If you’re like me, and not a fan of Kathie Lee, you may want to put it on mute. But get a load of these amazing cupcakes. The officemate and I both agree that, seriously, these aren’t really cupcakes that anyone can make. I mean, really. Have you seen my cupcakes? Oh, right. You have.
I don’t feel like I need to explain myself here. It is what it is. So much for that workout this morning, ‘eh.
This last one would have been a lovely shot had the store not had to smoosh the icing so that the cupcake could fit into the packaging. Boo.
Do you remember this sad sight? Well, I mentioned my poor pie crust making skills to the mother-in-law (she had given me a beautiful pie plate for my birthday). She responded, admitting to her own meager pie-crust beginnings, wherein she admitted to approaching her mother-in-law for her recipe. Then, she offered to hand down Grandma’s recipe to me, which I gladly accepted.
When I saw her at brunch yesterday, she gave me the recipe. I had pictured an age-old 3×5 recipe card, stained with shortening and specks of flour, displaying the signs of having been referred to over and over again. But rather than that she handed me a book, Great Pies and Tarts, by Carole Walter. In the book a page was flagged with a pie crust recipe from the 1930s. Brilliant! I had envisioned this family recipe, perhaps a secret one, being handed to me to care for and such and instead I received a new book from Borders. Apparently the original book the mother-in-law was looking for by Walter was no longer being published, but this one had the pie crust recipes which is really what mattered.
The cookbook, by the way, is so much fun to read. Especially as we approach another dessert-less week (remember, the husband and I are cutting back on the processed foods/desserts). I read it like a coffee table book or a magazine. Flip through it, find a fun recipe, read the the story behind it, salivate salivate salivate.
So, after a day of doing this it should come to no surprise that I felt the need to experiment in the kitchen a bit tonight. I had some frozen berries I had thawed (intended to have them for lunch but didn’t) and a dream of a berry crisp. I found a three-berry crisp recipe from Walter and just sort of went with it.
In a small ramekin, I sprinkled the thawed berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries) with some sugar and corn starch. Crumbled on top, a mixture of whole wheat flour, melted butter, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Then some chocolate chips on top. Baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (until the berries were bubbly).
Fun and sweet. And tart. I probably could have used a little bit more sugar in the berries, though the chocolate chips were a sweet surprise in each bite.
So long for a dessert-less week. On the other hand, this was a cheaper, homemade alternative. Hard to beat that.
I attended a super-fun baby shower over the weekend. It was held at Mike’s house in The ‘Quah, as I like to call it, hosted by Marissa and Carol, and featuring mum-to-be MJ. MJ’s mom took tons of photos, sent them out this morning and of course the only photo I look for is the one of the cake. Marissa has cake-baking in her blood (seriously, her mom is a professional baker), so I ALWAYS look forward to tasting whatever treats she brings. (I remember one work potluck she showed up with this awesome mocha-swirly decadent cheesecake. It put my sad pumpkin-chocolate-chip muffins to shame. Shame, I tell you!)
Details on the cake … yellow cake with raspberry jam and fresh raspberries in the center. The icing was a light and airy whipped topping (“stabilized whipped cream”, as Marissa put it), that I’ve always loved but never knew how to make. Now I know to look for BetterCream or PastryPride. On the top of the two-layer cake were these very cute mini-cakes, shaped like those wooden toy blocks that everyone played with as a tot. These little blocks were a chocolate cake with Nutella, and had whipped cream as the filling.
Now, I didn’t taste the chocolate cake, but the yellow cake was amazing. I was most impressed with the presentation. Some day, maybe, just maybe I could move out of my Muffins 101 level and become an advanced-placement cake baker, too.
Now that I’ve spent 242 words on the cake, I can also say that I had a great time at the shower. Pink was the theme for the day (you assume correctly if you think MJ is expecting a little baby girl), and we all oohed and aahed over the adorable pink outfits that MJ kept unwrapping. M & C did a fantastic job with coordinating everything, from the invites, to the decorations, to the goodie bag treats and the fun ‘catered’ lunch boxes with the girly cursive and pink themes. Loved it. Just made me smile.
My other favorite NY food blog, Lunch Studio, was the inspiration for this Metro Market impluse purchase. Anna’s Ginger Thins are delicate and spicy.
Thanks for the idea.
Friends of my brother have recently started a boutique confectioners business. Aware of my fondness for food blogs, Ray sent me the link to their blog right away (why are all these great food blogs out of NYC, anyway?). Sweet fine day is an ongoing tale of a couple starting a family and a business, at the same time. Drool over incredible photos of dulce de leche brownies, and view interesting posts about the trials and errors of creating the perfect marshmallow, the right shortbread cookie, etc. Throw in a few Asian recipes, some photos of very cute kids and you’ve got a reason to check in every day.
So imagine my excitement when Ray informed me that whimsy & spice had opened an etsy shop! As soon as they were available I purchased some caramel-infused marshmallows. Along with it came chocolate marshmallows, and samples of nut and spice biscotti and shortbread cookies. I was so excited I nearly forgot that I eschewed desserts for the rest of the week. Then again, if I eat this for breakfast, it’s not exactly breaking any rules.
I can’t do the food photography justice, so you’ll have to visit their etsy shop, their Web site, or their blog and see for yourself.
Thanks, Whimsy & Spice. I love the marshmallows. I’m bringing them to work, a) to enjoy with my morning cup of coffee, and b) to show off and instruct everyone to get buy their own.
If I lived in Brooklyn I would visit you at the Flea, but since I don’t I’ll continue to enjoy your find shipping services.
By the way, the marshmallows. They taste … like marshmallows. Incredibly light, fluffy and fresh marshmallows. I shall have some hot chocolate tomorrow specifically to enjoy with a light, fluffy and fresh marshmallow.
Yeah, so I’m kind of going backwards on the posting. Here is another meal from San Diego. Team meals are super fun for me. We stay in a hotel that has a kitchenette in each room, which is pretty crucial as we are all careful with what we are eating during a race weekend. We are a couple of blocks from a major supermarket, and we tend to go there once or twice a day. For dinner we gather in a hotel room/cottage/outdoor patio/etc. and we all bring something to the party. On the first night my hotel-mates and I made pasta salad to go along with the chicken we were barbecuing. (Sorry, no pic)
The next night was pasta night. “Jody, you’re cooking tonight” was the command from a certain rower, much to Jody’s surprise. As a Seattle firefighter she has the experience of cooking for large numbers. It was just pasta, but a lot of pasta.
At Jody’s request we went to the store bought and some supermarket-style brownies. These were extra-special because they were topped with chocolate icing. My teammates got into the spirit of this food blog I’ve been keeping and recommended that we “plate” this next one special.
Click here to see the lucky coxswain who got to take a bite. I suggested she replace the existing strawberry with a clean one, but she refused. Crazy girl.
Let me apologize again for the fuzzy pics. The lighting in the room was nil and I really dislike the look of the flash (see pasta pic above). I have to figure that one out. If you have tips/suggestions, please let me know.
When you are a rower, brunch at 8:30 doesn’t seem too unreasonable. Considering how many people are still sleeping at this time, I guess technically this was still breakfast. The rowing club held a get together this morning after practice. I made Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Muffins. I wish the pics had turned out better. There was no natural light (this is what happens when you are baking muffins at 9:00 at night):
I used my new silicone muffin “tins” and they worked fabulously. I spritzed the tins with Pam and a few minutes after coming out of the oven the muffins nearly popped themselves out of the tin. Little to no manual labor was needed to get them cleaned (and I had done an impressive job getting batter all over those tins.). Highly recommended. I just wish I knew what to call them. They really aren’t tins anymore, now are they.
Man, I’ve made pumpkin stuff before, but adding chocolate chips brings it up a notch like you wouldn’t believe. It makes it all the more special, I tell you!
Most of the rowers also brought muffins and other carb-heavy, sweet treats:
Robyn’s Banana Muffins:
Niki’s Blueberry Coffee Cake (not really sure what the name of it is, but it was good. I had two pieces):
Lori brought the protein, an Egg Strata. Delicious, and it was nearly devoured by the time I got around to taking a photo.
Yay, Potluck!
My coach is hitting the road, and will meet us in San Diego later on this week. We send him off with treats and snacks for the trip.
At the request of the coach’s sister, I am attempting a ‘healthy’ cookie here … oatmeal raisin. Made mostly from organic ingredients, I also slightly lowered the sugar content which one can hardly notice. Fresh out of the oven, there is a ‘cake-like’ texture to the small bite, which perhaps is due to the whole wheat flour / white flour combo I used. After they had cooled the cookie hardened slightly, making it a bit crunchier, though not exactly “hard”. My taste-tester, the husband, apparently “doesn’t eat cookies with raisins”. But I thought they came out pretty tasty.
I baked half the batch and put the rest of the dough in the fridge to bake tomorrow. Keep these suckers as fresh as possible for the road trip.
As you can tell from previous posts, I have a soft spot in my heart for cookies. Especially those from Italian maker Ambrosetti. Whatever the season or holiday, there is a cookie for it. I found these at MM, which I will be bringing into work tomorrow, to celebrate the (near) end of my jury duty stint. More on that to come. Back to the cookies. These are fun, festive and always tasty. Yes, I am bringing them to work, but the husband and I couldn’t help but give one a try. Don’t worry, co-workers, my hands were clean before I handled these for the three-minute photo shoot. No animals were harmed during the making of this blog post.
Like they read my mind … a pink bunny!
I could see how this yellow chickadee could be just a weird blob if you stare at it long enough.
Plus … Easter eggs:
How sweet it is!