Baking trends

As with every other stream of life, food goes through trends. From fusion, to small plates, and now onto cupcakes and cake pops - you can't escape them.

So I guess it's as they say: if you can't beat 'em - join 'em!

This weekend was a friend's birthday and I was asked to make the cake. I thought it was going to be a simple chocolate, or vanilla cake. Or maybe something as fancy as cheesecake. But nope! It was cake pops. 

Holiday Hustle

As much as I love the holidays (and I'm coming to enjoy them more and more every year), they are way too busy! Between Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, and Christmas baking, I barely have time to go to work to pay for everything!

That's not too say that I don't enjoy it; spending time with family and friends and showing them how much you appreciate them is priceless. However, things like little old baking blogs end up going on the back burner for a while! Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but never fear! I'm back, and boy do I have a lot of baking to post about.

This past weekend, my family and I decided to host a Holiday Open House, which we called "Santa's Sweets". The idea was to have family and friends over for a dessert tasting, while sharing good cheer and a glass of wine (or your drink of choice). Mid-November I felt inspired to bake my heart out and just share the results with friends, and I thought an open house would be the perfect opportunity.

Quickie

This is going to be a rather short post. The reason? I don't really have any pictures to post, but this recipe is so amazing it would be a crime not to post it!

I'm hosting a Holiday Open House with my family this Christmas. The food we will be serving is just going to  be a wide selection of desserts - kind of like a tasting of desserts. Nice little bite-size treats, so you don't feel too guilty indulging! Since I'm having to bake a lot of different items, I wasn't planning on posting any of the recipes because it would take far too much time. But after trying these scones, I need to share this recipe!

The scones I made are Orange Cranberry scones. Not dried cranberry, but frozen cranberry! Deliciously tart cranberries! And with the orange, and sugar on top, I thought they were divine! Here's the recipe: 

My Passion!

Have I mentioned how much I love making cheesecake? I probably have, but I feel the need to say it again.

It is the only dessert I know that can be so finicky, and even the slightest mistake can result in a severely disappointing product. But when you get it right - and you see that perfectly level surface, no cracks, no browning - it is gives you the greatest feeling of satisfaction.

This has been a busy month at work for birthdays. There were a total of 3 just in my lab, with another close friend celebrating his as well. So to celebrate, I decided to make a cheesecake for everyone to share. Upon the request of one of the birthday girls, I decided to make a Bailey's Chocolate Cheesecake. I got the recipe from the Allrecipes website, and didn't change a thing (well depends how you define change...)

Bailey's Chocolate Cheesecake
Makes 1 - 9 (or 9.5) inch cake

1 1/2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs

1/3 cup confectioners' sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 cup butter

*Note! Allow all the ingredients for the filling to come to room temperature

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (I used half light cream cheese and half regular)

1 1/4 cups white sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

3 eggs

1/2 cup light sour cream

1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). To prevent sticking to the side and bottom of the springform pan, line it with parchment paper and spray lightly with PAM. Wrap the outside of the pan in aluminum foil.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cookie crumbs, confectioners' sugar and 1/3 cup cocoa. Add melted butter and stir until well mixed. Pat into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes; set aside. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
3. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, white sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa and flour. Beat at medium speed until well blended and smooth. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in the sour cream and Irish cream liqueur; mixing on low speed. Pour filling over baked crust.
4. Set up a water bath (see below) in the oven and place the pan inside. Bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C), and continue baking for 60 minutes.
5. Turn off the oven and let the cheesecake sit in the oven for another 2-3 hours. After that, remove it and allow it to sit out for another 1-2 hours. Cool in fridge over night.

This recipe is actually really straight forward. So long as you allow everything to come up to room temperature (just leave everything on the counter for an hour or so), take the time to line your pan and wrap it properly, there should be no issues. Cheesecake requires patience, and it is on of the few things that can get me to wait around. Every time I try to rush it, it gets messed up.

For the water bath, you just need a big, deep pan that can fit your springform pan inside. You put it on the rack in the oven, fill it with boiled water, and stick your pan inside. The water bath just helps the cheesecake cook slowly and evenly. It similar to cooking a custard. If you don't use the water bath, you may find the edges brown too quickly. And from my experience, I will always use a water bath to bake my cheesecakes.

The only thing I "changed" in the recipe was to use some light dairy products instead of full fat. This may be a major cheesecake-purist faux pas, but I don't find they taste any different from full fat cheesecakes, so why not save myself a couple calories (so I can have a bigger piece!)

Everyone at work seemed to really enjoy the cake and I'm elated I could bring them that joy for their birthdays. It made the success of my cheesecake all that much sweeter, and it definitely rekindled my passion for baking them! Now, to decide what kind to make next...

Tastes Change

As a kid - with the exception of peas (especially frozen peas) - I disliked vegetables. Give me chicken fingers and I was happy, but give me a salad and I would only eat enough to get me dessert.

Since then, my taste buds have matured and now I would consider myself an honorary vegetarian. At restaurants I search out the menu item with the most vegetables in it, and every home made dinner has at least one type of vegetable. One of my new found favourite vegetables is zucchini (and no, not the deep friend kind). In stir-fry’s, stews, stuffed or grilled I can’t get enough zucchini. That’s why I was thrilled to find out zucchini was an ingredient found in many baked goods.

Halloween

Time flies! Halloween has already come and gone, and before you know it Christmas lights will be shining all along the streets.

These past couple weeks have been really busy with school/work and extra-curricular activities (I sound like I'm in grade school!) I managed to bake a couple things to keep myself sane, but I haven't had much opportunity to write up posts. So I thought I'd give a little summary of the things I've baked over the past week or two.  

As I mentioned above, Halloween was this past Monday. I love Halloween! It's my favourite holiday (if it event counts as one). My favourite thing is decorating my house to look as creepy as possible and see how many kids I can scare! There is nothing more rewarding than hearing from a parent their child was too scared to come up to my house!

Patience is not my virtue

Technically, what I made this week doesn't count as a "baked good" (there is absolutely no baking involved). I know this is a blog about baking so these might seem out of place, but they are so delicious, I had to share them! Also these count as one of my "Super Awesome Ideas" - I actually said those words out loud - so to continue with the trend from my last post, here they are! Chocolate Dipped Candy Apples.

A couple weekends ago, I went apple picking and brought home 4 pounds of crisp, juicy, fresh empire apples. Even though I'd been eating them almost every day since then, I still had an outrageous number of apples left! So, before they went bad, I decided to make something with them.

I could have made a crumble, a pie, or even applesauce (which is on my list of things to make), but I wanted something different. That's when I got the idea to dip them in chocolate (the chocolate I didn't use for the espresso cups) and roll them in candy! They would be the perfect fall treat, and get you in the mood for Halloween!

 

Super Awesome Ideas

Sometimes, when I'm just sitting around or chatting with friends, these dessert ideas pop into my head. Usually, these ideas are what I like to call 'Super Awesome Ideas' - because if I were to see them in front of me, I would probably say "These are super awesome!" Ok, maybe not, but I would at least be thinking it!

This past Thanksgiving, another idea popped into my head. Recreate a cup of espresso in dessert form! The way I envisioned it was to make an espresso cup out of chocolate, then fill it with an espresso mousse, and top it with a little white chocolate mousse (to recreate the foam!) How super awesome would that be? You get your espresso, but you can eat the cup too!

Before I go any further, I should probably mention something. These Super Awesome Ideas are usually a lot more difficult to execute than I imagine. That's the case with these espresso mousse cups! Here's the recipe for the mousse, cause at least that worked out:

When did "grown up" start meaning "booze-filled"?

This seems to be the time of year when people have birthdays. I don’t know what was happening in January and February (oh wait, Valentine’s… makes sense), but birthday’s have been popping up all over the place! So this past week a friend of mine celebrated his and I wanted to bake him birthday cupcakes. Since we are (unfortunately) all getting a little older, I decided to make a grown up cupcakes. And what was my first thought for a “grown up” cupcake? Let’s put booze in them!

Now, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it works for this story. I decided to try making a stout and Irish cream cupcake. This idea had been floating around in my head for a while, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity! I found a recipe from the Cupcake Wars website and decided to use Guinness and Bailey’s as my alcohols of choice.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Bailey’s; it’s perfect in hot chocolate, coffee, milk, cheesecake – anything really. Guinness on the other hand, I’m iffy about. I find it tastes a little too bitter, so I was worried the cupcakes would turn out that way too. And who wants a bitter cupcake? Here’s the recipe:

Baking toys

I decided to try baking something new the other week. I was going to be attending an "Epic Potluck" so I needed to bring something people hadn't seen before. I had no ideas, so my friend suggested mini doughnuts! They sounded perfect; nice little balls of dough, covered in sprinkles or some other topping. The only problem was I don't like frying things, so I would need another way to get a doughnut.

I had seen doughnut pans and doughnut-shaped sandwich-type presses at kitchen stores before, but I just thought they were a novelty, a waste of money. Well, I am now the owner of one of those potential waste of money doughnut pans, and we'll see if I end up ever using it after this party!

The recipe is very straight forward (from the Allrecipes website), and going into this you need to know these are a cakey doughnut. They aren't those light and fluffy doughnuts from Timmy's or where ever else you get doughnuts; they are more like muffins (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!) Here's the recipe:

Sometimes you've got to fail to succeed

I was hoping I wouldn't have to write this post, or at least that it would be another couple months before I'd have to. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. So here I am today  to write about my most recent "epic failure" in the kitchen. This isn't going to be pretty.

 

This past week was a little atypical in terms of my baking. Instead of just baking a treat and bringing it into work, I had planned a girls night. And this time was a little different, because I offered to cook the entire dinner. I love hosting dinners, and had planned a fabulous three course meal. On the menu would be: homemade foccacia bread and roasted red pepper hummus for starters, a no-bake vegetable lasagna as an entree, and a mocha cake to finish off the night. I wanted a lighter menu since I was serving three courses, so I found some healthier recipes that used fresh ingredients. I thought it would be perfect!

In this perfect world I was going to test out all these recipes beforehand, but of course that didn't work out! So as a sort of compromise, I decided to pre-make a lot of the meal the day before, so if anything went wrong I would be able to handle it without an audience. The night before I planned to make the hummus, bread and cake. Then the day of the dinner I would just need to make the lasagna and play hostess.

Since this is a baking blog, and because all the other recipes are available online, I will just post the recipe for the mocha cake. It's from the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Healthy Today cookbook and here it is:
 
Mocha Cake
Makes 12 servings

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp instant coffee
3 oz. semisweet (or bittersweet) chocolate
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup all purpose flour
5 egg whites
any topping you'd like: whipped topping, icing sugar, fresh fruit

Directions

1.     Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper, and lightly coat the inside of the pan with PAM (or another nonstick cooking spray). Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.     In a medium sauce pan dissolve sugar and espresso powder in water on medium-low heat. Stir in the chocolate until melted and remove from heat.

3.     Place yolks in a bowl and gradually whisk the chocolate mixture into the eggs. Make sure you pour the chocolate in slowly initially (while whisking the eggs quickly) so you don't get scrambled eggs! Stir in vanilla.

4.     In another bowl sift together cocoa and flour. Stir the flour and cocoa into the chocolate mixture until smooth.

5.     In a large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form (the tips should stand straight). Stir a small amount of egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold the chocolate mixture into the remaining egg whites. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

6.     Bake for 30 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly touched.

So I started off my prep day by making the bread. The recipe can be found on the allrecipes website here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/michaels-foccacia-bread/detail.aspx.
Right out of the gate this is where it all started going downhill. The recipe called for active dry yeast, and I thought that was what I had in my cupboard, but apparently I thought wrong. For some mysterious reason, we only had bread machine yeast. And let me tell you an interesting fact, we don't own a bread machine. Anyways, I decided to use the yeast anyways, foolishly thinking it would be ok, but it wasn't. Boy was it ever not ok! I have never seen or tasted a more dense bread in my life. At various points in the recipe you are supposed to let the dough rise, and if anything my compressed into a tighter ball. So there was epic fail #1 - it went straight into the garbage.

I decided to make the cake next since baking's my thing. I could redeem myself with this cake cause it seemed simple enough. And really, it was! It came together with no problems and I put it in the oven to bake. I usually check my desserts a couple minutes before the end of the suggested bake time (in case my oven's too warm), so at 25 minutes I took the cake out. It looked and smelled done, I touched the top of the cake and it sprang back like indicated - so that was perfect! I set it out to cool, feeling accomplished, and went to tackle the hummus next.

This recipe also seemed straightforward. It's from the allrecipes website as well and you can find it here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/hummus-iii/detail.aspx. All you do it put the  ingredients in a food processor and blend. What can be so hard? Turns out nothing! I did change the recipe slightly by adding about 1/3 cup of roasted red pepper, and it turned out tasty! So I had two wins in my pocket and only one fail!

I decided to remake the bread, since it was bugging me that I didn't get it right. So I went out, bought the right yeast and remade it. I guess the baking gods were feeling sorry for me, because the bread turned out fantastic! I sprinkled the top with a little parmesan, dried oregano and dried basil before baking and it gave the bread nice flavour.

Feeling tremendously accomplished, I decided to pack everything up for the night. This is where epic fail #2 reared it's ugly head. As I went to move the cake from the cake pan to it's tupperware, the whole thing fell apart. It literally melted in my hands. Turns out I didn't bake the cake long enough and it was a goopey mess. Unfortunately it was past 10 o'clock and I didn't have the ingredients to remake it, So I went to bed, feeling like I failed as a chef and baker. All I wanted to do was order pizza for the girl's night and save myself the humiliation.

I woke up the next morning determined to prove to myself that I am a good baker, so I decided to remake the cake right after work. Thankfully, it turned out devine and so did the whole dinner party that night! The lasagna was the easiest thing to prepare and turned out delicious! The recipe is from Martha Stewart and I followed it almost to a tee (I just added thinly sliced peppers to the zucchini). Here is the recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/334102/no-bake-summer-lasagna. (Sorry the picture of the lasagna is so blue, I took it right in front of the window and it threw the colours off)

Overall, despite the hiccups in the beginning, the dinner party was splendid and went smoothly. I thought all the food was delicious and light, and I think the ladies agreed with me. By the way, if you want a sinful dessert that is only about 150 calories a slice, that cake is heaven. And I have never made such a quick or more simple lasagna. Literally, in the time it takes you to cook the noodles, you can cook all the vegetables. My whole reason behind writing this post is to show you that no one (especially me) is perfect, even at the things they are the most passionate about. Baking especially is a learning process and you can't let epic failures get you down (at least not for too long!)

Ethics in baking?

I did something today that I'm not proud of. It went against every moral bone in my body, and now I won't be able to sleep tonight. And what was this heinous act, you ask? I used something in a recipe I vowed I would never use... shortening.

I know, I can hear your gasps of shock. Shortening. The white blob used to fry chicken. And me, the girl who doesn't like really sweet things and loves finding healthy alternatives, used vegetable shortening in her baking. There is something about solidified fat that just makes me cringe... Hmm, I should probably stop talking about why I dislike shortening if I ever have a hope of people reading this post.

Since I didn't have to worry about baking for a peanut allergy this week, I decided to venture in to the delicious world of nutty baked goods. And I just so happened to get an email from Martha Stewart (well, her automated cookie of the day email address) a couple days ago for Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies! I had never made a whoopie pie, but what could be wrong with a cake-like cookie and some sweet filling? Well now I know. Shortening.

(I don't want to give you a bad impression, these did turn out wonderfully, I just have a moral obligation to hate them because of the shortening). Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

Adapted from Martha Stewart. Yields a whole lot of Whoopie (I'll explain later)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used slightly less)
1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar (I used slightly less)
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line as many large baking sheets as required with parchment paper; set aside. Sift together flour, cocoa, and baking soda into a small bowl; set aside.
2. Add butter, shortening, and sugars to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; cream on high speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add egg; beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add half the flour mixture, then the milk and vanilla; beat until combined. Add the remaining flour mixture. Beat together, scraping down sides as needed.
3. Drop slightly rounded teaspoons of batter 2 inches apart on each baking sheet. Bake the cookies in the upper and lower thirds of oven, 10 minutes; switch the positions of the baking sheets, and rotate each one. Continue baking until the cookies spring back to the touch, 2 to 4 minutes more.
4. Remove from oven; let cookies cool on baking sheets, 10 minutes. Transfer with a metal spatula to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Peanut Butter Filling

2/3 cup natural, creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Cream peanut butter and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on high speed. On low speed, mix in sugar until combined, then beat mixture on high speed until fluffy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Use immediately.
2. Spread 1 scant tablespoon filling on flat sides of half the cookies. Top each with one of the remaining cookies, flat side down, and gently press together.

Ok, my only issue with this recipe (besides the shortening) is the way it was written, it makes HUGE whoopie pies. I guess maybe it's my whoopie pie naivete, but how can one person eat so much whoopie? With the recipe I followed, I made about 24 cookies, and sandwiched together I would have wound up with 12 fist-sized whoopie pies. I've decided to serve them as 'open-faced sandwich' cookies or 'sandwich cookies folded in half' to make their size a little more bearable. When I placed the dough on the cookie sheet, I did heaping teaspoons of batter (the recipe originally called for slightly rounded tablespoons), but I would suggest just doing a teaspoon. And probably a level teaspoon at that!

Besides my cookies being monstrous, the pies turned out pretty well! The cookie has a nice texture, though not a lot of flavour. The peanut butter filling more than makes up for that though, and if anything it's nice not to have competing flavours. The recipes say to use the filling immediately, and that the cookies are best served on the same day as they are made, but I'll be handing mine out tomorrow, so we'll see how well they last.

I was so tempted to replace the shortening in this recipe with butter (as I've done in many other recipes), but upon reading some reviews, apparently the cookie's consistency comes from the shortening. If I had used butter, it probably would have melted more easily and my cookies would have been puddles. I am a little sceptical about whether this is true, but now that I've had a 'true' whoopie pie, I can try substitutions and see the results. If there is one thing this recipe has done for me, it's that I can try and make whoopie pies again (without shortening) and try to get myself back on the 'moral' path!

Cupcakeasaurus

As much as I dislike the idea of getting older, I do enjoy birthdays. Not for the presents or the nice dinners out, but for the time you spend with the people you care about. And I'm not just talking about my own birthday, I also mean other people's too. I love being able to show people how much I appreciate having them in my life by celebrating the next milestone in their life.

This week was one of my friend's birthday. I have known him since high school and we have stayed closed in all the years since. To make his birthday a little extra special, I offered to make him his all-time favourite birthday dessert (you know, that dessert that you would just absolutely die for!) However, when I asked him, he simply said a vanilla cake would be good. I'm not going to lie, I was surprised! I was offering to make him anything he wanted, cheesecake, croquembouche, pie, eclaires, but he just wanted a simple cake. I asked him why and he would appreciate anything I made him, so something easy was fine. That really spoke to me of his selfless character and I knew I couldn't do a boring vanilla cake (no offense to people who like vanilla!)

After chatting with him some more, I found out 3 important things: he likes the color red, he loves berries (raspberries being his favourite), and he does like cheesecake. Immediately, an idea came to mind. I was going to make a layered red velvet cake, with a raspberry jam in the middle, and covered with a cream cheese frosting (to represent the cheesecake aspect).

Sneaky - like a ninja!

These past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of sinful baked goods, delicious diners out, and girls nights filled with fruity cocktails. So needless to say, I’ve been feeling rather… spherical recently (I think that’s an apt word!) That’s why this week I decided to bake something a little healthier. 

My usual go-to for healthy baked goods is either low-fat zucchini and berry muffins, or cookies so small you can eat one and burn off the calories chewing. However, after my recent indulgences, I wanted something that was going to satisfy my new found love of rich foods and not taste 'healthy'. So I needed to be sneaky - I needed to trick myself ninja-style!

I remember seeing on TV chefs substituting fat in recipes with purees. Instead of butter, people were using butternut squash; or spinach and beet helped increase the nutritional content of decadent desserts. I was a little sceptical though, the purees they were putting in weren’t bland – beets and spinach especially can have strong flavours – so wouldn’t you taste them? But if these flavours could be masked, maybe they would turn out alright.

It took a while…

Well I’ve finally gotten around to it. Writing a post about cheesecake! I mean, they’re one of the main reasons I started this blog and they set my mind awhirl with ideas of food trucks and bakeries specializing in cheesecake.

Ever since I made my first cheesecake, I’ve had a passion for baking them. I don’t know why - it seems crazy to me now! I mean what other dessert is as temperamental and requires such precise directions? However, it was always a hassle to make a huge 9” round because I would be eating every meal for the next week. So, I reserved them for special occasions.

That is to say, I used to only make them on special occasions. I recently came across this product online called a mini-cheesecake pan and it changed my life forever! It is very similar to a mini muffin pan, except the sides of each well are straight and at the bottom of each well, the bottom is removable. The sheet makes 12 small 2” cheesecakes (if I’m not mistaken about the size), which are the perfect size for one person.

So armed with my new pan, I had the chance to let my passion explode and have made more cheesecakes than I can count. I thought about baking them for bridal showers, weddings, parties and even opening my own cheesecake shop/food truck – I loved baking them so much. I also found a basic New York cheesecake recipe that I love and can alter easily to change the flavour of the cake depending on the occasion.

As I debated what to make this week, I got a request from my mom’s co-worker for my berry cheesecake recipe and I thought, what better opportunity to write my first post about cheesecake? So here is my basic New York Cheesecake recipe and my favourite berry sauce. 

Controversy Abounds

One thing I have come to learn recently about food is this: a lot of people don’t like a lot of things! And I’m not talking weird foods like horse meat, or squid ink. I’m talking run of the mill things like peanut butter, tomatoes, bread and cheese. I mean, I guess I always knew that – heck, I don’t think there was a pickier kid than me (I would only eat chicken tenders, fries and peas). But luckily, I grew out of it and now love most of the things I abhorred as a child.

And this is the dilemma I ran into this week with my baking. Already, I was having a hard time just coming up with something to bake. Seemed I was over my cupcake obsession and the usual chocolate chip cookies just weren’t up to par. So after a discussion with my friend about “old-fashioned” baked goods, I got excited about making lemon poppy seed bread. I love the combination of lemon and poppy seed in any form. Bread, scones, I’m sure I’d even love it in ice cream. It’s like a ridiculously clean little piece of heaven in your mouth - so you can see why I got so excited about making it.

However, it dawned on me that poppy seeds are one of those controversial ingredients in baking. To some people, there is no worse punishment than having to pick tiny, little, black poppy seeds out of your teeth for the rest of the day. So my excitement quickly deflated as I realized I may not have an audience for my baking this week! However I still decided to go ahead with it, since I have never made lemon poppy seed bread before and would love to find my go-to recipe.

Tastes like purple?

This has definitely been a weird baking week.  

It all started off with my baking goal of the week: use up as many frozen blueberries as possible. I had a fairly large bag of them sitting in my freezer and I realized blueberry and banana smoothies just lack that certain je ne sais quoi that other berries provide in a smoothie So rather than be economical, and just mix blueberries with other berries, I decided to just use them up! So I typed "blueberry" and "dessert" into the allrecipes.com search bar and found myself with an abundance of options! Crumbles, pies, muffins, sauces - the possibilities were endless. Then one in particular caught my eye - mostly because I had only known this item previously as an item which helped hold up pants.

Blueberry Buckle. Blueberries I knew, but I had never heard of anything edible called a buckle. Curious, I read the recipe and it didn't seem too crazy. No exotic ingredients, or crazy cooking methods (hey, with a name like buckle, who knew!) - so I decided to try it! I knew nothing about a buckle before, but hopefully after the experience I would at least gain some insight.

Back to School

When I was in school, I was never into sandwiches for lunch. There was something about the mushy bread getting stuck in my teeth that just bugged me. As a result, I never got to enjoy the small pleasure known as the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Neither did I like peanut butter and banana sandwiches – I thought the bananas were too slimy.

Nowadays, I can’t understand how I used to dislike them so much. Peanut butter and bananas are regular staples in my diet, and really when is strawberry-flavored, sugary goo a bad thing? Now that I’ve grown up (sort of), I decided to give them another chance – well sort of!

I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for a long time. I remember watching Cupcake Wars and the event they were competing for was a children’s charity. So I thought to myself, if I had to make a kid friendly cupcake, what would it be? The first idea I had was S’mores (and I have made those before) but then it hit me! Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! I think kids would go crazy for those (well minus the kids like me – but I was always the exception). But I wasn’t just going to stop at a peanut butter and jelly cupcake, I was going all out! Enter the Peanut Butter, Banana and Jelly cupcake, aka the PBBJ cupcake.

Pastry Pockets Filled with Stuff

As I mentioned last week, I found this really cool recipe for homemade “Pastry pockets filled with stuff” (Is the word pop tart trademarked? Oh well!) However, due to an unfortunate lack of eggs, I made muffins instead. Well this is a new week, and fortunately I got some groceries!

I came across this recipe on Smitten Kitchen’s blog. I’m not a huge pop tart fan (I only ate them for a brief period in my childhood); however, the pictures made them look divine! After reading through the recipe, it seemed straight forward; though, none of the fillings tickled my fancy. If I weren’t so lazy, I could just go buy jam pop tarts from the grocery store and save myself the trouble. That’s when I got an idea… 

My friends and I love going down to the States to grocery shop; they have a wide selection of food products that we just don’t get up here in the Great White North. One of my friend’s favourite treats to buy is pop tarts. But not just any pop tarts. Oh no! These are chocolate chip cookie dough pop tarts! Raw chocolate chip cookie dough is one of weaknesses, so I decided to try and make my own version. Though, I admit, I made some cinnamon filled ones too – just in case the cookie dough thing didn’t work out.

What's on hand?

Like most people, I can be pretty lazy. Unless I absolutely HAVE to bake something specific, if I don't have the ingredients for a recipe I'll make something else! That's what happened this week.

It started off with me trying to find a recipe that used buttermilk (since we bought a large carton of it) and I found a relatively simple muffin recipe, and I love muffins, so win-win. But I wasn't excited about baking them. So I surfed the web, trying to find something that caught my eye and that's when I saw homemade pop tarts. I'm not a big fan of pop tarts, but I thought it would be something people hadn't seen before. So tonight, I started getting all my ingredients out, thrilled to try out this recipe when I realized... I had no eggs.

I know I don't live far from the grocery store, eggs aren't that expensive, and I'm bound to need eggs in the near future - but I figure future me could deal with that problem! So I decided to just go with Plan A and made muffins! (Now, I do admit, the recipe called for an egg as well, but I was more comfortable replacing the egg in this recipe with just egg whites since it wasn't playing that big of a 'binding' role) Now that I've made them, I'm pretty excited! I love trying to make delicious, healthier muffins since they usually get a bad rap. Now, that's not to say these taste like those muffins! They do have a different texture and aren't nearly as sweet, but the explosion of berry inside is wonderful!

It's worth the allergic reaction

Now Imagine yourself biting into a delicious Reese Peanut Butter Cup, but instead of the crisp chocolate shell there is a soft chocolate, peanut butter-ey cloud? Doesn't that sound dreamy? Well guess what, it can be reality!

 

Before I go on, I must say, I'm elated I don't have a peanut allergy. The first time I had peanut butter, a life long addiction started and for 4 years my breakfast consisted of toast, peanut butter and flax. I loved every minute of it!

I don't know what happened, but recently I've taken a little break from my beloved. My breakfasts have changed and thus my peanut butter consumption has decreased dramatically. As a result we have tons of peanut butter sitting in the cupboard crying out to be loved. Hence the second thing I baked this week - something that required as much peanut butter as possible.

I hope I don’t get fat…

Wow, this is going to be a busy baking week; I’ve decided to bake 3 different treats for various occasions! Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to love every minute of it! I just hope I can restrain myself from tasting at every step - especially the Q&A step before distribution! Otherwise, those new clothes I bought will be going to the back of my closet to taunt me.

I’ll start at the beginning, with the first dessert I baked this week. A friend of mine absolutely loved these cookies I made a couple months ago, and when I told her I started this blog she immediately searched the blog for the recipe. Unfortunately, I hadn’t put it up yet (since I’m only posting recipes as I bake them), so she was disappointed she couldn’t bake the cookies herself. Well, to make it up to her, I baked them this week. So not only will she get the recipe, but some cookies as well!

Mmmm.... Bacon!

Really? Is there any better food than bacon? I bet you're thinking no! But guess what? There is!

What if I said... maple bacon truffles? Oh yeah! They're pretty much as awesome as they sound!

As promised in my last post, I spent this evening slaving over... my counter (That doesn't have the same ring to it...) making truffles! But not just any truffles, nope! I made 4 varieties:

• Triple chocolate truffle: I started off with plain milk chocolate truffles, dipped in dark chocolate and drizzled with a little bit of white chocolate - this one was for the picky chocolate eater in my family.
• Maple bacon truffle: maple flavoured milk chocolate truffle, dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with a bit of crumbled bacon.
• Berry explosion truffle: milk chocolate truffle with a tiny amount of berry mush in the middle, dipped in dark chocolate - I swear it taste better than it sounds!
• Coffee truffle: milk chocolate truffle with instant coffee granules mixed in, dipped in dark chocolate and topped with instant coffee. 

Sometimes things do work out

Recently, I have had this desire to make complicated, difficult cupcakes. I don’t know why… I really haven’t been the biggest cupcake person in the past (in terms of baking them – I’ll eat them any day of the week!), but I think ever since I started watching Cupcake Wars I realized the endless possibilities of what you can do with a simple cupcake! And to satisfy my craving for a challenge, I decided to make Raspberry Tiramisu Cupcakes.

Yes. Raspberry. Tiramisu. Cupcakes. Sounds pretty good, eh? (As a side note, after posting my epic frosting fail from Canada Day, I thought I would redeem myself with an example of one time where things went my way!)

I've made tiramisu before and I have to tell you, it wasn't easy. I actually worked up a sweat making it! So I thought a tiramisu cupcake would be a good challenge. I found the recipe from another food blog I started following, Chef Chloe. I saw her compete on Cupcake Wars (is it obvious I’m obsessed with that show?), loved her style of baking and the cupcakes she came up with. Here is the recipe I adapted from her: 

Cupcakes
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Soaking Liquid
1 tbsp instant espresso powder in 1/3 cup boiling water

Raspberry Sauce
1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp cinnamon

Frosting
1/2 tbsp instant espresso powder
1 tbsp boiling water
1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1/8  cup butter
2 cups confectioners sugar
2 tbsp water

Procedure:
Cupcakes

1. Preheat over to 350. Sift or whisk together flour, sugar, and baking soda into a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the coconut milk, oil, vanilla, and vinegar. Combine the wet and dry mixtures and whisk until thoroughly mixed.
3. Distribute batter into lined cupcake baking pan, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Soaking Liquid

1. Combine water and espresso powder and set aside.

Raspberry Sauce

1. In small saucepan, cook raspberries and sugar on medium heat on raspberries wilt down. Let simmer on low for 5 minutes until the mixture becomes a pourable consistency.
2. Remove pot from heat and mix in vanilla, lemon juice, cinnamon, and salt. Taste and adjust sweetness by adding more sugar if necessary. Let cool in refrigerator.

Frosting

1. Combine espresso powder, water, and vanilla in small bowl and mix or swirl bowl until espresso powder has dissolved (about 1 minute).
2. Beat butter in large bowl with an electric mixer for about 1 minute, then add confectioner's sugar. Add the espresso mixture to the frosting a little at a time as you beat it. If it is too dry, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until desired buttercream consistency is achieved.

Assembly

1. Using a spoon, cut out a small hole from the top of each cupcake. In the hole of the cupcake, layer approximately 1/2 teaspoon of soaking liquid, 1/2 tablespoon of raspberry sauce, and piped frosting on top.

I didn't change much in the recipe itself. The only major substitutions I made were I replaced the oil the recipe originally called for with unsweetened applesauce. Replacing oil with applesauce is one of my favourite substitutions. Not only does it cut back on the fat in the recipe, but it also adds a lot of moisture. In fact, when I was baking these, I was worried I had under-baked them because they were so moist! (but the touch and toothpick tests came out clean!)

Another alteration I made was I cut back on the sugar in the cake, since there were a lot of sweet elements going into it. I also only made a half batch of the frosting for the same reason. If you are noticing a trend here, I don't like desserts that are tooth-achingly sweet! That's why I also decided to make these into mini cupcakes. Instead of making the 12 regular sized cupcakes it's supposed to, I was able to get over 24 mini cupcakes.

In the instructions, it says to use 1/2 teaspoon soaking liquid, and I would highly suggest you use all of it - if not more (I definitely had a lot leftover!) If you don’t, the espresso flavour doesn’t soak very far into the cupcake. Don’t get me wrong! The cupcakes still tastes fantastic, but it could be that much better! Also, make sure you dig out a good chunk of the cupcake so you get a nice explosion of raspberry in the middle.

Surprisingly, the recipe was easy to follow and I had no trouble putting the whole thing together. Obviously, it is a little time consuming; there are about a billion different components, so if you want to try the recipe make sure you have a good couple of hours! And as you can see from the pictures, my frosting turned out! I made that frosting myself (I swear I didn’t pick it up from the grocery store – cross my heart!) and it turned out beautifully! I was so proud.

Although these cupcakes were a huge success, I didn’t get the challenge I was looking for. I guess this week I will have to find an even tougher recipe. I’m thinking truffles… and not just any truffles, maybe maple bacon truffles? Should be interesting!

Oh Canada!

What's more patriotic than a red and white dessert to celebrate our country's birthday? How about red and white, red velvet cupcake?

Now originally, I was going to reply with some witty retort about red velvet cakes being a Southern recipe (because I've always associated them with the south), but I was wrong! Eaton's (if you are too young to know what Eaton's is, it was a big Canadian retailer - wow I feel old!) apparently used to carry a red velvet cake in their stores. So turns out they really are a patriotic dessert; not just in color, but in history!

So to celebrate Canada's 144th year, I decided to spend the day outside by the pool with anyone who wanted to join me. I was going to provide the food and pool, in hopes of some company in return! Since I didn't have any ridiculous red and white hats or horns, I decided to show my love of Canada by making a red and white dessert. Immediately, red velvet cupcakes popped into my head so I ran with it.

 

The recipe I used was from a popular food blog I follow, called Smitten Kitchen. Here is the recipe, altered for making 12 cupcakes (plus a couple extra mini ones):

Red Velvet Cupcakes

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 cups canola oil
• 1 cup + 2 tbs granulated sugar
• 1.5 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp red gel food coloring dissolved in 3 tbsp of water (if you want a deeper red color, use 1/2 or 1 tsp)
• 3/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs buttermilk
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 tsp white vinegar.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.

2. Whisk flour and cocoa in a bowl.

3. Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well-blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care: it may splash.) Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.

4. Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.

5. Divide batter among pans and bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.

Recently, I purchased a cupcake decorating set and in it came an injector/filling tip. With this tip I could squirt delicious fillings into my cupcakes so I decided to test it out! Unfortunately, I couldn't decide what kind of filling to use! I thought a fruit preserve would add a nice contrast of flavours, but that a chocolate ganache would compliment the cake nicely. How was I going to choose? Easy, I wasn't! I ended up filling half the cupcakes with raspberry jam using the injector tip, and putting chocolate ganache in the other half (I cored out a hole in the cake and poured in the ganache).

The raspberry jam was simply store bought, but this is the ganache recipe I used:

Chocolate Ganache Filling:

• 1/2 cup semisweet milk chocolate
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 4 ounces unsalted butter

1. Melt the ingredients in a saucepan over low heat. Stir the mixture constantly until melted and smooth. Be careful not to burn. Remove from the heat to cool completely.

Now, I had to add a fair amount of extra chocolate to my ganache because I found it tasted too buttery (probably another 1/4-1/2 cup, and I added a bit of dark chocolate). That may be because I switched the chocolate to milk chocolate (I had some picky chocolate eaters coming over...); but really, I don't see any problem with adding more chocolate to a recipe!

Finally, I had to make a frosting and I decided to go with the classic cream cheese frosting. I used this recipe, provided by Smitten Kitchen with her red velvet cake recipe:

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 cup (1 stick) butter room temperature
• 1.5 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Place cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl. With a handheld electric mixer, beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
2. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat, on low speed to combine. If too soft, chill until slightly stiff, about 10 minutes, before using.

As you'll come to learn in my baking adventures, frosting is the bane of my existence. No matter what I try, or the effort I put into it, my frosting always comes out wrong! And then I often have to go running to the grocery store to picking up a replacement! Well, needless to say, this frosting experience kept with the trend.

I don't know if it's because I halved the recipe, but the icing was like water! Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it literally poured off my spoon. I tried chilling it at first (as the recipe said), but that didn't help. Then I tried adding more icing sugar, but then it started tasting too sweet. I couldn't even rely on my back up grocery store plan, because they were all closed for the holiday! So I had to work with what I had.

Originally I wanted to have a swirl of red and white frosting to continue with the patriotic theme, so I coloured half the frosting red (read pink) and left the other half white. As I strategically scooped the two frostings into the piping bag (hoping to have one on either side to get the dual-color effect), the white started pooling down to the bottom of my frosting bag! By the time I got the red frosting into the bag it was on top of the white! That was a little annoying! However, with a little clever manoeuvring on my part, I was able to work the red frosting down and pipe nice mounds of half-and-half frosting onto the cupcakes and everyone lived happily ever after.... Yeah right, I wish!

As I said frosting is my Achilles heel, so of course it wouldn't go so easily! As soon as I pulled my frosting bag out of the way, everything started to melt. The perfectly conical pile of frosting starting melting like the Wicked Witch of the West at a water park. Frosting was running down the sides of the cupcake and I knew it was a goner (at least it was a delicious goner). Accepting my frosting defeat, I decided to simply have small pools of red and white frosting on top of my cupcakes. Not what I was originally hoping for, but it was all I was going to get!

In the end, my cupcakes didn't look so pretty, but they did taste fantastic! This was actually my first time having red velvet cake and I was surprised at their fluffiness! My guests enjoyed both fillings, and said they looked "great!" (but they might have been saying that more for my pride!)

All in all, it was a fantastic Canada Day. Relaxing outside with friends, enjoying both good food and good company. And I think it provided an excellent opportunity to write my first real post for this blog. I think it highlights perfectly the fact that I'm far from perfect in the kitchen, but I have fun and I'm never going to stop doing what I love.