Mermaid Sweets

SMS: Sweet Potato Bread with Cinnamon-Orange-Rum Glaze

2010-04-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

To be perfectly honest, I feel a little bad about being this week's host since I haven't been a participant is sooooo long. So, thank you for letting me host anyway. This week's recipe is Sweet Potato Bread with Cinnamon-Rum-Orange Glaze (recipe after my ramblings below). I chose this recipe because it doesn't have any dairy in it!! Who-hooo! I can eat it. The recipe is so simple, so quick, and SO DELICIOUS. I strongly encourage all to try. May be more of a fall or winter bread, but if you like these flavors, who's to say you can't enjoy it year round. Check out how all the wonderful and talented SMS bakers did this week here.

So, in order to explain (notice I didn't say excuse) my absence from baking and blogging (yes, not just a lazy blogger), here goes: I'M PREGNANT!!! It will be our first, and we are so darn excited. I am due October 6th. This is something I have wanted for a while now, waiting for everything to line up. So, world's greatest husband - check, good job - check, house - check, baby - soon! Horay!!!! I was not expecting the fatigue that comes with the first trimester, oh wow. I used to be able to work my demanding lawyer job, then come home and bake and blog. Now for the last few months, it was barely get myself to work, barely make it through the day (a shortened one at that), barely make it home, then fall on the couch and not get up except for the bathroom or bed. Rinse and repeat. I did NOTHING other than that for a few months, not lying. So, no baking, no blogging. Thankfully, I have my energy back. Work picked up in a major way - I have worked long full days every day since Easter Sunday, but that should get back to a more manageable pace after tomorrow, and then I can't wait to see what all my long lost baking friends have been up to and get myself back in the kitchen!

From the book The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.

For the Bread

Two 15-ounce cans sweet potatoes, drained

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil

2 large eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

3/4 kosher salt

2/3 cups pecans, coarsely chopped

For the Cinnamon-Rum-Orange Glaze

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

1/4 cup rum

2 cinnamon sticks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10-cup bundt pan.

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on low speed mash the sweet potatoes until smooth (this will make about 2 cups). Add the sugar and oil and mix to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. Add the flour mixture into the sweet potato mixture in three batches, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Do no overmix. Stir in the pecans.

3. Pour the batted into the prepared bundt pan. Spin the pan to level the bater. Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire wrack to cool for 20 minutes before inverting onto the rack for glazing.

4. For the glaze. Combine the orange juice, rum, sugar, and cinnamon sticks in a small nonreactive saucepan. Bring to a simmer over low heat and reduce by half. REmove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly before glazing.

5. Using a pastry brush, brush the glaze generously over the still-warm bread. Wait for 10 minutes, and glaze again.

Coming Soon... Sweet Potato Bread

2010-04-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

So, since I have been REALLY MIA, just a quick note to say that I do intend on posting this week's SMS recipe, Sweet Potato Bread, later today (its 12:45 am). I have lots to fill you in on, but gotta catch some z's, then up early to bake and post before another 14+ hour day at the office (yes, on a Sunday).

Cheers!

SMS: Amazing Lemon Poppyseed Pound Cake

2010-01-18T16:58:00.001-08:00

Man, what a recipe to come back to. This weeks SMS recipe was Lemon Walnut Pound Cake chosen by Raeann of Basically, Baby Boots. The recipe can be found on her blog. I was excited to make this cake given all the rave reviews it received from the other SMS bloggers. Man, this one is a keeper.

I didn't want to do the nuts thing, and after seeing Cassie's Lemon Poppyseed Cake, I knew I wanted to sub in poppyseeds. I knew I made the right decision when hubby started cheering at the thought of a lemon poppyseed cake. I also substituted Greek yogurt for the sour cream and lactose free margarine for the butter. And still, the cake turned out AMAZING. So moist and light and fluffy, which is a miracle since I noticed about 40 minutes into my alleged cooking time that my digital oven had turned itself off, leaving me to guess at how long it had actually been cooking and how long it had to go! My dinner guests and hubby and myself all agreed that the baking fairy must have laced it with crack, we just couldn't stop eating it.

Where have you been?

2010-01-17T15:33:00.000-08:00

OK, OK, it has been waaaaay to long. I know. Life has been filled to the brim, with both highs and lows. Since several of my awesome blogger friends have left comments wondering what's up, here's a brief recap on what's kept me away: From late October to mid-December we hosted hubby's (Mathias) mother and her boyfriend for two weeks, Mathias' pseudo Nicaraguan Mom for a week, Mathias' brother for two weeks, Mathias' father, grandmother and stepmom for Thanksgiving weekend, Mathias' best friend for a week, Mathias' friend and longtime volunteer for his non profit for two weeks, and my sister for 4 days. I calculated it, we had 10 days total with no guests in our house during that time.

In addition, Mathias' awesome non-profit, blueEnergy, had two big events which I was volunteering and baking for. A trivia night, where I made 10 doz cupcakes for the event and the grand prize was a gift certificate for 2 doz cupcakes for each winner on a team (5 pp team = 10 doz cupcakes). These were all cashed in! Then a Taste of Nicaragua fundraiser - where I did a lot of work soliciting donations, and then made the dessert bar which had Tres Leche cake, La Lechera balls, coconut rum cupcakes, banana caramel cupcakes, Mexican chocolate cupcakes and fresh mango mini cheesecakes.

Then we threw a housewarming holiday party, with a dessert bar of course. I also made all of the food myself, mini empanadas, mini pork buns, phyllo triangles with sauteed mushrooms, many dips, shrimp, lamb and vegie kabobs, cheese crustini with carmelized bacon, etc. For dessert I made mini pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, mini chocolate mint cupcakes, chai blondies, s'more bars and rice crispy treats with chocolate and peanut butter fudge. Not a one picture of the food, can you believe it? We also went to three other X-mas parties, and hosted another improptu holiday dinner party for 10.

Then, sadly, my mother fell very ill and was hospitalized. That left us driving home on Christmas day and then spending 11 days with her in the hospital. She has pneumonia, which is not better unfortunately, and had to have surgery (on New Year's Eve) to remove her gallbladder and appendix. She is out of the hospital, but still recovering from surgery and still fighting pneumonia. I am headed back home on Thursday to support my family. It has been rough. Since she was in the hospital in Pasadena, CA, we did get to go to the Rose Bowl game. Unfortunately, the Ducks didn't win.

So, on top of all of that, I am a corporate attorney and that keeps me plenty busy. And, to top it all off, right after we came home from LA, I threw my back out and can't move around too well. Unfortunately, standing and cooking/baking hurts a fair amount. So, that's why I have been MIA. It has just felt too overwhelming to try and catch-up in the blog world and get around to everyone's blog to say hi and I was a bad blogger so didn't really take pictures of my baking these past few months. But, it is a new year, and I am hoping for a fresh start, as soon as possible. Thanks everyone for your concern, especially Cassie of How to Eat a Cupcake, Elyse of Belle of the Bakery, Michelle of Flourchild, and Monica of Lick the Bowl Good. It is nice to feel missed.

And of course, my sincerest apologies to the SMS bakers for being MIA, and for Karen of Karen's Cookies Cakes and More for taking over my hosting duties. I am coming back and about to start making the Lemon pound cake right after I hit post!

SMS: Cranberry Pear Muffins with Ginger Crumble Topping

2009-11-08T22:22:00.000-08:00

I am back! Yay, after spending most of the day cleaning my new house (boo) I finally got to bake in it! Yippee. I am so happy to be back with SMS, I baked with a big grin on my face the whole time. This week's recipe is Cranberry Pear Muffins with Ginger Crumble Topping chosen by Jennifer of Maple N'Cornbread. Old habits are hard to break, so even though I thought I could use this fresh start to do things a little ahead of time, no dice, and so the muffins are still warm, no tasters yet, and bad lighting. Oh well. They sure smell delicious. And, I ended up making 24, since I didn't read the recipe carefully and didn't realize that it called for a 1/2 batch of the crumble (also true to form) and so instead of waste the extra crumble, I just made another batch since I had left over of everything else as well.

My Mother-in-Law (who is AWESOME) and her boyfriend and her good friend are in town and have been here for almost two weeks. It's been great to have them (she and her BF are French) so we've been treated to some amazing French home cooking and house improvements (Maurice is a Jack of All Trades, a wonder really). I hope they like these American treats. They are very strict about having breakfast every morning with coffee sitting down at the table - so weird! I suspect these will fit the bill. I'll let you know - I made one batch dairy free with soy creamer and soy milk and dairy free margarine so I could try them, as I love cranberry muffins.

Check out the other SMS'rs too, their muffins look great!

OMG it's been tooo long

2009-11-06T21:51:00.001-08:00

Wow, what do you say when you have been absent for sooooo long? I'm sorry, please keep reading my blog, I won't let this happen again ..... By way of background, otherwise known as excuse, here's my story - if anyone will either bother to read this anymore! September: we submit our 5th bid on a house in the East Bay (Northern Cali), and we are accepted!!!!! This, after months and months and months of spending the very little free time we had looking at tons and tons of houses with our great agent, Warren Lei of Caldwell Banker, and being outbid (thankfully) on a few houses. Our new home:

As you homeowners know, bid acceptance is the first step, then inspections, contingencies, mortgage, escrow, etc. Thankfully, everything went well and without a hitch. We closed just in time for me throw my good friend Ashley, who introduced me to my husband (i.e. forever in debt) a 30th birthday party at my empty house. The theme throughout this whole saga is that my work as a corporate attorney as been INSANE. So, I get home from work at 11PM the day before the party and stay up 3am baking a cheesecake (her request) and cupcakes and making her present (we all went in on a vacation package, I set up a registry, and then made cards for each component of the vacation). I must say, it is crazy to try and throw a party in an empty house, I mean, at the time the guests were scheduled to arrive I was at the harware store learning that the grill I bought had to be partially disassembled and then reassembled at the party in order for us to cook dinner!!!! Thank goodness for her boyfriend Mark, rockstar, as my hubby was in Nicaragua when we closed (meaning I spent three hours siging the paperwork for both of us with a power of attorney).

Immediately after the party, I get to work on making the house my own - with my good friend Auburn's guidance and help, we start the ambitious task of painting several rooms. Insanity. Two nights during the week I don't make it back to the house until 10PM and THEN start to paint, like a crazy person.

So, hubby returns from Nicaragua, and instead of finding our apartment all packed up, because work was CRAZY, I have done nothing (did I mention how I worked super late and then painted the house alone?). So, we have 4 days to move our apartment filled with 4 years worth of $%@@. It takes almost every waking moment of those four days - one of which I worked full time. Sleep deprivation, what is that? Huh, what? I'm confused.

We finally make it, get all moved in, and then... WE HAVE TO UNPACK. My dad and sister are scheduled to visit to help, so that gives good motivation to push. And then they come and help tremendously with so many things, buying a couch, putting up pictures, planting plants, etc. So, unpacking, hosting, shopping, and oh yeah, did I mention how I WORK ALL THE TIME? Well, for the month of October I did - spending more nights taking a few hours nap on the couch in my new home office (which I do love) then in my bed. So, what this means is - NO BAKING IN MY WONDERFUL NEW KITCHEN. Can you say torture? a weird twist of fate? Sucky is what I say.

Ok, so I am almost done with this big o'le long explanation. The other thing, I joined the committee for my hubby's non-profit, blueEnergy's, fundraiser. So, in my spare time (the very little that I have between my crazy lawyer hours, new house, new commute, I devote to obtaining/soliciting and planning for the silent auction. It ended up being a successful mission thus far, event still to come, but we have put together quite an action. So, that is my story. Not really have anything to do with baking. Apart from one super late night making 10 dozen cupcakes for my husband's work event, not much baking at all. But, I feel the tide is turning. I will be joining back in SMS this weekend - and deeply apologize to all SMS members for my absence, and thank Karen soooooo muuuuchh. So, if you are still reading after all this, and can find it in your heart to keep on reading, I thank you so very much. I will be making the blog rounds this weekend and can't wait to see what you all have been up to.

SMS: Fresh Peach Muffins

2009-08-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet post, running out the door for a weekend retreat in the mountains, no cell or blackberry reception, so nice. Anyhow, I made these muffins back when we made the strawberry rubarb jam, which I made again last night to take on our trip! This week's SMS recipe is Fresh Peach Muffins chosen by JoVonn of the Givens Chronicles. She's a Georgia Peach, so she choose this recipe. I made it dairy free with soy creamer and it worked great. Peach flavor is mild, but the mufins were overall very good. Check out the other SMS baker's here.

SMS: Caramel Apple Banana Bread

2009-08-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

Another banana bundt cake. While I didn't taste this one (dairy), so can't give you a great comparison with the TWD Banana Bundt Cake, this sure smelled heavenly and got rave reviews from my Father's work. This week's recipe was chosen by Joy of Hot Oven Warm Heart. She is super sweet and says she is new to blogging, but if you look at her pictures and her posts, I am not to convinced - so beautiful. Really glad Joy was able to join SMS, she is a great addition and writes such thoughtful comments. Great pick Joy! You can get the recipe from here blog HERE. It was slightly more involved with having to chop and carmelize the apple pieces, but my dad swore it was worth it - for him! And it was a bundt because I was baking at my parent's house and they did not have a loaf pan, so there you go. Check out the other creative SMS bloggers HERE.

As an aside, I know I have mentioned serveral times this summer that things are hectic - and apologized for my derelic commenting - well hectic hit a new high last week, some good some bad. So, trying to stay above water and will make the rounds as soon as I can. Thanks so much for still commenting on my blog - you are such terrific supporters.

P.s. please excuse the I-phone photo.

SMS: Amaretto Truffles

2009-08-16T14:58:00.001-07:00

Taking a tiny break from my fun-filled weekend of work, work, work, to bring you this week's SMS recipe: Truffles. Actually, it was hazelnut truffles, but I didn't have any hazelnuts. But I did have tons of almonds, and Disaronno and amaretti cookies - and so, there you go, Amaretto Truffles. The Hazelnut Truffles was chosen by Annie of Living Life Foodcariously. The recipe can be found on her blog HERE.

So, to work with what I had, I substituted toasted almonds for the hazelnuts, Disaronno for the Frangelico, and rolled the truffles in crushed amaretti cookies. Instead of adding 1 1/2 cups of chopped nuts to the truffles, I opted for about 1/2 a cup instead. I wanted there to be some nuts, but I didnt want that to overpower the chocolate. Mathias thought it was just the right balance. This was my first time making truffles, and it was so easy. I am so glad I tried these - great easy party treats. And the flavor combinations are endless. Thanks for picking these Annie.

Cinnamon Rolls

2009-08-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ohhhhh man these were DELICIOUS. This post is a little overdue, I made these amazing cinnamon rolls from The Bread Baker's Apprentice while we were on vacation in Hawaii in May. I bought this book in hopes of joining the BBA group, but I can barely keep up with TWD and SMS and Cake Slice. So, I have the book, and when I can, I will try some of those amazing recipes that I have seen all over many lovely blogs. But I just had to try these, and despite sub-optimal baking conditions in the condo (no oven thermometer!!), these turned out AMAZING. I can't wait to do them again - although they do take some coordination to time them well for morning treats. I am not going to post the recipe here since the BBA group is not doing that, but here is a LINK to a post that has an adapted recipe of these rolls (looks pretty close to me).

And, just because this blog is a little bit of an on-line journal for me, below are some fun pictures from our amazing trip. Thanks again William and Locey.

SMS: Snickerdoodles

2009-08-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well, a day late. What can I say ... the truth? My father drove to SF from LA on Friday to buy this car for my mom, and they needed someone to drive the car home - since my sister who came along is only 14. So I volunteered, and by the time we got home to LA, I went straight to bed. Cookies were made, pictures taken, but no energy.

This week's SMS recipe was the well-loved snickerdoodles - my hubby's favorite. Luckily, Spike of Spike Bakes helped us all out and agreed to host last minute and chose snickerdoodles. You can get the recipe HERE. My usual go-to recipe I use is Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodles - which uses shortening and doesn't require a chill in the fridge like the SMS recipe. Well I'd say these came out just as good as my trusty standard, they were gobbled up by my hubby and family. My sister said they were the best cookies she ever had. So, give them a try.

Thanks Spike for hosting and thanks Dad and Pam for the feedback and the photos.

Baby Shower Treats

2009-08-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

So, a good friend of mine from my beloved school Berkeley is having a baby in September! So excited for a new golden baby bear. Her shower was last weekend, and I volunteered - ok practically begged - to make cute baby shower treats. I was just dying to use my onsie cookie cutter.

Luckilly for me, she took me up on the offer. I decided to make decorated sugar cookies as favors and cupcakes for the shower itself. The mother-to-be doesn't like chocolate, and until my recent discovery of my love of chocolate - we bonded in our non-chocolate freakiness. So chocolate cupcakes were out. I decided on two well-loved staples - strawberry (see below) and triple lemon. Although, this time, I did a little twist to my favorite strawberry cupcake recipe.

Taking inspiration from the amazing Strawberry Ruby Grapefruit Preserves we made for SMS, I decided to make Strawberry Grapefruit cupcakes by added the zest of 1/2 a grapefruit to the batter, and about 1 tsp of grapefruit zest to the strawberries in my mini-prep food processor when making the strawberry puree for the buttercream frosting. I couldn't taste these, but they were well loved. And they smelled great.

And, then I made onsie sugar cookies in pale yellow and green because they are going the suprise gender route - which I could never do. Kudos to them. My sweet hubby helped me with filling the cookies with the flood icing. Sooo sweet. I really liked how they turned out. I really like making decorated sugar cookies, but oh, they really are a lot of work.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Strawberry Grapefruit Cupcakes

adapted from Cooking with Amy

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine

1 large egg

6 ounces strawberry yogurt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup fresh strawberries, diced
grated zest of 1/2 grapefruit

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. With an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg, yogurt and vanilla, and grapefruit zest, blending until smooth.

2. Measure the dry ingredients into the bowl and blend, then fold in the strawberries.

3. Divide the mixture equally between the 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

4. Beat together butter, powdered sugar, and mashed strawberry in medium-size bowl until creamy and smooth. Chill frosting for 15 minutes or until thick. Frost cupcakes with a spatula.Yield: 12 servings

Sprinkles Strawberry Frosting

2 sticks (½ lb) unsalted butter, firm but not cold

1/8 tsp kosher salt

4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

½ tsp pure vanilla extract

2 tbsp pureed fresh strawberries
1 tsp grated zest of a grapefruit

Put strawberries and grapefruit zest in a food processor and blend until you have a puree

Beat butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffyReduce speed and gradually add confectioner's sugar and beat until incorporatedAdd vanilla and strawberry puree and mix until blended. Do not overmix, or the frosting will incorporate too much air. The consistency should be dense and creamy, like ice-cream.

Coconut Chai Blondies

2009-08-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

I am proud of these babies. Not a recipe from one of my baking groups, not a copycat post from one of my favorite bloggers, not from a cookbook (well not entirely). Nope my rare attempt at creativity. And it worked! I have this great tea that I got from Cost Plus that is coconut chai tea. It is super yummy. After making the amazing Chai Cake with the Cake Slice Bakers, I was inspired to make more chai treats - I love chai. So, I thought I would try to make a coconut chai bar cookie/blondie. Boy am I glad I did, these are amazing.

I started, where else, with my favorite baking book - From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan, and her Chewy Chunky Blondies Recipe and then added chai spices, coconut, macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips. This is really a great combo. My co-workers gobbled these up. They were actually meant for my dear Berkeley college friends for movie night on Thursday, but I got stuck at work and didn't leave until around mid-night, so at that point I was too tired to deliver these goods, so work was in for a treat on Friday. One of my co-workers actually yelped pretty loud when he saw them, had two and raved about them. How about that for some positive work feedback? And Bartlet street - these are coming your way soon, I promise.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Coconut Chai Blondies

2 Cups All Purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cardamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter or dairy free margarine (at room temperature)
1 1/2 cups (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped macademia nuts
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven the 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 13-inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet (you can also line the pan with foil and spray the foil, this helps to remove the blondies when done)

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated. Add the eggs one by one, beating for one minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter. Using a rubber spatula stir in the white chocolate chips, macademia nuts and coconut. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula to even the top as best you can.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife instered into the center fo the blondies comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Inver onto a rack and cool the blondies to room temperature right side up.

TWD: Banana Bundt Cake

2009-08-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

I'm baaaack. Ah TWD, how I missed the. What a crazy July - and so many lactose desserts. This week's Banana Bundt Cake was perfect for my return. Hubby and I love banana bread, and I can easily make this lactose free with margarine and yogurt. And, it was chosen by one of my favorite bloggers who I have a major blog crush on and wish, o, wish I could be half as talented as. None other than Mary of The Food Librarian. You can find this amazing recipe HERE.

So, I was a tad on the late side with this one - still true to my procrastinating TWD form - so we just tested this cake while it was still steaming hot. It was really good. I know it will only get better with a good night's rest (as Dorie mentions in the book) because that will give the banana flavor time to develop more. So, can't wait for breakfast. I added 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp cardamon for a little kick. Those flavors are subtle and don't over power the banana. Another great Dorie recipe. Man I love this cookbook.

SMS: Strawberry Grapefruit Preserves

2009-07-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

Well, this week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays just made me so happy to have started this group. I must admit, sometimes life gets way to hectic and I do get a tad stressed about finding time to keep up with my baking blogging groups. But it is soooo worth it, and this week's recipe of Strawberry Grapefruit Preserves chosen by the marvelous Margot of Effort to Deliciousness is the perfect example. This is my first full-fledged preserve experience and it won't be my last. This was simple to make, made the house smell delicious and was out of this world. I swear, the best darn preserves I have tasted (I may be a tad biased, I'll admit). It is just the right amount of sweet and tart - and relies upon apples for the pectin so no artificial geletin (my Jewish grandparents - may they rest in peace - would be pleased). I HIGHLY recommend making this - and if you don't and you happen to see me around christmas time, well, then you may just be getting your own jar!

You can get the recipe HERE and check out how all the other talented SMS bakers fared and paired this weeks recipe.

A Cake Slice: Marbled Blueberry Lemon Butter Cake

2009-07-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

So ... I managed to make this month's tripple layer cake for the Cake Slice group on-time this month and will have also posted on time- whoo hooo! This month's selection was Marbled Blueberry Lemon Cake which called for homemake blueberry preserves. It was fun to make - and a real crowd pleaser. And boy did we have a crowd. We headed back to the Delta to Mr. and Mr. Anderson's house for some more water play and great food. They loved the Pina Colada cake so I wanted to bring them something they would equally enjoy. Luckily, OE (their son) told me Mr. A loves blueberries - so this cake worked out perfectly. I was a hit and as you can see I barely got a chance to take a photo of a slice before it was all gone.

So, if you want to make this delicious cake, you should buy the awesome Sky High book, or you can check out a Printable Recipe graciously posted by marvelous Monica of Lick the Bowl Good

I also did a little holiday baking for the weekend. Since I had missed out on making decorated sugar cookies for both Valentine's day and Easter, I was determined to make some for 4th of July. So determined, that I stayed up until 3:00 AM to make these cookies (there were more, but my fatigue prevented me from taking a lot of photos) and more!

I also made more babka after LOVING the ones I made with my dear friend Elyse of Elyse's Confectionary Creations who I am probably not the only one who misses her dearly. This photo is actually one of the ones we made together - no photos of the two loaves I made for the 4th (it was late) but these ones were equally as good - delicious. I highly recommend you checking our Elyse's (our - I never got around to posting, boo) post on this delicious dessert challah .

And, finally, I also brought some of the Baked Monster Cookies I had made before. Why so much you ask? Well, we were invading the Anderson's with quite a crew - 13 of us to be exact - so I wanted to come with plenty of sweets for this motley crew. And every last crumb was eaten! That's always a baker's true delight.

And.... it was a special occasion (in addition to the federal holiday). It was my dear hubby's 31st birthday. And a very special friend from work gave me this FANTASTIC, AMAZING, 3 liter bottle of Ravenswood Zinfandel (hubby's fav) to celebrate the occasion. Thanks SO VERY much Rollin.

As you can see, hubby was quite pleased with his gift - as were the rest of us who shared in the many glasses this beloved vessel bestowed upon us this happy 4th of July.

The next morning, we had a nice birthday brunch at the waterside Rusty Porthole, which is "known" in the hood for its biscuits and gravy (picture below). It was a great start to our next adventure - we drove up to Klammath CA later that day for a 2 day white water rafting trip. Thanks again Mr. and Mrs. A and OE for the FABULOUS time on the island.

SMS: Whole Orange Poppyseed Cake

2009-07-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

Man o man, it's been a long time since I have had the time to pay attention to this blog of mine. I am sorry that I have neglected my beloved blog, but mostly sorry that I have also neglected to visit and comment on my blogging friend's sites. I will be making the rounds this week to catch up and see what you baking geniuses have been up to. July started off with and AMAZING vacation and I returned last Monday night to a whole host of work stuff and other commitments, so just now getting back to my normal hectic life!

So, short and sweet. This weeks SMS recipe is whole orange poppyseed cake chosen by Melissa of Lulu the Baker. You can get the recipe HERE. I just made this cake (its 11:30PM on Sunday night) so its still sitting on the table and I don't have any tasting notes as a result. But...sounds like my fellow SMS bakers really liked this cake. What I can tell you is that it was SUPER easy to make - most of the time is baking/waiting time, and it smells fantastic. As the name explains, this cake uses an entire whole orange - peel and rind and all. Wish I could taste it but I will live vicariously through others for now. I would like to try this without the poppyseeds and with dark chocolate chunks - what do you think?

Thanks Melissa for picking and hosting this week and thanks Karen from Karen's Cookies Cakes and More for helping me with admin stuff while I was traveling and thanks to all you faithful SMS bakers for your patience while I was out. I am back for a long while now. See you next Sunday.

TWD: Perfect Party Cake

2009-06-30T23:17:00.001-07:00

Ahh Tuesday with Dorie again. I missed you. This weeks recipe was the Perfect Party Cake chosen by Carol of Mix..Mix...Stir..Stir. You can find the recipe for this beloved cake on her site - so go check it out (her cake is awesome). To compensate for the last post which was SUPER long (thank you Cassie) I will make this short and sweet (and because I am working on baking 100 cupcakes right now!). I made this cake for a partner's wife's birthday a while back. I started out making another recipe, but when i dropped that cake and ruined it - at about 10:30 PM - and had to start over - I switched to my faithful Dorie. No inside pictures since this was how it left my super cautious (this time around) hands. But, word was that it was exactly what the birthday girl wanted. A success I say. I will definately give this another try - and you should too!

Big Fun Cupcake Order

2009-06-30T00:49:00.000-07:00

So, a while back, I hinted at a big large cupcake order that kept me up till 3 AM. Well, I am finally sharing with you the fruits of my labor. A partner at my office has the cutest sweetest daughter and they were hosting a tea party mid-week for 30 or so of her friends (plus their moms). I was asked to make the cupcakes to fit their blue and white color theme. I was super excited. Like many of you (do I have any non-baking blogger readers, doubtful) I just love any opportunity to bake.

A long while ago I had bought cupcake boxes from BRP Box Shop - a great buy. I have been using them for a long time now - love them. My sweetie pie assistant - who must have washed the dishes at least 6 times - also helped me by making labels for the boxes with my logo, blog, email and cupcake flavors. He was a champ - thanks baby.

I planned ahead - at least as far as the decorations went. I made the flowers using royal icing and my large flower tip. I had bought a flower nail head (is that what it is called?) and tried to make roses, but that didn't work out. I really need a wilton class - why is their NO Michaels or JoAnn's in San Francisco - seriously Internet do they think only people that live in the burbs want to be crafty? I don't think so.

My biggest plan ahead challenge was making butterflies out of candy melts. I got the idea from the book Hello Cupcake. I was lucky enough to get this book for my birthday from my awesome longtime friend Ashley R. (who may in fact be my only non-baker reader). Thanks Ashley. This is a great book. The first few butterflies - I don't want to talk about it. After failing on my roses, I was seriously distraught. But, I was determined to prevail.

The biggest problem that I was having with these was the fact that by the time I filled in the blue, the chocolate outline had dried which did not allow me to do the nice streaking. I was also having problems with the candy hardening in the zip lock bag and causing clotting, which made the candy melts shoot out when I applied more pressure to unclog the bag. Bad news bears.

I put my thinking cap on, and realized that what I needed was to keep the candy warm so it would stay nice and liquid. The solution? My heating pad. I took the cover off, put a paper towel on to of the pad, set the setting to low and layed the candy filled bags on top. IT WORKED! Like a charm. The candy stayed nice and melted the whole time it took me to make a dozen butterflies. Yay! In the end, I was very proud of my butterflies.

As for flavors. I went simple - considering I didn't start baking until 9PM. That was not planning ahead. I wanted to start early, I really did. But, I ended up heading over to the east bay to sign an offer on a house -which we didn't get - booo urns. Seriously (yes I say that alot), but the housing market in the east bay is brutal right now. So, late start it was. And, that meant vanilla vanilla, vanilla chocolate, chocolate vanilla, and very lemon lemon.

I did have a major failure on that epic baking night. I tried to make the Cake Slice Chai Cake into cupcake - cause hey, it was a tea party. So, I made the recipe as usual, poured the batter 3/4 full into my beautiful baking cups. And... they totally overflowed and filled the top of the cupcake pan - and I mean filled. There really was no salvaging. So, great cake, but not so great as cupcakes, at least for me.

Well, this is the end of the epic post about the epic baking night. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

A Cake Slice: Pina Colada Cake

2009-06-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I totally made the June selection of Tripple Layer Pina Colada Cake for the Cake Slice group on-time. But, just didn't get a chance to post it until now. Hey, it is still June (barely). I had a great occasion to take this cake to - a beautiful weekend on the Delta at Bethel Island. My good friend OE's parents live right on the water in this great big blue house. They invite us out every summer (or maybe we invite ourselves!) and they are such amazing hosts, taking us out on their boats, cooking us dinner, keeping good company. Thanks Mr. & Mrs. A - can't wait to come back for 4th of July. So I was happy to have a great cake to take along to share with everyone.

"They" all insisted I pose with my cake. So here I am with my prized Pina Colada cake. "If you like pina colada's ..." I had this song in my head when making this cake, I just had to buy it off I-tunes and I seriously listened to it over and over, I love that song.

Once again, I had a bit of trouble with the frosting. I just don't like making those meringue frostings. At first I couldn't get the frosting to get past the almost curdled stage. Then I did a little research and realized I needed to switch from the whisk to paddle attachment - that sure did the trick. But frosting it, well that was tough. Thank goodness for the coconut on the outside. It was a very strange texture, it was slippery. It was very hot that day, so that might have had something to do with it, but I don't know. I might just have to be an american buttercream baker - unless Cassie wants to visit SF and come show me since she is the queen of SMBC.

So, the verdict. People loved this cake. OE's dad, "Mr. A," liked it a lot and he's aparently not a huge cake fan, and "Mrs. A" also loved it alot. People really liked how moist it was (thanks to the soaking of the layers in rum!) and the fact that it was not toooo sweet. OE like the cake, not his favorite, but good he said. He thought it was a bit of texture overload and that the pineapple filling was a little surprisingly tart (compared to the cake). I will definately make this again for all those pina colada lovers out there.

PRINTABLE RECIPE courtesy of the great Monica of Lick the Bowl Good.

SMS: Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies

2009-06-28T22:04:00.001-07:00

I'm back! It's good to be back. I have been super busy - work, baking, family, friends. It has all been terrific. Just, didn't leave a whole lot of time to blog. And, while I have a TON of things to post, I didn't want to just throw things up and do a lot of posting when I couldn't do commenting. Speaking of which I am SUPER behind. I don't know if you know how daunting it is to have your google reader threatening to break 1000 - oh, it kept me worrying in bed a few times. So my apologies, I will do my best to make the rounds.

So, this week's SMS recipe is Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies that were chosen by Megan of My Baking Adventures - one of my favorite bloggers. She is soo sweet, bakes up tons of stupendious treats, and leaves many nice comments. You can get this week's recipe from her blog here. Seems like many of the fellow SMS Bakers liked these cookies a lot. I can't report on their taste, since I can't eat them, but I bet my work will gobble these up tomorrow and be greatful to Megan. My trusty taster and fantastic hubby is in Kenya (actually on his way back right now), so baking blind tonight. I did learn from all of the more responsible and diligent SMS'ers who baked and posted nice and early today that the baking time was probably less than in the book, so I baked mine for 12 minutes, and they look like they turned out just fine.

Happy Sunday!

TWD: Rewind - Chipster Topped Brownies

2009-06-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

OK, so I didn't make this week's TWD because (1) I can't eat ice cream as you know; and (2) I don't have an ice cream maker, because of reason #1. For this week's recipe, Tommi of Brown Interior selected Honey-Peach Ice Cream for TWD. Sorry Tommi, the ice cream sure looks good.

So, for this short and sweet post, I am doing a rewind to a few weeks back when Beth of Supplicious decided on Chipster-Topped Brownies on pages 94 and 95 of Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. I made these special brownies for my husband's grandmother for mother's day. Word on the street was that she loved these and happily shared them with her friends where she lives. I found these to be pretty easy to make - lots of dishes - and well worth the effort. I look forward to making these again, I think my work would be very excited to find these in the kitchen.

SMS: Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds

2009-06-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

A special SMS post - this week the author of our group's chosen book baked along with us! That's right, Melissa Murphy of Sweet Melissa Patisserie in New York and author of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book baked her infamous chocolate chip cookies with toasted almonds with the group this week. And thanks to Elyse of Elyse's Confectionary Creations, Melissa's photos, post and the recipe are on the Sweet Melissa Sundays group site.

I can't thank Melissa enough for baking along with us and for Elyse for stepping in and posting Melissa's bake-along. I mean, its true, I called Elyse last night at 9:30 PM to tell her my friends decided to take the boat out and sleep on it, anchored amongst the reeds on the Delta. I knew that meant I wouldn't be able to get the post up first thing Sunday - no Internet on the "high seas," and that people would be looking for it so I asked Elyse to step in very last minute, and she was such a sweet willing champ - Elyse you rock! Also, thanks to Elyse, I am the proud owner of that cute little blue/green cake stand in the picture at top. I love it (I would collect cake stands if I had room) - and plan to use it often. Thanks so much (again) Elyse.

So, because these cookies are bestsellers at the Sweet Melissa Patisserie, and other SMS'ers posted their results this week with rave reviews, I decided to make these lactose free by substituting lactose free margarine for butter so I could try them. I doubled the batch so I could make one with the toasted almonds and one without. My cookies turned out very flat - and even though I baked them a little longer than the recommended 13 minutes, they tasted like cookie dough. Nothing wrong with this - Mathias said it was a perfect chocolate chip cookie for him - I think most of the time he'd rather just eat the cookie dough rather than a baked cookie. And, I know from sharing these cookies with co-workers and friends, there are other's like him out there!

I suspect after reading Melissa's post, that they weren't supposed to be quite this flat and cookie-dough like. I am not sure if it was because of the butter for margarine substitution, or because I hurried along the chilling time by using the freezer. Not sure. But doesn't really matter because people LOVED these cookies ALOT. And I thought they were fabulous. Granted I haven't had a chocolate chip cookie in years, but still, delicious. As you can see from the photo above, I used ALOT of Valharona semi-sweet chocolate and I think that helped contribute the chocolate goodness that these were. I tried both the ones with the nuts and without, and even though I LOVE nuts, I did actually prefer the ones without nuts. I definately will make these again with real butter to see how they turn out, as I know they will disappear quickly.

Finally, thanks to all the SMS bakers for your patience and understanding with this week's recipe. Sorry it was a little last minute getting it all pulled together.

Cupcake Goodies from Mom

2009-06-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

I know Mother's Day is long gone for the year and Father's day is around the corner, but there really should be many more days of appreciation for mother's shouldn't there (I hear a resounding yes from you hardworking mothers!). I couldn't adequately express the proper gratitude and admiration for my wonderful Mother, so I am not going to try to write a long tribute, but I will say, a few things. Like my Mother has the biggest heart. Not only did she adopt me and my three sisters and give us amazing lives and opportunities, she works with abused, neglected, abandonded children trying to find suitable homes for them and would - if possible - adopt many more children herself. She's just amazing and she is my rock - we may not see eye to eye all the time, but has always been and always will be there for me. Her love and support is always felt.

So, this does have something to do with baking, I promise. See the stuff in the photo above, my Mother has sent this stuff and more (cute cupcake stickers not pictured) in many little packages over the last few weeks, with notes of love, recipe clippings, etc. It is soooo cool - THANKS MOM. I mean who doesn't like to receive good snail mail - and unexpected snail mail with very cool treats at that - man that's up there. She got most of the cool stuff pictured, like cupcake magnets, napkins, plates, x-mas ornament, journal from the wonderful Michaels for awesome discount prices. So, if your headed to Michaels soon and would like any of this stuff ... maybe you are planning a cupcake party, or just collect the stuff, look out for it there.

Thanks mom. So, in case you were wondering, I have gotten all of your packages, I LOVE them, and of course, wouldn't mind if you keep making my day with your awesome snail mail. Love you.

More Birthday Cupcakes

2009-06-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

Cupcakes - I almost can't believe I am choosing to FINALLY bring you the last of the birthday cupcakes from my friends Jen's and Steph's birthday party after staying up till 3:30am last night baking 8 1/2 dozen regular cupcakes and 4 dozen mini cupcakes. My second cupcake order! So fun - stay tuned cause I went all out with the decorations (IMHO). But, I am crazy like that, so here they are.

The 3rd flavor was strawberry cupcakes. I made 1 dozen of my go-to strawberry cupcake recipe - the ones my sisters always insist that I make when I go home and fight over - and 1 dozen of the Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes. I am sticking with my go-to strawberry recipe. The Sprinkles cupcakes rose a lot but instead of nice domes, it was flat and spread over the top of the cupcake pan - not cool. Seems this happens to me with one batch every time I make a bunch of cupcakes. So might not be the recipe, but what was the recipe was the use of pureed strawberries instead of chopped - and that makes a big difference. Tracey of the awesome blog Tracey's Culinary Adventures recently tried the Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes so you can check out her experience and adaptation.

I did, however, prefer the sprinkles frosting recipe as it was much thicker, tasted great and piped well. So, from now on, I will be combining my favorite strawberry cupcake recipe with Sprinkles strawberry frosting recipe. Click here for a Printable Recipe.

And, I must take a moment to thank the lovely Bunny of Bunny's Warm Oven for teaching me how to provide you with clean printable recipes. Thanks so much Bunny. You should check out her site, her photos make me drool, and she is on the top of my list for my Blog Love project.

Finally, the fourth cupcake flavor was Mocha Chip with Chocolate Buttercream frosting. I actually don't have much to say about these, as most of the feedback I received that night - after a few - ok, probably like a few to many - adult beverages was about the #1 Cupcakes that I posted about. But, these went fast and furious too, and the recipe is from one of my FAVORITE cupcake books - 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson. Seriously, this is the one book that I go to all the time. There are great simple basics and clever flavor combinations - all of them easy to make and they provide a great basis for playing around. And these mocha chip cupcakes have both ground coffee and instant coffee granules for a nice strong coffee flavor. Click here for a Printable Recipe.

SMS: Bear's Peah Cobbler

2009-06-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

I am happy to return to Sweet Melissa Sundays. And what a great dessert to return to. This week's recipe of Bear's Peach Cobbler was chosen by Andrea of Nummy Kitchen, and judging by her posts, her kitchen sure looks nummy. You can get the recipe for this cobbler here. This was my first time making a peach cobbler, so I was excited.

As it turned out, I was invited to a lovely brunch today, so I got up early and made the cobbler to bring along. While there was no shortage of delicious food at the brunch, the cobbler was tested and got great reviews. I couldn't taste it because I didn't have lactose free products at home. The recipe was simple enough, although blanching and then peeling those peaches took FOREVER. Man, that felt like a lot of work. I see that Andrea skipped the peeling and I think I will too next time!

The dough was easy to make and I got to use my pastry blender that I bought for Melissa's pie dough recipe, so that was cool. I forgot to add the lemon zest to the dough (actually I subbed lime for lemons because that is what I had), so I rubbed the lemon zest with the sugar that you are supposed to sprinkle on top of the biscuits before baking. I also added a dash of nutmeg because I really like that spice and therefore, think everyone else should too! People definitely noticed the spice and the lime flavors and liked it. I hope to try this later this summer lactose free so I can try it. Great recipe, thanks Andrea.

As always, you can check out the other Sweet Melissa wonder bakers here.

Blog Love: Bakingblonde's Cookies

2009-06-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

So, I am back from my AMAZING vacation in Hawaii (I know, cry me a river). Sorry I didn't make it around to your blog while I was gone, I ended up going with the cold turkey approach to all things digital. It was very refreshing, but I am so glad to be back (to blogging) and have set aside this evening to get through my google reader.

I have a few missed TWD and SMS posts to get up, but for my return to blogging I bring you my first "Blog Love" post. I just love love love so many of your baking/cooking blogs and have been bookmarking and printing your recipes for a long time now. I was inspired by the magnificent Donna of My Tasty Treasures (who blesses us with gorgeous firefigher photos, among other things) and her Imitation posts, and thought I should do a post in honor of a blog I love when I bake at least two of their posts. And so, there you go - my first Blog Love post.

So this post is in honor of the amazing, stupenduous, awesome blog Bakingblonde. Go and check this great blog out if you don't already have it in your google reader. She is so creative, I love it. I have a ton of recipes of hers that I want to try, but this post is about her Intense Chocolate Shock Cookies and Butterscotch Rice Krispies Cookies (click through for the recipes). I have been on a cupcake and cake kick lately and wanted to return to cookie monster land and bake up some cookies for the SF Food Bank bake sale I baked for a while back.

These were AhhhhMAZING. I made a few tweaks, adding Reeses Pieces instead of chocolate chips for the chocolate cookies. And for the butterscotch cookies I added some peanut butter (chunky) in place of some butter (I think it was 1/4 cup peanut butter in place of 1/4 cup butter but can't remember, sorry) as Bakingblonde suggested and added a tad more water because my dough was a little too crumbly at first.

Thanks Bakingblonde. I love your blog.

Aloha: Pina Colada Cupcakes

2009-05-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

Well, in about 9 hours I will be on a direct flight to Maui for an 8 day vacation with my hubby. Hercules, Hercules (clapping hands). As you may remember, I was supposed to go to Mexico, but on the urging of friends and family, we relocated to Hawaii. While I do think the swine flu frenzy is a bit exaggerated, in the end I didn't want to take any chances that either of us would be sick on our vacation because a week long vacation all alone in paradise is not something we do all that often - like 3 1/2 years ago for our honeymoon. I have never been to Hawaii and am sooo excited. Thank you William and Locey for making this all possible by the use of your condo. So, in the spirit of Hawaii, I bring you these delicious pina colada cupcakes.

My work was having a bake-sale fundraiser for the San Francisco Food Bank and I of course had to go all out. So I made 2 kinds of cookies, mini TWD lemon tarts, and 6 dozen cupcakes in 3 varieties. I adapted a pina colada recipe I had used before to make it a little more coconutty and boozy. My tasters at work said these were super delicious and really moist. They said they could certainly taste the rum and thought it tasted just like a pina colada. They didn't last at the bake sale that long. If you are looking for a delicious cuptail, I would encourage you to try these.

Pina Colada Cupcakes

(Makes 24)

Adapted from Grand Central Baking Company

2 ½ cups cake flour or AP flour (what I used)

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda1

½ sticks unsalted butterat room temperature

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

5 large eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup rum
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon coconut extract

1/3 cup crushed pineapple, drained well

· Combine coconut milk and rum.
· Sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
· Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 6 minutes.
· Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Scrape as needed.
· Add vanilla, coconut extract and mix until incorporated. Add one-third of the flour mixture and mix until incorporated.
· Add a third of the coconut/rum mixture and mix until incorporated. Continue to alternate with flour and liquid two more times. Scrape sides of bowl.
· With a rubber spatula, gently fold in the crushed pineapple.
· Fill each one about 2/3 full. Bake until cake springs back when lightly pressed or skewer comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.

Rummy Buttercream Frosting

(double the recipe to pipe frosting like in photos)

½ cup butter, softened to room temp
2-2 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
coconut milk as needed

Beat butter, sugar, and rum together with a handheld mixer at low speed until moistened, then beat at high speed to cream. Stop after a minute to scrape bowl and add vanilla. Beat till thick, fluffy and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Add small increments of confectioners’ sugar if too wet, dribble in a little coconut milk if too dry.

The Cake Slice: Mile-High Devil's Food Cake

2009-05-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

My second month of participating in the Cake Slice Bakers group. And let me just tell you, the Chai Cake and this month's Mile-High Devil's Food Cake were out of this world good. I would highly recommend the book we are baking out of - Sky High: Irrisistible Tripple-Layer Cakes. Go get it!!!

I LOVED this cake. I ate almost the whole slice below for breakfast this morning (oink oink). The cake is very rich chocolate and moist, and fudgy, and delicious. It is so good, it doesn't need frosting (IMO). I made it lactose free by substituting lactose free margarine for the buttter. This is going to be my go-to chocolate cake recipe from now on, can't wait to try it as cupcakes.

The frosting, well if you have seen the many other Cake Slice baker's cakes this month, you'll notice mine is a little flat in the frosting department. I wasn't aiming for the slim and trim look though (because come on, this is a decadent tripple-layer chocolate cake OK). Aparently, lactose free margarine does not work as a good substitution in Italian meringue buttercream. It was like soup, no matter how long I tried to whip the heck out of it (maybe that was part of the problem too??). Don't know, but I had to add powdered sugar and meringue powder, and stick it in the fridge to get it think enough to frost (barely).

I didn't love the brown sugar frosting either (tasted like butter flavor to me - so I added in vanilla bean paste, which helped). So, next time I think I will stick with regular american buttercream. And, someday I will get up the courage to try SMBC, because we all know Cassie of How to Eat a Cupcake swears by it, and if you read her blog, you know she has authority in that department. Click the link below for the recipe. Cassie, can you make SMBC lactose free?

PRINTED RECIPE

TWD: Fresh Mango Bread

2009-05-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

Look at me posting this TWD recipe on Tuesday, with almost an hour to go! Almost didn't happen even though I baked these Fresh Mango Bread loaves the day before mother's day because of my super sucky computer. Feel like a real life commercial of the Mac (which my husband uses many of and thinks only sane rational people use) vs. my struggling, not doing so well but relatively new desktop PC - wahhhhaaaa. So, we'll see what we do about that - a Mac convert in the making, just maybe.

So, this week's recipe was chosen by Kelly of Baking with Boys and you can get the recipe here. It is basically a spiced cake with chopped fresh mangos in it. It also called for raisins, but like many of you out there, that generated a yuck response to me. So, I substituted in chopped dried apricots. I doubled the recipe (sending my husband back to the store for one more mango because I misread the recipe, for his third time at the store that day - I am a very lucky woman), so that I could give one to my mother-in-law and one to my sister-in-law as mother's day presents. So, no inside the bread photos.

I had a little bit of an issue with the baking time. First, I set the timer, and forgot to turn it on (have done that way too often sadly). Second, we went to lunch in the park because it was gorgeous out and we are about to get our lovely foggy cold summer here in SF, so it was hard to leave the sun, meaning I started baking these breads a little over an hour before we were supposed to be across the city. I thought I could just be a tad late to dinner - since I would be gift in hand, but then realized I couldn't really pull it out of the oven and run - how would I package it up steaming hot? So I left the breads, slightly underdone, and then stuck them back in the oven when I got home that night.

My mother-in-law seemed to like the bread a lot. The other bread never made it to my sister-in-law, it got mis-delivered to another (well deserving Mom, who unfortunately left town the next morning so not sure what its final fate was - oh well). I LOVE mangos and many of my fellow TWD'ers liked the bread a lot, so I will do another double batch soon - one for me and one for my sister-in-law.

SMS: Guinness Gingerbread

2009-05-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

This week's SMS recipe of Guinness Gingerbread was chosen by Katie of Katiecakes - our lone English bakers who is such a trooper to be dealing with our crazy measurements and ingredients not available across the pond. You can check out her cupcakes and the recipe here.

I decided to make the gingerbread into cupcakes because my work loves cupcakes (just baked 6 dozen for a bake sale last week and they went quickly, more on that someday!). I wanted to jazz them up a bit, so I made Bailey's Irish Buttercream frosting from the recipe on Irene's awesome blog Confessions of a Tart. And, because I was feeling really ambitious, I filled the cupcakes with chocolate ganache. Since I made these early, a first in my baking club adventures, it was the reason I had leftovers of these on hand for my modified TWD tiramisu cake.

The verdict, people about died at work. Since I only made 12, I emailed my regular cupcake customers at work for a private tasting in my office, instead of just putting them in the kitchen. This way, I got to see and hear the reactions. There were lots of ohhhs and ahhhs. People LOVED these.

Since the gingerbread recipe is dairy free, I was able to eat the cones I replaced with ganache. I really liked it too. I ran out of molasses so I substituted maple syrup, and you could taste a hint of maple. Overall, it was pretty mild flavor wise - not a spicy gingerbread. But it apparently went smashingly well with the filling and frosting, so a great end result. I will definitely make these again. Check out the other SMS bakers here.

TWD: Tartest Lemon Tart

2009-05-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

OK, so another (somewhat) late TWD post - just spreading it out for all ya! Really, I was going to be on time, I was. I deliberately saved it to the last minute so I could make them for a bake sale for the San Francisco Food Bank my firm had today. But, my broker called me about some houses and I just had to run over to the east bay to check them out, then yada yada. So, this tart was done and sampled at around 1:30AM (technically Wednesday, I know) and I was too tired to get this post up.

This weeks TWD recipe of Tartest Lemon Tart was chosen by Babette Feasts. You can get the recipe here. I decided I had to try this recipe lactose free so I could eat it and boy did it work, they are DELICIOUS. I substituted the butter in the crust and filling for lactose free margarine (that I stuck in the freezer for the crust) and soy creamer for the cream in the filling. I was skeptical, but it tastes delicious and you really can't tell at all (so says my hubby who unlike me can remember the taste of cream and butter). So if you know any lactose free friends or family who like lemon desserts, this can totally be made lactose free - whooopiee!

I ended up making two 4.5 inch tarts and six 3 inch tarts. I didn't seem to have the boiling over problem that many did, maybe my lactose free substitutions?, so they all turned out great. Thanks so much Babette Feasts and Dorie, I LOVED this super tart, deliciously lemon dessert.

Lemon Sweets From Other Blogs

2009-05-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

So, no SMS for me this week. This week's recipe was Lemon Icebox Cake, and was chosen by Jennifer of Keep Passing the Open Windows. Sorry Jennifer. I just didn't have any room in my freezer, we have a really packed and small one, and I didn't have an audience for it and since it had to be frozen, that made giving it away too tough. It looks really great, and I will have to try it someday. Check out the other SMS bakers and their wonderful creations here.

In order to give you more than just an - I didn't bake along this week post - I'll share with you some lemon treats I have made recently after seeing them on other blogs.

My dad sure loves his lemon desserts and I had some extra lemons on hand so I wanted to make him something that would ship well - i.e. not lemon bars (his favorite). So, when I came across Lemon Sugar Cookies from Nicole of Baking Bites I figured I would give these a try.

My ever faithful taster hubby love these and said they had a similar texture to snickerdoodles, crispy on the outside and nice and chewy on the inside. He love them. After passing the taste test, I packed up two gift bags and shipped one off to my father in Los Angeles and the other off to my father-in-law in Chicago (who sent me the picture above of the cookies & daffodils). They were very well recieved.

Lemon Sugar Cookies

(from Nicole of Baking Bites)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tbsp lemon zest
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar and lemon zest until mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract. Gradually mix in the flour at low speed, making sure to incorporate all of the flour and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Place remaining 2-3 tbsp sugar in a small bowl. Shape 1-inch balls of dough, roll in the sugar and place on prepared baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes, until set but not browned (or only very lightly on the bottom). Edges should be slightly firm. Cool cookies on the pan for a minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 4 dozen

On another recent occassion, I found myself with more extra lemons, and decided to make Mini Lemon Bunt Cakes after seeing them on Two Peas and Their Pod (a really great blog). The recipe for these cakes is the Barefoot Contessa's Lemon Yogurt Cake.

I gave these out to the many legal secretaries at my work that are super sweet and always willing to help me out during our staff appreciation week. They all seemed to love them.

Inna's Lemon Yogurt Cake

1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 C. plain whole-milk yogurt
1 1/3 C. sugar, divided
3 extra-large eggs
2 tsp. grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 C. vegetable oil
1/3 C. freshly squeezed lemon juice

Glaze:
1 C. confectioners’ sugar
2 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it’s all incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 C. lemon juice and remaining 1/3 C. sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in. Cool.

For the glaze, combine the confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice and pour over the cake. Slice and serve!

#1 Birthday Cupcakes

2009-05-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

It has taken me a while to bring you the next birthday cupcakes series. First was the much loved Funfetti cupcakes, and next are the #1 birthday cupcakes. This was almost everyone's hands down favorite. I recieved so may compliments on these babies and was told by many to leave the law to start my own bakery. So, if you want to feel like a baking superstar, I would suggest you make these for your next event.

Of course, it is not hard to see why this were much loved. They are an incredible marriage between two foodie celebrities. They are Martha's brownie cupcakes and the well known and well loved Kathleen's Peanut Butter Icing with chopped Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. I know I am not the only one to put these flavors together and in fact, so many of you have done combos of these flavors, it would be hard to mention them all. Proof that this combo is what Mother Nature really intended.

So, make these. You won't be disappointed. Well loved tried and true recipes that come together in perfect harmony.

I have made these once before (for Jen's birthday last year), and I must say in my opinion there is an important step in the brownie cupcake recipe. If you notice below, the ingredient list calls for 11 ounces of best quality chopped chocolate, but you melt the butter with only 11 ounces of chocolate and then add the remaining three ounces of chocolate to the batter just before scooping. When I made these the first time, I did not do it this way (I am terible when things call for divided amounts - I usually don't read all the way through first - oops, bad baker). And, they sunk a bit. When I did it right this time, they domed perfectly. Now, I am no expert, so this may not be related to the chocolate (since I am pretty sure that 3 ounces does end up melting), but might as well follow the recipe - right?

Without furter ado, I bring you the recipes:

MARTHA STEWART’S BROWNIE CUPCAKES:

INGREDIENTS

Serving: Makes 12.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

11 ounces best-quality semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups Chopped

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line a 12-count muffin tin with cupcake liners, and spray generously with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and 8 ounces of chocolate. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat, and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar. Add flour, cocoa, and baking soda. Stir in the melted chocolate until combined. Stir in remaining 3 ounces of chocolate.

Using a 2-ounce ice cream scoop, fill cupcake liners 3/4 full with batter. Bake until a firm crust forms on the cupcakes, about 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool, about 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan, and continue to cool on a wire rack. Ice cupcakes with a generous amount of peanut butter frosting. Top with chopped Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups.

Kathleen's Peanut Butter Icing:

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 cup creamy peanut butter

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/3 cup heavy cream

Place the confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

TWD: Tiramisu Cake

2009-05-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

This week's TWD recipe, a Tiramisu Layer Cake, was chosen by one of my favorite baking bloggers Megan of My Baking Adventures. You can get the recipe here, and while you are at it, check out her awesome brownie project here. My mom loves Tiramisu so this recipe makes me think of her and wish I could make this for her for Mother's day. It will have to wait until I go home in June, sorry Mom - but thinking of you and miss you.

I have to admit, that while I was going to do this recipe in its full, unadulterated unaltered glory, It just didn't happen. I had made a Bailey's Irish butter cream frosting that I got from Irene of Confessions of a Tart - another legal baker that is AMAZING. So even though I did buy the marscapone, and will use it I promise, I ended up just slathering on this delicious frosting that got rave reviews in its other purpose. Additionally, you may have noticed - after reading a gazillion posts about tiramisu cake - that my chocolate looks a little more thick and uniform than chocolate chunks would produce. Well, this is because I had made some delicious chocolate ganache earlier in the week as well, and wanted to use this up. So, I ended up being very resourceful for once and used what I had on hand and by doing so, was able to whip this baby together very last minute for an impromptu dinner party.

So, one day, I will make a real Tiramisu Cake for my mother with the marscapone frosting. But this cake, with the espresso/brandy soaked layers of cake, chocolate ganache filling and Bailey's buttercream frosting was very much loved as well.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

2009-05-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Cinco De Mayo! I should be celebrating Mexico two weeks from tomorrow in the beautiful Riveria Maya at the Valentin Imperial Resort - swine flu permitting, cross your fingers for me. Today, in rainy balmy San Francisco, a corona or two and tacos will have to do! I have made these Mexican Chocolate cupcakes several times now, and they have always been loved and devoured. They have just a hint of cinnamon and spice - oh so nice! I made these little flags to make them more festive. To do so, I just copied and pasted a picture of the Mexican flag over and over in a word document, printed them out, then glued a toothpick in between two of the little flag print outs. So easy peasy. Hope you all are having a great day!

Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes

From Four Obsessions

1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 C Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 C water
2 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 C well-shaken buttermilk
2 T vanilla
2 C all purpose flour
1 t baking soda1 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
Pinch cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Put cupcake papers in your muffin tins.

Melt butter in a large heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then whisk in cocoa. Add water and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk in separately sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and cayenne pepper into a bowl. Then sift again into the cocoa mixture and whisk until just combined (it will be a little bit lumpy).
Fill cupcake papers to about 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes until a skewer or toothpick comes out clean. It’s a moist cake, so don’t worry if a few crumbs stick to your tester.

Cassie's Grandmother's Chocolate Frosting - my go-to chocolate frosting recipe - from the awesome How to Eat a Cupcake.

Makes about 3 cups (Enough to frost 12 cupcakes + 1 cup leftover)

1 stick (4 oz) butter or margarine (Cassie's Grandma always uses margarine)
3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat milk for about 30 seconds in microwave until hot. Stir in vanilla and instant coffee until dissolved. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, and cocoa powder. Add warm milk and mix on high speed until fluffy.

SMS: Strawberry Shortcakes

2009-05-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe of Strawberry Shortcakes was chosen by Wendy of the amazing blog Pink Stripes. You should check out her stunning FOUR variations and the recipe here (nicely done Wendy!).

I had been hearing great things about this recipe from the P&Q section all week from members that made it and loved it, so I was really looking forward to making these. This was another first for me, I have never made strawberry shortcakes before and can't remember the last time I had one. So I made these lactose free (almost) and substituted the cream with soy creamer and butter with lactose free margarine. I don't know if that really affected the texture, but my dough was super sticky and really hard to shape and work with, so I think they didn't rise as much as they should have because of all my handling.

They tasted FABULOUS however. The hint of lemon in the cakes paired so well with the strawberries (which got an extra tablespoon of brandy to soak in). The cake above was scarfed by yours truely within minutes after the photo was taken. Since I tried to make these completely lactose free, I went with cool whip instead of fresh whipped cream (my hubby didn't notice!) but that's why it looks a little watery above. Unfortunately this is some casinate in the cool whip and when I eat this in large quantities, it causes a significant tummy ache. What we do for our blogs - I wanted a pretty picture, so I slathered on the whipped topping. I should have then removed most of it before eating (you really only need a hint because the biscuit/cake and strawberries are soooo good), but no, little miss piggy over here went for it all. Oh well. I survived =)

Thanks Wendy, great recipe selection and AMAZING post. Check out the other SMS bakers here.

Tagged: A Little About Lorelei

2009-05-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

I have never been a part of any blog tagging events, but recently was lucky enough to be tagged by two great bloggers. First, Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater tagged me with 10 Honest Things About Myself & Alicia of The Red Deer tagged me with The Number 8. Thanks Stephanie and Alicia. So, here you go – a little bit about myself in case you were interested (if you only come for the baked goodness, I totally understand). And, because I really liked how Stephanie added great relevant photos to her list, I am doing that too.

8 Things I’m Looking Forward To:
1. Mexico Vacation
2. The Swine Flu madness to end so I can go on Mexico vacation
3. Baking with Elyse of Elyse's Confectionary Creations tomorrow!
4. Bay to Breakers
5. Dressing up as a Mad Baker for Bay to Breakers
6. River rafting with OTT this summer
7. Working at the cookie booth at the Oregon Country Fair this summer
8. Buying a house with a great, if not dream, kitchen hopefully soon.

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Settled on what we are baking for my baking play date with Elyse tomorrow (stay tuned)
2. Started working on a new case
3. Started working on an appellate brief
4. Won a game of apples to apples
5. Did a wine tasting event with some good friends
6. Hosted an impromptu dinner party
7. Made Turkish lentil soup, chicken & shrimp kebabs with Turkish spices; eggplant dip and garlic, cheese artichoke bread for impromptu dinner party
8. Turned surviving half of dropped cake and left over chocolate ganache and frosting into a mock tiramisu cake for dinner party.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
1. Not be such a negative worry wort
2. HTML coding
3. Photoshop
4. Graphic design
5. Bake everyday
6. Make wedding cakes
7. Appreciate my loved ones and good fortune more frequently

8. Run (stupid back)

8 Top Movies (I don’t watch T.V)
1. The Bourne Series
2. Die Hard Series
3. Ocean’s 11
4. Shrek Movies
5. Bridget Jones’ Diary
6. Pride and Prejudice
7. My Best Friend’s Wedding
8. Sweet Home Alabama

And now I tag the following 8 great blogs (feel free to just know I heart your blog and not pass it on, not sure how everyone feels about these tagging things as I am fairly new to the blog world):

1. Elyse of Elyse's Confectionary Creations

2. Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater

3. Gabe's Girl of GabesBabyMomma

4. Michelle of Flourchild

5. Pamela of Cookies with Boys

6. Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs

7. Clara of I Heart Cuppycakes

8. Sugar B of Eat My Cupcake

10 Honest Things About Myself
The Rules are as Follows:

1. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs for brilliance in content/design.

2. Show the winners and let them know.

3. List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

1. I am hopelessly madly in love with my awesome husband Mathias. We’ve been together for 9 years now and it has been the greatest journey of my life. I feel so incredibly lucky to have such a supportive husband who loves me and all my personality quirks and does ALL my dishes!

2. I still like stuffed animals, I do. I have a lot of Eeyore’s lying around the house and other creatures too. Thankfully, my hubby doesn’t think this is too weird.

3. I used to do a lot of figure skating when I was young. I was obsessed and wanted nothing more than to live at the ice rink and couldn’t stop watching the Cutting Edge. I still don’t like to go skating with rental skates – sorta sacrilegious. (Can't believe I am sharing the photo below - horrifying).

4. I’m a homebody. I do like to get out and socialize and party, but I really love a nice quiet night in doing some baking or crafting with some wine, music and my hubby working nearby.

5. I love any excuse to dress up and wear costumes. Halloween is my favorite holiday, I love Bay to Breakers, and love themed costume parties.

6. I am travel partners with my AMAZING father (who has 4 daughters & 1 wife, my hubby calls him a saint). It started back after my first year of law school when I went to study abroad for a few weeks in Costa Rica. My dad really wanted to come and so he joined me after the program and we toured the country for 12 days. Since then we have done Italy, France, England, Spain, Greece and Turkey. We are not sure where we are going to next and might have to start letting other family members come along!

7. I have an original – pre Angelina & Brad – melting pot family. My amazing parents adopted me and my three sisters and we have 3 different ethnicities between the four of us.

8. I don’t really watch TV apart from the occasional food network show or the Daily Show. So I am constantly out of the loop when pop culture comes up in conversation. I just always have so many things I would rather do, and don’t have nearly enough time for, like baking, blogging, photo projects, reading, research, internet shopping, house hunting, etc. Sometimes, when I do have free time, I get so overwhelmed at the choices that I get paralyzed.

9. I love sushi and massages. When I talk about my dream house and dream life, it always includes a live-in sushi chef and a hot masseuse/pool boy. I could really go for a massage a day, would never get tired of it. Thankfully, I have a hot husband who gives me many massages – that’s pretty dreamy as it is.

10. I LOVE to throw parties, it is probably my third favorite hobby behind baking (of course) and photo projects. And I LOVE Mardi Gras beads, so they are usually a part of my parties. I just recently threw a dress up scavenger hunt party (with beads) for my friends Jenn and Stephanie in SF and it was so much fun. Anyone want me to throw them a party?

And, now to tag 7 amazing blogs (ditto on the I heart your blog, hope the tagging isn't a burden):

1. Alicia of The Red Deer (sending the love back!)

2. Jessica of A Singleton in the Kitchen

3. Donna of My Tasty Treasures

4. Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures

5. Dawn of Vanilla Sugar

6. Megan of My Baking Adventures

7. Katie of Katiecakes

Funfetti Birthday Cupcakes

2009-04-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

My good friend Jenn turned the big 30 on Saturday and I helped throw her a combined birthday bash with her super cool friend Stephanie (who's now my friend too). That included, of course, cupcakes of their choice. They choose 4 flavors and this post is about flavor #1: Funfetti. Who said 30 year olds don't like funfetti!

When I made these back in March to celebrate my case settling, Jenn LOVED these, so she wanted them again. You can find the recipe on my blog here. I got the idea and recipe for these from the great Clara of I Heart Cuppycakes. These did me right once and did me right again. Thanks Clara.

As you can see from these photos, I am greatly enjoying my new Nikon AF 50mm 1.8D lense. After getting my new Nikon D40, I took a photography class at a camera store in the city that was recommended by a photographer friend. The class was awesome, and afterwards I was sold on some new camera gear, including this lense and Lightroom by Adobe (which I have ordered but not recieved yet). The professor did say we chose what could be the most expensive hobby!

In conclusion, Clara's funfetti cupcakes rock and are suitable for the children or young at heart in your lives (or anyone really!). Make them!

TWD: Double Chocolate Fix

2009-04-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

So, I know this is not really Kosher, and we were just reminded about the TWD rules, but I did make the Four Star Chocolate Pudding on time, just work was so crazy last week I didn't get a chance to post. Then I figured the last thing ya'll wanted was another picture of a chocolate bread pudding (esp. since I was unable to make it look "cute" or whatever). But I did make it - and, yes, I kinda do want "credit," so this week's TWD post is a double-header.

First off, this week's Chocolate Cream Tart chosen by Kim of Scrumptious Photography. Kim has an amazing blog, and is one of the blogs that has gotten me into this photography kick where I just want to learn more and more (and keep buying more and more gear!). You can get the recipe from her blog here. So I went with the chocolate shortbread crust as suggested by Dorie, it was my first time making this crust and it was so easy, especially with my super duper Kitchenaid Food Processor.

I made the custard this evening (last minute Lorelei here), chilled it in the fridge for a few hours, then made my hubby taste a piece on his way out the door to pick up a friend from the airport so I could photograph it and blog about it before it wasn't Tuesday anymore (that's why hubby we couldn't wait till you both returned!). He LOVED it. He got the whipped cream topping on his - I didn't put it on the whole tart because then it doesn't last as long. I did add some caramel sauce on the bottom of the tart before adding the custard, and well, that didn't really work - it squirted all over the place and made a huge mess - so will not win a beauty contest, but does make the tart a little more turtle like. Great tart, thanks Kim.

As most of you know, last week's TWD was Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding chosen by Lauren of Upper Eastside Chronicle. I made this in two disposable 8x8 baking tins so that I could give them away to two recipients, which I did, and used a brioche loaf that I picked up at a French bakery nearby. They were well recieved - after all the good press on this recipe, I am going to have to try this dairy free someday.

Check out the TWD blogroll here to see all the other TWD posts about these great chocolate desserts. Next month we are off the chocolate fixation until the end of the month, phew!

SMS: Granola Breakfast Cookies

2009-04-26T22:06:00.001-07:00

This week's Sweet Melissa recipe was chosen by one of my favorite bloggers, Jessica from A Singleton in the Kitchen. The recipe is Granola Breakfast Cookies, and uses the cherry almond granola recipe in the book (a delicious double whammy). You can get the recipe on Jessica's terrific blog here. Before getting on with my comments on this week's recipe, allow me to introduce you to my SMS mascot - Bumble Bee Eeyore. As explained by the great Elyse in her out of this world post today, SMS grew out of my terrible Sunday blues (while I am nicknamed eeyore, he's in full force on Sundays). So when I saw this Eeyore on ebay, I HAD to have him, right? So perfect. Anyway, you'll be seing more of him in the Sundays to come.

Back to the baking, this week's recipe is a perfect example of why I love baking clubs and this awesome world of baking blogs. Things have been a little a hectic around here, so I was going to use store bought granola, because I didn't know where to get all the ingredients for the granola and had never made it before. But, having read all the comments from the other great SMS bakers, many of whom liked the granola more than the cookies, I thought, this is what the club is all about - doing things I wouldn't ordinarily do.

So, it turned out to be a great Sunday afternoon, making this delicious cherry almond granola (with cranberries, raisins, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds). In between all the stirring, I ran back to my computer to catch up on my google reader - almost below 100 now! More about the granola later when its time to post that recipe. But I must say thanks to Wendy of Pinkstripes for her real time assistance with my granola making questions. Wendy is quite the baker and I am so honored she joined SMS, and gave me a little coaching.

The cookies were delicious in my opinion. I love molasses spice cookies alot, so I knew I had to make these dairy free so I could have some. I did add in more spices than just the cinnamon because I love baking spices, so I added ginger, nutmeg and allspice (these were all in the granola too, so I knew it would work well together). The result, a nice chewy molasses spice cookie with crunchy goodness and delicious dried fruit. Since this is a breakfast cookie (made with whole wheat flour), I think it's totally Kosher to eat these for breakfast. That's what I plan on doing this week. Check out the rest of the SMS bakers and the yummy cookies they cooked up here. Thanks Jessica, I think you TOTALLY picked a winner =)

Nutella Biscotti

2009-04-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wow -sometimes life just takes a hold of you and you feel like you are on a high-speed roller coaster and you can't get off. My life went from very peacefully calm to not finding many spare moments. All from good things, being busy at work is good (bad for sleep, good for job security), housing search (um, that is a frightening and overwhelming new world), planning parties (lots of cupcakes to be baked tomorrow). But, my blogging and blog friend duties have suffered - I have over 250 posts in my google reader - I will get to those and comment away, pinky swear.

Anyhow, I have been meaning to post these delicious biscotti for a while, and had this post in draft form for over a week! But here it is. I made these the same night I made the DELISH Honey Beescotti for the Sweet Melissa Baking Group, because you just can't get away with only serving non-chocolate treats to some folks. My mother is a huge fan of biscotti and chocolate, so I wanted to give her something I thought she would really like. Speaking of which, my mom is looking for a recipe (for me to make her) for low calorie chocolate cookies. She sent me one that seemed to be a meringue like cookie, but I threw it out (diet cookies?) not something you think about when you don't have to worry about the calories yourself because you can't eat them and you bake to impress. So, if you know of one (that tastes decent), please send it my way.

So... verdict was these were delicious. And, they went pretty quickly. I didn't try them, but I can recommend making them if you like biscotti, chocolate and nutella.

Nutella Biscotti

The Art and Soul of Baking

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter softened

2/3 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

½ cup Nutella spread at room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 ¾ cups unbleached-all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped skinned toasted hazelnuts

5 ounces good-quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into ¼ inch chunks, or 1 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place the butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth and slightly lightened in color, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the Nutella spread and blend well. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well (15-20 seconds) and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and mix well.

3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the butter mixture all at once. Turn the mixer to the lowest speed and blend slowly, just until there are no more patches of flour. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl.

4. Add the hazelnuts and chocolate chips or chunks, and mix on low just until blended. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir gently a few times with the spatula to make sure the nuts and chips are evenly distributed and there are no patches of unincorporated flour or butter.

5. Divide the dough in half. On a work surface lightly dusted with flour, gently squeeze and roll each piece to shape into logs about 13 inches long. Line one baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the logs on the sheet about 4 inches apart. Press down on the logs, flattening them slightly until they are each about 2 inches across the top. Place the second baking sheet under the first (to prevent the bottoms of the logs from browning too quickly). Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until the logs are firm to the touch and lightly golden brown. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let the logs cool completely. (If you attempt to slice them while warm, the chocolate will smear the cookies and look messy).

6. Turn the oven down to 275 degrees and position two racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven. Carefully transfer the cookie logs to a cutting surface. Using a serrated knife, slice the logs on a slight diagonal into cookies 3/8 inch thick. Line the second baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the cookies, cut side down, on the parchment-lined sheets (you’ll need both sheets to hold all the cookies). Toast the cookies in the oven, switching the sheets between the racks and rotating front to back halfway through, for 30 to 40 minutes, until dry and lightly tinged with color. Transfer to a cooling rack.

The Cake Slice: Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

2009-04-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

So, I recently joined another baking group (yeah, might be a little excessive at this point, but so much fun!). Thanks to awesome Cassie of How to Eat a Cupcake, I was directed to the powers that be of The Cake Slice who kindly let me join the group. I was thrilled when I learned that the first cake I would get to participate with was the Chai Tea Cake. I LOVE Chai Tea and my husband does as well. So, I set out to make this cake lactose free so I could have it, even though the frosting was a Honey Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting. As you can see from the picture above, non-dairy fake cream cheese does not produce the most attractive frosting in the world - so I'd say these pictures certainly wouldn't win a beauty contest and don't do the cake justice.

The cake was AMAZING though. Sooooo yummy. The cake was moist and light and fluffy. The cardamon flavor really shone through. And while I was a little disappointed by the Tofutti cream cheese substitute taste, my husband thought it tasted just fine in the end. I did have to add extra freshly grated ginger and cardamon to the frosting to mask the weird taste of the Tofutti.

If you want the recipe (and I highly recommend it), you should check out the great book Sky High, or you can get it from Cassie's blog - with the added bonus of cake truffle how to!

SMS: Caramel Apple Turnovers with Sweet Ricotta Filling

2009-04-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

This week's Sweet Melissa recipe was chosen by Tracey of the AMAZING blog, Tracey's Culinary Adventures. You should check out her awesome kitchen adventures and can get this week's recipe for Caramel Apple Turnovers with Sweet Ricotta Filling here.

I was looking forward to this recipe (even though I couldn't try it because as far as I know there is no non-dairy ricotta substitute) because I have never made turnovers before and never worked with puff pastry (I know where have I been?!). I enjoyed making these, but did think it was a bit of work for only 4 turnovers. Since I did quite a lot of baking this weekend, I only baked one of the turnovers to give to my trusty taster and froze the rest before baking as the recipe suggested.

I didn't have time to let the ricotta drain overnight, and since some of my great fellow SMS bakers (you can - and should - check out the blogroll here) did the overnight drill but didn't actually extract any liquid from the ricotta I thought it was OK to skip. What I did instead was put the ricotta in the cheese cloth and then squeezed the liquid out of it - and got a fair amount out. That's about all I did differently (oh and I did not chill the turnover before baking).

I had a little trouble the caramel apples, when I put the apples into the amber sugar and water mixture, the caramel turned to a hard lump. It eventually melted, but it took awhile. I also had a little trouble with the puff pastry, which turned from easy to work with to very elastic and sticky rather quickly. I think next time, I will keep some of the pieces in the freezer while I assemble the others to avoid that problem. So of course, the last turnover (an most "melted" puff pastry square) was the one I ended up baking (and photographing for this post). I am convinced the ones sitting in the freezer would have turned out better photographs!!!

I also just realized while reading Tracey's post about these turnovers that I forgot to cut the steam slits - oh well, they didn't explode! Hubby loved these and gave them an enthusiastic two thumbs up. He didn't really taste the ricotta and was surprised when I told him there was cheese in them - he said the caramel apple was the strongest flavors. Humf! Well, there you have it. Thanks Tracey for picking this recipe and giving me a chance to try out some new skills.

TWD: Amaretti Torte - Better Late Than Never!

2009-04-15T23:47:00.001-07:00

OK, I know, this post is a day late. I have a pretty good excuse, I do. OK, here it goes. I was planning on making this torte on Monday, but when I went to the store on my way home from work, they didn’t have any Amaretti cookies. So, I decided to wait until Tuesday so I could get the right cookies, since I live in North Beach, San Francisco (Italian neighborhood in case you don’t know it) and it would be a shame for me to use a substitute. I got the cookies Tuesday morning and went to work planning to squeeze in time to make this 15 minute torte later in the evening.

Well, that wasn’t in the cards baby. I woke up Tuesday morning with a mild back ache (I have a pesky lower back problem so that wasn’t all that much of a shock) and the pain just built more and more all day long. I finally had to leave work early to take medication and ice my back. By late evening, I could barely move and was in too much pain to do anything. I really really wanted to get up and make the torte (because it would make me feel better emotionally), but since I could not stand up straight, I thought that would be a bad idea.

My back was better this morning, but still in pretty bad shape, so I spent most of my day working and resting from my couch. Things are much better this evening (thank goodness) so I gingerly made this EASY quick torte (thankfully this week’s recipe was an easy one – thanks Holly). See – totally valid right?

Enough about me – that was really a lot, sorry – how about this torte. Well, I love almond flavored stuff, and LOVE Disaronno Amaretto. AND – I just recently learned that I do like chocolate after all! What? you say (if you have made it this far) how can anyone not like chocolate? Well, I didn’t for the longest time (and have met others like me, I swear). But last week I tried the most amazing chocolate bar I have ever had (cause I actually ate a LOT, and I won’t tell you what I did with other chocolate tasting experiments). What bar could pull me out of this controversial chocolate boycott? The Dark Orange Bar made by Andrew Shotts of Garrison Confections. My good friend happens to be well connected to Mr. Shotts, and introduced me to this fabulous bar. Not only did I get to try this bar, but I also got an autographed cookbook and may get a private baking lesson (OMG!!!!!!!!!!!).

So, all of that to say that since I recently discovered dark chocolate goodness, I decided to make this week’s TWD cake – Dark Chocolate Amaretti Torte lactose free so I could eat it. To do so, I substituted the butter for margarine, and cream for soy creamer. And, IT WORKED! Oh baby it did. The cake was soooo yummy, and you could really taste the amaretti. And the glaze turned out really well, nice and smooth, and nice and velvety and rich. Since soy creamer is already sweet and more watered down than regular cream, I added only one tablespoon of sugar (instead of 2) and only one tablespoon of water (and replaced the second one with a tablespoon of soy creamer). It worked, my trusty taster husband is back and he said: AWESOME! I am so glad I made this, and will be making this again for sheezy.

Thanks Holly of PheMOMenon for choosing this delicious recipe. You can find the recipe on her amazing blog here.

SMS: Brooklyn Brownout Cake

2009-04-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

This week's sweet for the Sweet Melissa Sunday group was the Brooklyn Brownout Cake chosen by the amazing person/blogger Elyse of Elyse's Confectionary Creations. You can find the recipe for this chocolate lover's dream cake here.

I was super happy that Elyse chose this cake for this week. I had plans to go to Bass Lake, near Yosemite, with my good friend Jen for Easter weekend (my last weekend sans hubby who comes home on Tuesday - hercules, hercules [clap, clap]). Jen's super cool parents (Big Dave and Barbara) have a nice big and cozy house near the lake and kindly allowed Jen to take me up there for the weekend. Jen is my super reliable sweet taster and she sure knows her sweets. She also told me that Big Dave loves his sweets too and would be more than happy to taste a chocolate cake. She was right!

So, Elyse's selection was a perfect way for me to say thank you for Jen and her family's hospitality (Thanks Elyse). I decided to bake the cake up there with Jen instead of making it before hand. Jen and Barbara kindly allowed me to take over (and make a mess) in the kitchen and help me (OK do all) of the clean-up. Sweet deal right? Now, I am a pretty anal baker, and generally prefer to bake in my own kitchen - as small as it is - because then I have COMPLETE control and reign supreme. So, there was a little bit of tension when I snapped at Jen's husband for trying to eat some of the perfectly measured 12 oz of dark chocolate for the ganache! I am sure they thought I was being a tad overboard, and I was (kinda), and they didn't really buy my "baking is a science" explanation to my outburst. Jen's husband also really wanted to eat the brownies I brought for the filling/topping, but Jen managed to disuade him by telling him they were frozen. Luckily, the amount of chocolate they got to eat with the finished produced made up for my in-progress stinginess!

Brownies you say? That's right, this cake called for a tripple threat of chocolate. A dense chocolate cake (that seemed more brownie like than devil's food like), brownies, and a dark chocolate ganache. The recipe calls for four brownies and the book suggests making ahead of time for another purpose and saving 4 in the freezer to make this cake (which I did). The brownies are then crumbled (along with the cake layer scraps after leveling) and mixed with the ganache to form the filling in between the layers. And if that wasn't enough, I felt I had to give the cake a little Easter flare, so I decorated the top with the brownie crumble (per the recipe) and Reese's chocolate peanut butter eggs. Chocolate overload. As you can see from the photos, I chose not to try and put the brownie crumble around the edges of the cake to keep the cake looking elegant and sleek (I didn't like how my TWD cake with crumble on the sides turned out).

The verdict? Jen and her family loved it. Big Dave happily ate a huge piece, and sucessfuly lobbied to have the left over cake stay behind. He also said I could come back and visit anytime! Jen said it was super rich (so much so it could kill a small dog) but that it was super yummy. A success. The cake does take some foresight (making the brownies ahead of time) and melting A LOT of chocolate. This is not for the weak of heart, but could capture the hearts of your serious chocolate lovers. Can't wait for next week. Check out how the other Sweet Melissa Sunday bakers did here. And thank you Jen, Brian, Big Dave and Barbara for the great weekend.

Me Cupcakes

2009-04-09T00:48:00.001-07:00

So, I was having a major Eeyore day yesterday. I had to go back to work after a lovely long weekend with my family, my family left to go back to LA, and my husband is not coming home for another whole week (I am beginning to forget who he is … Just kidding hubby, but seriously, three weeks is FOREVER).

So, I was majorly in need of a baking session to cheer me up. And, because I was feeling like such a sourpuss, I decided to make something that I wanted that I could eat. I was inspired by a snack I made for myself this weekend that really took me back to my childhood – honey and peanut butter sandwiches. I used to get these for my sandwiches sometimes, and boy did I love them. So, I decided to make lactose free honey & peanut mini cupcakes (lactose free).

I did a Google search before setting out on this project and was quickly reminded of Peabody’s delicious looking Honey Cupcakes. I decided to use her recipe for the honey cupcakes (since she is such an amazing baker and blogger) and my standard peanut butter frosting – Kathleen’s Peanut Butter Frosting from Ina Garten (and make it lactose free). I tasted one of the little cakes before frosting and they were nice and moist (and dense) and had a hint of honey. I had a little trouble making the peanut butter frosting lactose free because the soy creamer I used did not do a good stand in for the regular cream (so it was too liquid). I had to add more powdered sugar to make it the right consistency and even then, it was not as smooth and pretty as the dairy version. It still tasted great though.

I really wanted the honey flavor to come through, so even though it made these SUPER sticky, I drizzled them with honey and topped with easter inspired sprinkles. This morning, when I woke up to try them, the honey had soaked into the peanut butter frosting (and dripped all over the place). So, these are heavy on the peanut butter flavor and the honey is a subtle flavor. I love them - sweet white cupcake with creamy peanut butter frosting - yum (but, a little worried about what work will think, but can't keep 40+ mini cupcakes here). You DEFINATELY need some milk or coffee with these!

Honey Cupcakes

[Culinary Concoctions by Peabody]

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup creamed honey
¾ cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups self rising flour

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, sugar, and honey. Beat for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, scrape down sides after blended. Add in vanilla and beat for another 30 seconds.

Starting with the flour first, alternate between flour and milk, ending with flour. So 1/3 of flour, ½ of milk, 1/3 of flour, ½ milk, 1/3 flour. Blend until fully combined.

Fill cupcake pan (with or without liners) 2/3 of the way full with batter. Fill until all batter is used.

Bake for 20-22 minutes (for regular cupcakes, about 16 minutes for mini cupcakes).

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes in pan. Then remove from pan and place on a wire rack to finish cooling. Cool completely before frosting.

Kathleen's Peanut Butter Icing:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Sweet Melissa Sundays - Honey Beescotti

2009-04-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

The first post of the Sweet Melissa Sunday Baking Group! First I want to thank all my fellow SMS bakers - thanks so much for baking with me! Thank you Elyse for the numerous shout-outs, you ROCK! The inagural week started with Honey Beescotti (recipe below). Please check what the other talented SMS bakers made by clicking over to the SMS blogroll here.

These appealed to me because they had unusual ingredients - candied orange peel and caraway seeds, and because my parents are coming to visit today and they love biscotti. Unfortunately, there are not many left! (Guess I am going to have to make them again - and will do so gladly). These were DELICIOUS in my opinion. And, yes, I know because I made them lactose free buy subsituting the butter for lactose free margarine.

So, the recipe called for candied orange peel, and strongly encouraged people not to leave them out because of how amazing they are in this biscotti recipe (no - the book did not say amazing, I am paraphrasing loosely here!). The book suggested buying the peel - but I wasn't sure where I could find it so I took a quick spin on trusy google, and found some great step-by-step instructions and inticing photos and decided to try making it myself for the first time. Check out my roundup of several recipes here.

Candied orange peel is so easy to make. It does take a little work to get the peels ready - but you get to enjoy some fresh squeezed orange juice as your reward. And after that, it is just a matter of watching several pots of boiling watter. Super easy. I tasted the peels a little bit after I set them out on the rack to dry, and thought they tasted a little too much like orange peel for my taste. I was a little disappointed - somehow I thought they would magically transform into orange candy that did not taste like an orange rind. Well, I gave these little peels another shot the next morning - and I must say once they harden and mellow, they are REALLY yummy. The rind taste was no longer overpowering. Yay!

So, armed with my very own homemade candied orange peel and my other ingredients, I went over to a good friend's house on Friday night to make dinner and biscotti. We had a blast (thanks Jaci and Ashley). I had the benefit of the comments from my fellow Sweet Melissa bakers (thank you thank you) and so I knew the dough for the beescotti was going to be SUPER sticky - and yes, it really was. I ended up using A LOT of flour to be able to shape the dough into the logs you see below. And if you look closely, you can see the spatula I had to use to get the dough off the parchment paper (after the refrigeration time) in order to form these logs - super sticky. I wonder if added 1/4 cup of flour to the dough would help? Maybe next time.

I didn't experience the spreading problem like some of my fellow bakers did. I did make sure they were nice and chilled before baking, and maybe that's the reason why.

I also did not bake them the second time brown side down, but on their sides, flipping them over halfway through the second bake time. I think I had done this before, and wanted a nice crisp, but can't be too certain why I chose to ignore the instructions!

The finished product was DELICIOUS. I really liked the subtle almond flavor. I can't really taste any honey flavor. And I love the combination of the candied orange peel and caraway seeds. Anise flavored biscotti is generally my favorite. I do think the the candied orange peel amount could be increased, because there is only a bite or two in each biscotti. But if you are not a huge fan of orange flavored things (as I thought I was before trying these - honestly) then the amount in the recipe is good for the occasional zing.

Thanks again to my fellow bakers. I feel so lucky to have such incredible bakers and bloggers to bake along with and learn from. And if you want to join our little baking group, please check out the Sweet Melissa Sundays Blog.

Honey Beescotti

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
3 tablespoons chestnut honey (or any flavor, including clover)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped candied orange peel
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
½ cup whole natural almonds, coarsely chopped

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, honey, and salt until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla, and almond extract and mix until combined. Add the candied orange peel and beat on high speed for 20 seconds.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and caraway seeds.

3. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three batches, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Stir in the almonds.

4. Turn the dough out onto prepared cookie sheet, flatten, and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

5. On a lightly floured board, divide the dough in half. Using a little extra flour if the dough feels sticky, roll each half into a log about 14 inches long. Refrigerate the logs until firm, about 30 minutes.

6. Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the cookie sheet with clean parchment paper.

7. Place the logs 4 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the logs are lightly golden and slightly firm. Remove to a wire rack to cool. Turn down the oven to 275 degrees.

8. As soon as the logs are cool enough to handle but still warm, about 10 minutes, carefully peel them off the parchment paper and transfer to a cutting board. Using a serrated bread knife, gently score the logs at ¾ inch intervals on a 45 degree angle. After scoring, cut through each scored line in one motion with a sharp chef’s knife, slicing the logs into pieces.

9. Carefully transfer the cookies to a freshly lined cookie sheet browned side down and not touching one another. Bake for an additional 25 minutes, rotate the pan and continue to bake for another 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool on the pan to room temperature.

Oatmeal Carmelita Bars

2009-04-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

So, I just recently discovered my nearby public library - my mother would be so proud - I don't know anyone who is not a librarian who spends more time in the library. I had the most amazing Saturday - a normal person Saturday with no work, no guilt about the work I should be doing and no dread for the work that must get done the next day! A whole weekend off = priceless! Anyhow, someone like me is not normally out during normal library hours - but this Saturday I was and I popped in to see what they had.

I have to tell you it was an epiphany. All these cookbooks that I can take home and test drive? Love it! You can be a lot more experimental when you don't have to pay for it (and justify yet ANOTHER baking book). So I picked up The Best of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookies and Bars. This is a kick ass book. And I never would have bought it - but now I think I will (oops, the library may end up feeding the cookbook habit!).

I decided to make these Oatmeal Carmelitas because I had some extra caramel and they looked delicious and gift worthy. They were SUPER easy to make. I ran out of chocolate chips, but since I always have lots of bars around (I stock up when they are on sale) I made some milk-chocolate chunks. And for the nuts I chopped up some of my dwindling Costco mixed party nuts - I wanted to use salted nuts because I know that salted caramel is such a big hit. The verdict - they went like hot cakes at work and people (ok a few friends) raved about them. One partner said that I was getting too good at the baking thing and that it started to make him worry and one friend said something like -"oh my god @#$& why do you insist on ruining my diet with all this fattening food.... yum, hmmn, wow!" Your caramel fans will love these.

Oatmeal Carmelitas

-Best of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookies and Bars

Base
2 cups AP flour
2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups butter or margarine, room temperature

Filling
1 jar caramel topping (1 cup)
3 tablespoons AP flour
1 cup (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chips or chocolate chunks
½ cup chopped nuts (salted)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 13x9-inch pan with tin foil and leave some hanging over the edge. Grease tin foil with butter or cooking spray.

In large bowl, whisk together flour, oats, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or another bowl with hand mixer) mix together the butter and brown sugar until combined. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until crumbly (do not over-mix or you will have a dough rather than crumbs).

Reserve half of crumb mixture (about 3 cups) for topping. Press other half into bottom of pan and bake 10 minutes.

In a small bowl mix caramel topping and 3 tablespoons of flour.

When crust is done partially baking, sprinkle with chocolate chips or chunks and nuts. Drizzle evenly with caramel mixture. Sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.

Bake 18-22 minutes longer until top is golden brown. Cool completely in pan on cooling rack, about 1 hour. Refrigerate until filling is set, 1-2 hours. Cut into bars.

TWD: Coconut Butter Thins

2009-03-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

This weeks recipe was Coconut Butter Thins chosen by Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch. You can find the recipe after her hilarious and fun post here. Her post makes me wish I had little kitchen helpers.

So, I was multi-tasking big time when making these cookies. Making yummy oatmeal caramel bars, french toast mini cupcakes (posts forth coming) watching Food Network Cake Challenge - the only TV I really watch, and reading your lovely blogs. So, there were a few - oversights. I forgot the cardamon, I forgot the fork hole punching, and I didn't use a ruler. So, I had cookies of all shapes and sizes, it was not the prettiest batch of cookies I must admit. And, since I have yet to try shortbread with lactose free margarine (I mean aren't these really all about the butter) I couldn't taste them.

So, I dusted them with powdered sugar to hide the blemishes and make them look a little fancier - I am a little picky about what goes to work, I have a reputation to uphold! They were all gone when I walked by the kitchen in the afternoon. Didn't hear a peep from anyone about how they tasted though (I need to get better about demanding feedback in return for sweets), but I know many other TWD'ers liked them.

I also packed up some of the cookies to send to my good friend Jesse who is very techno savy - he created the website Walkscore that lets you rate the walkability of many many neighborhoods in the U.S. It is a really cool site and useful when moving. Anyhow, he helped me set up the avatar for the Sweet Melissa Sundays Group and I wanted to thank him. So a care-package with these and the oatmeal caramel bars are on their way. Thanks Jesse.

Lemon Drop Cake

2009-03-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

So, my good friend "Big Guy" had a birthday on Friday. I told him I wanted to make him a birthday cake and organize something for his birthday. I told him he could have any kind of cake he wanted. I was pretty sure he'd ask for something chocolate and then I could try one of the many chocolate cakes on my "must-try" list. But, no, he chose a lemon cake.

Nothing wrong with that choice of course. But, man, I sure have been on a lemon baking kick lately. And, not just lemon desserts, but lemon cakes too. First there was the Luscious Lemon Cake for my sister-in-law's birthday. Then there was the TWD Lemon Yogurt Cake which I turned into a birthday cake for myself. And so Big Guy's lemon cake makes three. (Even though I so badly want to join the Cake Slice group - haven't heard a response yet - I guess it is a good thing I am not in that group because then that would have been 4 lemon cakes in 3 months! )

And, like I said, lemon cakes are not the only lemon goodies that have come out of my oven recently. There was my delicious Lemon Apricot Cupcakes, the TWD Lemon Custard and Lemon Cookies (that I haven't even posted yet). Phew. Lemon is good though - so its all good. But hopefully the next birthday in my life will choose something other than lemon!

So, it was a tough choice - what lemon cake to make? The first two I made received rave reviews. But, I am a sucker for trying new things. It's kind of like celebrities and their red carpet wear - even if they make the best dressed list and are the talk of the town, they'd rather take a chance next time than do a repeat. OK, that is a bit of an exaggeration, because I do rely on standbys but I love to try new things - so you get the metaphor. The Cake Slice bakers hit the blogs hard with their tempting and gorgeous photos of their Lemon Chiffon cakes. I almost chose this cake to make, almost.

But, I didn't. Jessica from the awesome blog A Singleton in the Kitchen made the Lemon Drop Cake from Baked. As you may know, I just got this cookbook for my birthday from my lovely friend Jaci and after reading the recipe and getting inspired by Jessica and chose the Baked cake. She posted the recipe here so I am not going to do so because this post is already pretty long. So, late into the night I began making the cake. I had learned from Jessica's post that it was a delicate cake and that I needed to proceed with care. Did I listen?

No, I did not (well not entirely). I did pipe a frosting dam around the cake so the curd did not ooze out the side when I assembled the cake. And, I did but the cake in the fridge for a little while after putting the curd on each layer to help it set and help prevent oozing. That really worked - I had no oozing problems. But what I did have problems with was delicate cake. Instead of making the cake in 3 8-inch pans (because I have only 2 and it was late) I made it in 2 9-inch pans. And, for some reason, I baked them on two different shelves in the oven instead of side by side and forgot to switch them halfway through. So, one cake was undercooked and sunk a little in the middle, and the other cracked significantly when I removed it to cool on a rack.

I did not panic though. I saw how Jessica was able to turn almost disaster into a beautiful cake, so I plowed on. I was able to carefully cut the cracked layer (which was cooked all the way through) thanks to my NEW Atteco Revolving Cake Stand which I got from Hubby for my Birthday ( I never knew I NEEDED this and I LOVE it). I then cut the badly sunken cake in half and decided not to use the top half (with an undercooked sunken center). There - three layers just how the Baked boys intended. But, what to do with the good cake ring around the sunken center of that fourth layer?

Mini Lemon Drop cakes!! I used a biscuit cutter to cut out four circles. I filled them with the lemon curd, crumb coated them and then frosted them with the lemon buttercream frosting from the Luscious Lemon Cake (I was too tired to do the complicated looking one in the Baked book). And, in honor of spring and the new baking group I created - Sweet Melissa Sundays - to bake our way through the Sweet Melissa Baking Book, I decorated them using little bee toppers. How cute are those? Anyhow, the baking group will start posting next Sunday and there is a giveaway of the Baking Book that is open until 11:59PM PST tonight! Come join us!

New Baking Group!

2009-03-27T03:15:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I started a new baking group!

I love TWD so much that once a week is not enough. TWD is also closed, so I thought I might be able to get some people to bake along with me in this new group.

It is called Sweet Melissa Sundays and we are going to bake out of the Sweet Melissa Baking Book. It's gonna be a lot like TWD (organization wise). Check it out and join me if you are not over committed with all the baking events out there! First post Sunday April 5th.

And, there is a giveaway to celebrate too. Check it out!

Hope ya join me.

Funfetti Celebration Cupcakes

2009-03-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

I made these fun and delicious cupcakes to celebrate the settlement of my big case (that I had been working on for years). Sometimes, just the simple desserts that people are familiar with are just what people are looking for. These did the trick, and actually went a lot quicker than the Mexican chocolate cupcakes (to be forthcoming in another post). Usually, chocolate is the first to go.

I got the idea for these cupcakes browsing on one of my favorite blogs I Heart Cuppycakes by Clara (you see I had A LOT of Google Reader Blog reading to catch up with when I got back from trial - like many hundreds of posts - you were all very busy bakers!). Clara did a post about her Thank You Cupcakes and they included these funfetti cupcakes. I decided to give them a whirl and boost the color a little by making rainbow frosting.

The verdict: people REALLY loved these alot. I made them with margarine and soy milk too (so I could have them because vanilla cake is my favorite!) no one could tell until they saw me eating one. I LOVED them too. Simple and delicious. Thank you Clara!

Funfetti Cupcakes Recipe

From Clara of iheartcuppycakes

Makes about 12 cupcakes

For funfetti cupcakes

1-1/4 cups AP flour

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tbsp butter, room temperature

1 large egg + 1 egg white, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk or half-and-half instead

2 tbsp rainbow sprinkles

For vanilla buttercream

2 sticks butter

7 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

To make cupcakes—Preheat oven to 350F.
Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a stand mixer, fitted with flat beater, beat the sugar and butter until well combined, about 2-3 minutes. Add egg and egg white, one at a time, beating on low.

Then add vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk in 2 additions, ending with the flour mixture. Fold in rainbow sprinkles.

Fill cupcake liners about 1/2-2/3 full. Bake for about 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire cooling rack before frosting.

To make buttercream—In a stand mixer, fitted with flat beater, beat butter until creamy, about 2-3 minutes. Add 5 cups of sifted powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla, beat until combined. Add more powdered sugar until you get to the consistency you want.

To make swirl buttercream - You will need gel food coloring and a disposable piping bag or Zip Lock Gallon Bag. Using a toothpick, draw a line with one color from the tip of the bag (where the piping tip goes, up the sides of the bag 3/4 way up. Do the same thing with one or more colors. Then gently put vanilla buttercream into the bag and start piping. Garnish with more rainbow sprinkles.

TWD: Blueberry Crumb Cake

2009-03-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

OMG! I mean HOLY COW!!! I am over the moon about this week's TWD. I made it with dairy free margarine and soymilk (plus vinegar) so I could eat it because I LOVE blueberry cakes and muffins and yogurt and jam - OK anything blueberry. And WOW, I am in love. I will no longer feel like a poor pathetic deprived lactose intolerant sole. Oh no, from now on, when I start to feel a little left out and jealous that I can't eat most of what I bake, and have to live vicariously through my faithful eaters, I will just make this week's TWD cake - Blueberry Crumb Cake.

This week's recipe was chosen by Sihan of Befuddlement and you can get the recipe on her lovely blog. Thank you thank you thank you Sihan.

The cake was a bit of a miracle because I set the timer to 55 minutes, but then forgot to turn it on. I was just sitting at my computer reading blogs, when I felt that something was wrong and darted into the kitchen. Yep, sure enough, I forgot to turn the timer on. Luckilly the cake was not done yet, but then it was a series of a little bit more, check, a little bit more, check, etc. And, thankfully, it came out AMAZING. We ate it when it was still a tad bit warm. It had a nice crust on the sides, delicous topping (I made some changes) and was nice an fluffy in the center with big juicy blueberrys and not too sweet. Perfect!

My husband's narrative: I really only wanted 2 bites, and then one more, and then one more, and then it was gone and I still wanted more - I will call this the blueberry cake "el diablo." Work reviews were also really good - and they disappeared in record time even though I put them out at an off time - 10:30 am (give or take).

My changes were as follows. Margarine and soymilk plus apple cider vinegar in place of the dairy. Then for the topping, I added 1/4 cup ground graham crackers, pecans instead of walnuts, dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar, and added a little cinnamon and nutmeg. I think the graham crackers helped soak up some of the extra margarine (will cut back on that next time as there was a pool on top of the cake while cooking) and the taste was subtle, but went well with the pecans. Hope that still counts as making the recipe this week. But the topping was amazing, like a butter pecan crumble with a twist. Oh and I used frozen blueberries - they tasted great.

As always, check out what the other TWD'ers did here.

Taylor's Blondies

2009-03-23T20:49:00.001-07:00

In my epic cooking/baking night on Friday I also made blondies for my sweet cousin Taylor. I am usually pretty good about making sure that birthday presents get where they need to be on time, but this time, I was a little late. But the weekend allowed me to send her some special treats.

I was pretty sure from Thanksgiving dinners that she doesn't like nuts, but really wasn't to sure about her sweet preferences (was she a major chocoholic like my aunt?). My aunt played the little birdie and let me know that she wasn't as much a dark chocolate fan, but that she would like anything I would send (sweet, but not all that helpful - oh the choices!). So I thought blondies would be the way to go. So I did what I often do, I searched for what I was looking for in my google reader (love it) and voila!

I came across Maria of The Goddess's Kitchen's post about her blondies and her rave reviews on the blondie recipe she used sealed the deal for me. I of course had to make some changes due to the ingredients I had on hand. I used a combination of white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and semi-sweet chocolate chunks (1/2 cup each) and omitted the nuts. I also used 1/2 cup light brown sugar and 1 cup dark brown sugar (because I ran out of the light). I also had to cook it for about 12 minutes longer - about 37 minutes total - and they still came out pretty underdone.

The verdict: Hubby loved them lots and lots (he does tend to like most things) but he said he really really liked them. My aunt seemed to like them a lot too. I of course, have no opinion, but they smelled delicious. A few of them (large yield) are on their way to London right now, so I may have more reviews later. I am definitely keeping this on file and will make again - thanks Maria!

Monster Cookies by Baked

2009-03-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

So I had a bit of an epic cooking/baking night on Friday. I made ribs (with my own rub), BBQ sauce (for the first time - my husband, who LOVES BBQ sauce was like how come you held out on me and haven't made this before in the last 9 years we have been together?) cornbread, blondies and monster cookies. Phew - it was a late night and the kitchen was a MESS when I was done.

I am really in love with the Baked cookbook, even though I think my expectations on the infamous brownie was a little too high as I posted about here. So I wanted to make some cookies to take on the hike we were going on in the morning (more about that below), and wanted to try Baked again so I flipped through the pages and thought the Monster Cookie would be great to try since my hubby loves oatmeal cookies (without raisins!). I made a few changes, I used chunky peanut butter, didn't refrigerate for 5 hours since I didn't have that much time, and used milk chocolate chips in stead of semi-sweet because that is what I had.

These cookies were perfect for taking along on a hike. OK, so now I will tell you about this hike. I have lived in SF for 3 1/2 years now, and I have never really been hiking on Mt. Tam (Crazy!). For those of you who don't know SF, Mt. Tam (Tamalpais is real name) is just north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate and has 6,300 acres of redwood groves, oak woodlands, grassland slopes, chaparral and rocky ridges. So, one of my good friends recently started a business called Bay Treks and they now offer guided tours of 3 great hikes on Mt. Tam. We went on the Steep Ravine hike yesterday and it was awesome.

It was pretty cold and windy, and ended up raining (so it was not my ideal weather to say the least), and I ended up loosing the sole of one of my shoes, yeah that's right, I just walked out of it (so much for having nice warm, insulated waterproof boots) and had to walk back to the car with a ways to go on the lining of the boot. So funny right - like when does that happen? Anyhow, despite all of that I had a great time. The guides were great, the lunch was yummy and the nature breathtaking (few photos below). I highly recommend taking a hike with Bay Treks for anyone in the Bay Area or visiting.

Back to the baking - so I made these cookies for this trip and they received rave reviews from my fellow hikers. Some were eaten before the hike, and the rest were divided up as a post lunch treat. The recipe made a lot (even though I used a BIG cookie scoop - the one I usually use to dish my cupcake batter) - so I am sending a bunch with my hubby to England tomorrow!

Monster Cookies
adapted from Baked

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
5 ¾ cups rolled oats
¾ cups (1 ½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 ½ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs
¼ tsp light corn syrup
¼ tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chunky peanut butter
1 cup (6 ounces) milk or semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup (6 ounces) M&M’s

In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together. Add the oats and stir until combined.

In the bowl of electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and pale in color. Add the sugars and mix on low speed until just incorporated. Do not overmix.

Scrape down bowl and add eggs one at a time, beating until smooth (about 20 seconds) and scraping down bowl after each edition. Add the corn syrup and vanilla and beat until incorporated.

Scrape down bowl and add peanut butter. Mix on low speed until just combined, add the oat mixture in three additions, mixing on low speed until just incorporated. (You don’t have to do all this bowl scraping if you use the new Beater Blade that scrapes the bowl while it mixes and works like a charm!)

Use a spatula or wooden spoon and fold in the chocolate chips and M&M’s. Cover bowl tightly and refrigerate for 5 hours. (I did it for and 1 ½ and they were still delicious)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Use ice cream scoop to scoop out dough into 2- tablespoon size balls on two baking sheets – 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes (mine took about 15-17), rotating pans halfway through baking time. Let cool on pans for 8-10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Pictures from the hike below:

Baked Brownie

2009-03-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

So I just got the cookbook Baked from my good friend Jaci. So, of course I had to make the infamous, Oprah loving Baked Brownie right out of the box. It definately was a different recipe - 5 EGGS!!! - and new mixing method. But I was game. My husband was going to see his grandma today, and she used to be the baker of the family, so I usually bake when he goes. This is what I chose.

The verdict? People seemed to really like it - but it definately wasn't the OH MY GOSH BEST BROWNIE EVER - reaction that I thought it might get given its accolates. Granted, there may have been user error. Although I don't think that I over cooked it, so .... But I am also way overly self-critical, and can't taste most of my creations, so maybe they really did like them - alot. I just got the Sweet Mellisa baking book and I told them I would ask for their side by side comparison soon.

The Baked Brownie from Baked

1 1/4 Cups AP Flour

1 tsp salt

2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder

11 ounces dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), coarsely chopped

1 Cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 tsp instant expresso powder

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

5 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9-by-13-inch glass or light-colored metal baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and cocoa powder powder together.

Put the chocolate, butter, and instant espresso powder in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted amd smooth. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (not a whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve.

Enjoy!

LA Sweet Spot: Surfas

2009-03-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

So, I just have to share this awesome cooking store called Surfas in Los Angeles. When we were vising my parents in West Covina (essentially LA for you non-LA people), my dad was super excited to take me to this store. So we made the trek (40 min drive give or take) to see his new office building which was near Surfas. An asside - besides being a terrific father and friend, he is an amazing person and works for this great organization called Children's Bureau of Southern California that has child abuse treatment and prevention programs, foster care, etc.

I digress. So, he knew I would love the place, and boy did I. I think we were there for over an hour and they had to drag me out of the store (seriously, they were all waiting in the car when i finally emerged).

I picked up a ton of stuff, chocolate, flavorings, pans, paper goods, cupcake/cookie scoops, etc. But two things I am going to highlight here. First, their big 1 lb canisters of Valrhona Cocoa Powder for only $10.85. This is super high quality cocoa powder and at a great price. I recently ran out of the two containers I bought at Thanksgiving time so I HAD to order more.

Of course, that's not all I could walk away with. Oh no. Maybe it was the birthday spirit (I tend to be really generous with myself during my birthday month - can you say shopaholic [can't wait to see that movie btw]). I also decided that it would be a good idea to stock up on some decorating supplies, because I am starting to get some cupcakes requests and am pimping myself out to people with kids just so I can have more audiences for my baking obsession.

So I picked up all of these pretty sprinkles. These are also really well priced. $3.55-$4.20 for 10-12oz. That's a lot of sprinkles. I got two reds and two greens for my holiday baking at my November in store shopping experience (my parents had to give me another suitcase to take home) and after ALL my holiday baking and I have more than half of each left. So, again, great value.

OK, I'll stop - you probably think I have stock.

Margarita Bars!

2009-03-19T22:28:00.001-07:00

Ok, these were fabulous. To die for. I made them with margarine instead of butter so I could try them because I LOVE margaritas. I think these will be a regular stand-by for parties and get togethers. The office peeps really loved them too. I also brought in another chocolate/peanut butter treat - to be discussed in a different post - and the margarita bars were the best sellers (probably because of scarcity and curiousity).

I got the idea from googling for margarita cupcakes - which I have made with great success and reviews I might add - from Urbanhonking.com. The pictures looked good and the recipe easy, so I filed it away in my recipes to try stash. I would highly recommend this recipe.

They have a nice flaky crust that is slightly sweet, and the filling is nice and goey but firm - the same texture as a good lemon bar (its cousin). These really did taste like margaritas. The modifications I made to the recipe was to add orange zest and tequilla - which I think really transformed them from lime bars to margarita bars. I think Jimmy Buffet would approve!

Margarita Bars
(Adapted from Urbanhonking.com)

Heat oven to 350-degrees.

1 Cup all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup salted butter, cut into chunks
1/4 Cup confectioners sugar

Combine above ingredients in stand mixer or by hand and press evenly into a square 8x8 pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

Beat together in a stand mixer or with hand beaters:

2 eggs
1 Cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. lime juice
Zest of two limes
Zest of one small orange or 1/2 large orange
2 tsp. Tequilla
1 drop green food coloring

When crust is done baking, pour lime mixture over crust and bake 20-25 minutes more.The filling puffs during baking, but flattens when cooled. They should be browned on top.

Cool completely before covering and refrigerating overnight (for best results, though can be made for same day). Dust with powdered sugar. Sprinkle sparingly with flaky sea salt (like Maldon). Choose a salt with large flakes, or the granules will soak into the bars. A little goes a long way!
Makes about 16 squares; You can double the recipe and make it in a 9x13 pan.

New Birthday Cookbooks!

2009-03-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am super lucky. I was the lucky recipient of many cookbooks that I had been coveting for quite some time now. I can't wait to dive into them and test them out - and post my experiences here of course. I did pour over them and LOVE them already. Stay tuned - the kitchen will be busy (work permitting).

Thank you Thank you Thank you Jaci for Baked and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (Photos from Amazon).

Thank you Thank you Thank you Ashley R. for the long sought after infamous Hello, Cupcake!

Thank you Thank you Thank you my dear sweet hubby for these delicous books: The Sweet Melissa Baking Book and Go Dairy Free.

TWD: French Yogurt Cake

2009-03-17T22:29:00.001-07:00

This cake was super yum. Super duper yummy. This week's TWD recipe was French Yogurt Cake and was chosen by Liliana of My Cookbook Addition. Thank you Liliana! As the host, you can get the recipe from Liliana here.

I was very excited about this cake because I had a great occasion to make it - my birthday!!! I LOVE birthday cake, but hardly get to eat it anymore with my horrible lactose affliction. So, with the use of yogurt and oil, this cake easily lent itself to a special Lorelei treat.

I did share the cake! As you can see from the picture above, I shared a lot of it (I did not eat it all I promise). One of the partner's at my firm was hosting a dinner party and I brought along this cake and the amzing S'more bars from Baking Bites (I will do a separate post about these). They both were a big hit.

My adaptations to the Dorie recipe was that I made two batches so that I could make a nice and tall birthday cake with four layers. As suggested I made them in 9 inch pans and then sliced the cake in half to make four layers. I also added lemon extract to the batter because after tasting it I thought it could use an additional lemon boost. That's it. The rest was as advertised. I frosted the cake with a delicous lemon buttercream frosting (using Nucoa Margarine of course) that I got from Good Things Catered. So good - in fact - I think I will go have another piece!

Pumpkin & Coconut Muffins

2009-03-10T22:31:00.000-07:00

Since my case settled, I have had a bit of time on my hands - and I have been using a lot of it to catch up on my favorite foodie blogs and bookmark recipes (actually print them out and put in a binder with plastic sheets so I can bring into the kitchen with me and I have a handy book of to try and tried and true recipes).

So, when I came across the Pumpkin and Coconut Bread by Vanilla Sugar - I knew I finally had a purpose for my can of pumpkin that has been waiting since November to get used. My husband and I love muffins. As you can tell by my post here. So I decided to make muffins instead of a loaf so we could have easy to transport breakfast all week (and then some!).

My can of pumpkin was almost 2x what the recipe called for, and since I waited so long to use this can of pumpkin - I was using the whole thing even if it meant doubling everything else and having muffins galore. I also wanted to make a tad bit lighter so I swapped out some of the oil for applesauce.

They were DELICIOUS in my opinion. Loved by my husband and got rave reviews at work. I would highly recommend these. And will try it in loaf form someday just to see (almost nothing makes it into loaf form around here - just muffins and cupcakes!).

Pumpkin & Coconut Muffins

(adapted from Vanilla Sugar)

1 (15 oz can) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie puree, just plain pumpkin puree)

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup applesauce

2 eggs

1 ts vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups of white sugar

1 ½ cups flour

½ ts salt

½ ts baking soda

½ ts baking powder

½ ts ground cinnamon

½ ts ground nutmeg

½ ts pumpkin pie spice mix

½ cup chopped pecans

½ cup shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Grease and flour muffin tins (I used papers and the muffins really stuck to the papers, so I would recommend greasing and flouring the pans instead)

In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, applesauce, vanilla extract, and sugar.

In another bowl combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie spice mix. Mix well, then slowly add to the wet ingredients until well combined. Don’t over mix!

Then fold in the pecans and coconut into the batter. Top with a sprinkle of coconut and press into batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tins. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into bread comes out clean.

TWD: Lemon Cup Custard

2009-03-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

Bridget, from the blog The Way the Cookie Crumbles, chose Dorie’s Lemon Cup Custard for TWD this week. I went with the traditional lemon version and baked them in kinda large corningware baking dishes. I was glad to be able to return to TWD after my work induced hiatus, but I was a little disappointed because of all the talk (mostly negative) on the comment board. I decided to forge ahead and check it out anyway, because that's the point kinda of baking things you wouldn't normally bake, and my husband and I do like flan and custards.

Unfortunately, our reviews match many of those on the comment board. Despite putting a zest of a whole lemon in a half batch, and adding a lot of lemon extract - the lemon taste was mild and the egginess overpowering. We didn't love it to be honest and since we are trying to diet for our Mexico trip in may, decided to let it go.

One cool thing that came out of this experiment though, was how well Trader Joe's Soy Creamer performed in place of the whole milk. Soy milk has such a light consistency, it is often not a great substitute for recipes that call for cream or whole milk. This soy creamer, however, tastes really good (sweet tasting already though) and cooked up nicely. I though the consistency of the custard turned out as it should have. So, this is great news to lactose intollerant ole me, and I will keep a few of these soy creamers in the fridge in case I want to opt for a lactose free version of something I am baking.

Till next week.

Hubby's Favorite Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

2009-03-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight I made what my husband deemed the best cupcake I have made yet. And I have been baking a lot of cupcakes in the last year. I caught the cupcake buzz about a year ago February, but didn't think I had the time or talent to host a baking blog so, many long lost cupcake adventures which do not appear on my fairly new blog. There is always tomorrow!

I got home early tonight and wanted to make some cupcakes to cheer up my co-workers tomorrow. There was a large round of layoffs at my work, and while no one in my office's litigation group was let go, it was a tough day at work. So I started to think about what kind of cupcakes to make and since I like to try new things, I started thinking about making a snickerdoodle cupcake.

First I gave it an old google try - and came across two snickerdoodle cupcake recipes from two of my favorite cupcake blogs - The Cupcake Project and I Heart Cuppycakes While these two blogs are often the source of my inspiration and recipes, I thought the one from Cupcake Project was too complicated and time consuming (although yummy looking) and the one from I Heart Cuppycakes was too large and was missing the sour element that the cream of tartar in the cookie recipe provides.

So, I looked a little farther and then decided to adapt a recipe from one of my go-to cupcake cookbooks 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson. I started with her French Toast cupcake recipe and made some modifications. For the frosting, I took a basic vanilla buttercream recipe and added 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tbsp meringue powder. Recipes below.

We'll see what the work folks have to say about it tomorrow - but my husband said it was my number 1 cupcake and he couldn't stop moaning while eating it. I sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar mixture on top of each cupcake before baking, and that made a nice little crust in between the moist fluffy cake and creamy frosting. So, I'd say it is definately worth a try for snickerdoodle fans.

Snickerdoodle Cupcake

(Makes 12 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees)

1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk + 1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar - what I used this time)

Topping - Combine:
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

1. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, butter and eggs until smooth. Whisk in vanilla extract. Alternatively whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of milk.
3. Scoop batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar topping mixture on top of cupcakes. Bake in preheated oven for 20 (to 25) minutes or until golden brown and tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Frost when completely cool.

Snickerdoodle Frosting

1 stick butter or margarine
3 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp meringue powder
1 tsp cinnamon

In a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter until creamy - about 2-3 minutes. Add sifted powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, meringue powder and cinnamon and beat until combined. Add more powdered sugar or milk to get the desired consistency. Then sprinkle cupcakes with remaining cinnamon/sugar topping. The above recipe will give you pretty fluffy and thick frosting - enough to frost 12 cupcakes liberally.

Bake & Destroy Hoodie

2009-03-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

I am now a proud owner of a Bake and Destroy Pink Hoodie - thanks to Natalie of Bake and Destroy Blog. I love this hoodie, it is soo comfortable, cute, affordable, supports a super cool fellow baker and bloger and is a great conversation piece. Thanks Natalie.

Get your own - in pink or black - at her Etsy store.

Thank You Cupcakes

2009-03-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

Another over due post. We had a big office switch at my work a few months ago now. I love my office with a view of the ferry building and SF bay, near the kitchen too - so I declined to move. But for those wanting off the super hot no view wall, it was a big opportunity for nicer digs. There is this associate that has a way with people and just seems to always make things happen. I really wanted my awesome friend Jen to get a better office, so I promised him cupcakes of his choice if he would make it happen. He did - Jen got a new office & and I owed him cupcakes. And I took a long long time to come through - but I did.

He chose Chocolate Chip cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting. As you will see below, the cupcake recipe was from one of my go-to cupcake books, and both of the frosting recipes from one of my FAV cupcake sites - Cupcake Project - I strongly encourage you to check it out. Chances are, she's tried what you are thinking of!!

Very Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson

1 1/2 cup AP flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In a stand mixer (or with hand mixer), beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla paste. Alternatively beat in flour mixture and milk, making three addtions of flour mixture and two of milk, beating until smooth. Coat chocolate chips in 1 tbsp flour in bowl or ziplock bag (prevents them falling to the bottm). Fold in chocolate chips.

3. Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 23-28 minutes or until golden brown and tops of cupcakes spring back when touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Frost when completely cool.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

from Cupcake Project

1 8 oz package cream cheese at room temperature
1/4 C butter (1/2 stick) at room temperature
4 C sifted powdered sugar (You can decrease this amount if you don't care about it being as stiff for piping)
1/2 C cocoa powder

Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.
Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time.
Mix in cocoa powder.

Since I was baking, and I tend to bake in bursts, I decided to try something from my new bargain cupcake book. It is called Cupcake by Pamela Clark and was on sale at Barnes & Nobel for $7 or something. It is actually quite a pretty and inspiring little book. All the recipes cook at a lower temperature for a lot longer than normal, so that is a little strange. But, I'll let you know how others turn out. So I picked the Mocaccinos and decided to do a vanilla bean frosting and cover it with some store bought caramel sauce. The verdit - someone at work said it was the best cupcake they ever had and that because they worked in a kindergarten class, they considered themselves an expert on cupcakes. Wow! My husband, the trusty taster, said it was a little dry for the cake part and dense, but that with the frosting and caramel, it was ok (he likes almost everything al dente - desserts, veggies, meat, etc.!)

Mochaccinos

1 Stick plus 3 tablespoons butter, chopped corsely

3 1/2 ounces dark chocolate, chopped coarsely

1 1/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

1/4 cup coffee liqueur

3 tablespoons instant coffee or expresso granules

1 cup AP flour

3 tablespoons self-rising flour

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2. Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, the water, liqueur and coffee in a small pot, stir over low heat until smooth

3. Transger mixture to medium bowl, cool 15 minutes. Whisk in sifted flours and cocoa, then egg. Divide mixture among baking cups.

4. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

5. When completely cool, frost with frosting of choice - I used vanilla bean buttercream - then drizzle with caramel topping.

Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting Recipe
From Cupcake Project

1 1/2 C confectioners' sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
1/2 C butter (room temperature)
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (add more to taste)
1 tablespoon milk

Mix together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy. Add vanilla bean paste and milk and continue to beat for another minute. If desired, add more vanilla bean paste to taste, or more confectioners' sugar to make it stiffer.

Amazing Lemon Apricot Cupcakes

2009-03-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

Before my work induced hiatus from baking and blogging, I made some DELICIOUS lactose free lemon apricot cupcakes. They were to die for! I want to make them again - but am on a diet because we are going to Mexico for Memorial Day weekend!!!!! 5 whole nights at the Valentin Imperial Riveria Maya Resort. I can hardly wait and do a happy dance at least once a day. So, this is the motivation to get into bathing suit shape and stay away from lactose free desserts.

These cupcakes received RAVE reviews at work. They were enjoyed by the many folks working over the weekend! They were very moist, very very lemony, and not too sweet.

The recipe was mostly from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson - a great cupcake book -with some of my twists. I wanted to use some of the dried apricots that my parents sent me and wanted to give a little kick to a basic lemon recipe. So I heated up some rum in a small pan until it was simmering, then I stuck in the dried apricots and removed it from the fire and let them steep for 10 minutes. Then I drained them on some paper towels and chopped them up. They were yummy just like that!

Lemon Apricot Yogurt Cupcakes
(makes 12 cupcakes)

1 1/4 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter or Nucoa margarine (what I used), melted and cooled
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt (or other fruit inspired - I used apricot mango)
2 tsp grated lemon zest
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon oil or lemon extract
1 cup chooped dried apricots

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, butter and egg until smooth. Add yogurt, lemon zest, juice and lemon oil/extract. Add flour mixture and beat just until smooth.
3. Scoop batter into prepared pans. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely before frosting.

Lemon Frosting - From Good Things Catered. I had made this a while back when I made the Luscious Lemon Party Cake and so I used the left over frosting I stored in the fridge. I let it come to room temp and then re-fluffed it with my kitchenaid.

4 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder
tiny pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. shortening
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 extra large lemon, juiced

In the bowl of stand mixer, combine shortening, butter, and extract and lemon juice, stirring on low until relatively combined. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, meringue powder and salt, then add to mixer while still on. Stir, scraping down sides of bowl, until thoroughly combined, adding more lemon juice as needed. (Add water if needed to reach desired texture.)

Chocolate Sweets for Nicaragua

2009-03-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah, finally some time to catch up on the things I love, quality time with my husband, baking, google reader, blogging, cooking, pilates, etc. So, gonna try and get my outstanding posts up today.

To start with, I am going to write about the yummy chocolate treats I made right before moving down to San Jose for the trial to send to the wonderful French volunteers of my husband's Nicaraguan non-profit blueEnergy. There are all these wonderful, talented and amazing French volunteers that give many months to even a few years living in Bluefields, Nicaragua to volunteer for blueEnergy. They love their chocolate and nutella, and these things are really hard to come by in Nicaragua. So, whenever my husband goes down there I send him with chocolate, and lately I have been sending him with homemade chocolate sweets.

This time I made Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Brandy-Soaked Dark Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes. Luckilly, both received rave reviews. I made these after pulling an almost all-nighter (time wise) at work. We had pre-trial filings due on Friday the 13th! And, my team needed to work around the clock to get it done. I couldn't work like normal because of my recovering eye, but I felt too bad leaving them and going home to sleep. So I stayed for moral support, and a little help and direction (and took cat naps on a partner's couch!). That Friday night was the only chance I had to bake before moving to San Jose, so I made the TWD Devil's Food White Out Cake, and these two chocolate treats. I was one tired chick when I went to bed around 1am! So, very thankful everything turned out well.

On to the food and recipes. So the Brandy-Soaked Dark Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes were an inspiration from Family Friendly Food blog. Not entirely sure how I stumbled upon her post for her Whisky-Soaked cakes, but I knew that it looked like a chocolate lover's dream and that the booze might help keep it moist during its journey from San Francisco to Bluefields, Nicaragua. I deciped that for transport I would make individual mini-bundt cakes and individually wrap them well. I also thought that adding a little chocolate ganache would up the chocolate and wow factor. You can find the cake recipe here. I followed it exactly except substituted the whisky for brandy. They ended up looking like doughnuts.

The ganache recipe was modified from Bakewise by Shirley O. Corriher. It tasted great (so I was told) and was nice and thick and shiny, and firmed up into nice hard coating - good for wrapping and packing. I highly recommend this book, it is great for anyone who wants to learn about the why things work and don't.

Shiny Ganache Glaze

16 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup

In a large heavy saucepan, carefully bring the cream and sugar to a boil. Watch constantly. Let simmer for 1 minute. Pour the hot cream mixture into a medium mixing bowl that has a wide surface. Stir in the corn syrup. Let cool about 30 seconds. All at once, pour the chopped chocolate over the entire surface. Jar or barely shake the bowl to get the chocolate to settle. Allow to stand about 30 seconds before stirring. Then start stirring in the middle, blending the melted chocolate and creat together. Try not to incorporate air. Stir slowly until all the chocolate is melted and blended. Use immediately, or refrigerate and reheat to thin.

The Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies:

2 ½ cups flour
1/c cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup Nutella
2 cups chocolate chips or 2 Ghiradelli Luxe Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Bars (6 oz) chopped.
1 cup hazelnuts (if using chocolate chips); or ½ cup hazelnuts (if using hazelnut choc. Bar)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
3. In the bowl of a standing mixer (or using hand beater) combine the sugars and the
butter on medium speed and cream until smooth and light. Add the eggs one at a time.
Add the vanilla and then Nutella.
4. Add the flour mixture on low speed just until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips or
chunks and nuts.
5. On an ungreased baking sheet, place heaping tablespoons or small ice cream scoop of
batter about 3 inches apart. Bake for 12 minutes until set but soft. Remove and cool on a rack.

New Logo!

2009-03-03T00:48:00.001-08:00

So one of the things I have been waiting to share is my new Mermaid Sweets Logo! I had it made on Etsy. It was made by the super talented Malien00's Shop. I would encourage you to check it out.

I hope to tap my husband's computer programming skills when he returns from Nicaragua to put this logo on my blog and otherwise soup my blog up.

But I can't wait any longer to post - so here it is:

Case Settled!

2009-03-03T00:44:00.000-08:00

Horay! After a little over two weeks living in a hotel and preping for a trial that has kinda started (pre-trial motions only for you lawyers out there) the case has "settled." So we will be packing our bags (final settlement god willing) on Wednesday and returning to our normal lives. For me that means BAKING! and TWD!!!! Soooo excited. I have a bunch of posts stored up - and was hoping to get a moment to write them while here, but alas, not a moment to spare!

So I will be back soon =)

I plan to do a lot of baking and posting soon. Stay tuned.

TWD: Devil's Food White Out Cake

2009-02-18T01:21:00.000-08:00

Oh my, my life sure has been crazy lately. First the detached retina, surgery and recovery (thanks again for all the well wishes). Then my case that I have been working on for over 2 years is finally going to trial. So it was an immediate hit the pavement when I returned to work. And it has been brutal for us all, so not much baking. I have now moved into a hotel with my trial team - so no oven and no more baking. We could be here anywhere from only a few days more - to 8 weeks or more!!!! If that's the case, I'll have to plead with Laurie to let me stay in the TWD club and be on inactive status while I am living out of a hotel. Although I have thought about trying to bake a TWD recipe with the hotel kitchen!!

So the night before we moved into the hotel, I made this week's TWD recipe - Devil's Food White Out Cake chosen by Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater. Since my pictures leave something to be desired, check out the other TWD'ers here.

I was so happy that no one chose this during the first year of Tuesday's with Dorie so I could make it. I have to admit I was intimidated, but since I knew it could be my last chance to do TWD for a while, I gave it a try late Friday night. The result - everyone on my trial team loved the cake (although they may have been being kind because they have to work with me in such close quarters for a while!). I, of course, didn't try it like most of my baking, but I did get to try the frosting which was dairy free and I loved that! So good marks on the taste, but my cake looked nothing like the cover recipe that's for sure. First of all I put too much of the crumbs on the cake, and it just wasn't as big and grand. And when I finally took a picture of a cut slice a day later, most of the frosting had soaked into the cake - which made it more moist! So, slightly embarassed by photos, but here we go:

Delicious Texas Sized Muffins

2009-01-30T10:43:00.001-08:00

I have been on a muffin kick lately. Spurred by Dorie Greenspan's savory pepper corn muffins, and being off work, I have made 2 batches of Dorie's muffins, bannana nut muffins, regular corn muffins and blueberry muffins twice! We're not sick of them yet (and they are almost all gone!).

This post features the Texas sized corn and blueberry muffins I made using awesome recipes from the cookbook Baking Illustrated from America's Test Kitchen. (This is a great baking bible). The muffins turned out AMAZING - light and fluffy, great taste. Adding the cinnamon-sugar topping to the blueberry muffins made them out of this world.

Blueberry Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly (I used Nucoa margarine)
1 ¼ cups sour cream (I used lowfat plain yogurt)
1 ½ cups frozen or fresh blueberries, preferably wild

Cinnamon-Sugar Topping
½ cup sugar & ½ teaspoon cinnamon combined in bowl
4 tablespoons of butter, melted.

Preheat oven to 350°, grease or line with paper cups a 12-cup or 6-cup jumbo (Texas) muffin tin.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl till combined. Whisk the egg in a second bowl until well-combined and light-colored (about 20 seconds). Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogenous (about 30 seconds). Add the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add the sour cream in 2 additions, whisking just to combine.

Add the berries to the dry ingredients and gently toss just to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and fold with a rubber spatula until the batter comes together and the berries are evenly distributed (about 30 seconds). (Small spots of flour may remain and the batter will be thick – do not overmix).

Divide the batter among the muffin cups using a greased spoon or cookie/ice cream scoop. Bake until the muffins are light golden brown and a toothpick or skewer comes out clean (rotating pan halfway through baking time) – 25-30 minutes for 12-cup muffin tin, 40-45 for Texas sized muffins.

After muffins have cooled 5 minutes in tin or on wire rack, dip tops of muffins in melted butter or margarine and then roll in cinnamon sugar mixture.

The blueberry muffin batter - as hard as I tried to stir gently, I ended up with lots of purple batter!

The Jumbo muffin tins filled to the max going into the oven.

The finished product - a GIANT delicious cinnamon-sugar dipped blueberry muffin - YUM!

Corn Muffins
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup fine stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
¾ cups sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter or margarine
¾ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
½ cup milk or soy milk

Preheat oven to 400°, grease or line with paper cups a 12-cup or 6-cup jumbo (Texas) muffin tin. [The batter made enough for 6 Jumbo muffins and 4 regular sized muffins and I baked them at the same time, leaving the Jumbo muffins in the oven longer.]

Whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl till combined. Whisk the egg in a second bowl until well-combined and light-colored (about 20 seconds). Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogenous (about 30 seconds). Add the melted butter in 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add half the sour cream and milk and whisk to combine. Whisk in remaining milk and sour cream. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mix gently with a spatula until the batter is just combined and evenly moistened (do not overmix).

Divide the batter among the muffin cups using a greased spoon or cookie/ice cream scoop. Bake until the muffins are light golden brown and a toothpick or skewer comes out clean (rotating pan halfway through baking time) – about 18 minutes for 12-cup muffin tin, and 25 minutes for Texas sized muffins.

TWD: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

2009-01-27T22:09:00.001-08:00

(dictated by Lorelei, transcribed by Mathias)

I am thrilled to have been well enough to make this week's TWD recipe. I am still not blogging on my own so this post will be short and sweet :) This week's recipe was chosen by Heather of Sherry Trifle. You can find the recipe for the fresh ginger and chocolate gingerbread cake on her blog. Also check out the TWD blog roll for many other posts about this delicious cake.

Like many other TWD'ers I made a few modifications. First, I did not have a 9 inch square pan so I used a 9 inch round pan and this worked out just fine. I did however have to increase the baking time by 7 minutes for a total of 47 minutes at 350 deg. Second, I substituted the stem ginger in syrup for candied ginger from Trader Joe's. And lastly, I used a combination of bitter-sweet and semi-sweet chocolate in the cake and frosting.

The results: moist, rich but at the same time light, must be a relative of carrot cake - in summary, fantastic (Mathias here!).

Chopped candied ginger and semi-sweet and bitter-sweet chocolate chunks.

Uncooked cake in pan in the oven.

Browned cake cooling before frosting.

Frosted cake!

Thanks, Gracias, Merci

2009-01-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

(dictated by Lorelei, transcribed by Mathias)

It's been almost 2 weeks since my eye surgery and I'm happy to report that the recovery is going well and my doctor is pleased with the results thusfar. I still have a ways to go in order to be 100% and gain full eyesight back in my right eye. But I am feeling much better and look forward to returning to work hopefully next week, at least in a limited capacity. I greatly miss the baking blogging world and can't wait to get back to normal and read all my favorite blogs. But I wanted to do a post with my husband to thank everyone who has been so supportive during this time. Also in that spirit, since I was cleared by my doctor to resume limited baking, I baked some thank you cards, a.k.a decorated sugar cookies, as shown in the picture below. The sugar cookie recipe and the royal icing recipes (and rolling / decorating instructions) come from Cookie Craft by Valerie Peterson & Janice Fryer. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about baking and decorating sugar cookies.

My beloved husband helped me decorate these cookie thank you presents.

Even though this is primarily a baking blog, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of my well wishers who sent me kind words of encouragement, beautiful flowers to brighten my day, and edible treats to warm the soul.

The gorgeous and sweet smelling flowers that got me through the roughest post-surgery days.

Thank you Klein family for the many calls and delicious treats.

Thank you Diane Webb from Morgan Lewis for the amazing pink and purple arrangement.

Thank you Team Morgan (Morgan Lewis).

Thank you Scott and Karen Hamilton.

Thank you Howard Holderness and Kate Greenblat (and MLB Lit. Dept.).

Thank you Holly Furgason from Blue Sparrow Pilates, my favorite pilates instructor.

Thanks to my special college girlfriends Ashley, Ashley, Jaci, and Leah (of Michon Design).
A special shout out to Jen Fearnow (for her daily calls and lots of support); Auburn Daily for her babysitting with yummie Thai food; and Jane Wattenberg for her company and Pho soup lunch.

Last but most importantly, while words cannot adequately give thanks, a heart-felt thank you to my amazing husband Mathias who has lovingly tortured me with eye drops (most diligently), fed my stomach and my soul, and made me feel pretty and loved despite my one-eyes status. He's the greatest -- I am truly lucky in love.

TWD: Savory Pepper Corn Muffins

2009-01-13T23:35:00.000-08:00

Despite it all (I am having surgery tomorrow for my recently discovered partially detached retina, and had a lot to do before not being able to read/type, etc. for a while), I made it just in the nick of time with this post. And I am glad I did, these muffins were TERRIFIC. Yum Yum Yum. Thank you Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake for picking this recipe.

I saw that many other TWD'ers didn't like them or skipped them because they are cornbread purists. I respect that, but these were right up my husband and my alley - we love spicy food, the spicier the better. In fact, I have a Costco size bottle of Tabasco on my desk at work, and bring it to lunch meetings - I am serious. So these were perfect.

I also made them dairy free buy substituting soy milk for the milk (and adding 1 tsp of cider vinegar to the soy milk) and Nucoa margarine for the butter. My dairy eating husband loved them dairy free just the same. Thanks Dorie. Check out the other TWD posts here.

Happy Birthday Hilary

2009-01-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend we celebrated the uber talented and sweet Hilary Pfeifer in two ways, first was the opening of her amazing art show Natural Selection (photos below), which is on display at the gallery Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco until the end of this month (I strongly encourage all to check it out), and second was the bunny with a toolbelt (aka Hilary's) birthday. You know what birthday means ... that's right CAKE!

I chose to make a light lemon cake since a little birdie told me Hilary would prefer something fruity over something chocolate (a girl after my own heart). The little birdie, aka Mom Locey Pfeifer, also said to make it dairy free so I could join in on the fun. OK! I like cake too (and hardly ever get to eat my own creations).

I searched my trusty google reader for lemon cake and found the perfect recipe to make over at Good Things Catered. Her Luscious Lemon Party Cake. It turned out marvelous. I followed the recipe almost exactly except I used all purpose flour instead of cake flour, which gave me a much more compact and dense cake (I will try cake flour next time); and I used 9 inch round pans which made the layers too thin in my opinion to just use two, so I doubled the recipe to make 4 layers; and because I was one lemon short for the icing, I replaced the missing lemon juice with dark rum - which was a great substitution. Finally, instead of putting the icing between the layers I used store bought lemon curd, which gave me a lot of leftover icing which I will put to good use. The reviewers said this was a good choice as they preferred the thin layer of curd to frosting.

Luscious Lemon Party Cake Ingredients:

-2 1/2 c. cake flour
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 extra large organic lemons, washed thoroughly then zested and juiced separately
2/3 c. soy milk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
3 egg whites, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Icing:
4 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbsp meringue powder
tiny pinch of salt
1/2 c. Nucoa margarine, softened
1/2 c. shortening
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 extra large lemon, juiced
1 Tbsp dark rum
Additional lemon for decorating

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two cake pans (8 inch for larger rounds- or 9 inch if you are going to double the recipe and make 4 layers like I did).

-In bowl of electric mixer sift and add flour, sugar, baking powder, meringue powder, salt, and zest of one lemon.

-Stir with mixer to combine, about 30 seconds.

-Add soy milk, oil, juice from two lemons, beaten egg whites and extract.

-Beat on medium to combine thoroughly, about 1 1/2 - 2 minutes.

-Remove from mixer and stir with silicone spatula to thoroughly combine (making sure there is no flour mixture left unincorporated at the bottom of the bowl.

-Fill prepared pans 2/3 of the way full and bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean (about 25-28 mins for 8 inch pans; about 20-25 minutes for 9 inch pans)

-Remove from oven, let cool 15 minutes in pan and then turn onto wire racks to cool completely.

-Meanwhile, in the bowl of stand mixer, combine shortening, butter, vanilla extract, lemon juice and rum, stiring on low until relatively combined.

-In a separate bowl, combine sugar, meringue powder and salt, then add to mixer while still on.

-Stir, scraping down sides of bowl, until thoroughly combined, adding more lemon juice as needed. (Add water if needed to reach desired texture.)

-Then frost the cake, using the icing in between the layers, or for a less frosting taste, use lemon curd between the layers and frost the outside.

Rosemary Foccacia

2009-01-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

Foccacia is my husband's favorite bread, so I have wanted to try making it for him for a while. I figured our New Year's retreat would be the best time to research recipes and give it a try. I ended up settling on a rosemary foccacia recipe from the cookbook Baking Illustrated by the editors of Cooks Illustrated magazine - a baking bible that I highly recommend.

The bread turned out amazing (If I don't say so myself). Great crust on top and bottom and great chewy texture inside. There is a really nice long story about how the folks at Cooks Illustrated arrived at this recipe that includes mashed and strained potato. In short, they say it adds moisture. I was rushing to finish dinner in time for our guests, my brother-in-law and his wonderful girlfriend, so I tried to take a shortcut with the potatoes - I peeled the potato, cut it into cubes and then put in a microwave safe bowl with water and microwaved it for 12 minutes. Then I pushed the potato pieces through my silver mesh strainer. The stovetop boiling method calls for a boil time of 25 minutes, so I didn't save much time, but some.

All in all, it was a lot of work, only made one bread (guess you could double the recipe) and was a little stale the next day. So for the most part, I will continue going to the bakery down the street for their OK foccacia to make foccacia pizzas - but every now and then, I may make my husband's day with the homemade version.

Here is the dough after the first rise, and pressed into a well oiled jelly roll pan.

Here is the dough after the second rise, with the fingerprint wells, olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary and coarse salt.

And here is the final baked bread. Yum!

Recipe from Baking Illustrated:

Dough:

1 Medium baking potato (about 9 oz), peeled and quartered

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup warm water

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (plus more for oiling bowl and pan)

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Topping (I approximated the amounts below)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves

3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt (or 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt)

1. Bring 1 quart water to a boil in a small saucepan; add the potato and simmer until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain the potato well; cool until it can be handled comfortably; press it through the fine disk on a ricer or grate through the large holes on a box grater. Reserve 1 1/3 cups lighly packed potato.

2. Using a standing mixer mix the yeast, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/2 cup war water until combined. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set aside until bubbly, about 20 minutes. Add the remaining dough ingredients, including reserved potato. Attach the paddle attachment to mixer and mix on low speed until the dough comes together. Switch to the dough hook and increase the speed to medium, continue kneeding until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

3. Transfer doubh to lighly oiled bowl, turn to coat with oil and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm, draft-free area until the dough is puffy and doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

4. With wet hands press the dough flat into a generously oiled 15 1/2 by 10 1/2 inch rimmed baking sheet. Cover the dough with lightly greased or oil-sprayed plastic wrap and let rise in warm, draft free area until the dough is puffy and doubled in volume - 45 minutes to 1 hour.

5. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. With two wet fingers dimple the risen dough at regular intervals. The dimples (about 2 dozen) should be deep enough to hold small pieces of topping, herbs and pools of olive oil. Drizzle the dough with olive oil, herbs and salt.

6. Bake until bottom crust is golden brown and crist, 23 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Tuesdays With Dorie: French Pear Tart

2009-01-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

My first TWD! I have been dying to join TWD for almost a year, but when I finally mustered up the courage to start a blog so I could join, the club had closed. Thankfully, in the spirit of TWD's One Year Anniversary, Laurie of Quirky Cupcake opened up membership for a limited time and confirmed that I could join!!! So, here it is, my first TWD post, and the recipe was chosen by the guru Dorie Greenspan herself! This is quite a special treat. Check out Dorie's post and the recipe here.

Here is the tart before baking.

And after baking.

I happened to have some French guests at my house, and their opinion: C'etait Tres Bon! [It was very good - but, could be lighter and less sweet]. I'd say that was a good review - for a Frenchman!

It was a busy weekend for me. Since it was our New Years' special retreat weekend where I traditionally do a lot of cooking and baking (and did this year with Paella, foccacia, Coq Au Vin, lamb kebabs, pita, etc.) - I went with canned pears rather than try to poach pears myself. And because both the crust and the cream called for a food processor, and I had been coveting one forever (and tried a cheap Black n' Decker one from Target with terrible results and had to return the piece of junk) we splurged and bought a fabulous KitchenAid Chrome Food Processor that works like a charm! Yay, hercules, hercules. Thanks hubby for carrying it all the way home on foot from Union Square (and braving Macy's on a weekend, with a fire alarm evacuation nonetheless!!).

Check out the TWD blog roll for the other 400+ members' posts. Can't wait until the next TWD recipe. Stay tuned.

New Year's Eve Sweets

2009-01-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

We co-hosted another holiday party at someone else's (nicer/bigger) apartment. This time it was a New Year's Eve Party at our friend Matt's house (the great Matt Flannery from Kiva). It was a pot-luck dinner party followed by a midnight toast and dancing. For the pot-luck I made an easy and delicious chinese chicken salad and my go to Italian pasta salad (which I made up and will write down the recipe for someday). But for dessert, I settled on the most amazing 3-in-1 treats and some filled cupcakes - Chocolate cupcakes with coconut filling and chocolate frosting, and Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry jam filling and vanilla bean frosting.

So, these are the delicious chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge, rice crispy treat goodies that Joy the Baker created - they received rave reviews. Check out her beautiful pictures and post here.

These are the filled cupcakes. I used my go to strawberry cupcake recipe, filled with basic store bought strawberry jam, and then topped with this vanilla bean frosting from Cupcake Project that tastes like vanilla ice cream. And I tried the chocolate coconut cupcakes from Informal Blathering.

And here are some fun party pictures. A great New Year's Party. Thanks Matt - Happy New Year to all! To steal the words of my amazing husband, Better Luck Next Year!!!!

Me and the lovely Craig Brothers.

Family Holiday Celebration

2009-01-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

This holiday season we had several firsts - no traveling for us (apart from Sacramento, but no planes) and we got the Kleins, Craigs and Pfeifers together!! We hosted the family dinner at a Craig family favorite, Hunan and then had everyone back to our one bedroom apartment in North Beach for a dessert and champagne party.

Here are the photos and links to recipes:

These are the S'more Cookie Bars from Baking Bites - a favorite blog of mine. Check out her photos, recipe and post here.

I also made mini Lemon Honey Cupcakes, with Lemon Honey Cream Cheese Frosting. These were also a big hit. The recipe for these came from Couture Cupcakes. Check out her pictures, recipe and blog here.

Also on the dessert table: Colorful Candy Bar Cookies (recipe here), and of course two must have desserts from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook Baking from My Home to Yours - All American Apple Pie and World Peace Cookies (just google it, you can read all about the recipe and the hype).