Pink Lemonade Cake

I made King Arthur Flour's Pink Lemonade Cake for today's Clandestine Cake Club event. I thought the recipe was well written but did have to adjust the baking time (the recipe read 25-35 minutes, but it was closer to 50 minutes for me). The cake had a nice crumb and was not too dense, but also not particularly light, which I was hoping for as this was a summery cake. The icing was easy to make, but I had to double the batch to make enough to properly ice and decorate the cake. I made it in two separate batches, I cut back on the lemon juice in the second batch because it was a bit intense. Overall, I think the cake was well received. I would recommend the recipe.

The event was really fun. This month's host is house sitting a mansion with beautiful views! I'll include some photographs below, as well as some photographs of the other cakes.

Hello!

Wow, has it been a long time since I've written an update. My apologies for that. Life has been, shall we say, overwhelming. We moved back to Arizona, my dog broke a canine tooth and needed a root canal and titanium crown, then developed pancreatitis, then I had to have two root canals retreated, all while raising a toddler, trying to settle in and search for a job! While all that was happening I organized the Phoenix chapter of the Clandestine Cake Club (read about it here: http://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk/).

I had read about the Clandestine Cake Club on NPR's blog in May of this year: (Why Britain Has Gone Mad About Baking). I went to the website and saw that you could create a club in your area. I contacted Lynn Hill, the woman who started it all and got the Phoenix Chapter set up. In July we had our first event with ten attendees. The theme for July was chocolate. I decided to make a recipe from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, Miette's Tomboy.  Miette is a bakery is San Francisco. 

The cake had a nice crumb and a deep dark chocolate flavor. While I liked the flavor of the vanilla mousseline that was in the book recipe, I found making it bothersome. It ends up being just an Italian meringue icing. It is the cake with the pink icing. The icing recipe didn't make a sufficient amount for proper decorating, so I filled the layers with a raspberry filling.

Our next event is tomorrow. The theme is summer cakes, flavors and recipes that you associate with summer parties, picnics and BBQs. I've made a Pink Lemonade Cake from King Arthur Flour.  I'll do a write up on that after tomorrow's event!

Adjusting to Motherhood and Triple Cinnamon Scones

I know I haven't made an update in a few months and I apologize for that. New motherhood is wonderful and overwhelming, amazing and heartbreaking... all at the same time. We gave birth to a beautiful little boy on June 12, 2012. He is incredible and beautiful. We are so in love. I can hardly bear to be away from him to go to work (that's the heartbreaking part). It's amazing to watch him grow and change.

 Birth

Three months old

As you can imagine, I haven't had a lot of time to try out any new recipes. Of course, I've been whipping up my old standards because I can do those with my eyes closed... and with a newborn, many things are done with your eyes half open (it is possible to nap in the shower).

Now, our son is almost 4 months old and I was able to try out a new recipe while his grandparents were visiting. Yippee!

You're going to want to print out this recipe and make it. Trust me.

Blueberry Upside-Down Muffins

 I wish this picture was scratch and sniff.

It's a snowy Saturday morning. I woke up early. Partly because Dougal wanted to go out and eat breakfast and partly because I can't get comfortable in bed in the morning.

I haven't felt much like baking most of my pregnancy (26 weeks today; we're having a boy!). I haven't had any crazy cravings, although I did go through a bagel with veggie cream cheese and a giant glass of Simply Orange orange juice phase. I also craved blueberry muffins from Dunkin' Donuts for a while. When we went to the grocery the other night, the strawberries and blueberries looked so beautiful that I placed a bunch in the cart. Last night I suddenly wanted homemade blueberry muffins.

I looked through my favorite book, The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet for Sur La Table (I know I've mentioned it before, because I love it so!) and found a recipe for Blueberry Upside-Down Muffins. I've tweaked it a little based on the ingredients I had in the kitchen this morning, so I'll put the recipe below.

I just ate one hot from the over. Oh. My. Even the molten blueberry juice couldn't stop me.
SO GOOD! Not just good, but melt in your mouth you may want to eat the whole platter of them yourself while hiding in the pantry so no one knows you made them good. I'm going to try to save some for my husband, but I may have to hide them and keep them to myself.

Blueberry Upside-Down Muffins adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking for Sur La Table by Cindy Mushet

Makes 12 muffins.

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients:
3/4 stick of unsalted butter
1 tsp. of lemon extract
2/3 cup of vanilla Greek yogurt
2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 pint of blueberries
18 teaspoons of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan well. 

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter and lemon extract together in a small sauce pan. Remove from heat and at the yogurt. If the mixture feels tepid, add the 2 eggs and vanilla and whisk together.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the mixture of wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients. Stir together with a rubber spatula until there are no more pools of liquid and the batter looks fairly smooth (a little lumpy is ok). Set aside.

In the muffin pan, fill each cup with 1 1/2 teaspoons of brown sugar, sprinkled evenly over the bottom of each cup. Sprinkle a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice over the brown sugar in each cup. Place an even layer of blueberries over the brown sugar/lemon juice mixture. Cover with muffin batter.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. When you remove the muffins from the oven the tops should be lightly golden and firm to the touch. Carefully place a platter over the muffin pan and flip the pan over (muffin pan will be upside down, platter right side up). Be careful because the blueberry juice will be piping hot and steamy.

Voila!

Brown sugar and lemon juice.

 My blueberry picture was blurry, so here is a picture of my pup waiting for me to drop a blueberry!

 Muffin batter in and ready for the oven.

Golden tops!

New Year's Day Doughnuts

I think I will start a New Year's Day tradition, homemade baked doughnuts for breakfast.

I purchased a Wilton doughnut pan at Thanksgiving and have just gotten around to trying it out. It worked out really well! The doughnuts were soft, warm and delicious! The pan comes with a simple recipe for both the batter and the glaze. I recommend using a piping bag to fill the tray.

Don't they look yummy? The recipe makes one dozen. They didn't last the day.

So this is why I haven't been posting much.

Frankly, the smell of baked goods made me feel pretty nauseous for a while and I was exhausted most of the time. Now that I'm in the second trimester, I'm feeling better. Still not in the mood for sweets at all.

Happy Holidays!

Cinnamon Crown Cake

A few years ago, my mother-in-law and father-in-law gave me a great recipe book (linked in my last post) and a Nordic Ware bundt pan. For some reason, I use it mostly in autumn. Autumn makes me think of cinnamon and coffee cakes, I guess.

I just started a new job in October and decided to bring a treat in for my training group. I made the Cinnamon Crown cake.

Apple Streusel Cake

I told you that I had a few posts up my sleeve! Here is the first, apple streusel cake. In September, if you recall, I went apple picking with my friend Mary. I picked a half bushel of apples. I made 4 pans of apple crisp, crock pot apple sauce (which I used in my next blog post) and then when we were sick of the apple crisp, I made this cake. 

My apologies!

I'm sorry for my absence as of late. I started a new job a month ago and we found out 6 week ago that we're pregnant. I've had all the normal experiences of pregnancy except morning sickness, thankfully. So, with that said, I've been exhausted after 8 hours of training, walking our dog Dougal and making dinner.

I have two recipes to write for you and I will try to do that this week as I have some time off!

Apple crisp.

One of my favorite things about being back home is the season of Autumn. It is another beautiful rainy autumn day here. I know, I know, it sounds odd, but after living in the desert for almost eight years, I'm happy to see the rain. This morning I woke up to the sound of it pouring. What a wonderful sound!

A couple of weeks ago I went apple picking with my dear friend, Mary. It was a rainy day but that didn't stop us from grabbing a red wagon and heading out in to the orchard. I picked a half bushel and arrived home trying to decide what to do with all these baking apples (Cortland). I made slow cooker applesauce (only to find out my husband doesn't like applesauce). I made several apple crisp (because I found out my husband is crazy about apple crisp). Lastly, I made a cake (which will be the next blog post).

Pavlova!

I was watching Barefoot Contessa on Food Network the other day. She was making a mixed berry pavlova and it looked incredible and light. I made it yesterday. One word: divine.

I'm home!

We're finally settled in to our new east coast home, happily. I haven't started back to work yet, but I have an interview next week. T started his new job on Tuesday.

I used to say that I didn't think I could stay home all day. Even if I won the lottery, I would work, but after having been home all week, I've changed my mind. I've gotten so much done and am so relaxed. As soon as I get everything accomplished on my list: living room curtains hung, cleaning, dog walking and the gym; I'll get back to baking up a storm.

This weekend I'm throwing a birthday/welcome to the east coast party for T. I'll be making seven layer bars and his favorite birthday cake (yellow with chocolate icing). We'll be grilling hamburgers and hot dogs on T's birthday gift. Nothing fancy, but it should be fun!

It will be great to see my friends that I've been 2700 miles away from for the bast 7 1/2 years.

In other news... it never ceases to amaze me all the things you find you need when you move into a new place. I've been living in my own place (with or without roommates/family) since I was 17 and still, we didn't have things we needed. We have less cupboard space here than we anticipated. I have to say though, I would have missed out on this sweet pie safe if we'd had enough cupboards.

One last picture, of my pup, Dougal, on his cross country ride. He usually doesn't like car rides, which is a rarity in dogs. He did amazingly well! Look at him, so chill. Having him in my life has made all the difference. I can't imagine a day without his fuzzy face. Please check out the new page for adoptable pets!

Disappointment

Sometimes you try a recipe that looks and reads as if it will be amazing. You read the recipe several times, carefully select the best ingredients and  put in the effort to follow the recipe meticulously only to find that it's terrible.

This is one of those disappointing moments. This is that recipe. I'm not going to post the recipe. I want to work with it an improve it.

I hate and love summer.

Summer is wonderful for fresh produce and grilling and getting my skin to stop being quite so translucent. Unfortunately for B in AZ and, more surprisingly, for me in NY, summer is just too hot for baking. Every time I turn on the oven I find myself praying to be delivered from hell. I live in an attic apartment with my husband (who, during the summer, seems to run disappointingly hot) and if we don't have our one window AC running, I could practically cook a loaf of bread by simply mixing the dough and leaving it in a pan for a couple of hours. The midwest gave us a heat wave a few weeks ago and it's just now starting to cool enough to think about baking. I'm dying to do custard again; it just tasted so good and it's a great chilled dessert. But I've had peaches in the fridge and I've hidden the gingersnaps from the hubby and as much as I'm craving custard, I know what's next.

Peach pie with a gingersnap crust, only days away.

Stuff and nonsense.

I haven't been baking much. There is so much to do and to be honest, it's hotter than hell here. We're in the height of monsoon season and we had a haboob last week! It was massive! (I'm not explaining, you'll just have to Google that one!)

• I gave my notice at work on Monday. That felt amazing. Seriously amazing. Four more weeks of work and then I am done. 
• We have to go through our spare bedroom this weekend. It's time to sort through the things we own and determine what is really necessary. It's amazing how quickly we accumulate things. 
• I need to download some Neil Gaiman and Kurt Vonnegut books for my Kindle. It looks like we have five solid days of driving back east, so I'll be needing some entertainment. 
• We need some new tunes for the ol' iPods. (Recommendations welcome!)
• Packing. Oh holy crap. I hate this part. I hate having my life segregated in to label boxes and chucked all over the place. 
• Address changes, turning services off, turning services on. 
• Keeping the doggie calm. I have to make sure he's ok with the move. He's a sensitive boy. I have a feeling I'll be riding in the back seat with him most of the journey.

I guess that sums up the next six weeks or so. We are so excited... beyond excited really.

A new chapter and lots of adventure! 

More big news!

We've been approved on the place we put a deposit on! Woohoo, we have an address!!! I also had a brief preliminary interview this morning with a full phone interview on Friday. If I make it past the phone interview I may need to fly home for an in office interview on Tuesday. Eep, that will be pricey! The start date would be while we are driving cross country.

Fingers crossed that it all works out!

Big news!

On the baking front there is nothing new to report. It is far to hot (117 degrees F just the other day) to turn on the oven in our wee kitchen. I've mostly made no bake recipes like coconut cream pie.

I'd like to introduce you all to my friend Lisa. She has just started a blog called Kissin' Frogz about her misadventures in trying to find a date and dating.  It is charming and funny, a great read over all. It often makes me laugh as well as making me appreciate being married! Follow her and show her some love!

Our big news is that we have plans to move east on 20. August 2011. We've sent a deposit on a place to live and are just waiting to hear if we've been approved. We've given notice that we're moving to our current rental company (No, shockingly, we don't live in a house, but a two bedroom apartment we've outgrown. We just couldn't commit to living here.) Two weeks from today, we'll give notice one month notice at work (as such, I'm not sharing this post on Facebook or Twitter).

It should be five fun filled days of the three of us in the car driving 2,700 miles. Our dog, Dougal, hates riding in the car and cries most of the time. I'm currently researching ways to make him more comfortable.

We're very excited and scared but feel is the best thing for us. We'll arrive just in time for autumn! I can't wait for a white Christmas. New England, here we come!

~B

An Spéice Brown Bread

After much searching on the internet for the bread that I loved so much and enjoyed daily in Ireland, I e-mailed our favorite bed and breakfast, An Spéice, asking for the recipe. Mrs. Hannafin happily obliged, e-mailing me with the recipe.

It's that time of year again!

Yep, time for the charity bake sale at work. I spent all day yesterday baking, taste testing and packing my items. I pared it down a bit from previous years. I made seven layer bars (they're always a big seller), mini coconut cream pies with graham cracker crusts, cranberry cheesecake bars and lemon blossoms. This last item is new for me.

Banoffee Pie!

We had this delicious pie our last night in Galway. It is a banana and toffee pie that can be made with either a graham cracker crust or a regular pie crust. I decided to use a basic graham cracker crust. I found the filling recipe at A Beautiful Mess. The filling was the right flavor but consistency wise a bit off from what we had. It should be creamier. Next time, I think I will try making this recipe, from Saveur.com.