Custom Cake for Kate

I did a custom birthday cake for a special girl this week! Yellow cake filled with my homemade blackberry jam frosted with vanilla buttercream. The reviews from the birthday girl were great- it was happily devoured by a group of teenage girls!

Carrot Cupcakes with Mandarin Cream Cheese Frosting

Hello Spring!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Onions

Instead of throwing away the ends of you onions, recycle them! You can either plant it in your garden right away or put it in a bowl of water and watch the roots grow.

Voila, here are mine! The first two are leeks, then two green onions and the one in the very back is a red onion. Pretty cool, huh?!

bread baking

Lately, I've been determined to eat really good bread. You might be thinking, duh, aren't we all? Yes, we all should be eating good bread but most likely your not. Have you checked whats in your all natural loaf recently? Things like Monoglycerides- huh?, Datem- what's that?, Calcium Propionate- hmm? None of my recipes call for that stuff so that's way I've been baking my own bread. I will admit, it's totally time consuming and you definitely got to plan around it. But oh my gosh, is it delicious and worth it! If you don't have time to do it yourself, please try to avoid breads with too many ingredients and ingredients you cant say. 

Here are a few of the beauties I've been baking! All of the recipes use yeast, flour (white or whole wheat), sugar or honey, butter or oil, water and/or milk, salt and maybe eggs- those I can trust! Aren't they pretty?!

40/60 Bread- Whole Wheat and White Flour Rolls...

 ..and Loaf

Honey Cornmeal

Winter Oatmeal

Challah 

Banana Chocolate Steamed Pudding with Chocolate Ganache

The first time I had steamed pudding was on the farm in Ireland and boy, was it unforgettable! Steamed pudding is like a cross between cake and a muffin- super dense and moist. It's extremely easy and manageable to make. At first, it's weird because your steaming it but when you get over that, your addicted to the results!

Banana Chocolate Steamed Pudding

Serves 6

1 3/4 cups self rising flour OR 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour and 2 tsp baking powder

6 Tbl unsalted butter, softened

2 ripe bananas

6 Tbl sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2-3/4 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips

Pinch of salt

Prepare a steamer by filling a stock pot half way full of water. Cover and heat to boil. Butter and dust with flour a 6-cup deep bowl. Sift flour and baking powder in another bowl and cut in the butter until it resembles coarse bread crumbs.

Mash bananas in another bowl (sorry, lots of bowl needed for this one) then stir into the flour mixture. Whisk in the milk, egg and sugar. Fold in chocolate.

Put the batter in the buttered bowl and cover with foil. Foil should almost be to the bottom of the bowl and should be secure so no water gets in.

Once the stock pot is at a steady boil, carefully put the bowl into the water and cover. Steam for two hours. Add water as needed to keep constant steam. When done, run a knife around the top of the pudding to loosen it, then turn it over onto a serving dish. Serve hot with ganache over it.

For the chocolate sauce/ganache:

1 cup cream

1 cup chocolate chips

Heat cream in a small pot until a simmer, then pour over chocolate chips. Let sit for a minute then stir until smooth. Let sit/cool until desired thickness. Pour over steamed pudding and enjoy!

Sonoma County

Wineries and farms to ocean creatures, it sure is a pretty place.

Meet Aebleskivers

They're traditional Danish pancake that are a solid ball of light and fluffy cooked batter. To make the, you need a aebleskiver pan and a lot of courage to tend them! I feel like they're not that popular due to being pretty tricky to make. But since my Danish Grandmother passed away in 2005, my family has made it a tradition to make these fun little guys over the Christmas Holiday.

To get them round, you have to rotate them gradually.

Aren't they cute?! I like to enjoy them with maple syrup and butter, just like pancakes. You can see it's a bit difficult getting them into perfect little circles, but I'm getting there! If you're interested in getting an aebleskiver pan, you get one at Williams and Sonoma, along with batter mixes and turning tools.

Gingerbread Cutouts

Sugar cookies are out and gingerbread is in! These cookies are delicious, festive and so fun to make with different cookie cutters. This time they didn't even get to be decorated- just devoured!

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 cup molasses

1 egg

1 Tbl vinegar

2 1/2 cups flour

Using a mixer, beat butter using paddle attachment. Add sugar, baking powder, baking soda and spices. Beat until combined, scrapping sides occasionally. Beat in molasses, egg and vinegar. Beat in as much flour as you can putting in half cup at a time. Stir in remaining flour. Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for three hours or until easy to handle.

Preheat the oven to 375'F. Grease a cookie sheet or use parchment paper or a silpat. On a lightly floured surface roll half the dough at a time, a 1/4 inch thick. Using cookie cutters, cut out dough and bake for 5-6 minutes. Cool on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, decorate with royal icing or just dig in!

Fudgin Around

I'm an ingredient freak. I hate using gelatin, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), hydrogenated oils or any other lab experiments. Finding a fudge recipe that didn't contain a bunch of my "do not use" ingredients was a hard task that lead to a compromise. I found a recipe that called for one tiny bit of corn syrup (which contains HFCS, bummer): one teaspoon. That's pretty darn good to me! 

Fudge is fun because it gives you some room to be creative. Any kinda nuts, spices, candy, chips or sprinkles will make it a more enjoyable edible. I ended up making two batches. The first, candy cane fudge and the second, cinnamon walnut fudge. This recipe requires a candy thermometer but don't be scared! It's actually quite relaxing to make. You get a lot of free time so you can wrap a few presents while you wait!

Make about 1 1/4 pound, a 7x7 baking pan makes great portioned pieces

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup half-and-half

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, cut up

1 tsp light corn syrup

1/8 tsp salt (optional)

2 Tbl unsalted butter

1 tsp vanille

1/2 cup add in's

1 tsp spices

Line baking dish with foil and butter it. In a 2-quart heavy saucepan combine sugar, half-and-half, chocolate, corn syrup, and salt. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils. Clip a candy thermometer to the side. Reduce heat to medium-low, continue boiling at moderate, steady rate, stirring occasionaly, until thermometer reaches 236' F, softball stage (15-20 minutes). 

Remove saucepan from heat. Add butter and vanilla but do not stir! Cool without stirring until it reaches 110'F (20-35 minutes). Remove thermometer then beat mixture together until its thickens (2 minutes). If desired add add in's and stir for 3 minutes or until it slightly starts to loose it's gloss. 

Immediately spread it in the baking dish. Cut while hot and let cool for about 1-2 hours. Store tightly covered.