S'mores Pie

Call me crazy, but in my mind s'mores are a fall treat, not summer. I know, I know...summer camp and overnight camping trips --> camp fires --> s'mores and ghost stories. Camp fires remind me of autumn and cold weather, though. Maybe it's because I went to math camp instead of summer camp. Or, maybe it's because when I see a roaring fire burning real wood, I think of cool New England nights in Massachusetts with Dan's family. Either way, the only time I crave s'mores is when there's a chill in the air. And folks, it's starting to get nippy hereabouts...

If you're an avid FoodGawker, you'll know that this S'mores Pie is actually an imitation of the S'mores Bars posted by Endless Simmer blog last week. I tried to follow their recipe, but I couldn't get 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs to cover the bottom of an 11x13 baking dish and still come out as thick as the bars pictured in the original post. So, I made some adjustments to the recipe, put everything together in a pie dish, and called this sucker a s'mores pie. See, potential employers? I am creative and think well on my feet.

The Endless Simmer's trick of mixing Cocoa Pebbles into the chocolate layer of this pie is genius. Without the flavor/textural contrast provided by the cereal, this pie would pretty much be a giant chunk of chocolate with some marshmallows on top. Not that that wouldn't be delicious, but it would certainly be much harder to eat in one sitting. The Cocoa Pebbles really helps cut the richness of the pie and provide an interesting crunch that makes this treat extra addictive. I guarantee you won't be able to stop at just one piece. 

S'mores Pie (Adapted from the Endless Simmer blog's recipe)

Ingredients:

(Crust)

- 2 cups graham cracker crumbs

- 2 tbsp sugar

- 6 tbsp melted butter

(Filling)

- 12 oz dark chocolate

- 2/3 cup skim milk

- 2 cups Cocoa Pebbles

- 1 cup mini marshmallows

(Topping)

- 2 cups mini marshmallows

Steps:
(1) Preheat oven to 350.
(2) In a medium bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter in a bowl. Mix well.
(3) Firmly press mixture into the bottom of a pie dish. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Set aside and cool.

(4) In a sauce pan/pot, melt chocolate with milk over medium/low heat. Whisk until smooth. Cool for about 10 minutes.
(5) Add Cocoa Pebbles and 1 cup marshmallows to cooled chocolate. Mix until well-combined.

(6) Pour chocolate mixture over graham cracker crust.

(7) Pour remaining 2 cups mini marshmallows on top of the pie. Press down slightly to help them stick.
(8) Transfer pie to broiler for about 2 minutes to lightly toast the marshmallows.

** Keep an eye on your marshmallows while they're under the broiler. I forgot how powerful my oven was, and my marshmallows got a little too toasty. I personally like crispy 'mallows, but I had to pull off a lot of burnt bits for the pie's beauty shots. I would recommend broiling for about 30 seconds to 1 minute and then deciding if you want to keep your pie in the oven longer after that.

(9) Chill for a couple hours, then slice up and serve with a big glass of milk.

For other great recipe ideas, click here or here.

Triple Chocolate Loaf Cake

For once, I don't have a back story to explain my motivation for making this cake. And, I can't think of any anecdotes associated with either chocolate or loaf cake. I just really wanted something sweet and chocolate-y to go with my turkey sandwich.

(BTW, I have balcony furniture now! You like?)

Luckily, I had all the ingredients for a simple loaf cake, two types of chocolate chips, and a canister of dark chocolate cocoa powder. All things considered, triple chocolate loaf cake seemed like the way to go. 

With three kinds of chocolate in the batter, this was a very decadent cake, and I wanted something to cut the richness. Fresh fruit and whipped cream were the first things to come to mind. Good thing I had plenty of strawberry puree left over from when I was making strawberry mousse for my dad's birthday cake. Blended with freshly whipped cream, it was the perfect garnish for my afternoon snack.

Triple Chocolate Loaf Cake (Adapted from the Bittersweet Baker's recipe)

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar

- 1 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder (I used Ghiradelli)

- 1-1/2 flour

- 3/4 cup white sugar

- 1-1/2 tsp baking soda

- 3/4 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

- 2 large eggs

- 3/4 cup milk

- 1/2 cup vegetable oil

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1 cup milk chocolate chips

- 1 cup white chocolate chips

Steps:
(1) Preheat oven to 350, and grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

(2) In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients until well-combined.
(3) In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.
(4) Slowly mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients to form the batter. Stir well.

(5) Gently stir in milk and white chocolate chips. Mix until chips are uniformly distributed throughout the batter.
(6) Pour batter into the greased loaf pan.
(7) Bake for about an hour.
** The original recipe says to bake for up to 1 hour and 10 minutes. My oven runs hot, so I always bake for about 10-20 minutes less than what the recipe calls for.
(8) Cool for about 15 minutes, then serve with fresh fruit and whipped cream.
** My loaf cake sank in on top during the cooling process. From what I can tell from the original recipe and other pictures, that's supposed to happen. Not very pretty, but you can always fill the hole in with whipped cream and fruit.

For other great recipe ideas, click here or here.

Chinese Bakery-Style Birthday Cake with Strawberry Mousse Filling

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I made my dad a Chinese bakery-style cake for his birthday. It was just like the one I made for my mom last year, except instead of using vanilla custard and peaches/kiwis, I filled this one with strawberry mousse and fresh strawberries. I know. I'm on a strawberry kick. What can I say, I'm not ready to let go of summer yet.

Now, everyone knows that I love cake. Chocolate cake, cheesecake, cakes filled with shredded vegetables, loaf cake, cake covered in sugary sweet glaze...I've never met a slice a cake I didn't like. But of all the cakes I've consumed in the last 25 years, I love Chinese bakery-style birthday cakes the most.  Trust me when I say that they are vastly superior to every other cake out there.

They're light and fluffy, not too sweet, filled with fresh fruit, and coated with a light and delicate whipped cream frosting. And, if you sandwich thick strawberry mousse and sliced strawberries between the layers of fluffy cake...heaven. Each bite just melts in your mouth, and you can eat more than one piece without feel queasy or jittery from sugar overload. It's fantastic. Try it!

This recipe is inspired by a recent post from my friend Lucy.

- For directions on how to make the cake base and whipped cream frosting, click here or here.

- For directions on how to make the strawberry mousse, click here.
** I didn't have time to macerate strawberries for the mousse, so I just blended a lot of fresh strawberries with 3/4 cups sugar. That seemed to work just fine.


For other great recipe ideas, click here or here.

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BY THE WAY...my friend Melissa started a food blog recently, and she just made a post about Chinese birthday longevity noodles. How appropriate! Show some support for a new member of the food blogging community, and check out her site.

Strawberry Cake

You know what blows? Unemployment. Rain. Crappy day time television. Job applications. Extreme boredom. Put those things together, let it marinate for two weeks, and you'll have yourself a big mess of complete and utter, "get-me-out-of-this-house-before-I-kill-the-cats" stir craziness.

You know what doesn't suck, though? Light, fluffy vanilla cake stuffed with fat, juicy strawberries. A perfectly moist cake made with simple ingredients that are sure to be sitting in your pantry/fridge right now. A sweet treat that can be mixed, baked, cooled, and devoured in less than an hour. 

This cake is the only thing keeping me sane today. There's something about cracking eggs and stirring batter and slicing strawberries that's really soothing. It's familiar, it's easy, and I'm guaranteed to get something great at the end of my labors. I'm still a little stir crazy, but after a few slices of this stuff I'm starting to feel like maybe life isn't so bad when there's strawberry cake to eat.

Recipe can be here, courtesy of the Gourmand Recipes blog.
** I didn't have milk in the house, so I used 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream instead. Worked just fine, and I think probably added some extra sweetness/richness to the cake.

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Last Sunday, food blogger Jennifer Perillo's husband suffered a massive and unexpected heart attack and passed away. He loved peanut butter cream pie, and as a tribute to him, Jennifer asked everyone to join her in celebrating his life and honoring his memory by making the dessert he loved so much. 

I have never met Jennifer Perillo, and until last week I had never read her blog. In fact, I probably would have never known of her existence if it weren't for a delicious-looking peanut butter pie entry on FoodGawker early last week. In the last several days there has been an amazing influx of peanut butter cream pie entries on both TasteSpotting and FoodGawker, as hundreds of food bloggers rushed to support Jennifer. 

To be honest, I feel a little strange making a dessert for someone I've never met, and who likely won't even know what I've done. I also can't wholly relate to Jennifer's experience, as I've been fortunate enough to never  have  experienced the loss of someone dear to me. But, I'm so awed by the love and support complete strangers have shown for Jennifer and her family that I can't help but want to do my part as well. So, here's my pie for Mikey Perillo, and my best wishes for his family.

Peanut Butter Cream Pie (Adapted from the Running With Tweezer's blog)

Ingredients:
(Crust)
- 1-1/4 chocolate cookie crumbs (I used crushed Oreos)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup butter, melted

(Filling)

- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp butter, softened

- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- Melted chocolate and butterscotch ganache for garnish (Optional! I had butterscotch ganache leftover from when I made those butterbeer cupcakes, and I thought it would be a nice touch.)

Steps:
(1) Preheat oven to 375.
(2) Combine cookie crumbs, sugar, and butter until the mixture has the texture of crumbly, wet sand. Press into the bottom of a pie plate.
** I opted out of the pie dish and divided my mixture between 2 mini spring-form pans.
(3) Bake crusts for 6-8 minutes. Set aside to cool.

(4) In a mixing bowl, cream together peanut butter, cream cheese, sugar, butter, and vanilla until smooth.
(5) Whip cream in a separate bowl, then fold into the peanut butter mixture.
(6) Spoon filling on top of your crust.
** In my case, divide evenly between two mini spring-forms.
(7) Drizzle with melted chocolate and butterscotch ganache.
(8) Refrigerate until you're ready to serve -- the longer it spends in the fridge, the firmer the filling.
(9) Serve immediately, plain or with ice cream.

Zucchini Bread

This past weekend a bunch of us piled into Dan's tiny Mazda and headed into the boonies of Virginia for some good old fashioned fruit picking. The original plan was to pick peaches and blackberries, but once we got to the farm, we realized they had a whole lot more to offer than just those two fruits. In the end, we came away with a huge bagful of peaches, six ears of corn, and four massive zucchinis. And it only cost us $11!

The peaches will definitely get eaten, and I already have plans to use the corn for upcoming dinners, but I must confess...I have never actually cooked a zucchini. In fact, I've only recently worked up the nerve to try eating zucchini, period. I just don't like squash, you know? But I ate zucchini bread a few weeks ago, and then had some roasted zucchini in a veggie lasagna a few days later. To my surprise, they were both delicious!

With four pounds of zucchini in my fridge, I'm definitely going to have to get inventive with my cooking. Last night we ate one two ways -- oven roasted, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt; and, breaded then baked into crispy fries. Yum! Zucchini may be my new favorite vegetable. Even so, that leaves...three more gigantic zucchinis in the fridge in the meantime. Yikes. 

So, I decided to try my hand at zucchini bread this morning. The recipe reminded me a lot of carrot cake, which I love -- cake-like batter flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and filled with several cups of soft, grated vegetables. Out of the oven, the bread was crusty on the outside and moist on the inside. Not too sweet, with an almost savory after taste from the combination of zucchini and olive oil. Delicious!

Zucchini Bread (Adapted from the Smitten Kitchen's recipe)

Ingredients:
- 2 cups zucchini, grated

- 3 large eggs

- 1 cup olive oil

- 1-1/4 cup sugar

- 2 tsp vanilla

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 3 tsp cinnamon

- 1/8 tsp nutmeg

- 1 tsp salt

- 3 cups flour

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 350.

(2) In a large bowl, whisk eggs until thick and yellow. Add olive oil, sugar, vanilla and zucchini until well-combined.

(3) In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Slowly add to wet mixture, stirring after each addition until ingredients well combined.

(4) Pour batter into well-greased bread pan. (Smitten Kitchen divided the batter into 2 pans, but my batter fit into one pan.)

(5) Bake for about 50 minutes. Serve warm with tea, or smeared with cream cheese frosting.

Butterbeer Cupcakes

OK, raise your hand if you're excited about Harry Potter 7.2 coming out this week. I am super excited! Like millions of other people out there, I am a die hard HP fan. I basically grew up with the characters! I can still remember reading the first book in 6th grade and thinking "man...this is amazing...when's the next one coming out???" And every book after that just got better and better, as I became more invested in the character's lives -- I cheered when Harry finally stood up to the Dursleys, groaned when Harry went through all that teenage angst, cried when Dumbledore and Fred died, and whooped when Ron and Hermione finally kissed. It was 10-year long emotional roller coaster! 

But to be honest, I've never been a huge fan of the movies -- books are always better, in my opinion. Still, each of the movies has been better than the one before it, and the actors have really became pretty good at their craft. And, this is the last movie in the franchise!  Can't miss it.

Right now my plan is to see the midnight showing of HP tomorrow night with Amy, and then go see it again on Saturday with Dan and another friend. Is that, perhaps, too much Harry Potter, you ask? Nahhhhh.

To get me in the mood for the Wizarding World of HP, I decided to make some HP-themed food for the movie. A bunch of food blogs have been doing that lately, so I had plenty of inspiration. Cauldron cakes, candy wands, Golden Snitch cake pops -- it all sounded good, but the recipes all seemed pretty complicated. But then I found a recipe for butterbeer cupcakes...

These are perhaps the best cupcakes I've ever eaten in my entire life, bar none. It doesn't matter that there is no chocolate involved -- they're just so good! The cake itself  is incredibly moist and fluffy (probably from the addition of bubbly cream soda to the batter), and the butterscotch frosting is tongue tickling-ly delicious. HP fan or not, you must try this!

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of the amyBites blog.

** BTW, those adorable cupcake stands were hand made by my friend Emily!

Japanese-Style Strawberry Shortcake

Is it just me, or do desserts in Japanese anime/manga always look amazing? Whether it's cake, pie or ice cream, everything is always so sparkly and elaborate, surprisingly realistic-looking, and just positively oozing with goodness. My stomach pretty much growls constantly when I'm reading food/dessert-themed manga. I'm a nerd, I know.

Anyway. I'd always assumed that the cakes in my mangas were completely made up and too elaborate to replicate in real life. Imagine my excitement when I saw a picture of Japanese-style strawberry shortcake on TasteSpotting last month that looked exactly like one of the cakes that always appears in food-themed mangas. Spoiler alert: I was super excited.

And, since it's just a shortcake, this cake was actually really easy to make. As far as I can tell, the only real difference between this type of cake and regular American shortcake is that the cake itself is spongier, and the whipped cream is stabilized with gelatin to create a more frosting-like consistency. No real difference in taste -- just the same ol' delicious, berry/cream goodness. Doesn't it look pretty, though?

Japanese-Style Strawberry Shortcake (Adapted from the Flour on Her Nose recipe)

Ingredients:
(Sponge cake)
- 3 large eggs, separate + 1 whole egg
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- Pinch of salt

(Whipped topping)
- 1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 2-1/2 tsp gelatin (1 packet)
- 1 tbsp cold water
- 1/2 cup sugar

Steps:
(1) Preheat oven to 300.
(2) In a large bowl, beat egg whites + sugar until stiff peaks are formed. Set aside
(3) In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks, whole egg, salt, flour, oil, and vanilla until well-combined. Batter will be very thick and yellow.
(4) Gently fold egg white mixture into the batter until the two are completely combined. The mixture should be smooth and uniform in color.
(5) Pour batter into a greased 8x8 square cake pan. Bake for 25 minutes, until the top is golden brown. While cake cools, get to work on the whipped topping.
(6) In a small bowl, combine gelatin and cold water. When gelatin powder is completely dissolved, microwave the bowl for about 15 seconds, until the mixture is liquid. Set aside to cool.
(7) In a medium bowl, beat cream and sugar until you see stiff peaks. With the mixer still going, add the liquid gelatin mix and keep whipping until the whipped cream will become noticeably stiffer and more frosting-like. (This happens quickly!)
(8) To assemble, level and split the cake into two equal layers. Spread a thin coat of whipped frosting on top of one of the cake layers.
(9) Make a ring around the edge of the cake with halved strawberries, cut-side out. Fill in the middle with whole strawberries, pointing up.
(10) Cover the strawberries completely with most of the remaining cream, so that there is about a centimeter of cream between the tops of the strawberries and the next layer of cake.
(11) Place the top layer of cake on top of the strawberries/cream. Spread with the remaining whipped cream topping.
(12) Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, then slice into rectangles and serve.

For other great dessert ideas, click here.

Peanut Butter Cup Bars

A lot of people love chocolate and peanut butter, but my friend Emily really loves it. Like, "possibly bordering on an unhealthy addiction" kind of love. She actually refers to Reese's peanut butter cups as "crack," and goes out of her way to avoid the stuff because if there's any of it around the house, she'll keep eating and eating until she wants to puke.

OK, I know what you're thinking -- lots of people love chocolate, and pretty much everyone has at some point or another eaten so much candy that they want to die. Trust me when I say that this is different. I've seen this woman demolish a one pound, jumbo-sized Reese's peanut butter cup in 30 seconds and then reach for more. 

If peanut butter and chocolate = Emily's crack, I'm her dealer. The last time I had leftover peanut butter-chocolate cream cheese frosting, I gave her the carton and watched her eat it by the spoonful. Any time I see a new peanut butter/chocolate dessert online, I bookmark it to make for her later. And yes, I'm the one who bought her the aforementioned one pound, jumbo-sized peanut butter cups. You can call me a heartless enabler, or...you could say that I'm a super awesome person who likes to see her friend happy.

These peanut butter cup bars are my latest attempt to make Emily happy. I missed her birthday a few weeks ago, and I felt bad just giving her a Marimekko oven mitt. So, I whipped these babies up and gave them to her when she came over for dinner tonight. They were super easy to make, and they tasted exactly like store bought peanut butter cups. Delicious! I just hope she didn't eat all of them on the way home...

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of The Brown Eyed Baker blog.

Dulce de Leche-Nutella Swirl Loaf Cake

There are still a few things Dan and I need to do to fully recover from our Great Beach Robbery -- getting new driver's licenses, for example -- but everything is closed on Sundays, so we've been having a pretty lazy day so far. We slept in until the hungry meows of our kitties could no longer be ignored, fed the little beasts, and then promptly collapsed in front of the TV to catch up on all the shows we missed during vacation.

But, once we'd blown through all the eps in our DVR queue, things got real boring real fast. Sundays are just so blah. I don't know about you, but nothing interesting ever happens to us on Sundays, and the day is mostly spent being lazy and dreading the start of the work week. As I type this, Dan is moaning "Boooo, we gotta work tomorrow! Ughhhhhhh." 

You know what's really good for fighting the end-of-weekend blues, though? Cake. Particularly if it's cake made with ice cream, homemade dulce de leche, and Nutella. Mmmm.

For this dulce de leche loaf cake, I found a simple vanilla loaf cake recipe online and modified it to fit my needs. Vanilla ice cream instead of chilled heavy cream; dulce de leche instead of sugar; and Nutella because if I didn't immediately use up the rest of the jar, I was going to keep eating it by the spoonful  and feel guilty. The resulting loaf was moist and sweet on the inside, with a deliciously crunchy Nutella-laced crust. 

Dulce de Leche-Nutella Swirl Loaf Cake

Ingredients:

- 1 cup vanilla ice cream, melted at room temperature.

- 2 large eggs

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 2/3 cup dulce de leche

- 1/2 cup Nutella

- 1-1/2 cups flour

- 2 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 350.

(2) In a large bowl, mix together ice cream, eggs, vanilla, and dulce de leche until well-combined. The dulce de leche will make the batter clumpy, but just keep working at it until everything is smooth.

(3) Add dry ingredients.

(4) Pour most of the batter into a greased/floured loaf pan. Save about 1/2 cup for later.

(5) Add nutella to the loaf pan in well-spaced spoonfuls. Top with remaining batter. Then, run a knife through the whole thing to create a nice swirl/marbled pattern.

(6) Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the cake starts to come away from the side of the pan.

(7) Enjoy alone, with coffee, or smeared with more dulce de leche.

For other delicious chocolate recipes, go here.

Dulce de Leche

So, Dan and I just got back from a week in Costa Rica. We're a little more tan, a little more relaxed, and approximately $1200 poorer. No, that's not how much our trip cost...it's the combined value of all the stuff that got stolen from us on the beach at Playa Grande, Montezuma. Yeah. Don't you just love petty thievery?

Anyway.

Other than the bag-snatching incident, it was a good trip. The weather was beautiful, the food was delicious, and we even managed to squeeze in an exhilarating zip-lining tour through the canopy before racing home a few days early to take care of bank account stuff. Even so, I was more than a little bummed when we got home (I could still be on the beach, you know!). Instead of wallowing, though, I decided to make something for my blog. That's dedication, y'all.

So, why dulce de leche? Why not? Also, I had a bunch of condensed milk leftover from way back when, and it needed to be consumed one way or the other. Besides, dulce de leche is delicious, and the process of making it seemed pretty straightforward. Easy enough for a Friday night, anyway.

In the end, I was too much of a wussy to go the usual route and boil a can of condensed milk for 3 hours. I mean...I was not prepared to hover over a pot in the kitchen for multiple hours, and then what if the can exploded and my kitchen caught fire? I really couldn't handle a destroyed kitchen after getting robbed. Fortunately though, I was able to find a recipe online that didn't involve can-boiling -- just good ol' oven + condensed milk in a pan + water bath action.

Since I've never made dulce de leche any other way, I can't comment on any difference in texture or taste, but I can tell you that it's delicious. Thick and creamy, delightfully sticky, sweet, caramel-y goodness. Yum.

Dulce de Leche

Ingredients:
- 1 14 oz can of condensed milk

Steps:
(1) Preheat oven to 425.
(2) Pour condensed milk into a round baking dish. (I used a Pyrex pie dish)
(3) Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
(4) Place dish in a larger baking pan, and fill pan with water until 2/3 of the pie dish is submerged.
(5) Stick whole thing in the oven for 60-90 minutes, checking every 30 minutes to see if mixture is burning, or if water needs refilling.
(6) Pull dish out of the oven, uncover, and whisk mixture until smooth. Let cool, then store in airtight bottle or jar.
(7) Enjoy by the spoonful, smeared on top of stuff, or baked into desserts.

Turkish Delights

The first time I heard about Turkish Delights was probably fourth grade, when I was reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." The White Witch gives Edmund Pevensie some Magical Turkish Delights, and he gets so hooked on the stuff that he betrays his siblings  later in the story just to get another taste. I remember reading that and thinking the fourth grade equivalent of "that must be some good sh*t!" 

The book didn't really describe how Turkish Delights looked or tasted, but I just always assumed that they were chocolate. I mean, a magical candy good enough to cut through bonds of blood loyalty? Must be chocolate. Maybe with some caramel and mousse cream  and candied nuts. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered, years later, that Turkish Delights are not, in fact, chocolate candies, but actually lemon and rose-water flavored jelly confections made from sugar and starch. Sigh. Another dream dashed. I don't even like jelly candies! 

My dad, however, does like them. And, he's apparently a fiend for Turkish Delights. A family friend gave my parents a few boxes of the stuff when they were in Europe a while back, and he demolished the candy in record time. So, no brainer, I decided to make some homemade Turkish Delights for Father's Day. I didn't have lemon extract or rose-water (I don't even begin to know where to buy rose-water), so I opted for raspberry flavoring instead. Not super traditional, but whatever -- tasted fine to me. And more importantly, my dad liked them. A lot. He ate half a plate after lunch today and looked pretty happy with the extra tin of candies I gave him to take home. He even asked me to give the recipe to my mom so that she could make them for him regularly in the future. Awesome. 

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Love you :)

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of the Sprinkle Bakes blog.

Strawberry Mille Feuille

As soon as I said I was going sit on my ass all day and do nothing, I got the urge to bake. And, of course, the more I thought about baking, the stronger the urge got, until it could no longer be resisted. Sigh. What can you do, right? Lets just chalk it up to me being totally dedicated to this blog.

So, why mille feuille? Because I saw Anthony Bourdain eating it on "No Reservations" last night, and it looked pretty tasty. Plus, he spent at least 15 minutes waxing eloquent about the virtues of this quintessential French dessert, so I knew it had to be good. Now, I wanted to try it for myself, but I wasn't feeling up to making my own puff pastry. So, I dragged Dan to the store to buy the pre-made stuff. Great decision. Instead of waiting a couple hours for the dessert to come together, we were able to sit down and enjoy this deliciously flaky, light and creamy treat in less than 30 minutes. Take that, Rachel Ray!

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of food.com.

Turtle Cheesecake Truffles

I meant to make these for Dan's mom on Mother's Day, since turtle chocolate is one of her favorite candy treats. But, things got busy and I didn't have time to whip up a batch of truffles before our trip to Boston last weekend. I ended up buying her some Godiva chocolates, but I really wish I could have given her some of these turtle truffles. Maybe next year.

Word on the street is that grocery stores actually sell bags of crushed graham crackers. I don't know which stores these are, but I've never seen one that sold graham cracker crumbs. Every time I make cheese cake I have to crush my own frickin' crackers. FYI, crushing crackers with the bottom of a glass is way more effective than using a food processor.

I had two containers of marscapone cheese left over from the last time I made tiramisu, so I decided to use that for my cheesecake base instead of the usual Philadelphia cream cheese. I originally thought that three months in the fridge would have ruined the marscapone, but it was totally fine. That makes me a little worried about the amount of preservatives in the stuff, but...I'm not going to think about that right now.

Remember how much trouble I had coating those chocolate chip cookie dough truffles? No problems this time! Jade over at the Steamy Kitchen blog had the perfect method for dipping truffles: (1) make sure the melted chocolate is nice and liquid-y, (2) drop the cheesecake ball into the mixture and make sure it's well  covered, then (3) lift it out with a fork and let the excess chocolate run out through the tines of the fork. Voila!

Oh man, these truffles are so good. They actually taste like cheesecake! Which is already good in and of itself, but when you cover it in chocolate, drizzle it with caramel, and top it with nuts...amazing!

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of the Steamy Kitchen Blog.

For other delicious chocolate recipes, click here.

Lemon Cakes

I've had a serious crush on Tom Colicchio since the first season of Top Chef. He's bald, but so sexy! I think it's his wry stoicism that really does it for me. Not to mention, he can cook. So, when I found out that he was also responsible for bringing food trucks serving a menu inspired by one of my favorite fantasy books to the streets of NY and LA, my cup of love for him runneth over. 

One of the items on the Game of Thrones-inspired food truck menu is a treat that is much loved by many of the book's characters: lemon cakes. I'd always pictured them to be like mini lemon bars, but Tom's creation is a little more elegant -- miniature cakes baked in ramekins set in a water bath, with the result being that the bottom of the cake is light and spongy, while the top of the cake stays dense and custard-y. I had trouble un-molding my cakes, so my end product was not nearly as pretty as Tom's cakes. But, the intended layers were all there, and each creamy morsel was packed with lemony good flavor. Yum!

Bananas Foster Trifle

I wanted to make trifles out of my strawberry rum pound cake a couple weeks ago, but my stemless wineglasses proved to be less than satisfactory vessels for putting it all together. Nothing layered properly, and my fingers kept smearing stuff. So, I ordered a set of mini trifle bowls, and they arrived a few days ago.

What is trifle, exactly? It's basically a cake-based parfait, with layers of cake (usually pound or sponge), custard, fruit, gelatin, and whipped cream. Yum, right? I didn't have pound cake or sponge cake lying around, but since there was still some banana bread left over, I decided to make a Bananas Foster trifle.

I originally wanted to make the characteristic Bananas Foster rum sauce for my trifle, but that was a total botch. While it was cooking, I took my eye off the skillet and the sugar burned. The sauce, which had been smelling pretty good up to then, turned black, started smoking, and was basically totally ruined. Ugh. So, I scrapped the sauce and made do with banana bread, cooked bananas, and whipped cream. And you know what? Totally delicious. Banana lovers everywhere would go nuts for this sweet and creamy, intensely banana-y treat. Dan, who had already eaten pizza, chips and salsa, and cheesy bread, and insisted that he was too stuffed to eat more than a few bites of trifle, ate the whole bowl. Mini-bowl, but still.

Bananas Foster Trifle

Ingredients: (Makes 2 mini-trifles)

- 4 pieces banana bread, chopped into squares.
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 stick butter
- 1 dash cinnamon
- 1 dash cloves
- 1 banana, cut in half length-wise
- 1 cup heavy cream, whipped and sweetened.

Steps:

(1) Layer the bottom of each mini-trifle bowl with some of the chopped banana bread, in one even layer. Set aside.

(2) In a skillet, cook butter and brown sugar until simmering. Add spices.

(3) Place both halves of the banana into the skillet and spoon sauce over the top. Cook until a sugary crust forms on the outside of the fruit. Pull out and set aside.
** At this point you can keep cooking the sauce until it is thick and syrupy, then add it as one of your trifle components. Mine burned, so I left it out...
(4) Let bananas cool, then chop them into small pieces.
(5) Layer chopped bananas on top of the banana bread in the trifle bowls.
(6) Layer the remaining banana bread on top of the cooked bananas.
(7) Top with whipped cream. Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve.

One year ago: Chocolate Fudge

Mini Lemon Curd Tarts

Remember when you were a kid and after you got a shot the doctor would give you a lollipop for being brave? The lollipops were always red, purple, or yellow, and were cherry, grape, or lemon flavored. I always picked the red lollipop, because red was my favorite color, and cherry tasted the best. Yellow-lemon? The worst! I mean, who wants to eat candy that makes your mouth pucker and your tongue recoil? Yuck.

I was pretty intensely anti-lemon until I started dating Dan, the lemon fiend. He actually enjoyed yellow Starbursts and lemon drop candies; he loved lemon meringue pie; and he could lay waste to a plate of lemon bars. Watching him eat, I was both repulsed and fascinated. After a while I became curious enough to try some of the lemony foods I had previously avoided, and I was shocked to discover that I actually liked them. A lot.

These days lemon curd is my dessert kryptonite. The cafeteria at work sells these amazing, gooey lemon tarts, and I can't let myself look at them. If I look, an intense internal battle immediately ensues:

    Good Tina: "You cannot eat one of those. There is so much fat in there!"

    Bad Tina: "Who cares, just go for a run tonight."
    GT: "If you eat one today, you're going to want one tomorrow. It's a slippery slope."
    BT: "Mo' tarts, mo' happiness."
    GT: "You are on a budget."
    BT: "You're getting paid on Friday. Budgets are for wimps."

More times than not, I'll cave and buy one, telling myself that it'll be fine if I just eat half and save the rest for the next day. But, once I get back to my desk and start eating, I don't stop until the whole thing is gone, and I'm left with nothing but a sticky sweet taste in my mouth, a slight stomach-ache and intense eater's guilt. This is why I have to pretend those things don't exist.

Baking with lemon curd would normally be a no-no as well, but it's my birthday this weekend, and I'm treating myself. Plus, these are miniature tarts with just a spoonful or two of lemon curd each, so...how bad could they be? 

Recipe for the sugar cookie tart crust can be found here, courtesy of the Baking Bites Blog.

** Since I was making mini tarts in a muffin pan, I only baked the crusts for 10 minutes.

Recipe for the lemon curd filling can be found here, courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa.

One year ago: Chocolate Coffee Ice Cream Cake

Strawberry Rum Pound Cake

The problem with strawberries is that (1) my grocery store never has the the really fresh-looking ones, and (2) they go bad so quickly. I bought a big carton of promising-looking berries last weekend, and three days later they were dark in patches, simultaneously shriveled and mushy, and giving off faintly alcoholic fumes. Mmm, over-ripe strawberries.

I've been valiantly trying to eat my way through the entire carton of ripe berries all week, but it's pretty much a losing battle; I think the strawberries are actually multiplying in the fridge. As far as I'm concerned, the only way for me to avoid wasting the rest of the fruit is to chop it up and bake it into something delicious. 

A lot of the food bloggers I follow have been making pound cake lately, so I was kind of thinking I should hop on the bandwagon. The only reason I haven't made one yet is because I know how much delicious butter and fat is in pound cake, and if I make it I'm going to want to eat all of it by myself in one sitting, and then I'm going to suffer intense inner turmoil as my greed inevitably overcomes my good sense and health consciousness. 

But, you never know what will happen before you try, so...I threw caution to the wind and decided to go with a Paula Deen recipe. Two sticks of butter, 5 eggs, 2 cups of sugar, and sour cream. I couldn't bring myself to make her sweet glaze for drizzling, but the cake was incredibly delicious even without it. Sweet and buttery, with a pleasant tang from the pieces of strawberry studded throughout, and so moist. Yum. Let me tell you, I am in big trouble. I can only hope Dan eats the rest of the cake before it seriously derails my diet...

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of Paula Deen.

** Her recipe just uses strawberries -- I threw in a tbsp of rum-flavored extract because I thought the flavor would compliment the strawberry pretty well. In the end the rum flavor wasn't as strong as I would have liked...next time I think I'll use actual rum.

One year ago: Pad Thai