Spiced Bundt Cake with Apple Caramel Sauce and Cinnamon Ice Cream

Tags

cake, ice cream

Fall is in the air! Thus, for a party we were hosting this past weekend I decided to make something seasonal. My latest issue of Bon Appetit had several tasty looking recipes to choose from, but I went with this one: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/11/spiced-bundt-cake-with-apple-caramel-sauce. Wow, am I glad that I did! Despite being fairly labor-intensive, with multiple steps, it was definitely worth it.

I decided to pair the cake with some homemade ice cream from my brand new Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream book. Molly Moon’s is the most popular ice cream shop in Seattle, where I lived for many years. This is a wonderful cookbook with lots of unique homemade ice cream flavors. Try the Scout Mint too (my favorite). Anyway, back to the cake…

Finished product, with a sprinkling of powder sugar.

A slice of the cake, complete with caramel sauce and cinnamon ice cream. Our guests loved it, with one saying that it reminded her of Chai. It was definitely one of the best new recipes that I’ve tried, full of a depth of flavor that made the multiple steps to the recipe worthwhile. It also makes a good breakfast cake, without the ice cream, and I’ve been eating it for days.

 

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Tags

cupcakes, pumpkin

Halloween! One of my favorite times to make themed, baked items during the year. This time around, I decided to do pumpkin cupcakes to incorporate a favorite fall ingredient. There were several good recipe options to go from, but I chose this one from my new Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook, and made a few modifications:

Cupcakes:

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup canned pure pumpkin

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Frosting

4 oz cream cheese (room temperature)

1/2 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 12 muffin tins. Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl. Mix wet ingredients in medium bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet, stir to blend, and then add walnuts.Spoon batter into paper liners. Bake until cupcakes are golden and tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to rack and cool completely.

To make frosting, use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and butter together. Add remaining ingredients and beat until smooth. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

Pumpkin batter

Frosting the cupcakes. I prefer using bags and tips when I have the time. It doesn’t take that much to master an easy swirl, and they look so pretty!

Frosted and decorated for Halloween! The other good thing about this recipe is that they can be made as a breakfast item (sans the frosting). Or, you can eat them for breakfast anyway, like I did this week.

Strawberry Scones

Tags

scones, strawberry

If I had to choose a favorite breakfast pastry item, I think it would be the scone. Maybe it’s my Irish roots, but I love the texture of a good scone. Some people think that scones are too dry, to which I reply that they haven’t had a good scone. A perfect scone will be slightly crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, though a little less so than a muffin. I love this slightly drier texture, especially with a big cup of my morning tea.

Recently, I had a bunch of strawberries from the farmers’ market, and wanted to make something for breakfast with them. A short Internet search later, and I had a bunch of strawberry scone recipes to choose from. I went with this one from another blogger: http://www.shemakesandbakes.com/1/post/2012/5/strawberry-scones.html.

Another recipe I found suggested freezing the sliced strawberries before using them in a recipe. I did so for about an hour, and it really helped them to keep their shape in the scones nicely, as you will see below.

The dough, pressed down lightly and ready to take scone shape. Avoid handling scone dough too much or it will become tough. Also, after pressed, the dough should have a somewhat rustic look to it. Scones are prettiest and have the best texture when the dough is not over-handled.

Sliced scones ready for the oven. Here you can see how nicely the frozen strawberries held their shape.

Baked scones, cooling on a rack. Make sure to cool them as such or else they may steam and lose some of their outer crispiness. Excess scones may be frozen. Whether a day old or frozen, toss in the toaster oven to heat and add crunch to the crust.

Cherry Coffee Cake

What to make with the big bag of delicious cherries that we purchased at our local farmers’ market recently? A pie, a tart, or something new and inventive? I went with new and found a great recipe for cherry coffee cake in my Grand Central Bakery cookbook.

Slicing the cherries to go on top. I’m thinking they must use cherry juice in True Blood.

Sprinkling on the streusel. With the topping and the cherries, this was quite sweet, so next time I’ll use less sugar.

Golden baked goodness!

A slice of cherry heaven. I took this into my office and it went quickly. Even though it is a coffeecake, I thought it went better with my morning cup of green tea!

4th of July Red Velvet Cupcakes

Tags

cupcakes, red velvet

I know, I know…it’s August! But between moving and a trip out of town, I haven’t had much time to post. So, better late than never, right? Anyway, I was really excited to make these cupcakes for our 4th of July party, as it was that first recipe I attempted out of my new Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook. I had been ogling this book for a while, and finally picked it up on sale at the infamous Powell’s bookstore while visiting my sister in Portland. Did I mind that I had to lug it home in my carry-on bag? Nope! It is a gorgeous cookbook with a ton of great recipes. Anyway, you’ll likely be seeing lots of things from it, but for now, back to the cupcakes.

Very red batter and a shot of the cookbook in question.

Cupcakes, still very red after baking. I think next time I’ll add a little less food coloring.

Patriotic colors with the addition of some simple berries on top.

Beach Party Themed Cupcakes

Tags

buttercream, cupcakes

To welcome summer, we recently hosted a picnic at Mission Bay. I had come across pictures of beach-themed cupcakes on Pinterest (yes, I am an addict) and thought they would be perfect. Plus, if you know me, you know that I love anything themed (I’m known to host several theme parties a year). There were an abundance of choices, but I narrowed my selection to two: surf and turf. I decided to make a simple chocolate-vanilla swirl cupcake with buttercream frosting. You can find the links to the recipes here: http://www.marthastewart.com/274599/summer-cupcakes/@center/276944/cupcakes.

Two batters: chocolate and vanilla.

Baked, swirled cupcakes.

Whipping up the Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. I’m not usually a fan of buttercream, but this recipe yields a light and fluffy one that is delicious.

Dipping the cupcakes in “sand” (ok, so it’s really graham cracker crumbs).

Decorated “turf” cupcakes. My husband was my hero and found the umbrellas for me.

“Surf” cupcakes, complete with Swedish fish and circling sharks [Insert “Jaws” theme].

The complete surf-n-turf ensemble.

 

 

 

Vanilla Bean-Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Frosting

Tags

coconut, vanilla bean

This recipe is definitely in my top five favorites. I mean, how can you go wrong with vanilla bean AND coconut in one recipe? Did I mention that those are two of my all-time favorite ingredients? I’ve made these more times than I can count, as can be seen by my tattered print-out of the recipe. Luckily, I can always print a new one if needed: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vanilla-Bean-Coconut-Cupcakes-with-Coconut-Frosting-352095.

Vanilla beans: magic ingredient #1.

Incorporating the reduced coconut milk into the batter. This ingredient makes these the moistest cupcakes ever.

Vanilla bean-coconut cupcakes fresh out of the oven. Note the nice rise given by the airy batter.

Piping on the coconut frosting. Not only is there reduced coconut milk in the batter, but it is also an ingredient in the frosting. Yum!

Topped with toasted coconut to round out the coconut trifecta!

Shortbread

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shortbread

When we decided to have some friends over at the last minute on an already busy weekend, I knew I’d have to whip up something fast. I had been wanting to make shortbread for a while, and thought it would make a good accompaniment to the nectarine sorbet my husband wanted to make (yes, my husband makes sorbet and ice cream from scratch, and he is a fabulous cook, but that is another story…). A quick search on the Internet yielded some quick and easy shortbread recipes. I decided to use this one from Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Shortbread-Cookies-237919.

Shortbread really is quite simple with four ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, and butter.

Incorporating the butter

Scored and ready for the oven. I knew that tool would come in handy at some point!

Baked and ready to be topped with some sorbet

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

Tags

cheesecake, cherry

A former coworker used to make these for office gatherings, and was happy to share the recipe with me. It is fairly simple, and one I return to often when I only have an hour or so to whip something up. Most recently, I made them for a gathering of girlfriends at my house. As always, they were a hit and I was happy to share the “secret” of the crust (Nilla wafers). These are definitely a cookie from childhood that conjures up serious nostalgia. Often, these food items are disappointing to me when I try them again as an adult, but Nilla wafers are another story. They are as good as I remember them!

Mixing the cheesecake filling. Recipe is below:

2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

12 vanilla wafers

1 (21 oz) can cherry pie filling

– Mix first five ingredients together until smooth.

– Place wafer in bottom of each of 12 cupcake papers (in cupcake tin).

– Spoon in cream cheese mixture (3/4 full).

– Bake in 375 degree oven for 15 minutes.

– Let cool and top with cherry pie filling.

– Refrigerate for one hour or more.

Nilla wafers serve as the crust. I’ve also thought about trying circles cut from graham crackers, but need to find the right size cookie cutter.

Pouring in the filling. Filling them 3/4 full as the recipe recommends yields pretty large individual cupcakes. I might try 1/2 full next time for a more even proportion of filling to crust.

Spooning on the cherry pie filling. I am going to try making my own cherry topping from fresh cherries soon, as they as showing up at our local farmers’ market.

Finished individual cherry cheesecake. Cute and yummy!

 

Waffle Cones

Tags

waffle

My husband got me a waffle cone maker over a year ago, and has been asking if I’m ever going to use it. For some reason, I never got around to it. Perhaps because it is another appliance we have stashed away out of sight? So, when we recently purchased some beautiful strawberries at our weekly Farmer’s market, and he said he was making ice cream with them, I knew the time was right. I dusted off the box, pulled out my new toy, and went to work.

Waffle Cone Express, reporting for duty.

Pouring batter for the first cone. Waffle cone batter is surprisingly simple, yet very sweet before baked.

Pulling the first waffle off the griddle. As they baked, my house started smelling quite delicious!

Using a cloth and the cone to shape the pliable waffle. I have tough hands, but these were very hot!

Don’t forget to crimp the end to prevent ice cream leaks. I don’t know about you, but my favorite part of an ice cream cone is getting to the end, and savoring that last bite of cone and ice cream together. Yum!

Cooling cones

Looking into the abyss of the cone. These turned out really well and were best enjoyed the same day made. After sitting for just a day, the flavor changed and they were not as tasty. Now that I’ve done a test run, an ice cream social is the next step!