Little sisters Bday cake.

Sarah turned 8. I made her cake.

It consisted of chocolate cake, raspberry cake, chocolate buttercream, raspberry buttercream, royal icing decorations and all kinds of fresh, pink flowers from Emily and Ben at Mile Creek Farm (CSA providers).

I made the cake and buttercream ahead and assembled it the night before, then did the tiers and decorations before the party. I also made the royal icing decorations (with sparkle powder) the night before so they had time to harden.

Cherry brandy and brandied cherries?

Brandied cherries:
1 cup H2O
cinnamon stick
cloves
maple syup
1. Boil for about 5 min, then add 1/2 cup brandy!
2. Place cherries in a jar and cover with mixture.
3. Let sit for 2 days, or a few months...

Cherry brandy: sqish cherries into a jar and cover with brandy. Hide for a few months.

Hopefully these will both be ready by Xmas...

Peach, berry and bacon "clafoutis"...

Crust is made from ground almonds and butter.

Layered with cmbly bacon (just a little), sliced fresh peaches and black raspberries.

Sort of a deep clafouti/tart. Batter is egg whites, butter and some coco flour.

Oh and the middle pic I put the crust on top... that was better b/c it got crispy.

Date and tamarind squares. Sweet corny milk :)

So this is definetly a 20% post. For those of you wh o have no oide what that means, it is basically "Ill do really well with my diet 80% of the time, and have some sweet snacks 20% of the time."

Date/tamarind/hazelnut/coconut squares
Add into a food processor:
about 15 dates
2 handfuls of hazelnuts
about 2 T tamarind paste (available at indian or latin markets)
I added a pinch of cardamom, but you could leave that out or do anther spice.

1. Blitz in food processor until pastey.
2. Sprinkle shredded, unsweetened coconut into a pie plate. Dump paste in there and flatten out to about 1 cm thickness. Sprinkle with more coconut.
3. Place in fridge overnight (or just until hardened).
4. Remove flattened and coconutted disk. Using a sharp chefs knife, slice into small squares (about 3/4 in square).
5. Use more coconut and toss the squares in the coconut, so it sticks to the cut sides.
6. Done! Store in fridge, lasts for a while.

Sweet corn and milk drink! It was so intriguing I HAD to try it! It was VERY VERY yummy. In fact, Im thinking there may be a 20% in this drinks future... we shall see.

April Daring Bakers: Cheesecake.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

That was the obligatory blog checking line. Its how the Daring Bakers know we participate. We were allowed to make some changes to the flavors... and I went for it! The original is a simple cheesecake recipe. I usually make one similar to that because fussed up cheesecakes turn me off. No caramel or chocolate or oreos here. Those are all good, just not in my cheesecake! I wanted to dress it up a little so I decided to go with a Goat cheese, lavender and honey cheesecake. Mmmmm. It turned out wonderfully!

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake (Original Recipe):
crust:
180 g graham cracker crumbs
4 oz butter, melted
24 g sugar
1 t vanilla extract

cheesecake:
24 oz room temp cream cheese
210 g sugar
3 large eggs
8 oz heavy cream
1 T lemon juice
Innards of 1 vanilla bean

My recipe:
crust:
30 squares graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted

cheesecake:
1.5 blocks cream cheese, room temp
4 oz goat cheese, room temp
1 pint sour cream, room temp
3 eggs, room temp
2/3 c honey
2 t lemon juice
2 T dried lavender flowers, crushed to a fine powder (got mine at the health food store)
Innards of 1 vanilla bean

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.
3. Add cream cheese, goat cheese and sour cream into a bowl and whisk (or beat on low) together. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add honey, vanilla bean scrapings and lemon juice and blend until smooth and creamy. *** Important note: over beating makes cheesecake tough and grainy, kind of like scrambled eggs. You want to minimally mix the cheesecake, and always on low. This way you will get a ridiculously silky cheesecake. remove about 1/3 of the batter, this will be the lavender flavored bit. Add the lavender flowers and a bit of purple food color (optional).
4. Pour non lavender batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Drizzle in the lavender batter on to in a zigzag fashion. Tap again. Pull a toothpick though the top of the cheesecake so it looks streaky. I just did a huge swirly design. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.
5. Bake 45 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cheesecake to jiggle in the center... like jello sort of. It wont look done to you, trust me. Pull cheesecake out and chill to room temp. Chill in fridge for 4 hours. Eat! It helps to slice it with a knife dipped in HOT water, so you get a nice looking slice.

Ingredients: Vanilla, goat cheese and lavender.

Close up.

More.

The swirly lavendery cheesecake. YUM.

The best chocolate chip cookies ever!

Cookies. With chocolate chips in them. Chewy ones. Moist ones. CHEWY ONES!!! I have never been a big fan of cookies myself, but I make a mean cookie (with chocolate chips in it) so why not? I only ate 2 of these... theeeeen I ate 2 more in doughs worth while I was making them. Doh! I eat around the chips. I don't much like chocolate, so the dough is in dangerous territory... while the little chippies can just stroll along without the fear of the Tara-monsters jaws. I have a purpose. You shall see. Lets just dive right in, shall we?

Simplicity itself.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

Ingredients

2 1/4 c all purpose flour

1 t salt (i use a little extra b/c salt + choc = yum)

1/2 t baking soda (I use Aluminum free)

1 c butter, melted

3/4 c dark brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

2 T corn syrup

1 egg

1 egg yolk

seeds from 1 vanilla bean, or 1 t extract

few drops almond extract

1 1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Mix melted butter, egg, egg yolk, corn syrup and sugars. Add vanilla and almond extract.

2. Add salt and soda. Add flour in ~1/2 cup increments until well combined.

3. Add chocolate chips.

4. Put dough in refrigerator for at least 2 hours until firm, or overnight.

5. When dough has firmed up, preheat oven to 325F.

6. Spoon dough out onto cookie sheet while dough is cold. You want about 2 tablespoon dollops, spread about 3 inches apart. You can round them out if you like, but I just chucked them onto the pan. I lined my cookie sheet with a silpat, but I would recommend using minimal grease or spray to reduce spreading.

7. Bake for 13-15 mins, or until they look aaaaaalmost done.

8. Let cool for 5 minutes on pan, then slide off onto cooling rack. Be careful with them!

9. Try at least one while still warm and melty.

10. Yum.

Pictures!

Ingredients.

Chocolate and vanilla. Homemade vanilla= 3 beans and some Ciroc vodka to cover. Wait 3 months. Enjoy.
Chippies.
Tower of cookies.
This is what a sunrise should look like.

Look at that. Just look at it!

These chippies survived the Tara-monster's jaws. The first time.

Oh sweet chewy delightfulness.

Cookies an (raw) milk.

There are no words. Well, "om nom nom" might sum it up quite nicely.

Tara-monster's jaws!!! Oh, did I mention I made these for my Orthodontist and his awesome crew? They rock. I'm getting the tooth jewelry off tomorrow so they deserve a treat for dealing with me. They shall get all the cookies I made (minus 2 I ate and 2 the roomie ate).

Go make these. Now! Let me know what you thing of them!

Have a wonderful week.

Review: Tim Tam (Slam)!

If you have not discovered Tim Tams, GO OUT RIGHT NOW TO FIND THEM! They are only available at Target (tar-jay) so hit up your local Target and do yourself a favor. These are now my favorite cookie! Thank you, Australia!

Tim Tam Slam: Also known as the TIM TAM Suck or TIM TAM Bomb. Grab a Tim Tam and a warm drink (coffee, milo or tea). Nibble both ends off the biscuit and use it as a straw for your drink. When its saturated, quickly SLAM it in your gob before it falls apart. It can get kinda messy, but who cares when it tastes that GOOD! <--- True story.

Yours truly performing a Tim Tam Slam, but with milk... yeah I know I look like I have an extra chromosome. I cant help it.

Britny doing the same. Roffles.

Packaging.
Choc on left, caramel on right.
YUMMMM.

So I know I am on the Primal blueprint, but sometimes you just have to eat three cookies when you find out they are on limited release in the USA. I don't stray very often with my food, (though looking at my blog you would think I am heading straight down the diabetes highway) I usually get my carbs through fruit and milk (ah mi gawd I love milk), and maybe once every couple weeks I eat a cookie. Or a small slice of bday cake. Not too bad. Easy to keep going because I don't flip out about it. Now I just need to work out. Hmph. Back to the cookies...

The cookies are super yummy. I thought I would like the caramel ones better but the choc ones were simple and tasty. Plus when you're doing a Tim Tam Slam with something cold (i.e. milk) the caramel in the middle gets all hard. I should have learned my lesson with Hobnobs...

Tim Tam = Yum Num.

Caramel Sauce: How to?

Caramel Sauce! For my February Daring Bakers Challenge I made a caramel sauce to go with the cake we made. I thought I would show how to make it.

Caramel Sauce
1.5 c sugar
2 T H2O
2 T butter
3/4 c heavy cream
1 t vanilla
1/2 t salt
1. Heat sugar and water in a pan over medium heat, swirling occasionally. DO NOT STIR: if you stir the sugar could re-crystallize and you will end up with something like this (Dave really is a great cook, but don't stir it. Don't.).
2. When the sugar melts it should be about the consistency of clear maple syrup. It will turn brown. This happens very fast, and it will burn if you aren't vigilant. Once you see a little teeny hint of brown do not leave it alone. Just gently swirl the pan. When its a dark amber color add the butter. Stir gently (okay, NOW you can stir). Remove from heat.
3. Add the heavy cream and stir. It will bubble a lot, so be careful.
4. Add vanilla and salt.
5. Done. Store in fridge and just microwave when you're ready for it to be warm and gooey. Its pretty simple but for a more detailed description go here.

Sugar melted and liquid.

First hint of color. After about 30 seconds.

Another few seconds.

And another few seconds.

Add the butter, remove from heat, then add the cream.

Stirring it in.

Yummy nummy sauce. Add the vanilla and the salt. Done.

Closeup of finished sauce being drizzled.

February Daring Bakers... Chocolate Valentino!

Back for another Daring Bakers Challenge! This month we are doing a flourless chocolate cake aka chocolate valentino.
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.
What is in a flourless chocolate cake you ask? Well, there is chocolate... butter... and eggs. The end. That's it?! Yes, that's it. Really. Now I am not going to lie... I was totally prepared to HATE this cake. I really don't like chocolate and this is just too much. Buuut upon making the cake I decided it didn't totally suck. I decided I would make a caramel sauce because chocolate and caramel is a nice pairing, no? Then I got a little nuts. I made roasted banana ice cream, thinking caramel and banana= bananas foster= yum. So that's cool. Chocolate cake, roasted banana ice cream and caramel sauce. Simple and tasty. Then I decided I wanted in on this bacon-in-sweet-things action. I made bacon ice cream too. So chocolate cake, bacon ice cream and caramel sauce. well it sound like it should work right? Oh and did I mention I cant eat egg yolks? Read on...

Chocolate Valentino from DB
454 g (1lb) chocolate, roughly chopped
146 g of unsalted butter
5 large eggs, separated
1. Put chocolate and butter in a bowl. Nuke in microwave for 1 minute bursts until smooth and melty.
2. While your chocolate and butter mixture is cooling, butter you baking pan (I used 4 oz Apilco ramekins).
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put the whites into a large bowl and the yolks into a small bowl.
4. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. Stir the yolks with a fork until runny and lighter.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter (some white really is okay).
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F for 12 minutes (for the ramekins).
9. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes, then carve around edges with a SHARP knife and unmold.

Roasted Banana Ice Cream
3 bananas, cut into 1 in pieces
1/3 c brown sugar
2 c half and half
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
2 t lemon juice
1. Heat oven to 400F.
2. Toss bananas and brown sugar together, then spread in a baking dish.
3. Roast for about 25 min, stirring halfway trough.
4. Scrape bananas and all the sugary, sticky goodness into blender. Blend.
5. Add half and half, vanilla seeds and lemon juice and blend until smooth.
6. Freeze according to your ice cream maker.
*If you don't have an ice cream maker you could add some brandy (2-4 Tablespoons-ish) to this and put in a shallow dish. Place the dish in your freezer and pull out every 30 min and beat with a handheld mixer. Tedious, but it works. The -OH keeps huge ice crystals from forming.
7. Put in freezer!

Bacon Brittle Ice cream
1/2 lb bacon (preferably thick cut), diced
2 T brown sugar
1 T butter
1/4 c maple syrup
2 c half and half
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
2 T brandy
1. Prepare bacon for its ice cream adventure. Fry up the diced bacon until crispy. Drain well. Set aside.
2. Heat brown sugar and butter in microwave (1 min bursts) until it makes a caramely like sauce. 3. Stir in about 2/3 of the bacon and pour mixture into a greased plate or cookie sheet. Let cool.
4. While bacon brittle is cooling, make your ice cream. Mix half and half, maple syrup, vanilla seeds and brandy in a bowl.
5. Freeze according to your ice cream maker.
6. While ice cream is freezing, chop up the cooled bacon brittle.
7. When Ice cream is nearly done freezing add bacon brittle and the 1/3 you saved before (that wasn't added to the brittle).
8. Chuck in freezer in a well-sealed container.

Caramel Sauce
1.5 c sugar
2 T H2O
2 T butter
3/4 c heavy cream
1 t vanilla
1/2 t salt
1. Heat sugar and water in a pan over medium heat, swirling occasionally. DO NOT STIR (will cause your sugar to eff up... just don't do it).
2. When the sugar melts and turns brown (happens really fast) add the butter and stir a little (okay, NOW you can stir). Remove from heat.
3. Add the heavy cream and stir. It will bubble a lot, so be careful.
4. Add vanilla and salt.
4. Done. Store in fridge and just microwave when youe ready for it to be warm and gooey. Its pretty simple but for a more detailed description go here.

Banana ice cream in foreground, bacon in background.

Mmmmm caramel sauce...
I wanted to represent the ingredients. You all are lucky I didn't throw
a strip of bacon in the background for good measure!
Bacon Brittle Ice Cream

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Inside of de cake.

CAKE- Now I would like to say that I did have a bite of the cake. I used dark chocolate (not super dark) and did not add any sugar, and surprisingly, I liked it! I still don't think I could eat even one whole little cake, its still A LOT of chocolate. More and more though, I think its the ridiculous amount if sugar in chocolate things that I don't like. I don't have big sweet tooth (salt tooth anyone?) so maybe that's it? Maybe my tastes are changing and I am just beginning to dig the stuff. Who knows? I would much prefer a fruity dessert to a chocolaty one still. Oh and did I mention that I will be making myself a yolk-free one soon? We'll have to see how that affects it. My body refuses to digest yolks, so I cant eat the cake. One little bite is okay though... ;) As far as chocolate desserts go, molten chocolate cakes win, but this wasnt bad... just too much for me.

ICE CREAM- The roasted banana was awesome!!! If you like bananas foster it tastes like that... but ice cream! Seriously Im going to spoon some out of the freezer right now... lol. The bacon ice cream was good too, but it had that hint of salty/sweet and maple flavor as well. More complex than the banana for sure. I would maybe serve it with something less in-your-face like this cake is. Maybe with a simple apple pie it would work? The choc just competes too much with it, flavor wise. But still... its bacon. Bacon ice cream. Insta-love.

My cheap set up...

Rainbow Cake.

My Step-Sister/Roomie/BFFs Bday was last weekend. I wanted to do something awesome for the cake, because at this point my family just expects me to do all the baking and make it grand to boot. I guess I dug that hole myself. Oh well, I wouldn't have it any other way. So Britny is the kind of person that will eat frozen pizzas for every meal given the choice. Its hard to accept sometimes, me being a foodie and all. This is why I didn't feel bad using a boxed mix. Cue family reacting in horror as they discover I used a boxed cake mix (thanks guys). I got the idea from Omnomicon (Jan 7, 2009 post... for some reason my hyperlink isn't working right now. Grrrr). I followed the directions on the box though, no WW for me.

Rainbow cake
1 box Duncan Hines french vanilla cake mix, prepared

1. Prepare cake mix according to the the package. I divided the cake mix into 6 colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet (ROYBV). No indigo here, sorry indigo. I used my scale to weigh the prepared batter, and decided I needed about 6.5 oz for each color so I would have an equal amount per color. Weighed out 6.5 oz into cups and set aside. Well, the last one had like 5 oz b/c I decided I needed to eat some batter. What?
2. Mix the colors according to how dark you want them in each cup. I used Wilton color pastes b/c you only have to use a little teeny bit to get a lot of color. ***Please ohmigod please make sure you get 'Wilton TASTE FREE red'. If not your cake may taste like... plastic. Do it. For me. We discovered this the hard way when making red rice krispy treats for valentine's.
3. Pour half the mix in one pan and half in the other in order (ROYGBV). Just pour in, tap the pan once to spread it and pour the next in the center. Repeat.
4. Bake according to the instructions.

Frosting
4 oz butter, room temp
8 oz cream cheese, room temp
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 t vanilla

1. Cream butter and cream cheese.
2. Add sugar 1/2 cup at a time and blend.
3. Add vanilla.
4. If too thin add a little more sugar, if too thick add a little milk.
5. Cover and set aside, we want it to be room temp for spreading.

Assembly:
1. After the cake has cooled, cut off the domed tops and feed scraps to nearby children/pets/self.
2. Put first layer on cake plate, cut side up and spread with frosting. Place second cake layer on the frosted first layer, cut side down. You will have a "cake sammie" with the two cut sides in the middle. This is so the cake will be ice and flat once its frosted.
3. Apply crumb coat. It will be thin and transparent but its sole purpose is to trap [rainbow] crumbs so they don't litter your beautiful frosting like a Jackson Pollock painting. Refrigerate cake for 2-4 hours, until crumb coat is hard.
4. Frost the rest of the cake to your heart's desire. I left the frosting white because I though it was a nice contrast to the inside. But, you know... its your cake so do whatever you want!
5. Enjoy.

January Daring Bakers... Tuiles!

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Go to The Daring Bakers!

Okay so that was the obligatory blog-checking line, I hope? Well anyway we get to make tuiles! Ive been wanting to make these for a while now, but I had simply added then to the "later" category in the back of my head! Well... now! Ordinarily tuiles are quite simple, but I had to crazy it up! These kinds of challenges are my favorite kind, there is a lot of freedom and it does not involve chocolate! A baker not liking chocolate? I know, I know.

I really wanted to do something in season fruit-wise, so I chose blood oranges! I love me some blood oranges. The first time I ever had them I was in Sicily and ordered a glass of fresh blood orange juice. Yum. Well, hope you think these are creative! My additions are in red.

Sweet tuiles: Cardamom tuiles with coconut mousse and blood orange jellies.
Savory tuiles: Marmite tuiles with avocado mousse and flaked salmon.

Sweet Tuiles from “The Chocolate Book” by Angélique Schmeinck
65 g softened butter
60 g sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar dash vanilla extract
2 large egg whites
1 t cardamom powder
65 g sifted AP flour
Oven: 350F
Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix. Press the stencil on the baking sheet and use an offset spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Bake in a preheated oven for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from baking sheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still very warm, so place the baking sheet on a pulled out oven rack and shape while in front and slightly inside the oven.

Coconut Mousse by me
1/2 c heavy cream
1 T sugar
dash coconut extract
1.5 T unsweetened coconut flake
Whip cream, add sugar and extract then add coconut.

Blood Orange Jellies by me
1 c blood orange juice, strained of all pulp
1 T sugar
1 packet gelatin
Bloom gelatin on blood orange juice for 10 min. Microwave in 10 second bust and stir until dissolved. Add sugar, dissolve. Pour into am 8in round cake pan and plane in refrigerator overnight. Cut into 1/4 in cubes with a very sharp knife.

For the sweet ones I made a square stencil (from a cardboard milk carton) and when they were done baking I folded three corners in and left one flat. Pipe in coconut mousse and decorate with blood orange jellies. Garnish with blood orange segments and coconut. Pretty simple. These are wonderful little cookies and simple! The stenciling takes the most time but after you get the hang of it is no biggie.

Savory Tuiles from "The French Laundry Cookbook" by Thomas Keller
65 g AP flour
1 T plus 1 t sugar
1 t kosher salt 1 T marmite
114 g unsalted butter, softened
2 large egg whites
2 tablespoons black sesame seeds
Oven: 400F
In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the softened butter until it is completely smooth and mayonnaise-like in texture. Using a stiff spatula or spoon, beat the egg whites into the dry ingredients until completely incorporated and smooth. Whisk in the softened butter by thirds, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary and whisking until the batter is creamy and without any lumps. Place Silpat on the counter (it is easier to work on the Silpat before it is put on the sheet pan). Place the stencil in one corner of the sheet and, holding the stencil flat against the Silpat, scoop some of the batter onto the back of an offset spatula and spread it in an even layer over the stencil. Then run the spatula over the entire stencil to remove any excess batter. Place the Silpat on a heavy baking sheet and bake for 4 to 6 minutes, or until the batter is set and you see it rippling from the heat. The cornets may have browned in some areas, but they will not be evenly browned at this point. Open the oven door and place the baking sheet on the door (this will help keep the cornets warm as you roll them and prevent them from becoming too stiff to roll).

Avocado Mousse by me
1/2 c heavy cream
1/2 mashed avocado
1 t lemon juice
Whip cream and add mashed avo and lemon juice. Add a dash of white pepper and salt to taste. Whip for 10 more seconds to combine.

For these I simply made a circle stencil and when they were cooked I put then into a mini-muffin tin to for nice ripples. I am GLAD I chose these to do round b/c they are finicky as hell! They will over cook so fast in the oven, I wasted a whole pan of then b/c they got too done. They are harder to shape if they are over done. I feel the amount of butter is excessive, so I added more flour and they were still oily when they were done. I know the butter:flour ratio is such maybe to offset the lack of sugar in the savory recipe, but man! Oh well it worked out well in the end. I just piped in the mousse and put a piece of salmon on top, garnished with smoked paprika.

Now for the pics!

Blood oranges.

Stenciling the sweet tuiles.

See how thin they are?
Assembly of the sweet tuiles. Be careful! Yes, that is an ice cube tray! Lol.
Sweet tuiles done!
I had to showcase the insane amount of snow we got.

Close up. Yummm,

Savory tuiles.

Close up.

<3