it should. We even foamed the whipped cream in the ISI whipper.

Phew...I had found my pie karma.

Tart #2 Caramel Cranberry Almond

This was also from the Williams-Sonoma pie and tart book and it was a beautiful tart. The trouble was that the cranberries were so sour and the caramel just wasn't enough to balance them...so it was a tart tart.

I essentially caramelized sugar and added cream...

and stirred in the cranberries and almonds...

which was so beautiful...

and baked 4 small tarts...

one large tart...

Was it a bad batch of cranberries? Does the recipe need more sweetness? I did sneak in a few more berries for color but was it enough to put the tart out of balance? Well, everyone ate it but my inner Martha was a bit disappointed. However, they were beautiful and I will just have to make it again and figure it out!

All in all, things were tasty and everything got done in time. Thanks to Dad for taking some of this post's photos!

Coming next, my cheater holiday rolls...

And the Thanksgiving pies will be...

2008-11-25T21:11:00.001-08:00

...a pumpkin pie and a cranberry caramel tart!

How can we not have pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving? And I have really wanted to try the cranberry caramel tart from the Williams-Sonoma Pies and Tarts book.

This photo from Williams-Sonoma advertising their Emile Henry Pie Plate has inspired me to embellish my pumpkin pie. Don't worry there will be photos. This is a bloggable Thanksgiving with edible bacon salad bowls, two turkey two-ways and more. I've already set the table ( I know, it's only Tuesday) and you can see it on our Foodspiration blog.

A Tale of Two Pies: Granny Hearts Gruyere and Inverted Pumpkin Pie

2008-11-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

There were two pies that I recently wanted to bake. One was a recipe I had heard about and one was a recipe that I wanted to make up. The pies were:

1) Granny Hearts Gruyere: apple pie with a gruyere cheese crust

2) Inverted Pumpkin Pie: a cream pie with a whipped pumpkin topping. I have been experimenting with foams and this pie was inspired by deconstructing a pumpkin pie and putting whipped cream as the pie base with a whipped pumpkin topping. The crust was a gingersnap pecan crust. This pie was my first molecular gastronomy inspired dish-more coming soon.

Here's how they went.

Granny Hearts Gruyere

I got the recipe from this website and I couldn't figure out why her pie didn't look very fluted.

I incorporated 56g of grated gruyere cheese in the crust and 20 tbsp of butter!

The crust was actually quite easy to handle and I didn't chill it overnight as recommended.

I made two fall leaves to go on top...

and fluted the pie quite nicely.

I soon discovered why the original baker of this pie didn't have a fluted result. The cheesy crust baked and bubbled and totally lost its fluted shape. It smelled amazing and still looked great.

I used granny smith apples in this and if I did it again, I would add more sugar. It was too tart and the flavors just weren't perfect. Also this pie should probably be eaten warm when the cheese crust is fragrant. We ate it the next day and it was just ok. It was an interesting experiment though! Perhaps the filling needs one more compatible ingredient...hmm.

Inverted Pumpkin Pie

I was much more pleased with the results of this pie.

The gingersnap pecan crust recipe came from this website. It was easy to prepare.

For the whipped cream filling, I stabilized the whipped cream with some hydrated gelatin and added a touch of bourbon and vanilla. I wanted the pie to slice without whipped cream oozing everywhere. It actually worked well.

For the whipped pumpkin, I mixed canned pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, whipped cream, sweetened condensed milk and maple syrup and heated the ingredients.

I then strained the mixture (the ISI whippers can't handle particulates) and put it in the whipper. I gassed it with two cartridges of nitrous oxide and chilled it.

It tasted great! I am getting to be pretty good at making foams- not a pro but I have learned a few things.

And here is the result. I loved it! However, this was a dessert that needed explanation- without one, you might think it was a cheesecake and be horribly disappointed!

An Early Birthday Present: Cookies to Come

2008-11-16T19:51:00.001-08:00

I received an early birthday present today from my mom and dad that came just in time for the holidays! I have had this on my Amazon wish list for a little while now and what I love about this cookie book is:

1) there's a photo of each cookie

2) the recipes are organized by texture: light and delicate, soft and chewy, crumbly and sandy, chunky and nutty, cakey and tender, crisp and crunchy, rich and dense.

3) there is a visual table of contents - with a small photo of each cookie.

Last year, Martha had a holiday cookie magazine (which I bought, of course) that was this same format but this is obviously an expanded version.

I highly recommend this book as a holiday gift for the foodie, baker, or wanna-be cookie maker in your life ($16.47 feels like a good deal here on Amazon)

A Must for Crust: Three Ways to Beautify Your Pie

2008-11-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

Last fall, an article in Martha Stewart Living opened my eyes to the decorative possibilities for pie and pie crust. You can link to the original article here, but I wanted to share my favorite three ways.

The beauty of these tips are that they work on both homemade crust and refrigerated Pillsbury Pie Crust- which is the best cheater crust out there that will fool anyone. It rolls out so there are no creases and you can shape it as you like so it looks homemade as well.

Number One: Sugars and Washes

Before baking...

After baking...

That perfect golden crust that you see in magazines has a secret: it’s a wash. There are several types of washes that you can brush onto your raw pie crust before baking to give it a certain sheen or color. Additionally, sugars, in fine or coarse texture, can give a lovely glittery effect. Here are the 7 different treatments that I have applied to raw pie dough and baked to show the effect:
Each number corresponds to a different treatment. The sugars and washes can be combined as well. Click on the photos for a closer look.

Sugars
1) regular sugar (far left)- traditional sugar gives a fine glittery effect
2) sanding sugar (middle)- these slightly larger crystals catch the light a bit more
3) coarse sugar (far right)- these chunky crystals stand out

Washes
4) water wash- created a slightly different surface but is good to adhere sugars
5) egg wash- for a shiny golden brown crust
6) heavy cream wash- for a brillant sheen without the golden brown
7) egg yolk plus 1 Tbsp of heavy cream – my favorite wash that gives good yellow color and a nice sheen

Number Two: Cut-Out Crusts

When you cut vents in your fruit pies to allow the steam to escape, you can be a bit playful. I have used several different small cookie cutters to create delightful patterns in the top crust. Hearts, stars, florets and others look great. The trick is not to make so many cutouts that the top crust is hard to transfer. Martha even uses small leaf cutters to make an intricate top- she however, partially bakes her top crust to avoid breaking the delicate pattern.
Here is a strawberry pie that I made for Mother’s Day using hearts.

The top crust with cutouts...

And here is a reverse idea of a cut-out crust where I used the cutouts to build the crust. This was painfully slow to do but the effect was lovely.

Stacking the cutouts and "gluing" them with egg wash...

Sprinkled with sanding sugar...

Voila!

Number Three: Decorative Additions

In addition to cutout crusts, you can use your pie scraps to embellish your pie. As with the hearts, I used the cutout as adornments on the pie. Use wash to “glue” the raw cutouts in place on the pie and bake. You may need to use foil to cover any delicate parts of the pie that brown quickly. Don’t have a cutter? It is actually fairly easy to cut a sage-like leaf out by hand using a knife. These leaves make lovely fall additions to pies.

For custard based pies or pumpkin pie or any pie where the filling is liquid and cannot support a top crust, you can bake your adornments separately and add then once the pie is out of the oven. Last year, I baked a ring of fall leaves and crowned my pumpkin pie with them for an elaborate effect. A simpler effect might be to bake 1-3 of these leaves and add them to the pie once it is cooled.

Happy Baking!

My Favorite - Molasses Sugar Cookies

2008-11-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

My favorite cookie of all time is a molasses sugar cookie. My grandma makes the best ones and this is her recipe.

So, I pulled out her recipe from my recipe box which is jammed full of family recipes and clippings.

I made one modification to these cookies. I used butter instead of shortening. I think my grandma does this too because her cookies are always round and flat and crispy. When I have used shortening, the cookies haven't spread as much and remained thick. These are much better.

The dough must be chilled because the butter is melted and the dough starts out warm. You must chill it until firm enough to roll into a ball. The dough ball is rolled in sugar and baked until crackly and crisp.

If you could scratch and sniff this photo, you would smell "fall": the mingling of cloves, cinnamon and ginger melded with molasses.

Yum!

Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup butter 2 cup flour

1 cup sugar 1/2 tsp cloves

1/4 cup molasses 1/2 tsp ginger

1 egg 1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 375F. Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Turn off heat and stir in the sugar and molasses. Transfer to your mixing bowl and beat in the egg until mixed. Sift the dry ingredients and add to the mixture. Chill until firm enough to roll into a ball- this is absolutely important because the dough is "soupy" because it is warm. I tossed the bowl in the fridge and then got impatient and put it in the freezer.

Once chilled, scoop out and use your hands to roll into ~ 1 inch balls. Roll the ball in white sugar until completely covered. Bake on cookie sheet with a lot of space in between, these cookies really spread, for 8-11 min. I was baking them for 10 + 1 extra min. I was also baking about 7-8/ sheet at a time so they wouldn't touch. When the cookies are done, they are flattened on the sheet- if still puffy, let them bake longer. Remove immediately with a spatula and cool on rack. Cookies will firm as they cool. Enjoy!

A Costume for Cake-like Cookies

2008-11-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

This year at the last minute I decided to wear a costume that would allow me to give out cookies to my co-workers. I came up with two options: Alice in Wonderland (which I have always wanted to be) with "Eat Me" cookies or Little Red Riding Hood with a picnic basket. One quick email to the crafty Costa girls and voila, I was to be Red (thanks, Holly, for the cape!) and I had a quick Pumpkin and Dark Chocolate Chip cookie recipe (thanks, Aimee!).

I originally wanted to make elaborate sugar cookies but I had a bad traffic karma week and that proved impossible to accomplish during the week. Aimee recommended this cake-like pumpkin cookie recipe that you can see here. Her suggestion to add dark chocolate chips was an excellent one. I also left off the icing since I added chocolate.

Here's the view from the picnic basket. This recipe begs the question: When is a cookie a cake? These cookies had a cake-like texture and were very moist. I made the mistake of tenting the cookies that were already cooled on racks with aluminum foil...forgetting that it was supposed to rain and therefore quite humid so it was unlikely that they would dry out overnight. As a result, the cookies were a bit moister to the touch at the surface but they still tasted good. I noticed however that when I gave them out, people were very surprised at the texture so I started calling them cookie-cakes to manage expectations! I am not sure if I would call these cookies based on the structure of the crumb. I was told once that the continuous phase of a cookie is the sugar and I don't believe this was the case at all. No matter what you call them, they were delicious and very easy to make.

Brown Butter, Pumpkin, and Caramelized Walnuts- A Delicious Match

2008-10-26T22:05:00.001-07:00

These three ingredients are a match made in heaven and some of my new favorite flavors for fall. This pumpkin spice cake with brown butter icing and caramelized walnuts was actually very easy to make and filled the house with the aroma of fall food.

The recipe was from Martha Stewart and I used canned pumpkin, which had one ingredient: organic pumpkin. I prefer to add the spices myself. I haven't ever made a pie from fresh pumpkin and from what I have heard, it can be very tricky to get the right consistency when using fresh pumpkin. Has anyone made their own pumpkin puree and does it have significantly better flavor? For time's sake, I used canned.

I also wanted to try out my small cake pans again and I thought I would use the leftover batter to make a half bundt cake.

The batter was easy to make. With standard spices, vanilla, eggs and canned pumpkin.

The small cakes baked nicely and with a less significant dome shape than with the lavender cakes.

The half-bundt also turned out well!

I caramelized the walnuts on the stove with a bit of sugar. This works nicely for nuts in salads as well!
I placed the coated nuts onto foil and used two spoons to separate the nuts. Then, I did the something stupid. I know molten sugar is dangerous, and of course I used my hands to separate the nuts. And totally burned my finger- blistered it. So, the moral of the story is, don't touch hot sugar.

The icing was made using browned butter (shown above) and straining any burned bits, then mixed with milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar.

The results was three mini cakes with delicious icing...

and one bundt cake with less than perfect icing because I ran short and thinned it with milk. The emulsion of butter and milk was unstable and broke...but it tasted fine and by then my finger really hurt so I was done fussing with it.

The crumb was pleasantly spiced and moist! An easy and delicious treat for fall! Happy baking!

A Mother's Cookies Haiku Tribute

2008-10-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

Mother's Cookies in Oakland, California has closed its doors after 92 years. I am mourning the loss of English Tea cookies, Iced Oatmeal cookies, the ever favorite Cookie Parade with Frosted Circus Animals, just to name a few. I loved these cookies growing up. In tribute, I am writing three haiku poems to express my cookie love.

Circus Animals

Tigers, elephants

sprinkled frosting, pink and white

childhood memory now

Iced Oatmeal

Which package on shelf

has the most frosting of all?

I guess as I choose.

English Tea

Hearty cookie stack

filled with rich, creamy frosting

Who needs a teacup?

Simply Beautiful: Fresh Fruit and Cakes

2008-10-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

I am on the road this week and can't do any baking so I'm going to share last year's birthday cake for Justin and Kristi. This cake was from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, in fact it was on the cover. My good friend, Brandy, had Martha sign it for me at a book signing in Minneapolis.

I love Martha Stewart and I would love love love to meet her someday...In the meantime, I will buy her magazine and bake her cakes and make her crafts! My inner Martha is strong...

Essentially this cake was two layer cakes that were cut into thinner layers

and layered with fresh whipping cream and berries.

As you can see, it was so easy and so beautiful...I think some of the most beautiful and delicious cakes I have seen have been made with fresh fruit.

It was a festive and happy birthday!

Baking with Lavender

2008-10-07T21:26:00.001-07:00

This year McCormick introduced lavender into America's spice rack even though some people have probably been cooking with it long before. I found this culinary lavender below at Draeger's and couldn't wait to use it. It's important to make sure the lavender you use is food grade and doesn't have pesticides or other non-food grade chemicals.

This was my first baking experience with lavender and I didn't want it to taste like perfume, which can happen if you use too much. I also wanted to make a mini-layer cake with my new pans. To see the lavender cake recipe I used, click here. It gave a light lavender flavor without being overwhelmingly floral. I made a butter and powdered sugar frosting with a touch of vanilla.

Lately, I have been a bit obsessed with the candy melts which I know aren't really made with quality ingredients, but they are really fun to play with and they are easy to use. I wanted to make flowers based on these sketches.

So I melted the purple candy melts, piped the design onto waxed paper and sprinkled them with purple sanding sugar. You can put the design in the fridge to harden immediately or leave it out to harden.

I also piped two colors into each other and spread them and sugared them as well.

and it resulted in my favorite design.

I also used nonpareils which looked nice. They bounce like crazy when you shake them off, however.

Layering two flower designs...

One other option using edible pearls...

Finally I made the mini-cake which was a disappointment. The pans are significantly tapered so the layers don't stack properly. The cakes were very domed-shaped and I chose to level one layer but leave the top dome. It looked like a beehive!! Actually that would be a cute cake with little candy melt bees! I carefully adhered the sugared flowers all over the cake and I quite liked the effect. So despite the funky shaped cake, I did like the decorations.

One last confession and request for suggestions...I am not a very good cake leveler (see the checkerboard cake post). Does anyone have any suggestions beyond using toothpicks to mark out the cake. Is there a gadget to help me do a better job? Is there such a thing as a cake level? If not, I might have to make one.

Wedding Cake Revisited

2008-10-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

Take a peek at our latest foodspiration blog entry to see the wedding cake we had remade to celebrate our five year anniversary. It's a little trip down wedding memory lane.

A Cupcake Debate

2008-10-04T19:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I found two websites that have the most beautiful cupcakes I have ever seen:

1) Martha Stewart's Website Cupcake Contest. Click here to see all of the finalists. And click here to see my very favorite, a Japanese tea set cupcake.

2) Le Cupcake in Australia. Click here to see these cute cupcakes. I love this one with the cows.

While I was admiring these cupcakes, I did start to wonder if these masterpieces are still "cupcakes"? Many of them seem to about the wonderful gum paste figures and roses which really could be on any sort of cake. I would imagine that while they look lovely and ornate, they might not taste very good. The Hello Cupcake book that I have is also really about appearances rather than taste. I think the thing that is wonderful about cupcakes and the reason they are so popular right now is the perfect size and delicious taste. While I love the ornate sculptural creations, I think they should still taste good. Sometimes, I get caught up in the appearance over taste. When is a cupcake still a cupcake and when does it become edible art?

Coming in the next post: Lemon Lavender Cake

New Tools from An Unexpected Source

2008-09-25T22:09:00.001-07:00

Well, there will be a baking hiatus this weekend but I happened to find my next inspiration at an unusual place: Target! I found these two small spatulas- perfect for cupcakes! and then I found something that I had only dreamed of...small cake pans!! I can't wait to make a mini-layer cake. And finally, I found culinary lavender which I am also excited to use. McCormick came out with it but I have not seen it in stores on the West Coast. Draeger's however has some.

So look forward to some mini-layer cakes, lavender baked goods and still St. Nicolas cookies to come.

The Most Beautiful Cupcakes I Have Ever Made!

2008-09-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, here they are...the most beautiful cupcakes I have ever made.

1. Did they take forever? Yes. Two days.
2. Were they as easy as the cookbook described? No.
3. Did I use unladylike words at certain moments when things did not go as planned? Yes. ( I frightened our dog, Beaker, at one point)
4. Were they worth it? Absolutely!!!

In fact, this inspired some future new baking endeavors that will be coming soon!

So, how did I make them? Here is the evolution from finish to start.

Actually the hardest part was the last, putting the butterflies on the cupcakes. For some reason, the book said all you needed was two brown M&Ms to support the butterflies such that the wings were tilted. It was a lie and I just couldn't get those wings to tilt without falling off. I broke one wing in the process- (cue the unladylike words).

I bought 14 oz of M&Ms in order to get those brown M&Ms. How many brown ones did I find: About 12. How many did I really need? About 60. Remember when there were two colors of brown M&Ms? Well, the blue has taken over. So, I switched to yellow- which coincidentally is the second least common color in my bag. (cue unladylike words)

The antennae were also tricky but I anticipated this and made a lot of them. I broke quite a few but still had enough.

Actually I loved working with the candy melts for the antennae and butterflies. While they aren't super high quality, I discovered that it is easy to write shapes and initials with them and they harden very quickly. I will definitely be exploring these for future decorations!

I modified the butterfly pattern to be a bit more swirly ( see above) and not quite as pointed as the book recommended (see photo below).

When I made the butterflies with the points, the texture wasn't as pretty. I piped the chocolate melts first and filled with the orange. But the chocolate melts were already hardened and that made it difficult to pull through (again, unladylike words). Then I started piping both chocolate wings, filling with the orange and then microwaving it for 5 seconds to get things melting again to pull or swirl. This took a long time.

I traced the butterfly pattern from the book and put waxed paper over the top.

You can see these butterflies emerged from simple candy melts.

And this was the initial inspiration! In fact, I bought the cookbook, Hello Cupcake, solely for this recipe. They have a blog and a neat website with cupcake challenges!

So that's it! Again, my inner Martha is totally satisfied even though I still have to clean the kitchen...

These Aren't Really for the Birds!

2008-09-18T21:22:00.001-07:00

Well, here they are: the birdhouse cookies. I was anxious to make these cookies because I recently bought the cookie cutter and couldn't wait to try it. I immediately thought of the brightly colored designs of Mary Engelbreit as inspiration for the frosting.

I actually went all out on these cookies: baking them the night before so I could really focus on the frosting, making 5 colors of frosting, and making two different consistencies of frosting- outline and flood. Here's a bit more on my sugar cookie baking strategy.

The basic ingredients of my royal icing are water, vanilla, powdered sugar and meringue powder. The recipes are from the Sugarbaker's Cookie Cutter Cookbook which is out of print and I bought used on Amazon. It was pricey but worth it.
I don't usually use raw egg whites because some people shouldn't eat them for food safety reasons (i.e. pregnant women and young children and salmonella risks). The difference between flood and outline consistency is the proportion of water to the powdered sugar and meringue powder. Outline is thicker and is used for piped borders and designs. Flood consistency is a flowable icing that will spread willingly without using a knife to spread. Sometimes I will use base consistency which is in between and then pipe outline frosting onto that...but I was going all out tonight!

So I piped some designs in white outline frosting to start...

and then flooded the cookies with the colored frosting in flood consistency. I actually only used one pastry bag and I used bowls and toothpicks to guide the flood frosting across the cookies and into the piped areas. I then piped more outline frosting on top as you sometimes visually lose your borders in the flooding. It was also great to add little dots and touches. I also used several colors of sanding sugar- which is a fine sugar that adds a beautiful sparkle.

I also varied the color by mixing in white frosting into the remants of the colors as I used up the darker colors...This gave me lighter shades to work with without using another bowl and spoon. Here's a shot of all of the finished cookies...note the pink blackberry in the middle of the chaos.

I have a hard time making the same cookie twice and I love to try out new designs each time.

This is why I have to be a cookie designer not a cookie baker...I love the creative part, not the repetition of the same patterns.

And this was the final chaos that was and still is my kitchen. I think the final tally was about 26 cookies, 5 sanding sugars, 5 frosting colors (red, blue, yellow, white and green), a ton of toothpicks, a lot of dirty dishes and one happy cookie baker!

Thanks for indulging me on my incredibly messy baking adventures...and reading this blog.

Putting My Heart Into It...

2008-09-16T23:57:00.001-07:00

Of all of the things to bake, I love

love

love

love

love to bake and decorate sugar cookies.

I especially like to pipe the frosting but these hearts have two delicious sugars on them instead: lavender ginger sugar and lemon rosebud sugar.

You can really appreciate the flavor of the cookies. I also used King Arthur flour for the very first time. Has anyone used this flour before? They offer several specialty flours as well.

Too bad I don't love love love love to do the dishes. There is a magnificent mess in my kitchen right now.

A Tale of Two Turnovers

2008-09-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Turnover number one

Turnover number two

Finally, I made a recipe from the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook: apple turnovers. If you have read the book, you'll remember that Laura's husband, Almanzo, had delicious apple turnovers in his lunch pail everyday. Mother Wilder was an excellent cook and baker and the Farmer Boy book is practically all about the food the Wilder family cooked and ate.

So, I decided to try my hand at apple turnovers. I made one major modification to the recipe: I used butter instead of lard. We didn't have any lard in the house and I typically use butter in my crust. I made the dough by hand (instead of the food processor) and only with butter, flour, salt and ice water as prescribed. My traditional pate brisee recipe has a bit of sugar in it but that would have been extravagant for the time as white sugar was more expensive and harder to come by. The dough was not sweet as a result.

I peeled and chopped the apples and added brown sugar and cinnamon. The dough was rolled out and the apples placed in the center.

Here's where it got tricky. The recipe recommended too much filling and I struggled with getting adequate filling inside and a completely tight seal. I confess, I had some leaks. I also added a few dots of butter to the filling to help with the yum factor.

In the spirit of the book, I made one turnover according to the recipe, with a simple crust.

The pioneer recipe recommends dusting the turnovers with powdered sugar and you can see that greatly improved the visual appeal and flavor.

Then I made another turnover using a few of my own tricks: an egg wash, a few decorative leaves, and a sprinkling of white sugar. Being a lover of decorative pie crusts, I thought the egg wash and whitesugar topping was also very pretty on my second turnover.

And I had enough leftovers to scrap together an apple tart with a bit of lemon curd.

So, how did they taste? Pretty good! They didn't have as many "brown, spicy juices" as Mother Wilder's but they were very tasty and I could easily imagine these in a lunch pail. I also have a greater respect for baking during that time. Imagining the availability of ingredients that we take for granted like white sugar and apples, the challenge of using a woodburning stove instead of an oven, and doing everything by hand without Kitchen Aid mixers or Cuisinart food processors, these women truly were accomplished and dedicated cooks and bakers and I applaud them.

Let Them Eat Gluten-Free Cake!

2008-09-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

Well, before I could make anything from the Little House cookbook, I had to make my very first gluten-free chocolate birthday cake for my brother- who is sensitive to wheat and cannot eat it.

First, I did some reconnaissance on the internet because I wanted a chocolate cake recipe that was more like a traditional cake and not a dense, flourless chocolate cake. I found a one-bowl recipe that needed two special ingredients from Whole Foods:

1) a gluten-free flour blend made of potato starch, white rice flour, brown rice flour, amaranth flour, quinoa flour, white cornmeal, garbanzo bean flour, and soy flour.

2) xanthan gum is a thickener and a binder that comes from a bacterial fermentation. It has some unique properties that affect the viscosity or thickness of food and is widely used in salad dressing. In salad dressings, xanthan gum thickens the dressing so that particulates become suspended but thins when shaken or stirred so it will pour out. When it is on the salad, the dressing stays coated on the lettuce. Xanthan gum is used in gluten-free baking because it provides some binding and thickening that wheat flour would otherwise provide. Ultimately, xanthan gum improves the texture of gluten-free baked goods. I was familiar with this ingredient as a food scientist but was surprised to find it at Whole Foods.

I mixed up the batter and found the thickness of batter to be much like the salad dressing description: flowing when stirred but thick and a bit globby upon standing - very different from traditional cake batter. It tasted delicious.

This recipe did bake 8 minutes earlier than it originally said (toothpick came out clean), which always makes me a bit nervous. I have a confession, I cut a teeny, tiny piece out of the layer just to triple check. I whipped up the frosting and when it was done...it looked a little more like a giant brownie and a little less than the Martha Stewart vision I had.

With candles it was very festive!

And....it did taste very, very good and had terrific texture! My brother was happy to have a gluten-free cake that didn't taste gluten-free.

And the winner is...

2008-09-06T15:09:00.001-07:00

something from the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook! The people have spoken and that's what I will be making next. However, I did make a gluten-free chocolate cake for my brother's birthday party today. I think that is worth sharing. Has anyone ever made a square layer cake? I just did and it looks a bit like a giant brownie. :(

Photos coming as soon as we eat it tonight.

Happy Birthday, Justin!

2008-09-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

For Justin's birthday, I decided to make a checkerboard birthday cake. C.C., A's mom, used to make this cake when we were kids. Justin's birthday was the perfect opportunity to try it out this kit given to me by my friend, C !

Of course I had to start at about 10PM at night. I followed the recipe on the box (see above photo) because I didn't want to take too many chances and I thought the batter viscosity or thickness might be optimized such that the colors didn't run together.

Here are the basics for this cake:

1) Make 2 colors of batter that will go in three cake layer pans. This recipe added melted chocolate to the batter for the chocolate batter but I think food coloring could be really fun as well.

2) Alternate the batters in concentric rings using this special pan:

It was a little challenging to add the batter such that each ring is the same height. I wished there were little height marks. The batter was scoopable and spoonable...not pourable which was also a bit tough but you don't want the colors to run...

The divider has to come out before baking. I tried to lift it as perfectly as possible so as not to disturb the pattern. I also had a chance to smooth the rings.

You can see that you need to make two pans with the same pattern and one that is reversed. I thought they looked okay at this point.

Then I baked them...

and was a bit worried. They were a little domed which is normal but they looked off center!
The undersides were centered though...so I layered them and frosted. Now I actually tried to the level the cakes- without any special equipment. But it was coming up on 2AM and I was pretty tired and sort of forgot to really level the last layer. Here's how it looked:

I used sprinkles and edible green and purple glitter.

Hmm...not so great on the leveling. Perhaps it would be a whimsical, Dr. Seuss-eque cake. After all who knew what the center would look like.

So we lit the candles and sang "Happy Birthday"...

and Justin made a wish.

and it actually turned out pretty well!

The texture was very old-fashioned: a bit dry and very light. All in all, it was a success!

But I have to add one more photo for fun. About 12 years ago when I first started baking, I made this cake for J using food coloring. It wasn't checkerboard but it turned out really cute! I should try checkerboard with some colors! Yes, that is me with the really dark hair, my natural color!

The Checkerboard Birthday Cake is Coming...

2008-08-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have always wanted to make this cake and thanks to my good friend, C, who gave me the special pan....Justin is going to get a checkboard cake for his birthday tomorrow. At least I hope so!! Of course I have to try something I have never tried before for a large group of people.

Cookie Cutter Splurge in the Heartland

2008-08-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I went on a bit of a cookie cutter and baking supply binge in Minnesota this past weekend and I am so excited for a few up-and-coming projects!! First, I went to Lunds grocery store where I bought two sugars: cardamom sugar and hibiscus sugar. These are made by Golden Fig Epicurean in Minnesota and I can't find them anywhere else. I already have a lavender sugar and lemon rose sugar. All are great for topping sugar cookies.

Then I took a trip to Sweet Celebrations which is formerly known as Maid of Scandinavia, in Edina, MN. There I bought:

edible ivory pearls
non pareils for a butterfly cupcake project
mini tart pans
a mitten cookie cutter
two Christmas ornament cookie cutters
a birdhouse cookie cutter
a Christmas light bulb cookie cutter
and a large wedding cake cookie cutter

I cannot wait to bake these cookies! And finally, to top off the splurge, I saw Little House on the Prairie the Musical and bought the Little House Cookbook. It is an old cookbook that I once checked out from the library but I am going to make a lot of the recipes in it including butter, pancakes, ginger water, candy and more. Don't worry, they will make the blog.

Now I just need some days off to bake!

Baker's Holiday

2008-08-21T23:43:00.000-07:00

This baker is on a short holiday. A new post is coming soon. By the way, I received my St. Nicholas cookie mold and it is fantastic! Even more beautiful than I expected. Some test cookies will appear shortly!

I Heart Tarts

2008-08-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

I'm officially in love with tarts- perhaps even more than pies and so much that we dallied together until 1:30AM. I was supposed to make one simple tart for a tea party that I was having with my friend Monica and Aunt Enie. Somehow it turned into five tarts and a peach galette. I started with a crust that I had made a few weeks ago and frozen. I baked it up but then I got nervous- what if it had a bit of freezer burn (i.e. drying out).

So, I thawed a ball of dough that I had made and frozen and made four little tarts. I also used the leftover dough to make the peach galette in the previous post. I think putting dough in a tart pan is so much easier than putting pie crust in a pie pan. I love trimming the top to get the perfect edge!

The filling was blissfully simple: mixing cream cheese, orange zest, orange liqueur, and sugar.

I spread it in the baked tart shell...

and arranged the sliced berries, which I found to be surprisingly difficult given the variance in size of the berries. Some are petite and others are too large.

The berries were glazed with apricot jelly that was warmed and strained. I preferred this to an agar glaze. This tart turned out beautifully and the crust was perfect after all.

I finally got the hang of arranging the berries in the little tart pans. Ultimately, the best way is to put a large berry in the center- kind of like a peak. This photo of the four tarts reminds me of some plastic tarts that came with my Strawberry Shortcake dolls playset.

They were very delicious!

I think what I love most about tarts is how easy the crust is to make and how perfect it looks. The design of the tart pans is genius, as it easily lifts out without breaking. These tarts sliced very well, as the cream cheese filling was viscous enough not to run. This is the first time I have frozen my dough and used it and I found that it worked out very well. I do prefer the little tart pans. These little tarts were perfect for two or three to share but I am looking for the two-bite tart pan next.

Baking Magic After Midnight

2008-08-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I know some of my best baking is done late at night and tonight was no exception as I finished my endeavor at 1:30AM. I started out with a plan to bake a strawberry tart with an orange zest and cream cheese base. I had a frozen tart crust in the freezer from the last time I made tart crust and I had a ball of pie crust dough.

But somehow one tart multiplied into 5 tarts and one peach galette with handcut leaves. The dough, which I made and froze a few weeks ago, was thawed and folded into a rustic tart. I handcut the tiny leaves.
I used a Full Belly Farm Egg to egg wash the crush.
The result was outstanding. This was the best galette I have ever made and I think I will experiment more with the handcut leaves on the crust.
What about the other five strawberry tarts? Check out tomorrow's post...

Christmas in July? How about St. Nicholas in August?

2008-08-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

I know it is only August but I am already anticipating starting a new holiday tradition. When I was growing up, my neighbor, Billie, would bring over the most wonderful cookies on December 6th- St. Nicholas Day. The cookies were a lovely recipe with cardamom, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and ginger and they were made with a unique ceramic mold that hung in her kitchen all year long. At my Catholic grammar school, we would put out one of our shoes and St. Nicholas would fill it with candy on December 6th. I have read of similar traditions in Italy, Europe and around the globe.

Well, I wrote my neighbor and asked her to send me the recipe and she did! Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the mold but I found another mold that is handcarved by a man named Gene Wilson at www.cookiemold.com I am buying this St. Nicholas mold in hopes of baking her recipe and giving them out to the kids on our neighborhood. It isn't really the religious tradition I am interested in carrying on but rather the tradition of being a special neighbor.

Now that I am looking at the site even more, I should have ordered a butter mold too! That reminds me of Little House on the Prairie where Ma would mold the butter with a strawberry patterned mold. Maybe that will be my next purchase- the strawberry butter mold is on sale!

These Cakes are Fakes!!

2008-08-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

I nurtured my inner Martha this weekend in preparation for my dear friend Monica's bridal shower. I made "fake cakes"- one being a "cake" out of the sage towels she registered for a Macy's and the other were sugar cookies shaped like wedding cakes. Both turned out to be fabulous and delicious- in that order.

Cake Number 1: The Martha Stewart Egyptian Cotton Cake

This was the first time I have ever made one of these and I actually had planned to buy something else from M's registry but it had been purchased. When I saw the sage green Martha Stewart Towels, I seized the opportunity to do this. I went online for the directions but I realized I didn't have enough towels and safety pins- so I adapted the directions. Here's how I did it:

a) bought two sets of bath towels, hand towels, and wash cloths; bought ribbons (hooray for the dollar bin) and fake flowers from Michaels in the wedding section

b) folded and rolled the towels into the shapes thanks to Thinkwedding.com; did not use safety pins but tied things in place with the ribbon. I used a paper towel roll to fill out the hand towel and wash cloth layers because I didn't buy three of those just two. It worked out fine.

c) decorated with the faux flowers. There is a backside to this cake that isn't so pretty but everywhere else, it was terrific. And at the shower, the faux flowers greatly added to the bouquet that was made for M to carry at the rehearsal dinner!

I would definitely do this again and the sage green was a fun color to work with!

Cake Number 2: The Martha Stewart Wedding Cookies

I have been making sugar cookies using this Martha recipe for years. They are my specialty and I was up until the wee hours putting the final touches on- but I love doing it and all of the wedding shows were on TLC late at night, which was appropriate and fun! This time I used eggs from Full Belly Farms. They were expensive eggs but they are from chickens that are truly grass-fed and pastured (I've been there and seen it for myself!) and you know, the eggs look and taste differently. The eggs are speckled and the yolks are bright yellow and stand up. The dough turned a brilliant yellow and was the most supple dough I have ever made. Perfect!

The cookies have a simple royal icing frosting made with meringue powder- no raw eggs because of kids and pregnant women. The best recipes for this I have found in the Sugarbakers Cookie Cutter Cookbook, which is out of print but available used. It had recipes for outline, flow and base consistency icings with meringue powder or egg whites. So you can see the finished products. They were lovely. I put them in clear bags and tied them with ribbons. On my Great Aunt Enie's silver tray, they were lovely.

My final thought on these faux cakes is how many cupcakes and cake shaped sugar cookies I have made recently and how few cakes. I love making cake but it is a lot of dessert for the two of us to have in the house. When I was in college, I would make a sheet cake each week from scratch and share it with my friends and roommates. M reminded me of this at her shower today. I think I will have to make some cakes in between the pies. I love doing it too.

The "I Love My Mom" Strawberry Pie

2008-08-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

I made this pie in May for my mom on Mother's Day. I recently discovered that I could get very creative with the crust and it led to this pie. Now, it wouldn't be a Lauren project without a few technical challenges to overcome:

1) I was up until 2AM the night before singing karaoke with our new karaoke system and my neighbors

2) I got up at 7AM to make the pie

3) I misread the recipe and didn't see the step about setting the pie for 4 hours in the fridge so I had to switch recipes.

3) I shortcutted the part where the berries and the sugar sit together and the water from the berries comes out

4) we took the pie before it was completely cooled on a three hour car ride to Yuba City

Despite the technical challenges, it was adequately thick and not too runny and delicious. It did make me a bit late for the three hour car drive which was the worst part. Sorry, Mom!! The moral of the story, get the pie done ahead of time and read the recipe more carefully.

Why I Like to Bake...

2008-07-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

There is something so fulfilling for me about baking. The precision of measuring the ingredients, the tactile nature of dough that is often rolled or pinched or shaped, and the beauty of the presentation. I think I love baking because I like to create beautiful things. There is almost a formality of in baking- which I also enjoy. Below is my homage to Martha. I love her work and aspire to be a mini-Martha. Note the cookbook that my friend, Brandy got for me. She had it signed by Martha herself.

What's A Must in Your Crust?

2008-07-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Since I have started on this pie mission, I have had to make a decision about the kind of fat I use in my crust: butter? Crisco? lard? oil? Now pie crust is both a science and an art. I could go into the different fat properties like melting point etc but I've decided that I prefer butter for my crust. In fact, I use the Martha Stewart Pate Brisee recipe. I think you could argue that lard or Crisco are much easier to work with because they are more solid than butter at room temperature. I have good friends that swear by an oil crust as the flakiest. The main reason I use butter is that I think it simply tastes the best - as a plain ingredient and in the crust. I like the taste of butter and it just seems like a clean and pure ingredient. What is a must in your crust? Do you have a treasured recipe with butter or lard or oil or Crisco?

The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts...

2008-07-27T01:39:00.000-07:00

...all on a summer's day. Ah, I wanted to make a simple but beautiful summer dessert for two dear friends who came for dinner. I chose the raspberry tarts from my pies and tarts book and they were lovely. The crust was quite soft and easy to make. First, I had to mess up and add twice the amount of butter...so I promptly doubled the recipe. I used my tart pans and baked the shells fully. Then I put a layer of raspberry jam and a layer of chocolate and butter followed by topping them with fresh raspberries. I think nothing is more elegant and simple than fresh fruit on a tart. Not only were they easy to make and beautiful to look at but they tasted delicious! I think I will be making a lot of tarts in the future!

The girl and the figs...

2008-07-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

The pie mission I am not only includes pies but also tarts and seeing these beautiful fresh figs, I could not resist the chance to make a fig galette. This recipe has a pate brisee crust - baked and folded in a rustic tart manner. The base is a ricotta with cardamom and orange and honey. The crust was baked, topped with the ricotta mixture and baked again. Finally fresh figs were added and drizzled with honey. The result was spectacular to see and to taste! Ah the beauty of ripe, fresh fruit. This was a complete success from start to finish.

Cherry Is So Very....

2008-06-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

ok. I think cherry pie isn't my favorite pie. I bought the cherries fresh from the farmer's market and pitted them all by hand. My fingers have never looked so grubby! I made the dough which was a bit harder to handle than normal- would crack. After I made the lattice, I wished I had made thick and thin strips for contrast...next time. The pie tasted good but it was kind of one note: cherry. This was the first fresh cherry pie I have ever had, I think. It was a bit runny but again, fresh cherries, very little starch. Next, please.

Me vs. the Banana Cream Pie

2008-06-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

And I won...after three rounds. I have been making my own pie crust in the last year or so but I have mostly made it for fruit pies and for pumpkin pie. Fruit pies don't have you fully bake the crust in advance as this banana cream pie does. I decided that I want to be an excellent pie baker and I am going to make all of the pies in the Williams-Sonoma Pies book. So, when I made my pate brisee and baked it in the pie plate in the oven, it shrunk from the edges and looked terrible. I repeated it and it again, slipped down. I then changed pie plates to my favorite red pie plate with a substantial ridge to which I made a thicker crust. That did it. I made the delicious custard and put in the bananas and topped it with a rum- whipped cream. My mom said this pie crust was the best she has ever had... even better than my Great-Aunt Mary or Great-Aunt Marie. Well, I aspire to become one of the pie making queens like my Aunt Mary and Aunt Marie- so that made me feel really good. One pie down, many to go.

Sometimes I want to make complicated things

2008-06-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

so I indulged myself this week and bought two cookbooks: Hello Cupcake and Tartine. Sometimes I really like spending a lot of time crafting, creating and working on the details. Tartine looks like a pretty complicated dessert book and Hello Cupcake has all of these crafty cupcakes. I think I will learn a few new techniques. I really like the presentation of the cupcake book although it doesn't look as tasty as the Tartine. Fun fun fun!

Welcome to my blog!

2008-06-03T21:57:00.001-07:00

After reading many of my friends' blogs, I finally decided to start my own. I am not sure what it will be about....time will tell.