Baking

• Most Topular Stories

• Pretzel Sandwich Buns: something to crow about

  King Arthur Flour - Baking Banter

  PJ Hamel

  15 May 2012 | 1:01 am

  One dark, early February morning, I woke up from a sound sleep with these two words in my head: Pretzel buns. Had I read about pretzel buns in a food magazine? Seen them online? Maybe they were somewhere on the Food Network (watching “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” being one of my favorite brain-candy pastimes). Whatever their provenance, I was now seeing golden brown twists of dense bread, sliced into top and bottoms and cradling barbecued chicken. That’s right, chicken. Because chicken had also been on my mind, seeing as it’s the #1 most searched for recipe term…

• simple roasted asparagus

  Sugarlaws

  katy

  11 May 2012 | 5:46 am

  I sort of lost track of the seasons this year, so it was funny to see that spring vegetables like asparagus and rhubarb (soon!) were suddenly available in our grocery store, when I’ve been feeling like it’s been summer for about the past 11 months.  But that little reminder that the rest of the world is just starting spring made me focus on some yummy seasonal recipes! This is actually part 1 — after eating about half the asparagus in this batch, I took the rest and transformed it into an equally delicious recipe that I’ll share with you guys next week. …

• Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

  Bake or Break

  jennifer

  30 Apr 2012 | 7:45 pm

  I don't deal well with failure. Quinn likes to say that I would have made a terrible scientist. I like things to work well the first time. When working on a recipe, sometimes you have to accept failure, learn from it, and try to make changes to make it work. Then there are the other times. The times when everything goes just as it should and the outcome is just as you'd hoped. This is one of those times.

• Of Spiders And Muffins

  Cookie baker lynn

  14 Apr 2012 | 7:37 am

  It's a well known fact in my family that I hate/fear/loathe spiders. I hate their legs, their webs, and the way they scuttle around, jump at you, or drop unexpectedly on your neck or head. (Excuse me a minute while I slap repeatedly at my head and neck because that creepy feeling I got just now might have been a spider.) I know they have their place in the grand design of the universe, but my place in that same design happens to be standing over them with a heavy shoe poised for the kill. But that's only if no one else is in the house. If my husband is home, then he's the one to gallantly…

• How To Be A Master Baker

  Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

  2 May 2012 | 10:45 pm

  Always dreamed that you'll be a Master Baker?  Armed with proper tools in hand, and the proper techiques, whipping cream to perfection, to just the correct stiffness?  Dream no more, your fantasies can now be fulfilled at THE BAKING BARN, where the Master Baker himself, Nigel Skelchy, of JUST HEAVENLY PLEASURES, now tantalize you with a series of classes ...from luscious trifles to Victoria Secrets...oops, sponges...Hurry, cos the first class is THIS SATURDAY, 5th May 2012.Oh, don't forget to bring a dictionary, the Master Baker uses big words, like Passels,or Ill Flotante..(bring…

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  Nonstop Honolulu » Baker’s Hours

• Eat the Street Tony Group Autoplex

  Ed Morita

  13 May 2012 | 12:00 pm

  It was a special edition of Eat the Street Saturday, with the mobile eating fest unfolding at the Tony Group Autoplex in Waipio. Along with great food, eaters enjoyed live music by B.E.T., Nesian N.I.N.E. and Kalaeloa ◄ Back Next ► Eat the Street Honda Autoplex (1 of 30) Musical performance by B.E.T. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxpYb2_W9Sk

• Did this: L’ulu 2012

  Ed Morita

  6 May 2012 | 12:00 pm

  As the super moon rose above Honolulu, supporters of Leeward Community College’s culinary program gathered Saturday for the annual L’ulu fundraiser. The menu featured a variety of dishes made from locally produced ingredients from Oahu farms. With assistance from culinary students, standout small plates were crafted by such chefs as Aulani’s Patrick Callarec, Azure’s Jon Matsubara, the Ihilani’s Scott Higa and Mariposa’s Marc Freiberg. ◄ Back Next ► 2012 L'ulu (1 of 25) Spiced shrimp with charred eggplant, pandan rice and chili-tomato jam from…

• Building lanterns at Shinnyo-en Temple

  Ed Morita

  1 May 2012 | 11:00 am

  Every Memorial Day, thousands converge at Ala Moana Beach for the the annual Lantern Floating ceremony, a time to remember those who have died and hope for peace and a harmonious future. To prepare for the event, dedicated volunteers spend their weekends building lanterns to carry people’s prayers and memories. Last Saturday, I joined my friends Don and Terri Aweau, along with 40 other volunteers of all ages, at the Shinnyo-en Temple in Moiliili. I thought it might be a somber gathering, but I was surprised to find a joyful atmosphere. I was reminded that lantern floating is not a sad…

• Mele Mei kickoff

  Ed Morita

  28 Apr 2012 | 12:00 pm

  Local musicians gathered at Willows Restaurant Friday afternoon to kick off the upcoming Mele Mei, a monthlong celebration of Hawaii’s music that culminates with the Na Hoku Hanohano festival and awards. Here are party pics and video with performances by Kupaoa, Yoza, Nathan Aweau, Jerry Santos, Jake Shimabukuro and Sean Na’auao. ◄ Back Next ► Mele Mei (1 of 19) www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnQ5kxy6UoU  

• Cooking for the right reason

  Ed Morita

  24 Apr 2012 | 11:00 am

  To all culinary students: Recently, my friend Melissa Chang shared a Chow.com article with me by San Francisco Chef Richie Nakano (@linecook) titled, “Your Signature Dish Sucks.” A bit taken aback, I initially thought she was making a not-so-subtle commentary about my cooking. But as it turned out, Nakano’s concern was that the celebritization of chefs may be hurting the industry. “There’s an epidemic in the restaurant industry of young cooks who’ve seen too many reality shows asking chefs for their ‘signature dish,’ too many culinary schools that exist…

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  King Arthur Flour - Baking Banter

• Pretzel Sandwich Buns: something to crow about

  PJ Hamel

  15 May 2012 | 1:01 am

  One dark, early February morning, I woke up from a sound sleep with these two words in my head: Pretzel buns. Had I read about pretzel buns in a food magazine? Seen them online? Maybe they were somewhere on the Food Network (watching “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” being one of my favorite brain-candy pastimes). Whatever their provenance, I was now seeing golden brown twists of dense bread, sliced into top and bottoms and cradling barbecued chicken. That’s right, chicken. Because chicken had also been on my mind, seeing as it’s the #1 most searched for recipe term…

• Ciabatta Rolls: more crust — more filling!

  PJ Hamel

  11 May 2012 | 1:01 am

  There’s nothing like a good, hearty sandwich, is there? Now, I’m not talking tea sandwiches. Those thin-sliced, crust-free triangles have their place; after all, you really can’t go wrong with egg salad on white bread. But when you want a sandwich you can really dig into – a sandwich with body and bite, one that you struggle to get your mouth around, one that you need two hands to handle – delicate sliced bread just doesn’t cut it. You need a roll; preferably a large one. A roll that’s big on crust, skimpy on crumb; one that can easily hold multiple layers of…

• Elvis has left the building. But the cake’s still here.

  PJ Hamel

  8 May 2012 | 9:12 am

  Did you know that Elvis’ favorite cake, one he enjoyed on his birthday AND at Christmas every year, was vanilla pound cake? I grew up loving chocolate cake. Still do. But over the years I’ve also developed a great appreciation for vanilla cake, the dessert equivalent of your little black dress: simple, classic, goes with everything. And my very favorite vanilla cake is super-dense, golden pound cake. Hey, all you chocolate fans out there: I’m sure you’ve enjoyed all the chocolate treats we’ve posted to this blog over the years. But today the Choc-Dog’s…

• Strawberry Cream on Shortbread: crunchy, creamy, (in)credible

  PJ Hamel

  7 May 2012 | 1:01 am

  Mousse. No, not the stuff you put in your hair. And surely not the large, antlered animal drivers here in northern New England worry about meeting some dark night on the road. I’m talking mousse, as in chocolate. And strawberry. And “easier than you think.” About a million years ago, when I was working at The Camden Herald weekly newspaper in midcoast Maine, I used to prepare lunch on deadline day – Wednesday – for my fellow worker bees. As I recall, I charged folks $2 each for a three-course meal: entrée, bread, and dessert. At that price, I wasn’t making a…

• Gluten-Free Flax Seed Bread à la Virtuoso: Composing A Bread Machine Breakthrough

  Amy Trage

  4 May 2012 | 4:00 am

  One of the greatest challenges of gluten-free baking is tackling yeast recipes. Those restricted from gluten want warm, chewy English muffins, sweet, soft cinnamon rolls, and a good crusty artisan-style bread; however the consensus is that these are the most difficult novelties to achieve, especially if you want them to be anything close to their wheat-version counterparts. Another daunting task has been the project of creating a successful gluten-free loaf in a bread machine, and for me, that has meant countless conversations with customers discouraging them from using their bread machine…

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  Andrea Meyers: making life delicious

• Mushroom Chard Frittata

  Andrea

  14 May 2012 | 1:53 pm

  When spring comes around our family looks forward to eating out of garden, and this easy frittata is a great garden recipe. We use the fresh chard, green onions, and garlic chives we pick right before cooking, and add purchased mushrooms. Frittatas are an easy meal for the kids to help with because they cook [...] Visit www.andreasrecipes.com for the full story.

• Weekend Gardening: Spring Chard, Brussels Sprouts, and Artichokes

  Andrea

  13 May 2012 | 9:35 pm

  The weather has been strange this year. Winter didn’t feel like winter at all and the official start of spring passed by without much notice because I was already wearing sandals before the big day. However, having an early spring means that our garden popped a little early this year. The chard (above) is going [...] Visit www.andreasrecipes.com for the full story.

• Wegmeyer Farms: Spring Strawberries (Brown Sugar Strawberry Shortcakes)

  Andrea

  11 May 2012 | 8:17 am

  The strawberry field at Wegmeyer Farms is blanketed with plants laden with blossoms and fruit. The field slopes down from the grass-covered parking area, and the rows are covered with black plastic to keep the weeds out and prevent erosion. During my visits, workers picked berries and put them in flats destined for nearby Whole [...] Visit www.andreasrecipes.com for the full story.

• Al-Mara Farm: Spring on a Dairy Farm

  Andrea

  3 May 2012 | 2:20 pm

  Life on a modern dairy farm is not easy and there are are number of obstacles to success, including weather, illness, the vagaries of the milk market, and rising costs to run the farm. And even with all this, many families continue running a dairy farm because it’s a way of life. You have to [...] Visit www.andreasrecipes.com for the full story.

• Steamed Asparagus with Red Onions, Almonds, and Raisins

  Andrea

  30 Apr 2012 | 7:15 pm

  Last spring we planted an asparagus bed, and it has really taken off. At first we only saw small tips peeping up from the soil, then they shot up to tall spears almost overnight. Now the wispy fern sways in the breeze on long thin stems and will stay around for the summer. Asparagus needs [...] Visit www.andreasrecipes.com for the full story.

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  Bake or Break

• Snickerdoodle Bars

  jennifer

  14 May 2012 | 8:17 pm

  A few years ago, I made Snickerdoodles for the first time, overcoming my strange childhood aversion to them. Since then, however, I don't recall baking them another time. That's certainly not due to any dislike of those lovely, cinnamon-y cookies. It's really just a consequence of having a baking blog. Recipes rarely get made multiple times. While I may not have made Snickerdoodles again, I did find this recipe for them in bar form. If you are fan of all there is to love about Snickerdoodles - all that brown sugar and cinnamon - then you're sure to love these, too.

• Weekly Mix

  jennifer

  11 May 2012 | 12:23 pm

  For longer than I can remember, I've wanted to do a regular post about some of the lovely things I find around the internet universe as well as in this fabulous city.  So, here I am, diving in and giving it a shot.  Enjoy! Did you see this amazing birthday cake a la Momofuku Milk Bar?  I wonder if I could convince Quinn to make me on in a few months for my birthday?  Check it out at Kitchen Heals Soul.

• Macadamia Shortbread

  jennifer

  8 May 2012 | 9:18 am

  The brilliance of shortbread is its simplicity. Mix together some butter, flour, sugar, and you've got a lovely, tasty cookie. I like that kind of thinking, as you can see in recipes like this one. Or how about this one? This particular recipe for shortbread comes from a fabulous baking book, The Modern Baker. Macadamia nuts seem to be too often relegated to ho-hum cookies with white chocolate. Not my favorite. But, here in these shortbread, those same macadamias get the chance to be the star.

• Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche Frosting

  jennifer

  5 May 2012 | 10:36 am

  To me, dulce de leche is one of the great inventions of the food world. It takes the idea of caramel and moves it into the territory of the amazing. I haven't done a lot of baking with it, but I think I more than make up for that with this frosting. I’ve combined the amazing with another favorite, cream cheese, to make a simple to make, creamy, caramel-y frosting.

• Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

  jennifer

  30 Apr 2012 | 7:45 pm

  I don't deal well with failure. Quinn likes to say that I would have made a terrible scientist. I like things to work well the first time. When working on a recipe, sometimes you have to accept failure, learn from it, and try to make changes to make it work. Then there are the other times. The times when everything goes just as it should and the outcome is just as you'd hoped. This is one of those times.

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  The Fresh Loaf

• More baking with my own sourdough starter

  MaximusTG

  16 May 2012 | 1:19 pm

  Today I baked the bread as described on this blog: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/08/my-new-favorite-sourdough/ I fed my starter yesterday evening, and it had more than doubled in volume this morning. After a quick trip to the local reform store, or "Ekoplaza" as this store is called, for some whole rye flour, I started the dough following the instructions. Made half of the recipe, opting to bake two 500 gram breads.  Kneading and then S&F during bulk ferment went fine, so I then set up a couche from parchment paper. Shaped into two small batards and proofed for 2.5 hours. I…

• baparoma steam bakers

  flourgirl51

  16 May 2012 | 12:47 pm

  For sale: Baparoma Steam baker. I have four sets of these for sale in like new condtion. I am asking $50.00 for each set plus postage.If interested please send me an email to rksbaker51@gmail.com or send me a message.

• baparoma steam bakers

  flourgirl51

  16 May 2012 | 12:45 pm

  For sale: Baparoma Steam baker. I have four sets of these for sale in like new condtion. I am asking $50.00 for each set plus postage.If interested please send me an email to eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%72%6b%73%62%61%6b%65%72%35%31%40%67%6d%61%69%6c%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%72%6b%73%62%61%6b%65%72%35%31%40%67%6d%61%69%6c%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')) Thank you.  

• How to make a yeasty soft roll

  zooterist

  16 May 2012 | 11:31 am

  Occasionally I like to make soft rolls, which is what many Southerners prefer.  The problem I'm having is there is no yeastiness to the rolls when they're done.  I like to be able to smell and taste a mild, residual yeastiness in warm homemade rolls.   The best bread I ever made was years ago and required hours to make.  It was a small French loaf baked on a terra cotta mold.  It went thorugh three risings before going into the oven.  I didn't know yeast could last that long, but it did.  How does one impart that mild yeastiness to bread?  Caveat: …

• High School Bread Mold Experiment

  aytab

  16 May 2012 | 10:16 am

  This morning my 15 year old comes to me and says, "Dad I have a bread mold experiment I have to do for Biology". Instantly, I gloss over the "mold" and start thinking he needs some starter to take to school but, I digress. Anyway, they have to wet a piece of bread leave it on the the counter for a few hours then toss it in a baggie and put it in a dark place. So, I gave my son two pieces of bread one a dinner roll I made and two a piece of sourdough I made. It will be interesting to see which of the two molds the fastest. I also told him to inform his teacher that the breads he used were…

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  Sugarlaws

• a little lilly

  katy

  16 May 2012 | 5:30 am

  Growing up in Connecticut, I was always *very* familiar withe Lilly Pulitzer — let’s face it, I have a dozen of her dresses hanging in my closet right now!  But as my personal style has moved slightly away from the typical Connecticut-preppy (or, frankly, Texas-preppy) style, I might have actually been surprised if you’d have told my that a Lilly Pulitzer item would be one of my favorite pieces in my closet! But how could you resist this romper?  It could go everywhere from a country club dinner to a New York city brunch, to a Texas day of doing just about…

• this (new) house

  katy

  14 May 2012 | 8:52 am

  It’s funny how when you’re so used to sharing what’s going on in your life over the internet, it can feel really strange when you have to hold something back.  For the last few weeks, there’s been something I haven’t been able to tell you — being painfully superstitious, I didn’t want to say anything until we were certain.  But… we bought a house! One of the reasons that Chad and I moved to Houston was the amazingly beautiful houses that you can buy for the same price here as, oh, say, a junior one bedroom in the far reaches of…

• simple roasted asparagus

  katy

  11 May 2012 | 5:46 am

  I sort of lost track of the seasons this year, so it was funny to see that spring vegetables like asparagus and rhubarb (soon!) were suddenly available in our grocery store, when I’ve been feeling like it’s been summer for about the past 11 months.  But that little reminder that the rest of the world is just starting spring made me focus on some yummy seasonal recipes! This is actually part 1 — after eating about half the asparagus in this batch, I took the rest and transformed it into an equally delicious recipe that I’ll share with you guys next week. …

• oh so retro

  katy

  9 May 2012 | 5:08 am

  I was actually running late to meet some friends when I took these photos, and in all the crazy running-late-ness, I totally didn’t realize that the battery on my camera had apparently died.  Not to be foiled, I grabbed my old Canon Rebel, the camera I had when I started this blog, and figured I’d do some shots with that. Except… the last time I’d carried my Canon Rebel was apparently Fashion Week, because it was set with a super high ISO, resulting in the weirdly dark and gritty photos in this post.  Some days you just can’t win! Banana Republic was…

• very un-mellow yellow

  katy

  7 May 2012 | 5:17 am

  When Madewell sent me these jeans, I was so excited to expand my non-blue denim wardrobe, and I figured yellow was the perfect way to branch out!  These are as comfy as any I’ve worn, and I absolutely love the color — bold and fun for spring, but not in-your-face neon. So, obviously, I had to pair them with these heels, which can probably be seen from space!  They seem to glow in low light, as you can see in some of these pictures, so I plan on having some fun with that!  I found them at Zara a month or two ago, and I’m shocked they haven’t sold out by…

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  My Sweet and Saucy

• My 1st Mother’s Day…I love you Blake Eileen

  admin

  12 May 2012 | 12:12 pm

  I can’t believe I’m one day away from having my very first Mother’s Day!  To say I am on cloud nine is an understatement.  Last year I clearly remember that I was sad for the first time on Mother’s Day wishing I had a little one on the way…we had started trying to get pregnant and weren’t yet and I was quite sad over it.  Of course God had His perfect plan for our little family and soon after we got pregnant and that started the best year of my life.  I simply love everything about being a mother to my little blake.  I am quite obsessed with her and…

• Wedding Nouveau Magazine Feature

  admin

  9 May 2012 | 7:58 pm

  I am so happy to share these gorgeous photos from the recent new issue of Wedding Nouveau! I was asked to be a part of the shoot for their main spread in the magazine and once they sent me over the inspiration photos I was completely enthralled. The theme was Parisian Souk and Abby, from Style Me Pretty, who featured the shoot said it perfectly when she described it as, “Luxe, cultural, and overflowing with so much pretty!”  Picotte Weddings photographed the whole day and I have to say her photos are stunning!  You can check out all the other wonderful vendors who were apart…

• Mother’s Day Desserts

  admin

  6 May 2012 | 1:40 pm

  Mother’s Day is right around the corner and we have of course have some tasty treats for you to give your mother no matter if she is near or far!  For our California customers we have some sweet cupcakes and cake lollipops for you and for our customers all over the US you can ship our cake pops to your mom…just order early at Sweet & Saucy Pops! 6 pack of Mother’s Day Cupcakes @ $20 *Flavors can be mixed and matched from our menu Individual Boxed Cupcake @ $5.50 6 pack of Mini Cupcakes @ $10 12 pack of Mini Cupcakes @ $20 You can now give your mom chocolate and flowers…

• Kentucky Derby Wedding Inspiration

  admin

  5 May 2012 | 12:03 pm

  Well with the Kentucky Derby this weekend I thought I would share with you a recent photo shoot that I was a part of that features the bright, bold, and fun look of the Derby!  Jessi from You and Me Events asked me to be a part of the shoot and I’m so glad I did as I think the whole shoot turned out gorgeous!  You can check out all the wonderful vendors that were a part of the special day at the bottom of the post!  This shoot was also featured on Green Wedding Shoes this week so you can pop over to their blog to see the full post! Since the inspiration for the shoot had all of the…

• Finn & Scarlett’s Circus Soiree

  admin

  30 Apr 2012 | 10:23 pm

  I think this first photo describes exactly how I feel about this birthday party!  I really am so blown away every time one of my favorite customers, Sarah, throws a birthday party for her children.  She has such a gift for party planning and crafting that it should be her full time job!  All of the amazing details she dreamt up below for her son Finn and daughter Scarlett’s birthday party will for sure knock your socks off…enjoy! And not only is she talented, but I have to say this is one of the cutest little families I’ve EVER seen! How fun are all of these game stations…

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  Jenny Bakes

• Lower Carb Crepes

  29 Apr 2012 | 8:42 pm

  When you start cutting out flour and sugar, you would not believe how depressing breakfast can get. Slowly, I've found little tricks that make it bearable again, like this recipe for lower-carb pancakes/crepes. I found a different version online with all egg whites, but my version is so much simpler, and has no waste. Three ingredients. Lower Carb Crepes2 eggs2 tbsp peanut butter1 Splenda packet (optional)Directions: Blend everything in a blender or using an immersion blender. Heat pan to medium high, and cook about half the batter at a time for one crepe/pancake (thickness determines whether…

• Daring Bakers April 2012 - Armenian Nutmeg Cake

  27 Apr 2012 | 7:21 pm

  The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake. This time around, I barely had time to make the nutmeg cake, but I'm bookmarking the nazook for when I finally get to my pick for Armenia in my Around the World reading challenge - Rise the Euphrates. But that is a post for another day. For this day, let me focus on my delicious disaster. I learned something new in doing this challenge, actually.

• Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble (gluten-free, lower carb)

  14 Apr 2012 | 9:18 pm

  Strawberries are going full throttle, and I still had some of last year's rhubarb in my fridge. I looked up a few low-carb crumble/crisp recipes online but they sounded bad, so I decided to wing it and just mix some things together that I had on hand.For once, it worked!  The brown sugar Splenda doesn't seem as chemically flavored, or maybe it helped that I didn't use much, and just let the sweetness of the fruit speak for itself.  Since my rhubarb was starting out frozen, I did sprinkle the fruit with 1 tbsp of cornstarch, but I'll list that as optional.  Look, unless you have…

• Sunday Waffles

  8 Apr 2012 | 5:42 pm

  We haven't been having our typical scone Sundays, and I've been desperate for something tasty for a lazy weekend breakfast. In hunting around the internet for low-carb breakfasts, I came across the Diabetes Daily forums, and this low-carb, gluten-free waffle recipe. The most impressive part? They actually TASTE GOOD.The ingredients are a little strange seeming at first - vanilla whey powder (like what you use for protein shakes), ground flaxseed, sugar free coffee syrup (I just used a lesser amount of maple flavoring), baking powder, eggs, and milk. The batter looks runny and disturbing with…

• Sicilian Cassata for Easter

  6 Apr 2012 | 9:18 pm

  When I was gathering recipes for my Around the World baking challenge, I came across The Italian Baker by Carol Field, probably because a revised edition came out recently. I poured over recipe after recipe, through breads and pizzas, until I ended up in the dessert section. The most interesting cake, the cassata, was explained as a traditional cake for Easter. I knew I needed to save the recipe for Easter week, and to hunt down a book set in Sicily to accompany it.So here we are, Easter week! There were a few bits in the recipe that made it less appealing; I particularly was not won over by…

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  Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum

• Did You Know?

  12 May 2012 | 9:30 am

  Now here's something I didn't! When blind baking (baking a pie or tart crust without the filling before adding it) I like to use a large coffee urn filter to contain the beans or rice which are used to weight down the crust and keep it from bubbling up or slipping down at the sides. I prefer it to parchment because I find there is no need to coat it with nonstick cooking spray to keep it from lifting off a little of the crust but mostly because its shape conforms perfectly to that of the interior of the pan. A sheet of parchment has to be pleated in order to achieve this shape. Fellow blogger…

• About Egg Whites

  5 May 2012 | 9:30 am

  It always seems nothing short of miraculous how a small pool of transparent egg white can whip up to a billowy white cloud of meringue...or not! I once took for granted that it was common knowledge that egg white will not beat if there is even the tiniest speck of fat in contact with it. But then I visied my favorite older cousin, who I thought knew everything, and was amazed to have her ask me why her egg white wouldn't beat. So I want to share the simple but all important details and discoveries I have made that will ensure success every time. There are three important things to know about…

• International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference 2012 Part 2

  28 Apr 2012 | 9:30 am

  The main part of the conference lasted for four full days. The best part was seeing old friends from all over the world and discovering new ones. There were also several excellent presentations. Aki Kamozawa and partner/husband Alexander Talbot, authors of Ideas in Food. did a lively and informative session on sous vide cooking (cooking under vacuum). Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work Next Peter Reinhart, possible the best teacher I've ever known, did an excellent session on the use of sprouted wheat flour. This is new flour and not yet available but trust me, you'll be hearing…

• International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference 2012 Part 1

  21 Apr 2012 | 9:30 am

  It's been many years since I attended the annual conference, the last time it was held in New York City. Since that time I attended many annual conferences and regional meetings all over the world. But this year IACP returned to my city for the second time. And there were so many appealing seminars I signed up for the full conference including one day of a preconference tour. The cookbook awards were held on the last evening and, to my delight, my dearest friend Lisa Yockelson won "Best Baking Book" for her Baking Style. (An award she also won for her prior books ChocolateChocolate, and…

• Scenes from The Chicago Housewares Show (IAH)

  14 Apr 2012 | 9:30 am

  It's been several years since I attended this show but I remembered the shear immensity of it. Just about every manufacturer of kitchen equipment and anything remotely related to it is represented here (in the hundreds). Chicago's McCormick Convention Center is the largest in the country and walking the aisles is a major expedition and adventure. This year's show was very special for me because, for the first time, I had my own booth for The Rose Line™ as part of NewMetro Design. Walking the show and standing by my booth to meet the reps, reviewers, potential customers, and old friends was…

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  Nosh With Me

• Chinet Bakeware Giveaway

  Hilary

  29 Apr 2012 | 1:16 pm

  As I mentioned in the Salted Caramel Shortbread Bars post, Chinet sent me a huge box of their new disposable bakeware to test. The box included sets of their square, rectangular, large oval, and small oval sizes. If you’re like me, most of the baking you do is for other people–coworkers, parties, bake sales, baby [...]

• Salted Caramel Shortbread Bars

  Hilary

  22 Apr 2012 | 8:07 pm

  I first saw these bars on Pinterest, then my coworker’s girlfriend made them but I couldn’t try them because it was Passover, and now that the holiday is over and I’m actually in town again for a few weeks, I finally found the time to make them. These bars are INSANE. The recipe calls for [...]

• Mini Egg Stuffed Sugar Cookies

  Hilary

  26 Mar 2012 | 11:10 am

  Thanks to Hershey’s, I received my very first ever Easter basket in the mail! For most people, this probably isn’t a big deal, but for me, it was huge! Being Jewish, I don’t celebrate Easter, thus I’ve never had an Easter basket. I happen to love Easter candy, so receiving this basket (that I customized) [...]

• Take 5 Candy Bar Pie

  Hilary

  14 Mar 2012 | 2:08 pm

  Happy Pi(e) Day! Have you ever had a Take 5 candy bar? It’s one of those treats that satisfies any salty sweet craving you may have because it’s filled with pretzels, caramel, peanuts, and peanut butter then covered in chocolate. Yes, it’s as amazing as it sounds. Needless to say, when I saw Brown Eyed [...]

• Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies

  Hilary

  12 Feb 2012 | 10:11 pm

  Wanting to make something easy to bring to the office for Valentine’s Day, I decided to finally give this recipe from Smitten Kitchen a whirl. Not needing any special ingredients, I made the dough the day before, whipped up a batch of the cream filling I used for the Homemade Oreos, sandwiched the cookies together, [...]

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  Baking Bites

• Bites from other Blogs

  Nicole

  16 May 2012 | 9:15 am

  Strawberry season is here for the summer and there are lots of ways to put those juicy berries to good use. One way is in Tide and Thyme‘s Strawberry Yogurt Cake. This moist bundt cake is packed with bright, red berries that give each slice a very summery look. It is flavored with a bit of lemon and  vanilla, which compliment the strawberries nicely. It is a rich and satisfying cake, made with butter, yogurt and buttermilk, and would make a good base for other berry cakes, as well. The Creme Brulee Donuts that I Am A Food Blog look completely irresistible. The classic french custard…

• Chef’n Stem Gem, reviewed

  Nicole

  15 May 2012 | 5:10 pm

  The hull is the leafy stem of the strawberry and the small part of the fruit that it is attached to. This part of the berry always needs to be removed before cooking with them, or chopping them up for a salad or other dish, and there are several ways to go about it. You can simply chop off the whole top of the berry, or you can use a small paring knife to cut out the hull. I usually use the paring knife method, but was tempted into trying out the Chef’n Stem Gem on a recent trip to the kitchen store. The Chef’n Stem Gem is a neat little strawberry huller that looks like a berry…

• Nordicware Summer Series 3D Cookie Cutters

  Nicole

  15 May 2012 | 9:09 am

  Cookies are associated more strongly with fall and winter – thanks to the Christmas holiday where cookies are an absolute staple – than they are with summertime. This is a shame because the summer can be a fine time to bake cookies. The days are longer, so we usually feel like we have a little extra free time and, if you have kids around, you can get some extra helping hands to shape and decorate them. Nordicware’s  Summer Series 3D Cookie Cutters is a summer themed cookie cutter set that allows you to make three dimensional cookies that can stand up on their own. The set…

• Two Tone Coffee Biscotti

  Nicole

  14 May 2012 | 5:32 pm

  I was always a fan of the Caramel Macciato Biscotti from Starbucks. They were inexpensive (less than $1) and made a great snack with a cup of coffee. I also really liked their unusual two-tone look. These cookies were recently discontinued by the coffee company in favor of some more traditional looking biscotti, so I decided make up a batch of two tone biscotti myself as a nod to them – and so I could have some freshly baked biscotti with my coffee at home! These biscotti have two layers, one coffee flavored and one vanilla flavored. To get the two layered effect in my biscotti, I made…

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  Cream Puffs In Venice

• One of the Very Best

  admin

  5 May 2012 | 3:34 pm

  When it comes to baking or cooking, I try to avoid using the "best" moniker. In my opinion, there's always a better chocolate chip cookie recipe, pancake recipe or roast chicken recipe waiting just around the corner. So when I say that this Almond Olive Oil Cake from Serious Eats is one of the best cakes that I have ever baked and eaten, I'm serious. I mean it. It's one of the very best ever. So what's so great about this cake? For starters, it's a Gina De Palma recipe. I am a tremendous fan of De Palma's. Her book, Dolce Italiano, is one of my most treasured cookbooks. I admire both her…

• Magazine Mondays: Paris in the Spring

  admin

  30 Apr 2012 | 9:12 pm

  Something is going on. While I have a deep fondness for Paris ever since my trip there in 2010, the past few weeks have been filled with an almost unbearable longing to go back. Maybe it's the cover of the latest issue of Bon Appétit. Maybe it's the promise of spring. Maybe it's all the French cheese I've been eating. Whatever it is, I want to go back. Desperately. This longing wasn't helped when I opened Issue 116 of Fine Cooking only to come across an article by Dorie Greenspan that included a recipe for Vanilla-Bean Sablé Cookies. Have you ever heard of Punitions? They are buttery-crisp…

• Waffling.

  admin

  26 Apr 2012 | 8:47 pm

  It is still amazing to me that there was a time when I regularly skipped breakfast. It seems almost unfathomable that there was a previous me that had so little regard for what is now such an important part of my day. The importance of breakfast is often measured in nutritional value; it's the most important meal of the day, etc., etc. I measure the value of breakfast in more emotional terms. Breakfast is like my first and biggest meeting of the day: the meeting with myself. Now I don't want to give the (mistaken) impression that my breakfasts are grandiose. I'm just like most other people.

• Magazine Mondays: Have a Cookie.

  admin

  23 Apr 2012 | 8:44 pm

  I could bake cookies forever. Endless recipes. Endless variations. Endless yummy. Cookies, in my humble opinion, don't require a lot of commitment. A cake is commitment. A pie is commitment. Cookies, not so much commitment. Think of those lovely cookie trays you see at parties or better yet, the mind-boggling tables and tables of cookies you see at wedding showers (that's how we roll at Italian wedding showers). You don't have to eat all the cookies on one tray or in one plate. You can pick one from here, one from there and still have room for 20 more. I love cookies. In my repertoire, the…

• Happy Easter! Buona Pasqua!

  admin

  8 Apr 2012 | 9:03 am

  From my family to yours, I'd like to wish everyone the happiest of Easters! Our day started with a most delicious Hot Cross Bun Loaf (from this book). I hope that wherever you are there is sunshine, family, friends and good food!

• 

  Cupcake Project

• Muffin Tin Chef Signed Copy Giveaway

  14 May 2012 | 8:32 pm

  Last week, I shared two recipes inspired by Matt Kadey's book, Muffin Tin Chef: potato and egg cupcakes and stuffed French toast cupcakes.  This week, I'm giving away a signed copy of the book so one lucky reader can explore 99 other ideas! I'm using Rafflecopter to run this giveaway. It's something new to me (you may have seen it on other blogs), and I hope that you will find it simple to use. Let me know what you think in the comments! a Rafflecopter giveaway

• French Toast Cupcakes Stuffed with Peaches and Mascarpone

  10 May 2012 | 7:28 pm

  For my second recipe inspired by Muffin Tin Chef (my first was potato and egg cupcakes, a cupcake version of Matt's Parmesan hashbrowns), I put the Cupcake Project spin on his French toast made in muffin cups.  I stuffed the French toast with brown sugar coated peaches and mascarpone cheese and topped them with fresh whipped cream and edible flowers.   Although I developed this stuffed French toast recipe with a traditional family Mother's Day brunch in mind, it was the gaggle of gals in my book club that got to enjoy these stuffed French toast cupcakes - with wine, cheese, and…

• Cookies Made with Hard-Boiled Egg Whites - It Works and It's Fantastic!

  9 May 2012 | 6:49 pm

  I love a chocolate chip cookie that lives in the sweet spot between hard and crispy and soft and chewy - a cookie that is good with a glass of milk (but doesn't require one) and that gently crumbles in my mouth, but doesn't fall apart in my hand if I hug it too hard.  These chocolate chip cookies fit the bill.  Their flavor - sweet and salty with just the right amount of chips - hits the mark as well. The taste and texture aren't the only things that set these chocolate chip cookies apart from the crowd; it's their surprising ingredient - hard-boiled egg whites - that makes them so…

• Potato and Egg Cupcakes

  8 May 2012 | 3:02 pm

  I recently received a review copy of the book Muffin Tin Chef by Matt Kadey.  If I wrote the book, I would have called it Cupcake Tin Chef.  Other than that, I wouldn't have changed a thing.  The book is filled with ideas (and when I say filled, I mean that there are 101 ideas there) for sweet and savory dishes to make in cute single-serving sizes.  I've loved Matt's blog, Muffin Tin Mania, for years, and the book is now a valued addition to my collection. This week, I'm going to feature two recipes that I've made inspired by Muffin Tin Chef (I've also got a book giveaway…

• Deviled Egg Frosting

  6 May 2012 | 10:00 pm

  The best part of deviled eggs (if you like them at all - they are definitely a love/hate food) is the whipped up yolk.  The whites serve only as a rubbery delivery mechanism for yolky goodness.  Why must deviled eggs be served on egg whites?  Why can't they be served on, say, cupcakes?  They can! Like its savory counterpart, deviled egg frosting starts with hard boiled egg yolks.  But, instead of lightening them up with mayonnaise, the frosting uses heavy whipping cream.  It's sweetened with the addition of powdered sugar and thickened with butter. The classic…

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  David Lebovitz

• Chocolate-Prune Cake

  David

  14 May 2012 | 1:24 am

  A while back, there was a spate of books about how to ‘sneak’ ingredients that are ‘healthy’ into food for your kids, to trick them into eating better. (Raymond Sokolov wrote an excellent rebuttal to that.) And recently there have been a few books written about how kids in France eat, and behave, better than their counterparts elsewhere. I can’t really comment on them in-depth because I haven’t read the books, but I do know two things from my own observations. Continue Reading Chocolate-Prune Cake...

• Restaurant Alain Ducasse

  David

  11 May 2012 | 3:07 am

  Uncharacteristically, I’ll spare you the specifics, but I need to catch up on about 147 hours of sleep. And while we’re at it, I could use a hug. And since the former isn’t necessarily easy to come by here, as is the latter, I was embrassé by dinner at Alain Ducasse restaurant. While it’s been tempting to remove the “sweet life” byline from my header until things return to normal, since one of the sweeter sides of Paris is an occasional foray into fine dining, I dusted off my lone, non-dusty outfit, and rode the métro to a swankier part of town. When I…

• Turkey Melon

  David

  7 May 2012 | 4:22 am

  Not long ago, I mentioned the Lamb Melons I saw at a butcher stand at the Marché d’Anvers in Paris. Since it’s an afternoon market, I thought it might be fun to mosey over there at my leisure and pick one up for Sunday lunch. However I was surprised to see the market completely packed. Since there are less than a few dozen stands, it’s not surprising I suppose. Plus we had a holiday weekend ahead of us. I did my usual quick scan of everything and found the produce selection rather limited, although there were a few interesting things here and there. I picked up a…

• Kouign Amann at Le Grenier à Pain

  David

  6 May 2012 | 5:57 am

  Today is election day in France, and la République has the choice of re-electing the current President, or ushering in a new one. For people who usually have a lot of opinions, my French friends aren’t all that enthused about either one of the fellows. One is hoping to come into office, promising to represent Changement, and the other came into office five years ago, vowing changement, too. Sound familiar? The polls opened at 8am and the only change I was feeling was in my pocket, as I roamed the streets looking for a baguette. However instead of the buttery, yeasty aromas wafting…

• Tzatziki

  David

  3 May 2012 | 2:34 am

  A week or so ago, my French other half was under the weather. And it wasn’t until that point that I learned that not everyone understands the healing power of chicken soup. So I made a Poule au pot (chicken cooked in the pot) with carrots and little bits of pastina (pearl-shaped pasta) floating around in the broth, and stopped at the market to pick up a bunch of fresh dill to chop into it. Fresh herbs are widely used in French cooking and available in Paris markets, although some are hard to find, especially oregano, marjoram, and sage. Others, like thyme, rosemary, and tarragon are…

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  Jim's Chocolate Mission

• May 16th: Midweek Mini: Cadbury Mini Rolls Strawberry & Blueberry

  Jim

  16 May 2012 | 1:00 am

  Kcal 125 Fat 5.5g Fat(sats) 2.8g Carbs 17.0g (per mini roll) It's probably not a good sign when I say that I'm already sick to death of seeing everything and anything getting repackaged into British themed wrappers. If you think I'm over exaggerating take a look at the the supermarket shelves next time you go shopping - it's a sea of red, white and blue and in my opinion it's all very counter productive. Think about it ... the packaging of all these items has been changed to disrupt the norm, catch the eyes of the shopper and ultimately STAND OUT! Well if anything I would say this new…

• May 14th: Ritter Sport Summer Editions 2012

  Jim

  14 May 2012 | 1:00 am

  The arrival of summer means a number of things to me: holidays, sun (touch wood!!), Olympics, beer gardens ... oh yes, of course, the Ritter Sport Summer Limited Edition bars (2009 - See HERE,  2010 - See HERE and 2011 - See HERE) My friends from Berlin have been at it again and as if it wasn't enough for our German friends likely celebrating a Euro 2012 victory this summer (they are my tip anyway!!) they have also got three Ritter bars to enjoy. As you will see below two out of the three released for summer this year are the same from 2011 with the Ritter Sport Amarena Kirsch and Ritter…

• May 11th: Theo Chocolate

  Jim

  11 May 2012 | 1:00 am

  Again before I start the review today I must thank dedicated Jim's ChocolateMission reader Thea for providing me with these bars you see below. Thea was recently in America and very kindly sent me some of the chocolates that she brought back to the UK. Among her haul she managed to find a brand not featured on JCM before - Theo Chocolate. A little research on the internet (actually a look on their own website HERE), revealed that Theo Chocolate are a Fair Trade, US made, organic producer. They state on their site that they are 'Proud to be the First Organic, Fair Trade, Bean-To-Bar…

• May 9th: Nestle Rolo Bar

  Jim

  9 May 2012 | 1:00 am

  Kcal 509 Fat 26.6g Fat(sats) 15.3g Carbs 62.6g (per 100.0g) As soon as I saw the announcement of the product featured today I knew it was destined for a 'Midweek Mini' slot. Writing a full-on review for what is simply a reformatted product was something even I couldn't do, not even with my tendency to go in to way too much detail and take this all a little seriously. In my attempt to be much cooler and Lassiez-Faire I will keep this short, sweet and to the point :-) This new 100.0g Rolo bar came described as a 'chocolate block with a caramel centre' and was on an introductory £1.00…

• May 7th: Glico Mikado Daim

  Jim

  7 May 2012 | 1:00 am

  Kcal 11 Fat 0.4g Carbs 1.6g (per 2.3g stick) Well I never!!! Never did I envisage there would be a day where I would be writing the following ... 'allow me to introduce a flavour of Pocky/Mikado that the Japanese DON'T currently have'!! Yes folks, in what is a complete turn-up for the books the UK has defied the odds and has managed to find a flavour of these moreish crunchy biscuit sticks that they aren't currently offering in the Far East (to my knowledge anyway haha). These new Daim flavoured Mikado caught me totally unawares sitting on the snacks shelf in Tesco - a nice surprise I have to…

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  Cookie baker lynn

• Fittin' In

  11 May 2012 | 12:12 pm

  In high school the ultimate goal was to blend. Standing out for any reason was a social faux pas. We didn't have an official school uniform, but we might as well have. The accepted look was a turtleneck with Levi cords (corduroy pants). Wrangler cords were not OK. Sears cords were right out. The hair was worn long, straight, parted in the middle, with two wings pulled back on the sides and held in place with plastic barrettes.Somewhere in about my junior year I realized this was lame.Why obsess about conforming to the ideals of  other people, most of whom I either didn't know or didn't…

• It's Not Easy Living With Someone Who's Green

  22 Apr 2012 | 10:39 am

  A friend recently sent me this in an email and I had to laugh because it describes my father so well. He was green way before there was such a thing as an Earth Day. Back then we called it being cheap, or on kinder days, "thrifty."It's amazing how much thrifty and being green have in common. We had one car. But my parents didn't fight over who got to drive it. My dad walked, jogged, or rode his bike to work. My mother walked to her volunteer job at the hospital. The car was for grocery shopping and car trips.We made our own lunches and took them to school, bringing back the lunch box,…

• Of Spiders And Muffins

  14 Apr 2012 | 7:37 am

  It's a well known fact in my family that I hate/fear/loathe spiders. I hate their legs, their webs, and the way they scuttle around, jump at you, or drop unexpectedly on your neck or head. (Excuse me a minute while I slap repeatedly at my head and neck because that creepy feeling I got just now might have been a spider.) I know they have their place in the grand design of the universe, but my place in that same design happens to be standing over them with a heavy shoe poised for the kill. But that's only if no one else is in the house. If my husband is home, then he's the one to gallantly…

• Happy EASTER!

  8 Apr 2012 | 8:30 am

  A few days ago the mail lady, who is very sweet, said to my son as he retrieved the mail, "Happy Egg Day!" He came in the house quite confused. "Mom," he said, with a crease between his brows, "what's Egg Day?"Well, I tried to gently explain that for some non-Christians, Easter is about eggs and bunnies and candy and an excuse to buy new clothes. That's what I said on the outside. On the inside I hit the ceiling. I'm so tired of having holy days co-opted for commercial purposes. Christmas is gone. It's all about Santa and presents. People around the world who are confirmed Buddhists, Hindus,…

• Doghouse Gifts

  14 Mar 2012 | 10:28 am

  Right before Christmas someone showed me a commercial, the premise of which was that men had to be very careful about the gifts they gave women because the wrong gift would land them in the doghouse. Apparently, demeaning, degrading gifts like household appliances or diet aids were the worst and the only foolproof gift a man could give was jewelry. This got me thinking about what kind of gift my husband could possibly give me that would merit that kind of reproof.My husband is very sweet and thoughtful and tries to give me gifts that he knows will please me. So when he gave me a washer…

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  CakeJournal | How to make beautiful cakes, sweet cupcakes and delicious cookies

• How to make a teddy bear cake topper part 1

  Louise

  10 May 2012 | 3:34 pm

  Here is a tutorial on how you can make a sweet teddy bear cake topper. If you want you can place it on a fondant disc for easy removal before cutting the cake. I hope that you will enjoy my teddy bear tutorial. Let’s start with part 1. This is what I use: Rolled fondant, alternative use gum paste Tylo powder (CMC) 1 cocktail stick Quilting tool (PME) Ball or bone tool Bulbous cone (PME) or another tool with a pointy end Edible glue + small brush Food gel paste Tiny amount of black rolled fondant White petal dust + a few drops of either clear alcohol or lemon extract Super fine brush…

• Star Wars birthday cake

  Louise

  14 Apr 2012 | 2:28 pm

  My son turned 8 this week and he’s a big fan of the Star Wars universe. Today we had a Star Wars themed birthday party with goodies like: Yoda soda, Vader water, Wookie cookies, Jedi Starfighter pizza, Jedi training school and of course a cake! I baked a chocolate chip cake and decorated it with blue rolled fondant, Star Wars logo and light sabers. Happy Caking! Louise

• Happy Easter from CakeJournal

  Louise

  7 Apr 2012 | 7:32 pm

  I thought that I would share some sweet and sugary Easter cookies with you that I made back in 2008. Both egg and baby chick cookies are all decorated with royal icing in pretty pastel colors. The cookie baskets, boxes and the decorated papier-mache Easter egg are all home crafted and decorated. I just love sweet wrapping I wish you all a Happy Easter! Happy Caking! Louise

• One Easter cake, three designs, part 3

  Louise

  6 Apr 2012 | 10:48 am

  The last of my three Easter cake tutorials. A cute little Easter bunny cake! I have made a fondant grass border instead of a ribbon this time. This Easter bunny cake would be a fun project to make for kids, since the bunny is made using basic tools. If you like, you can add more decorations to the cake like small flowers and Easter eggs in the grass? Again, scale down the design to a smaller cake by leaving out the “Happy Easter” lettering on the cake. This Easter bunny cake would be perfect together with my bunny cookie pop’s. This is what I use: 10″ fondant covered…

• One Easter cake, three designs, part 2

  Louise

  4 Apr 2012 | 6:14 am

  I am back with the second design for a sweet and easy Easter cake. I have used a fondant covered cake board this time. Instead of a styrofoam fondant covered cake dummy this time. I hope, that you can visualize the design on a “real cake”? The lettering is the same as I used in the Easter cake part 1 tutorial. A smaller sized cake (6″/8″) can be used, but there may not be enough space for the “Happy Easter” lettering on the cake. Also you may need to use a smaller egg cutter too. Use the colors, that you like the best, for this project. This is what I use:…

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  Ice Cream Ireland

• Guess what flavour might be coming back?

  Kieran

  3 May 2012 | 11:45 am

  I’ve been playing with making cookies to try to bring back our very popular Brioscaí flavour. There should be a trial in the shops soon. Let me know what you think! Bookmark to (click here): Hide Sites

• Fuji X Pro 1 – Close, but…

  Kieran

  9 Apr 2012 | 11:54 am

  I needed to take some photos in Dublin, and my camera gear is in Kerry, so I went into the lovely folks at Conn’s Cameras, asking to rent a Nikon D700. All were out, so I inquired if there was any chance they’d rent me the new Fuji X Pro 1. There’s been a lot of buzz around this camera, and I was dying to get my hands on it. For me, a lighter, smaller camera that takes great shots and manages low light has been something I’ve been waiting for ages to materialize. An all around camera – something to shoot ice cream and people – good quality but not exactly a…

• A Bit of a Facelift…

  Kieran

  13 Mar 2012 | 4:48 pm

  We’re doing a little bit of a rebrand, and I’d love your feedback – here’s our old and new logo. It’s extremely stressful for us to think about changing it, but we’ve had lots of feedback about our old logo being hard to read, especially in a supermarket context. What do you think? Is it an improvement?   PS. What about the colour? Bookmark to (click here): Hide Sites

• Pride in Irish Food and Vegetarian Heaven

  Kieran

  27 Feb 2012 | 1:32 pm

  This last week, I had two friends visiting from New York, and we decided that it was time to do some reckless eating, recession or no recession. We had a lovely stop in Dromoland and a meal of the usual high standard at the Charthouse in Dingle. Then we headed to Dublin for a return visit to Chapter One and Thornton’s in Dublin. In Ireland, although we’re proud of our scenery, our castles and our pubs, we still tend to be apologetic about food. Do we think Ireland remains backwards when it comes to good eating? I don’t. Last year’s culinary tour of France proved to me…

• John Street Wren

  Kieran

  16 Jan 2012 | 9:37 am

  Click here to view the embedded video. Sorry for the delay in posting this, but here’s the John Street Wren out on the day! Technorati tags: wren, dreoilí­n, day, St. Stephen, Dingle, Kerry Bookmark to (click here): Hide Sites

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  Simply Sweets Cake Studio, Scottsdale Phoenix, AZ -custom cakes, cupcakes & chocolates

• Cupcake Push-up Pops for a Bowling Party

  15 May 2012 | 5:49 pm

     We made these cupcake push-up pops for a 10th birthday hosted at the local bowling alley - decorated with rainbow sprinkles, topped with a candy sixlet with our colorful Happy Birthday stickers. We are excited to be partnering with Amy Miller Designs for our stickers and tags on our push-up pops, cupcakes and party favors.

• Fairies and Pirates

  15 May 2012 | 3:29 pm

  Our customer is having a Fairies and Pirates,  Peter Pan Party for her twins' birthday. The pirate cupcakes were topped with skull and crossbones, pirate swords and gold coins. The fairy cupcakes were iced with our glitter icing technique and topped with fairy wings.  

• Colorful Bow Topper for a 10th Birthday Cake

  15 May 2012 | 3:20 pm

     Love the colors on this cake - orange, yellow, pink and aqua. A little twist to our popular bows, this time with a few spirals.  

• Casino Themed Cupcake Tower

  4 May 2012 | 4:02 pm

     We created this cupcake tower for Camelback Desert School's Parent Organization's annual fundraiser All in for Kids. The casino themed event was held at the Ancala Country Club. The tower is a mix of standard and mini sized cupcakes and topped with a jumbo cupcake.

• 50th Birthday Cake for a Girls' Birthday Weekend Trip

  4 May 2012 | 11:41 am

     This cake was ordered for two women celebrating their 50th birthday. A group of friends traveled to Scottsdale for a fun girls weekend to celebrate the birthdays. Cake is iced with a light blue tinted butterecream decorated with a scroll pattern and we topped the cake with a large yellow bow made from fondant We delivered this cake to the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch

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  Cupcakes Take The Cake

• A Cupcake Proposal

  16 May 2012 | 12:41 pm

  Via TumblrA Cupcake Proposal in honor of the wedding themed posts today!

• Say "I Do" with a beautiful custom wedding cupcake topper

  16 May 2012 | 10:47 am

  Keeping up with the wedding cupcake theme, here are 5 variations on the I Do cupcake topper, all for sale on Etsy! Vanilla fondant edible cupcake toppers by Your Cupcake StoryI Do cupcake sticks in two versions by Vintage Twee (click here for pink) Fondant topper assortment (various colors available) with "I Do" in hearts by Parker's Flour PatchPersonalized wooden heart toppers by Rustic Chic Wedding Gifts & DecorationsMixing it up a little, these toppers say "we do," by Auntie's Jammies

• Well dressed bridal gown and groom tux cupcakes

  16 May 2012 | 9:42 am

  These pretty wedding cupcakes are by custom cupcake company Swirled With Love Cupcakery in Telford, UK, via their Facebook page. So elegant! They can be reached at swirledwithlove at gmail.com or 011 44 7803 175073. Email

• Magnolia Bakery opening soon in Kuwait, plus plans for Doha, Abu Dhabi, Lebanon, Japan and Russia

  15 May 2012 | 6:32 pm

  This just in, from the Facebook page of world famous Magnolia Bakery: "Magnolia Bakery is opening soon in Kuwait! (And Doha, Abu Dhabi, Lebanon, Japan and Russia, among other international locations.)" This location will be at Al Hamra Mall in Kuwait City and you can follow @Magnoliakuwait on Twitter for more details (@magnoliabakery is their regular Twitter account). More details from a February ArabianBusiness.com article: The brand, known for its classic American desserts, will remain focused on its current menu, while developing a few specific items for each culture, Steve Abrams, owner…

• Coconut Cardamom Cupcakes with White Chocolate Ganache and Baked Pineapples

  15 May 2012 | 4:07 pm

  I love how these cupcakes look! They're coconut and cardamon cupcakes with whipped white chocolate ganache and baked pineapples on top! I love how the baked pineapples look like flowers. These cupcakes were made by Le Fabuleux Destin du Chocolat. The post is written in Spanish, but there is a Google translate button on the right side. Check it out!

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  Cookie Madness

• Easy Chocolate Hazelnut Swirl Brownies

  Anna

  16 May 2012 | 8:31 am

  As if one new product discovery wasn’t enough, yesterday I found two more – JIF’s new chocolate hazelnut spread and McCormick’s new hazelnut extract. Talk about a banner week at the grocery store! I put both items in the cart without a second thought as to how I’d use them, but I knew I would. [...]

• Sweet & Salty Snack Mix Cookies

  Anna

  14 May 2012 | 8:00 am

  I never latched on to the new Pretzel M&Ms…..something about the pretzels displacing the chocolate bothered me, even though I very much like pretzels with chocolate. But now there’s this. The M&Ms people (or maybe this is all Ms. Green’s doing since she’s featured so prominently on the bag)  have mixed their candy with almonds, [...]

• Happy Mother’s Day Cream Cheese Danish Muffins

  Anna

  13 May 2012 | 7:43 am

  Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! My gift to you is a photo of the inside of a Cream Cheese Danish Muffin and a tip. If you’re craving a Danish, buy a Danish. If a stiff, slightly dry muffin with a Danish filling and a center that looks like this sounds good, make the [...]

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  Pink Cake Box Wedding Cakes & more

• Snow Leopard Birthday Cake

  Anne Heap

  14 May 2012 | 9:44 pm

  Snow Leopard Birthday Cake Chris reached out to us and asked if we could design a special cake for his wife Christine’s 40th birthday. Christine is a veterinarian who loves cats. Years ago, she did some work at the Cape May Zoo, and loves animals of all types. Of all the animals, her favorite is the Snow Leopard. In addition, she is a huge fan of the show Deadliest Catch and loves everything about crabs including crab fishing and eating crabs. As Chris said, crabs in the theme is an absolute must! Snow Leopard cake with crab in his mouth So we worked with Chris to combine two of his…

• The Italian Sandwich Cake

  Anne Heap

  13 May 2012 | 11:35 am

  Italian Cake Sandwich Our favorite sandwich shop in Denville has reopened! Like many stores in Denville along Main Street, Sergio & Co. was hit hard when Hurricane Irene arrived back in August of 2011. Damage was extensive enough that Sergio’s had to renovate the entire store. And after many months of waiting they have finally reopened! The staff at Pink Cake Box wanted to help celebrate the reopening with this Italian sandwich cake. We all rely on Sergio’s delicious food and could not wait for the reopening! Ham, Prosciutto, Mortadella, Fresh Moz, Roasted Red Peppers,…

• Happy Mother’s Day!

  Anne Heap

  13 May 2012 | 8:16 am

  Happy Mother's Day

• Anthony’s Surprise 30th Birthday Cake

  Anne Heap

  12 May 2012 | 4:38 pm

  Anthony's Surprise 30th Birthday Cake Ashley, one of our favorite customers and biggest supporters, reached out to us for to help design a cake for her husband Anthony’s surprise 30th birthday party.  We’ve done some fantastic cakes for Ashley and her husband over the years including some of our all-time most popular -  the Yorkie Cake and Tropical Wedding cake. Elements from both cakes where incorporated into Anthony’s birthday cake including their beloved Yorkie Juicy!  The top of his cake included a replica of Anthony with his blue macaw Kingston perched on his…

• Whimsical Wedding Shower Cake

  Anne Heap

  11 May 2012 | 8:28 pm

  Whimsical Wedding Shower Cake Charlene reached out to us to help create a topsy turvy cake for Diana’s bridal shower in Short Hills, NJ. The top of the cake includes the soon to be husband and wife enjoying a delicious looking salad with a 6-pack and their calico cat. Charlene worked with us to ensure we worked in all the fine details of the couple down to the way Diana parts her hair. The top tier of the cake is covered in celadon green fondant with another feline climbing up the cake. Pink coral flowers along with green grass decorate the base of the tier. The bottom tier is covered…

• 

  Beantown Baker

• Giant M&M Cookies

  Jen

  16 May 2012 | 8:39 am

  Everyone loves a great cookie. Especially one that's full of bright and colorful mini M&Ms. These cookies are as big as your hand and have a perfect crispyness around the edges and chewiness in the center. I've been on a big cookie kick recently. I think they're my latest favorite dessert type. I decided to make a list of some of the things I love about cookies. Cookies are portable. You can just grab a cookie and go. Or set them out and not have to worry about forks and plates or a knife to cut portions. Cookies (or cookie dough) can be frozen. I like to make a double batch…

• Beer and Chocolate Pairing at Equal Exchange and a Giveaway

  Jen

  15 May 2012 | 11:00 am

  Hubby and I hopped on the train last week on a rainy afternoon and headed down to North Station. We were chatting along the way about what a beer and chocolate tasting would be like. Would it really be just beer and chocolate? Seemed too much like a wine and chocolate pairing, only weirder... Equal Exchange Cafe, Boston, MA After getting off the train, we headed over to Equal Exchange Cafe to see what this beer and chocolate pairing was all about. The cafe was a cute little space that we agreed Hubby should check out some time when he needs a coffee in the North Station area. He usually grabs…

• Baked Brie with Grape Balsamic Compote

  Jen

  14 May 2012 | 8:01 am

  Today I bring you guys the last of my purple food posts. It took a couple weeks, but we made it! This is another recipe that I'm pretty proud of. I rarely make up my own recipes and this is one of those rare exceptions. For whatever reason, the idea of using grapes to make purple food didn't cross my mind until the day before the party. I had put baked brie on the menu and had planned to make a blueberry compote to put on top. But then it hit me - use grapes (duh!) So I used this blueberry sauce as an inspiration for the compote. I wanted it to be thicker, so I bumped up the amount of…

• Cupcake Camp Boston 2012

  Jen

  10 May 2012 | 9:25 am

  Cupcake Camp is coming back to Boston! This is one of my favorite events of the year. For the third year in a row, I have had the pleasure of serving on the planning committee for Cupcake Camp Boston. We have over 20 professional baker and 50 amateur bakers signed up to bring cupcakes!! Thanks to our lovely sponsors, Whole Foods Market and The Great Boston Cupcake Crawl, we will be able to donate nearly 100% of the proceeds collected at the door to our benefciary, Lovin' Spoonfuls. If you haven't heard about Lovin' Spoonfuls, they are a non-profit organization that facilitates the recovery…

• Pimento Cheese Burger

  Jen

  9 May 2012 | 5:00 am

  Today I'm participating in my second virtual baby shower of the week. Today's baby shower is for Erin from Erin's Food Files, which is being hosted by Jessica from The Novice Chef. Erin is also due in a few weeks and since she lives Nashville, the theme for the shower is Southern food. I'll be the first to admit, I know very little about Southern food. I had no idea where to start. Erin was the first one to introduce me to cheesecake cakes (it all started with Lincoln's Cake, which I also made. Since then she's made a peanut butter-chocolate, and Oreo version and…

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  Tartelette

• Food Photography Workshop In Charleston - A Recap.

  16 May 2012 | 11:41 am

  Thank you all for your words of comfort and virtual hugs. I came to you from a very vulnerable place and your words held me strong throughout some pretty dark hours. Some comfort came from learning...

• Holding...

  13 May 2012 | 8:06 am

  Today holds all the promises of a good day. It is my birthday. It is Mother's Day here in the US. And yet, it is a difficult day for my family yet again. In the last 5 months we have had to say...

• Squash Blossom Quiche With Feta & Basil

  9 May 2012 | 4:19 pm

  My voice is raspy. My eyelids are heavy. My clothes are still in a pile by my bed. And I still have to find my slippers. Yet, my heart is full, my memories wonderful and my mind is a big mumble...

• Creamy Polenta With Russian Kale & Shitake Mushrooms

  30 Apr 2012 | 6:00 pm

  I just absolutely love this time of year. The temperatures may be higher than Spring feels like in other part of the world but we are still (and I insist on still) a few weeks away from scorching...

• Creamy Salmon Bisque & Rhubarb Tarte Tatin

  24 Apr 2012 | 6:21 pm

  A little update before I talk Salmon Bisque and Rhubarb Tarte Tatin...The workshop in Ireland sold out so fast that we decided to exceptionally open up four more spots. There are three remaining. So,...

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  Baking Obsession

• Two Peas in a Pod Cake

  Vera

  29 Apr 2012 | 11:44 pm

  Recently I had a rare opportunity of making a cake for a twin-baby shower. Not only I had a pleasure of baking and decorating the cake for the event, but I was also invited to the party. Who would have thought that sleepless nights and worrisome care of two newborns could have such a wonderful [...]

• Puff Pastry Strawberry Coconut Cookies

  Vera

  26 Apr 2012 | 10:42 pm

  These are super easy and quickly-done (provided you’ve made the puff pastry in advance or bought it) cookies that go well with ice-cream and fruit salad. Makes two dozen Ingredients: 1 lb puff pastry (home-made or good-quality all-butter store-bought) 2/3 cups strawberry jam (or raspberry) ½ cup unsweetened finely shredded coconut tiny amount of egg white to secure the [...]

• Alduin the World Eater Dragon Cake

  Vera

  2 Apr 2012 | 11:39 pm

  The World Eater is now facing danger to be eaten! When we asked our son to make a wish-list for his upcoming birthday, the only thing he wrote there was to have an Alduin cake for his birthday party. Under no circumstances could I decline his request. It turned out by far the most time consuming [...]

• Carrot Orange Muffins

  Vera

  23 Mar 2012 | 12:35 am

  I bet everyone has their tried-and-true carrot cake/muffins recipe, but I will still share mine since I believe this recipe is pretty awesome. I put a little bit of banana puree in, not too much to turn them into banana muffins, but just enough to make them extra moist and fragrant. I like using fresh [...]

• Whole Wheat Black Olive Paste Focaccia

  Vera

  6 Mar 2012 | 1:02 am

  It makes really nice, earthy bread. This focaccia was inspired by Carol Field’s whole wheat focaccia. Ingredients: 1¼ cups warm water 1 tsp sugar 2 tsp granulated dry yeast ¼ cup black olive paste (homemade or good-quality store-bought) 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 2¾ cups stone-ground whole-wheat flour (you might need to add a bit more, up to [...]

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  RecipeGirl.com

• New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

  Lori Lange

  14 May 2012 | 5:00 am

  I’ve been eyeing this famous New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe for a very long time now.  First published in the New York Times on July 9, 2008, this recipe took the internet by storm when David Leite experimented with baking cookie dough that had a chance to rest in the refrigerator for a given number of hours.  Leite described that refrigeration allows for the dough and other ingredients to fully absorb the liquid, resulting in a drier dough baking to a better consistency.  Leite shared that even Chocolate Chip Cookie inventor Ruth Wakefield noted in her 1953 Toll House…

• Green Chile, Bacon and Cheese Egg Bake

  Lori Lange

  11 May 2012 | 5:00 am

  Dear Loving Family of Mine, I’d really like a break from cooking on Mother’s Day this year. And I’d like to spend the day with you, if you don’t mind. I figure I work pretty hard all year long to be a good wife and mother, so here’s what I’d like my Mother’s Day to look like this year. I’d like to wake up in the morning and crawl out of bed whenever I feel like it. And I’d like a bit of pampering… all day long. First, I’d like to eat breakfast that has been prepared just for me… in my own kitchen. Something like this…

• Ginger Beer Lemonade

  Lori Lange

  9 May 2012 | 5:00 am

  First of all, you should know that Ginger Beer is not really “beer.”  It took me a a couple of hours of tweeting and googling to verify that.  I guess I just couldn’t let go of the fact that it’s called, “Ginger Beer.”  I thought for sure it must be a ginger-flavored beer!  It’s actually a nonalcoholic (gluten-free) ginger ale brewed with fresh ginger, honey, pineapple, lemon, lime and spices to create a carbonated beverage.   You can put your zip code in the Store Locator to see if they sell this good stuff near you.  I do know that it’s…

• Monster Cookies

  Lori Lange

  7 May 2012 | 5:00 am

  This post should be titled, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind!” or “Hiding Cookies in Your Freezer is a Good Idea!” Or better yet, “When Cookies Are in My Freezer, I Don’t Remember They’re There!” Only I’d by lying to myself. I bake cookies and put them in little ziploc baggies and place them in the freezer for instant munching for the boys in my house. I tell myself that since they’re in the freezer, they’re totally safe. Safe from ME. Safe from my strong desire to eat something sweet at a certain time of day.  That little trick…

• Enchiladas (20 Recipes to Share)

  Lori Lange

  4 May 2012 | 5:00 am

  Hooray for Enchiladas!  I’ve decided to make an enchilada recipe for dinner tonight… one that I’ve made a zillion times and have never gotten a photo of- Asparagus and Chicken Enchiladas.  My father used to make these enchiladas for me every time I came to visit.  They are so creamy and delicious, and I’m excited to (finally) try and snap a good photo.  Enchiladas aren’t the easiest of dishes to photograph.  They end up looking like a sloppy mess most of the time, even though they are incredibly delicious to eat.  Here are 20 fabulous enchiladas recipes…

• 

  Half Baked

• Mother's Day Brunch Menu

  12 May 2012 | 8:35 am

  Looking for some ideas for a Mother's Day brunch? I've rounded up a few recipes from the past and made up this Mother's Day Brunch menu. Happy Mother's Day! Smoked Salmon... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Biscuits, hot and fresh...anytime!

  9 May 2012 | 9:37 am

  I feel compelled to add a warning to proceed with caution to this post. I will just remind you that I am merely providing recipes and ideas here on Half Baked. What happens after that... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Lemon Thyme Cake

  29 Apr 2012 | 12:17 pm

  I made these cakes for a ladies group I spoke at about using herbs in cooking. Most of the women in the group were fairly familiar with cooking with herbs like thyme, but very few had ever used any... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Woodland Fairy Party and Giveaway

  23 Apr 2012 | 7:57 am

  Be warned this Woodland Fairy party just may be cute overload! My sister and I put together this party for my niece's 7th birthday. My sister made all the printables for the party and I made the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Kissin' Wears Out, Cookin' Don't!

  20 Apr 2012 | 9:33 pm

  My Mennonite grandmother used to say this all the time. It's a fairly common saying in Mennonite kitchens and one that always made laugh. Ten years ago today, Hubs and I got married. As I was... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• 

  Free Online Recipes | Free Recipes

• Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad Recipe

  Bobby

  16 May 2012 | 12:38 pm

  This chicken bacon ranch pasta salad is sure to be the highlight of any summer cook-out. I made this last week and it was gone within minutes, it was literally that good. This recipe consists of cooked chicken, crispy bacon, cheese, pasta, and numerous vegetables tossed with a ranch/mayonnaise dressing. This salad is an excellent way to use up left-over cooked chicken; you can either shred it or slice it into chunks. If you need to cook the chicken breasts, you can do so on the stove-top, the oven, or the grill. This delicious salad makes a perfect dish for summer. Enjoy. Ingredients: 1lb…

• Honey Garlic Pork Chops Recipe

  Bobby

  12 May 2012 | 5:25 pm

  One thing that I always enjoy grilling during the summer is honey garlic pork chops. This recipe uses boneless pork chops but you can use chops with the bone-in as well. The highlight of this recipe is the sauce which consists of honey, ketchup, garlic and soy sauce.  This delicious sauce is basted onto the pork chops during the grilling process and the end result is amazing. If you would prefer to use a different type of meat, this recipe would work with chicken as well. If you are looking for a simple and delicious recipe for the grill, give this one a try. Enjoy. Ingredients: 1 cup…

• Taco Burgers Recipe

  Bobby

  10 May 2012 | 3:12 pm

  With the nice weather upon us I decided to fire up the grill and make some delicious taco burgers. Taco burgers are basically hamburgers flavored with taco seasoning. The ground beef is mixed with taco seasoning, salsa, Doritos, salt and pepper. If you want to add a little heat, you can put some chopped jalapeno peppers into the hamburger mixture as well. I would recommend grilling these burgers but they could be cooked on the stove top as well. You can add whatever condiments you like onto the burgers such as guacamole, extra salsa, extra Doritos, tomatoes, sour cream, and lettuce. If you…

• Chicken Enchilada Pasta Recipe

  Bobby

  7 May 2012 | 2:35 pm

  Chicken enchilada pasta is a delicious and slightly spicy dish that is perfect for any night of the week. This recipe consists of ingredients such as shredded chicken, enchilada sauce, cheese, sour cream and various seasonings. If you want to save time, you can use a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken and shred it, or you can use leftover cooked chicken as well. The dish can be topped with a variety of different ingredients such as avocado, green onion, tomato, black olives, and sour cream. Whatever you like to put on your enchiladas or tacos will go great with this pasta dish. There is nothing…

• Kung Pao Tacos Recipe

  Bobby

  4 May 2012 | 1:24 pm

  These Kung Pao tacos are a combination of two of my favorite cuisines—Chinese and Mexican.  I first saw these on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and knew I had to make them right away. These are a very popular item on the menu of Don Chow Tacos in California. These tacos combine marinated chicken pieces, Kung Pao sauce, peanuts, onions, cilantro, and corn tortillas. I really found the mixture of Kung Pao and cilantro to be an extremely delicious and unique flavor. You can fry the chicken in the wok with just a little bit of oil while stir-frying or you can add about an inch of…

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  Bake My Day!

• Bread Baking Babes; Shepherd's Bread

  16 May 2012 | 7:33 am

  Another BBB edition which I'm hosting, yay!! Please bake along with us! Instructions on the bottom of the page! Lengthy post with the recipe and the pictures (will post pics of the finished loaves later, they're still on my camera and my camera is not where I am :-() so I'll try to keep this sweet and short just like the bread! Though I have to add: this is seriously goodlooking very good tasting bread! We are baking not as much a novel recipe instead we -or at least I- am revisiting a method which I really like but can cause some discussion or frustration.... Baking in a cloche! Discussion…

• Short break: Belgium

  5 May 2012 | 3:29 pm

  The quiet, the peace, nature... maybe you notice how lush and green it was? I am not the most talented gardener but I do know you need lots of water to keep all this green looking so fresh... Let's say we noticed that. Let's say we would have loved to go canoe-ing, it didn't seem like a good idea once we got there. Also we didn't get as much hiking done as we would have wanted to. We did see our share of ruins/fortified castles and visited a beautiful Cistercian monastery; l'Abbaye d'Orval. Outside the grounds of the newly build abbey are the ruins of the medieval abbey, dating back to the…

• Small big batch of scones in ABC Bakers

  1 May 2012 | 1:59 am

  Because I really wanted to try this recipe before I committed to making a big batch of scones... This ABC edition is about making scones. Remember we bake from Abby Dodge's book The Weekend Baker? So far I've made some pretty good recipes, had one or two bummers and this was again a hit. It's too bad I can't let you bite into them, they're wonderfully flaky and very very tasty. Kids "complained" they were almost cake like! Complained because I said they could try a little butter and blue berry jam on them but they also like them plain and I only made 6 so what were they supposed to do?

• We walked... a lot! / Rode Kruis Bloesemtocht

  22 Apr 2012 | 5:01 am

  The day after.... I can tell you that I am in love with my hiking boots! They saved my feet from blisters and sore spots, walked me through high wet grass and mud, kept me upright at the steep uphill slopes and the slippery bridges the Military Engineers laid out for us to cross the river. Despite the threatening rain and overcast day we took off to walk 12 miles yesterday morning. This hike lead us through orchards (not much blossom at the moment, I can imagine it must be beautiful when the weather behaves a little better.)  along the river  and over the river and this was a fun…

• What I’ve been up to lately

  10 Apr 2012 | 1:48 am

  Judging by the absence here  you’d say not much… Agreed I didn’t bake as much as I used to but I find that my family’s busy schedules take them away from lunching/dining at home and I hate to see my fresh baked bread going to waste. Then I took up on a new hobby  and that’s been eating away at my time as well. I have been sewing for years, ever since the boys were born. Sewing for little boys is fun and rewarding but that stops rather abruptly when they grow up. I don’t think they would want me to sew their chinos, jeans or sweaters.. So mainly I sew for me. Mostly I…

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  Sweet Tooth

• Cookbook Wish List

  Sweet Tooth

  12 May 2012 | 11:42 pm

  Every year amazing cookbooks get publish and poor little me get to make the hard decision which one to get first! Some of the books here admittedly have been published years ago but I just find them over my budget so from time to time I go to my local bookstore to check them out and drool over them.  This coming fall it seems like there are a LOT more to look forward too and I can't wait! If I have to choose the one I'm most excited about is the Bouchon Bakery cookbook and the Baked cookbook, their third one. I have both of their previous book and loves it so. 

• Beer Cupcakes

  Sweet Tooth

  15 Apr 2012 | 9:50 am

  I love cupcakes but since they are literary in every mall in the country, I prefer not to make cupcakes at home. No I don’t buy store bought either it just find them too common, if that makes sense. I must admit every pretty dolled up cupcakes I often see online or in the shelves always managed to draw me in, I get all gushy about their cuteness and the wonderful array of colour. But that’s about it, I don’t go crazy of wanting one unlike some of my friends, probably because I know how easy it is to make one and I find it more satisfying to enjoy something that I baked.

• Salted Chocolate Caramel Tart

  Sweet Tooth

  19 Mar 2012 | 8:02 am

  Having a diabetic dad, I find it difficult to choose what desserts to make. I tried using Spenda a lot of times and unfortunately they always turn out bad. Either too pale, to hard, to weird looking, they were just plain horrible. Moreover, it is quite expensive and the output is not always edible. It is a bit stressful for me not knowing what will my dessert project become. So instead of wasting awful lot of money and risk the fact of not enjoying my so few baking moments, I threw caution to the wind and made it the old fashioned way, besides I have no idea if I can make caramel…

• Magazine Overload

  Sweet Tooth

  6 Mar 2012 | 7:34 am

  Look what I found! Back issues!! I love them! Now I'm off to savour them :D The only problem that I for see is choosing which one to try first.

• Fudgy Chocolate Chunk Brownies with Malted Chocolate Frosting

  Sweet Tooth

  28 Feb 2012 | 6:53 am

  Brownies are one of my go to dessert. When I can't think of something to bake, brownies are my back up. Yeah I know even amidst all my baking books sometimes nothing inspires me. You know that feeling that I just have to make it. Baking is something that I enjoy doing, it's kind of my 'Me' time, I also love it when my brothers would come down and check on what I'm pitter and pattering about. I actually bake during Saturday nights when the house is all quiet and me with my clumsy hands accidentally banging or dropping my pans, my older sibling B got used to all the noise I'm creating…

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  Cheese Underground

• Birth of a Wisconsin Cheese Curd

  cheese underground lady

  2 May 2012 | 9:19 am

  Yes kids, this is what happens when you take your awesome technoid hubby to a cheese factory. He takes a bunch of video, loops it together, sets it to Lady Gaga and puts an embarrassing photo of you at the end. Enjoy this two minute movie showcasing the "Birth of a Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese Curd".

• Cheesemaker for a Day at Roelli Cheese

  cheese underground lady

  29 Apr 2012 | 5:20 pm

  Ever wonder how heavy a slab of cheddar curd is? Thanks to Cheesemaker Chris Roelli, 15 more people now understand the art, science and muscles required to make a vat of Cheddar. On Saturday, Chris and his crew at Roelli Cheese in Shullsburg were kind enough to host 15 members of Wisconsin Cheese Originals for a rare Cheesemaker for a Day event. We spent the morning helping Chris make a vat of Cheddar, and then, after lunch in the upstairs former cheesemaker living quarters, had an amazing tasting of six of Chris' current and brand new cheeses, but we'll get to that in a moment. First, here's…

• Manure, Milk and Cheese: Crave Brothers Reshaping Wisconsin Dairy

  cheese underground lady

  15 Apr 2012 | 10:05 pm

  Quick: name the only carbon-negative, family-owned World Dairy Expo farm of the year that's won 100 awards in 10 years for its farmstead cheeses. I'll give you a hint: the cheesemaker has a dry sense of humor, is quick to give all the credit to his wife, and whom, with his brothers, isn't quite sure where the milking parlor's light switches are located, because no one has ever switched them to "off." If you guessed the Crave Brothers of Waterloo, Wisconsin, then ding ding ding - you're a winner! Producing two semi-loads of milk, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the Crave's 1,200 registered…

• New King of Kings: Louie's Pudding

  cheese underground lady

  4 Apr 2012 | 4:02 pm

  Built in 1890 by "Butter King" John Newman of Elgin, sold to "King of Kings" cheesemaker Albert Deppler of Green County, and today owned by Anne Lancaster, whose product logo - in a nod to the creamery's past - includes a bright yellow crown perched on the "L" in its label, the century-old Springbrook Creamery on the banks of the Pecatonica River in Argyle has been home to two kings of dairy in its lifetime. With the rebirth of her family's "Louie's" line of dairy products, owner Anne Lancaster is working hard to become the third king of this Wisconsin creamery. And this time, she's…

• Growing Cheesemakers

  cheese underground lady

  20 Mar 2012 | 9:06 pm

  My family has the darnedest time figuring out what exactly it is I do for a living. I grew up in a small town, moved away after college, and don't get home very often. So on the rare occasions I go back for weddings or funerals, I often stand to the side and amusingly watch my father, a retired farmer, get asked by former neighbors and old friends what his two daughters grew up to be. My sister has it easy. "Well the oldest one's a lawyer," Dad will say with a big grin. And then he'll go on to talk about how she owns her own law firm in Milwaukee and how she helps people who've been…

• 

  Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

• Debbie Teoh at Chatz Brasserie - Yes it's Been A Year

  7 May 2012 | 1:42 am

  Doyen of Peranakan cuisine, Debbie Teoh, returns to Parkroyal Kuala Lumpur. It's like time stood still, or flown by at the speed of light. It felt like yesterday that we were there. That sweet Song Mei Lan, Marketing & Communications Manager of Parkroyal, was there to meet and greet, and I distinctly remember telling her last year how we used to patronize the grill for the best steaks ever, etc etc etc. I was late, but not the latest, and looked at the sea of new faces around. Calling out were the dishes prepared by Debbie, laid out like a model lying on the beach, waiting to be…

• Transparent Apron - The Underground World of Supper Clubs Exposed

  6 May 2012 | 10:50 pm

  A mysterious invitation arrived through email. I'd have preferred to receive it by snail mail, anonymous, with a collectible stamp, (like the Agong's coronation), ...saying, you are invited....to a hitherto unknown address. I wasn't sure what the invite was about. It was vague, at best, something about sampling some conceptual food. In my finite mind, I thought, oh, another cafe is opening. The fact that the inviter, and other invitees were all friends, made the prospect rather tantalizing, and without hesitation, I jettisoned the usual Sunday family dinner, and made my way to the location,…

• How To Be A Master Baker

  2 May 2012 | 10:45 pm

  Always dreamed that you'll be a Master Baker?  Armed with proper tools in hand, and the proper techiques, whipping cream to perfection, to just the correct stiffness?  Dream no more, your fantasies can now be fulfilled at THE BAKING BARN, where the Master Baker himself, Nigel Skelchy, of JUST HEAVENLY PLEASURES, now tantalize you with a series of classes ...from luscious trifles to Victoria Secrets...oops, sponges...Hurry, cos the first class is THIS SATURDAY, 5th May 2012.Oh, don't forget to bring a dictionary, the Master Baker uses big words, like Passels,or Ill Flotante..(bring…

• Erawan Revisited ...and Revisited

  2 May 2012 | 12:06 am

  When I last went to Erawan, that charming Thai restaurant in Kota Damansara, it was just before they were to close for renovations.  It's akin to meeting a potential lover, only to discover that they are leaving town the next day.  The yearning continued, and it was compounded by people asking, "When can you organise dinner at Erawan for us?" And I have to reply, "Oh, they're closed for renovations".Well, and then as cliched as it may sound, when it rains, it pours.  I suddenly found myself looking at TWO consecutive meals at Erawan, a Saturday night dinner with my "Supper…

• Hennessy XO Appreciation Grows 2012 - Chef Edward Lee - COMING SOON!

  18 Apr 2012 | 1:33 am

  One of the most celebrated gastronomic events of the year is the Hennessy X.O Appreciation Grows dinner series, which will be meticulously orchestrated by Chef Edward Lee this 18-21 April 2012.Hennessy X.O is a showcase into the originality of its makers in creating a superior product and birthing the prestige spirits market. Hennessy X.O’s “Appreciation Grows” campaign captures a series of experiences aimed at defining excellence, quality, originality and heritage of Hennessy X.O Appreciation stems from perfect understanding, seamless enjoyment and immaculate experiences, which enhance…

• 

  Technicolor Kitchen - English version

• Little lemon syrup soaked coconut cakes

  15 May 2012 | 5:32 pm

  I’ve probably written about this already here but there it goes: I usually fear (a little) watching again now the movies I loved as my much younger self – there’s always the risk of deception, the “what the heck was I thinking?” feeling. Luckily this hasn’t happened often and the movies I’ve seen lately have permanently cemented their place in my heart. One example is “The Crying Game”: I

• Roasted tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese

  13 May 2012 | 7:16 am

  Weekends are when I have more time to cook and bake: that is wonderful and one of the many reasons why I love Saturdays and Sundays so much, but even I want quick meals sometimes, and these stuffed tomatoes are the perfect answer for that: the assembling is super quick and they don’t need much time in the oven. If you can’t find goat cheese easily I believe that these would be equally

• Banana blondies

  11 May 2012 | 7:03 am

  I don’t bake blondies very often, but so far the recipes I’ve made turned out delicious – Martha’s gingerbread blondies I made back in 2010 were just irresistible. When I saw Dan Lepard’s banana blondies I had to make them: not only because a blondie made of banana made me curious but also because I’d be able to use up some of my banana overload; oh, and before I forget to mention, there’s

• Cherry preserves and lemon bars

  9 May 2012 | 8:19 am

  Being addicted to baking it is always a joy for me to see butter and eggs in my fridge and flour and sugar in my pantry; if there are lemons, too, then I’m in heaven. :) I had some gorgeous lemons hanging around and after making risotto and cake with them I wanted something a bit different; that was when Alice Medrich’s lemon bars crossed my mind: they are the best lemon bars I have ever

• Almond and passion fruit drizzle cake

  7 May 2012 | 8:21 am

  One of my (many) favorite things about Donna Hay Magazine is that every now and then it carries passion fruit recipes; I love the fruit and its juice is one of my favorite beverages – back in my college days I used to drink it by the bucket, especially during exam weeks (passion fruit juice is supposed to calm people down). :) My love for passion fruit and my current obsession for almond cakes

• 

  ZOMG, Candy!

• SSE House of Blues Party

  Rosa

  16 May 2012 | 7:00 am

  While I’m still out of reviewing shape thanks to my cold (I blame air travel), I thought I’d fill in some more details about the Sweets and Snacks Expo. On Tuesday night, Emma and I got to go to the House of Blues industry party. The party itself was sponsored by Hershey’s, Wonderful Pistachios, and Just Born. We got in free, courtesy of Just Born, who used the evening to further promote their Mike & Ike split and debut Mike’s music video: In addition to an open bar, there were pistachios and Mike & Ikes and Ice Breakers scattered all over the place. In case…

• SSE Photos and Spreadsheet

  Rosa

  15 May 2012 | 7:00 am

  I managed to catch a nasty cold on my way back from Chicago, so I’ve been lying around the apartment for days. Fortunately, there was a silver lining to my achy, feverish misery: time off work meant extra time for obsessively cataloging my Sweets and Snacks Expo haul! Packaging photos are up in the ZOMG, Candy! Flickr, and I also listed everything in a spreadsheet. Sorting candy hit the intellectual demand sweet spot – enough work to keep me from being bored to tears, but not so much that my fever addled brain couldn’t handle it.

• Guest Post: Katja Choco Beertjes

  Neil

  14 May 2012 | 7:00 am

  Unfortunately, I came down with a nasty cold/fever right after I got back from Sweets and Snacks, so I’m in no shape to delve into my new candy stash. Fortunately, Neil had written up the below guest post, so you still get a candy review today! ~Rosa Katja Choco Beertjes came into my life as a free inclusion with my occasional grocery delivery, which as some of you surely know, is a real blessing of a service for those of us who would otherwise carry a dozen paper towel rolls on a bike or a bus! The name means chocolate little bears, and the description says that they’re…

• Sweets and Snacks Days 2 and 3

  Rosa

  10 May 2012 | 5:28 pm

  Day 2 at the Sweets and Snacks Expo was much more restrained, and I came home with a much smaller stash. Emma and I parted ways in the afternoon, so the below is just what I took as samples. Also remember that Day 1′s mountain of things included two giant swag bags provided to us by the NCA. Things of note on day 2: 1. I got a bunch of samples of Niederegger marzipans in an assortment of flavors. Super excited to try those, as they’re pricey in stores, so I’ve never had them before. 2. Gamer Grub turned out to be much less weird than expected. The PB&J mix was like trail…

• Sweets and Snacks Expo Day 1

  Rosa

  8 May 2012 | 7:17 pm

  Whew! What a day! Many thanks to Emma for playing Twitter master and wearing out the #SSE12 tag. Here’s me after we sorted through our haul. Most of the full-sized salty snacks came in our swag bags. Super nice of them to give them to us, but probably too difficult to fly home. After Emma and I split the goods and leave more with our Chicago host, we’ll be taking the extras back to the Expo and donating them to be sent to troops overseas. So nice that the Expo is providing that service! Here are some candy interactions that really stood out today: 1. The Perugina booth, where a…

• 

  Chocablog

• World Baking Day!

  Dom

  16 May 2012 | 5:37 am

  Did you know that this Sunday 20th May, is World Baking Day? Well no, either did I. But apparently it is, and they got in touch a couple of days ago to tell us about it. And they also sent this big box of ingredients to bake with along with some recipe cards. So now I guess I really have no choice but to bake something now! If you’re interested in taking part yourself, then follow World Baking Day on Twitter and don’t forget to tweet photos of your creations. Assuming my efforts don’t go disastrously wrong, I’ll be doing a follow up post to let you know how I got on.

• Lallapolosa Salted Caramel Pecan Dreams Brownie

  Dom

  14 May 2012 | 3:39 am

  I hadn’t heard of the Lallapolosa Baking Company before, but I’m never one to refuse brownies, so when they offered to send some of their pecan & salted caramel brownies, I bit their hand off – figuratively speaking. Lallapolosa make an extensive range of brownies, cakes, cookies & confections, but if I had to pick any one item, this would probably be it. For one thing, they come in huge boxes of 12 (1kg) or 18 (1.5kg) that look beautiful. Tied with a ribbon and wrapped in tissue paper, they just feel like a quality, handmade gift. But the wow factor doesn’t…

• Club Chocolat Français

  Dom

  11 May 2012 | 8:14 am

  Club Chocolat Français is, as you might have guessed, a French chocolate club. It operates along the same lines as Hotel Chocolat’s Chocolate Tasting Club. They’ve recently launched in the UK and they sent us a box to try. The club offers 3 month, 6 month and annual subscriptions at £19.95 per month. At least I assume that’s the “per month” price, as the website lists all subscription options for the same price, rather than giving the total cost of the subscription. For your money, you get a 320g box of assorted chocolates delivered every month. The first thing…

• Lindt Excellence Caramel With Sea Salt

  Dom

  9 May 2012 | 5:38 am

  Shockingly, I’m back on the Lindt. This bar was one of a small selection given to us at the end of Lindt’s recent event at The Pearl restuarant, and the main reason I’m reviewing it is because it says “New” on it, and I want to see how it compares to that other new bar, the Lindt Wasabi which Simon reviewed last week. As you can see, the format of the bar is exactly the same as the rest of the Excellence range. It’s a simple, thin, 100g bar divided into ten squares. A quick glance at the back reveals that this bar uses the same, rather disappointing 47%…

• Kopali Organics Dark Chocolate Covered Banana

  Deanna

  8 May 2012 | 5:23 am

  The problem I usually have with chocolate covered items is the quality or type of chocolate. And if the chocolate isn’t right, I get bored. This Dark Chocolate Covered Banana packet from Kopali Organics was essentially an impulse buy; probably I was most interested in finding another rare chocolate/banana pairing. But happy I became to also find the chocolate half quite satisfactory. Kopali Organics fits well in stores like Whole Foods based on all the eco-empowerment type phrases on the package. They have both Fair Trade and USDA Organic certification and heavily emphasize working with…

• 

  Cupcake Culture

• Potluck for colleagues, new and old

  29 Apr 2012 | 4:11 am

  The chief baker's branch at work went through a re-organisation and to get to know colleagues in the new team better, a potluck was held. Lots of food for a lot of people, and the chief baker brought her cupcakes for the party! It was a hit!Chocolatey chocolate regular cupcakes with buttercream

• New order

  1 Jan 2012 | 8:04 am

  A friend of Justin and Yuka has a taste of the wedding cupcakes and wanted to get some for her birthday. Since the chief baker has the support of the mister (who promised to take care of mini-baker while mummy bakes), baked she did!Chocolatey chocolate mini-me's

• Justin and Yuka's wedding

  21 Nov 2011 | 8:29 am

  Another friend's wedding cupcakes. It's been a long time since I took up orders, but this order was refreshing and skills are not lost after not baking for so long..Chocolatey chocolate Mini-me's for Justin and Yuka's church weddingClose up shot

• Oh how my little girl has grown!

  4 Jul 2011 | 10:21 am

  She's 3 months old now!Newborn Day 1On her baby shower party @ 1 month oldLittle EinsteinHer favourite time of the day, bath time!Cheeky little girl during playtimeLook Ma, no hair!

• The reason for being absent...

  27 May 2011 | 10:10 am

  The blog has been dead for a real long time because the chief baker has a mini helper now! Yes! There's a new addition to the family with effect from 28 March 2011.. and so... chief baker has no time at all for sleep, not to mention baking escapades.. anyway..here's some photos of my mini helper, Vanessa..Chubby cheeks, just like mummy!Yay! It's milk time!

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  cakelava

• Romantic Floral Wedding Cake

  cakelava

  14 May 2012 | 7:34 pm

  www.cakelava.com In relation to our typical wedding cake order, which is made months in advance, our client who had recently moved to Hawaii from the mainland, had contacted us less than 2 months before her wedding date to make a cake with a "Wow" design for her 200 plus guests. She and her fiance loved one of Rick's cake designs, which he had originally designed for our bride Bree in 2009, and has been a well-requested design from brides since. It is rare that we duplicate previous designs, but certain cakes seem to have mass appeal and this is one of them. Rick has never made this specific…

• Giddyup, Cowboy!

  cakelava

  12 Apr 2012 | 2:03 pm

  www.cakelava.com We don't get many requests for cowboy/Western theme cakes here, which is probably no surprise given our island location. As I was talking to the client about the order, I felt excited by the theme and knew Rick would enjoy it as well. When we found out that the client would be using red and blue bandannas at the party, Rick thought it would look great to bring in those colors rather than do the usual shades of brown, especially since it was for a child. Both the cowboy hat with the Sheriff's star and the boot were made of cake, and the lasso was edible too. The three pieces…

• Celebrating the Big 3-0!

  cakelava

  4 Apr 2012 | 1:29 pm

  www.cakelava.com We often notice that our cake orders follow certain trends, and last weekend we had three brightly colored, wonky, and slightly over-the-top cakes to make. We posted one of the three cakes on our Facebook page, a crazy Dr. Seuss themed birthday cake, which you may have seen. The next night we delivered this 30th Birthday cake to Mercedes, who was having a pajama party that was just for the girls. Mercedes gave Rick free reign to design her special birthday cake. She wanted something fun, brightly colored and topsy turvy, and requested for any or all of her favorite colors to…

• A Pretty Kitty in Aloha Attire

  cakelava

  2 Feb 2012 | 12:48 pm

  www.cakelava.com It's great to be back in the swing of things once again! Now that the hard part of the book writing is behind us, we are able to focus more of our time towards making cakes. In the past couple of months we've had an opportunity to make some amazing cakes, some of which have been posted on our Facebook page. Thank you to everyone who has left us comments and sent us emails of appreciation, and apologies to anyone we had to turn away due to other commitments. It's been a while since Rick made a sculpted Hello Kitty cake and we've been looking forward to this super cute version…

• Apologies for the Silence

  cakelava

  10 Nov 2011 | 12:05 pm

  Apologies for the silence. Our blog has been much quieter these last several months because our book is commanding our attention at the moment. We are still posting new cake photos as time permits on our Facebook page. We have a vibrant community there and invite you to join us! Aloha! Sasha and Rick

• 

  Dessertbuzz

• In season: Locanda Verde’s strawberry rhubarb mini pies and scones

  Niko

  15 May 2012 | 6:38 am

  Strawberry scone from Karen Demasco at Locanda Verde This past weekend I was asked to consult on a dessert gift for someone and the requirements were that it had to be a “comfort” dessert like a pie and not something too refined or fancy-pants, like a opera cake or Napoleon.  Another desired attribute was that the dessert come from a “known” bakery or pastry chef.  I immediately thought of [everyone's favorite pasty chef] Karen DeMasco at Locanda Verde.  The best part about that recommendation is that you can easily swing by and pick a few items, such as mini-pies,…

• Congratulations to NYC’s Top 10 Pastry Chef honorees:

  Niko

  13 May 2012 | 8:46 pm

  Christina Tosi's cake balls from Momofuku Milk Bar Dessert Professional Magazine has just announced the 19th annual Top 10 Pasty Chefs in America honorees.  And as you would expect there is excellent representation from New York City with five honorees including long-time DessertBuzz favorite Christina Tosi from Momofuku Milk Bar (and 2012 James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef).  The other four New York area honorees include, Angela Pinkerton, from 11 Madison Park (2011 James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef), Marc Aumont from The Modern, Damien Herrgott fromBoise Tea Parlour and…

• Jennifer Yee’s artful desserts from SHO Shaun Hergatt (and the best petit fours in New York)

  Niko

  10 May 2012 | 6:58 am

  The sculpture like mint chocolate rocks on a bed of pistachio No matter how many dessert tastings I attend I’m always amazed at how creative great pasty chefs can be.  Despite the hundreds of  restaurants in New York and the thousands of made-to-order plated desserts they offer, top chefs always seem to be able to bring something new to the table–something I’ve never seen before. And remember, I eat a lot of desserts. Last week I visited SHO Shaun Hergatt where Executive Pastry Chef Jennifer Yee showed her creativity not just in the repertoire of techniques she employed…

• DessertBuzz Favorites to attend new Taste of the Upper West Side: Dovetail, Sarabeth’s, Momofuku Milk Bar, A Voce & more

  Niko

  6 May 2012 | 3:45 am

  Taste of the Upper West Side will feature many DessertBuzz Favorites Dovetail's pain perdu dessert Don’t miss the fifth annual Whole Foods Market new Taste of the Upper West Side featuring many DessertBuzz Favorites such as Dovetail, Sarabeth’s, Momofuku Milk Bark and A Voce. Christina Tosi's deep fried poached egg Check out the lineup for the opening event on Wednesday, May 16th – Vegetables at Dovetail: A  five-course vegetarian tasting dinner by an all-star group of chefs, led by John Fraser, Dovetail; Missy Robbins, A Voce; Ed Brown, Ed’s Chowder House;…

• Madison Square Eats returns to Flatiron today

  Niko

  4 May 2012 | 9:28 am

  "Wancko" cookie - peanut butter chocolate chip and pretzel chunks Madison Square Eats returns to Flatiron today and many of the same sweet vendors are back.  Here’s what we wrote last fall.  Info, location and more links down  the page. Of all the gatherings of “gourmet” food carts and street food vendors in Manhattan I think Madison Square Eats has the highest percentage of great vendors.  On the savory side,  there are too many to mention them all.  Here’s a select few: Calexico Cart, Asia Dog, and Roberta’s (real wood oven) pizzas.  On the…

• 

  Everyone's Blog Posts - Dessert Professional

• Praline Souffle Recipe

  Peter Boos

  2 May 2012 | 5:08 pm

  Hey Pastry Colleagues....does anyone have a recipe for a Praline or Hazelnut Souffle which can be made in advance, chilled or frozen then baked a la minute?

• Ingredients and equipment

  Birungi

  21 Apr 2012 | 1:23 pm

  Hi, I need ingredients like good quality chocolate and marzipan. Does anyone know any chocolate companies that have branches in Africa and also how I can get marzipan, I tried getting it from the UK but they have regulations against shipping it. I am also trying to open my first pastry shop, I have been working from home,  and I'm looking for equipment like proofers, cake displays, ovens, mixers etc what are the good budget friendly brands and where can I get them. Thank you

• Upcoming articles in Dessert Professional magazine

  robert wemischner

  11 Mar 2012 | 10:14 pm

  Pastry chefs and pastry lovers: Look for my upcoming article in Dessert Professional on the trend by pastry chefs using transformed ingredients to add complexity and interest to their desserts. Caramelized milk solids, smoked dairy and flour, smoked chocolate all play prominently in the mix.......Look forward to your comments. Robert Wemischner www.RobertWemischner.com author of The Dessert Architect

• writing article on transformed dairy (caramelized milk solids, smoked chocolate, flour, butter

  robert wemischner

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:42 am

  Any pastry chefs out there who are working on the use of transformed dairy, smoked chocolate, butter, flour in their desserts; please contact me at gourtogo@aol.com for an article that I am writing for Dessert Professional magazine. Tight deadline so respond quickly please. thanks. Robert Wemischner www.RobertWemischner.com author of The Dessert Architect

• Chef Jaime VanderWoude

  Jaime VanderWoude

  2 Jan 2012 | 10:21 pm

  I'm a messy pastry chef. I enjoy making, eating, and even talking about everything bakery. From bread to cake I love to learn and teach. Please leave commments if you would like to see somthing I've made or you would like me to make.

• 

  Dessert First

• Driscoll’s and Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream

  Anita

  14 May 2012 | 6:42 pm

  Thanks to all of you and your support of sated magazine! As a reminder, there are couple days left in the giveaway to win a free copy of the first issue. We will also be announcing pre-order information very soon, so please keep checking back! I apologize for the late post; what with trying to finish up work on the first issue, plus a visit to wine country last week (writeup of that trip forthcoming as well!), I was finally able to sit down and share this very spring-y strawberry ice cream with you, as well as the trip to Pebble Beach that inspired this ice cream. Another year, and another…

• Improv Sewing and Cookies

  Anita

  3 May 2012 | 10:23 pm

  Thanks all for your support of sated! And now, a quick diversion: I’ll be providing cookies for a book event tomorrow: the authors Improv Sewing: A Freeform Approach to Creative Techniques will be doing a demo and book signing at Britex Fabrics in downtown San Francisco. I was approached because they were looking for a local blogger to provide treats for their event. Well, I was flattered to help out and who knows? I might actually learn how to do more with a thread and needle than sew buttons back on! A baker I am; a seamstress I’m not! If you’d like to learn about the…

• Prepare to Get Sated

  Anita

  1 May 2012 | 1:00 am

  Dear readers, It’s been a little while since my last cookbook was published. Some of my friends have been asking me what my next project would be, and I’m so excited to finally be able to announce it to the world: I have been collaborating with Stephanie of the beautiful Desserts for Breakfast to create a new food magazine! About nine months ago, while sharing thoughts about our personal goals, we started tossing around the idea of producing our own magazine, to reflect our own particular vision of food. The idea evolved over months of late night discussions and lots of hard work,…

• Chocolate Mousse Methodology, Day Five

  Anita

  24 Apr 2012 | 2:14 am

  Before I finish off my mousse experiment, I want to remind all you faithful readers that this Saturday is the big Food Blogger Bake Sale! We have had a location change since my first announcement: the bake sale will be this Saturday, April 28, at Omnivore Books from 11-4. Omnivore Books was the location of our first bake sale so I’m really excited to be back here! And, to continue a very fine tradition that started when Rose Levy Barenbaum was speaking the day of our first bake sale, Alice Medrich will be at Omnivore from 3-4 to talk about her new book, Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts!

• Chocolate Mousse Methodology, Day Four

  Anita

  20 Apr 2012 | 2:00 am

  Remember back with mousse #1, where I discussed how eggs enriched a mousse like nothing else? The only issue was that the eggs in the classic French style mousse weren’t cooked, so it should be avoided by those with health concerns. However, the next two mousses use eggs that are cooked, so you don’t have to worry about anything – except perhaps your waistline! I think they’re worth the extra effort. Chocolate Mousse #4: Custard Based This mousse uses the classic creme anglaise as a base. Folded into the melted chocolate, and then lightened with whipped cream, it…

• 

  The Financial Brand: Marketing Insights for Banks & Credit Unions

• Survey Shows Americans Ready For Digital Wallets In A Cashless Society

  Editor

  15 May 2012 | 3:09 pm

  A world without cash is coming. Financial institutions that aren’t ready with a strategy for the impending e-conomy could wind up as dinosaurs. Americans are increasingly eager for a purely digital economy as their use of cash continues to dwindle, according to the results of a survey released today by MasterCard. The survey, which asked over 1,000 participants for their two cents the growing trend towards a cashless society, gives a snapshot of Americans’ shifting views and behaviors with electronic payments. The Frustrations of Cash Cash is inconvenient. Most Americans experience…

• Search Engine Marketing: Google Adwords Costs For Banks & Credit Unions

  Editor

  14 May 2012 | 2:01 am

  Every time someone types a financial related term into Google, there are banks and credit unions paying to have their ads placed atop the search results. The neat thing about Google AdWords is that you don’t pay until someone clicks. Some search terms only costs a few cents per click, while other more valuable and popular terms can run you a few bucks. With the Google AdWords interface, you can control how much you’re willing to pay per click, and how much you’re willing to spend every day. If you hit your spending limit, Google simply stops showing your ads. It’s a…

• Targeting Gen Y: Rich Opportunities With Direct Marketing

  Editor

  11 May 2012 | 9:06 am

  By Margie Church, Pinpoint Direct Marketing Let’s face it: the broad span of ages in Gen-Y makes it challenging to build relationships. Some financial institutions have fantastic web pages directed toward teenaged youth, while others may focus on savings programs with prizes and activities at a younger group. But like many bank and credit union marketers, maybe you may be struggling to create a cohesive program that addresses the spectrum of ages and needs of this large and diverse group, not just one segment or two. How do you do it without driving yourself nuts, overwhelming your…

• Peek Inside: Marketing At Australia’s Orange Credit Union

  Editor

  10 May 2012 | 2:01 am

  [Volunteers Needed! If you'd like to have your financial institution's in-house marketing department profiled on The Financial Brand, please complete the questionnaire here.] On 10th December, 1964, 19 mail employees met in the staff canteen to discuss forming a credit union. By 1971, Mail Employees Credit Union (as it was first named) had 1,000 members. In the early days, loans were limited to only £400 pounds. The credit union adopted its current moniker back in 1973. Name of Financial Institution: Orange Credit Union Area served: Orange in New South Wales, Australia Founded: 1964 Website:…

• Bank Hosts Band Contest on Facebook, Winner Opens for Huey Lewis

  Editor

  9 May 2012 | 2:01 am

  At the Facebook page for Bank of the West, folks can nominate and vote on their favorite local bands. The winning band will get to perform the opening act for Huey Lewis & The News at Memorial Park during a concert the bank is sponsoring. The public is invited to nominate and vote for their favorite up-and-coming bands between May 1 and May 15, 2012. The contest is open to everyone across the U.S. Eligible bands must be solo acts or groups numbering no more than six. All members of the band must be over 18 years of age. Acts incorporating unsafe behavior, obscenity, lewdness,…

• 

  Joe Pastry

• Whence the Scone?

  joepastry

  16 May 2012 | 9:49 am

  That's an awfully difficult question to answer. There's no question that scones are descendants of Scottish oat and/or barley cakes. The word is actually Scottish in origin. "Skons" is how they pronounce them up that way. "Skoans" is the pronunciation I mostly heard down in Devon and Cornwall. The barley cakes of old weren't polite little circular scones like they have all over Britain today. A couple of hundred years ago they were made in one large, flat round which was placed on a hot griddle and flipped, sort of like a huge pancake. The finished cake was then cut into big wedges which were…

• Battle of the Cream Teas

  joepastry

  16 May 2012 | 9:12 am

  The residents of Devon and Cornwall don't agree on much generally, but least of all where food is concerned. A couple of years ago I discussed the ongoing row between those two English counties on the crucial question of pasty crimping: side or top? With issues of that magnitude on the table it's no wonder there's so little intermarriage across county lines down that way. ...Read on...

• Foodism Gone Mad?

  joepastry

  15 May 2012 | 4:15 pm

  "The Great Googa Mooga" is going to hit Prospect Part in Brooklyn this weekend, a sort of Lollapalooza of food with music attached. You know "food-tainment" is pushing the boundaries of, well, taste when star chefs, pricey appetizers, wine and hog butchery can draw crowds on a rock n' roll scale. Livy, the Roman historian, famously remarked that the glorification of chefs was a sign of a culture in decline. I hope that was one of his throwaway lines, otherwise I'm deeply concerned with the plight of Western civilization. Thanks to reader Catherine for the hat tip!...Read on...

• What is English “clotted” cream?

  joepastry

  15 May 2012 | 7:41 am

  Reader Mark asks: Any chance you’d be able to expand on what clotted cream is, and why it doesn’t seem to be something that can be purchased in the US? Is it practical to make at home? Just doesn’t seem one can have a proper scone w/out some clotted cream to go with it. I would be delighted, Mark! Most people think they call it "clotted" cream because that's the way your arteries look when a Devon creamy tea is over. I'm not saying that isn't true, but it's not technically correct. “Clotted” or “double” cream is made via a process that’s unique to Devon, Cornwall and a few…

• The Highs and Lows of Tea

  joepastry

  15 May 2012 | 7:28 am

  Quick: what's the first thing that comes to mind when someone says the word "scone"? Other than sawdust, I mean. Right: English tea. Or more specifically, the ritual of English afternoon tea. Erroneously called "high tea" here in the States (probably because of the formality that's associated with it), the meal is actually, technically, "low tea." ...Read on...

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  Cake Talk

• Two Weddings and a Birthday

  Mary's Cakes & Pastries

  12 May 2012 | 4:52 pm

  It was a busy day for cake deliveries at the bakery today as we had two weddings and a birthday. Luckily, the rain held off and we were able to scoot around town without breaking out the umbrellas. The theme...

• No, really, we insist. We'll carry the cake to your car.

  Mary's Cakes & Pastries

  11 May 2012 | 6:56 pm

  When you buy a cake at Mary's Cakes and Pastries, we carry it to your car. Cupcakes too. Always. Every time. We insist. Really, it's our policy. In fact, one of the first things we teach every new employee is...

• Martha Stewart Inspiration

  Mary's Cakes & Pastries

  6 May 2012 | 8:57 pm

  This is the photo the bride sent us... It is from MarthaStewartWeddings.com and I'll assume a professional photographer took this picture. Along with some highly paid artistic designers to set up the table, find the pretty china, the matching tablecloth,...

• Business 101: Tit For Tat

  Mary's Cakes & Pastries

  5 May 2012 | 5:51 pm

  Tit for tat. Butter for fat. If you kick my dog, I'll kick your cat. Most people only know the first line. The rest of the phrase I learned from my grandmother. The original phrase was Tip for Tap, a...

• Rosie's Kentucky Derby-Like Pies!

  Mary's Cakes & Pastries

  2 May 2012 | 10:43 am

  What a difference a week makes. Just seven days ago I had no idea what a "Derby Pie" was. Today (right now to be exact) I have eight in the oven, with a promise of at least six more. First,...

• 

  Get Off Your Butt and BAKE!

• PUFF PASTRY CHERRY BLOSSOM BOUQUET

  Jonna

  12 May 2012 | 12:50 pm

  It’s Mother’s Day Sunday. Whoopee! My Mom and I think . . . it’s quite over-rated. The two of us are quite alike. We aren’t the flower type, or the jewelry type, unless it a big fat diamond. I think I’d rather have a new pair of jeans or shoes or money honey! Laughing. Not [...]

• Jim Lahey’s No Knead Pizza Dough

  Jonna

  6 May 2012 | 5:06 pm

  Of all the posts I’ve ever done . . . I’m most excited about this one. My search for the PERFECT pizza crust is now over! I’m serious now. I’ve probably tried at least 100 different pizza crust recipes. Some were good . . . some were bad . . . but none were worth [...]

• HOT & CHEESY SPINACH ARTICHOKE DIP

  Jonna

  1 May 2012 | 7:29 pm

  I have a problem. I buy too many Cookbooks & print off far too many recipes. I really don’t collect anything else but my Cookbook shelves have expanded . . . to non designated Cookbook shelves! One of my favorite books is Down Home with the Neely’s, and I’ve made many of their recipes. They’re [...]

• TOASTED MARSHMALLOW SCOTCHAROO CUPCAKES

  Jonna

  30 Apr 2012 | 7:35 pm

  Sometimes the simple things are the best things. For example . . . I love Marshmallow Rice Crispy Treats. My kids love the Peanut Butter Variety. Both are really simple but delicious. A long long time ago, I posted the Scotcharoo recipe, but decided I would shake things up today. I figured . . . [...]

• MARSHMALLOW CARAMEL POPCORN

  Jonna

  26 Apr 2012 | 5:52 pm

   O.k. . . . just wondering, How many of you have read . . . Shades of Grey? I haven’t. Honestly . . . I haven’t. This blog can’t compete with that! Trust me, this will be much sweeter. I think . . . you should make this Caramel Marshmallow popcorn BEFORE you read those [...]

• 

  Wild Yeast

• YeastSpotting 5.11.12

  Susan

  12 May 2012 | 1:59 am

  Loaves and Rolls, First Batch Loaves and Rolls, Second Batch Flat Breads, Sweet Breads, and More YeastSpotting is a weekly collective showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. For more bread inspiration, and information on how to submit your bread, please visit the YeastSpotting archive. © Wild Yeast, 2012. | Permalink | No comment

• YeastSpotting 5.4.12

  Susan

  4 May 2012 | 10:57 pm

  Loaves and Rolls, First Batch Loaves and Rolls, Second Batch Flat Breads, Sweet Breads, and More YeastSpotting is a weekly collective showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. For more bread inspiration, and information on how to submit your bread, please visit the YeastSpotting archive. © Wild Yeast, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

• YeastSpotting 4.27.12

  Susan

  27 Apr 2012 | 2:01 am

  Loaves and Rolls, First Batch Loaves and Rolls, Second Batch Flat Breads, Sweet Breads, and More YeastSpotting is a weekly collective showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. For more bread inspiration, and information on how to submit your bread, please visit the YeastSpotting archive. © Wild Yeast, 2012. | Permalink | No comment

• Sourdough Waffles and Low Tide

  Susan

  26 Apr 2012 | 7:49 pm

  What is a recipe for a perfect Sunday morning? How about sourdough waffles followed by a trip to the reef at low tide? Good to eat on Sunday morning. Not good to eat, but nice to look at on Sunday morning. A waffle iron is a necessary contraption. Although I’m pretty good at jury rigging equipment, I haven’t quite figured out how to make waffles without one. I have a Cuisinart Belgian waffle maker and I love it. The surface is truly nonstick and it makes perfect waffles if I remember a few things: (more…) © Wild Yeast, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments

• YeastSpotting 4.20.12

  Susan

  20 Apr 2012 | 10:07 pm

  Loaves and Rolls, First Batch Loaves and Rolls, Second Batch Flat Breads, Sweet Breads, and More YeastSpotting is a weekly collective showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. For more bread inspiration, and information on how to submit your bread, please visit the YeastSpotting archive. © Wild Yeast, 2012. | Permalink | No comment

• 

  The Cupcake Blog

• Forget-me-not Cupcakes

  The Cupcake Connoisseur

  14 May 2012 | 12:18 pm

  via Jessica Enig at Such Pretty Things

• Spiderman Cupcakes

  The Cupcake Connoisseur

  14 May 2012 | 11:16 am

  via creative and delicious sweets on Flickr

• Vintage Tea Party Cupcakes

  The Cupcake Connoisseur

  13 May 2012 | 7:00 pm

  via Lyndsey Neill on Flickr

• Beloved Star Wars Character Cupcakes

  The Cupcake Connoisseur

  13 May 2012 | 6:00 pm

  via gsuzme on Flickr

• Terrier Cupcakes

  The Cupcake Connoisseur

  13 May 2012 | 5:00 pm

  via Lyndsey Neill on Flickr

• 

  The Cake Mistress

• Classic Vanilla Butter Cake with Classic Buttercream

  Cake Mistress

  5 May 2012 | 2:09 am

  Birthdays.I baked this classic moist butter cake for a birthday recently. It’s truly a feather-soft crumb with a light vanilla flavour, which works well with most buttercream flavours and fillings. The classic buttercream is made from a sugar syrup, so it’s deliciously silky smooth and devoid of that awful tooth-aching sugar crunch you get with some frostings. For an ‘adult’ flavour, I whipped melted dark chocolate and espresso into the buttercream. And for extra naughtiness there’s an optional 25-35 ml of liqueur. Fan-freakin-fastic idea!I know a few people who…

• White Chocolate and Macadamia Cupcakes

  Cake Mistress

  23 Mar 2012 | 10:16 pm

   Saved By Cake: over 80 Ways to Bake Yourself Happy is the intriguing name of the cookbook, penned by bestselling fiction writer Marian Keyes, which inspired this recipe. Now, normally 99.9% of PR emails get filed ever-so-carefully in the Do Not Want bin; however, the motivation behind her baking caught my attention and resonated with me. Being avid bakers, maybe some of you will relate as well.Marian Keyes opens with a very frank, honest account of her daily fight with depression. Trying to get through each day she eventually found that baking augmented therapy, with the right balance…

• No-bake Lemon Coconut Slice

  Cake Mistress

  25 Feb 2012 | 9:44 pm

  Sometimes you want something quick, sweet and easy without firing up the oven. Especially here at the moment, where the temperature is hitting 40 degrees Celsius. Eww. I know Australians are supposed to be excited by that and go frolicking on the beach, but I hate the heat outdoors. The fair-skinned European in me just wants to hibernate in front of the air-con, spraying mists of water, sucking ice-cubes and thinking cool thoughts.Speaking of cool, this was one of my favourite recipes to make as a kid. I’m sure it’s the immense joy in bashing a packet of biscuits to crumb-y…

• Chocolate Caramel Slice

  Cake Mistress

  13 Feb 2012 | 8:27 am

  February 14: Single people, time to Rage Against The (Lean) Cuisine. Put down our Soup-For-One, let Mr Fluffy fend for himself for the day and whatever we do, let’s not slump on the couch in our sweatpants weeping into our Kleenex while mumbling the lyrics to All by Myself through a mouth crammed full of chocolate.I know some people feel like total rubbish on that day: self-esteem plummets, confidence drops, you start to wonder what’s wrong with you. Next thing you know, you’re picturing your future self on a Today Tonight feature on crazy cat ladies.But it shouldn’t…

• Lumberjack Cake

  Cake Mistress

  3 Feb 2012 | 8:09 pm

  Lumberjack Cake: sounds like some tough macho recipe for mustachioed axe-wielding men wearing flannel. I’m sure they’d appreciate the cake regardless, but it’s actually an old-fashioned squidgy apple and date cake with a caramelised coconut topping.When done the cake part is a sodden sticky marriage of Granny Smith apple pieces and dates. It’s almost like a pudding, so don’t be expecting your typical fluffy cake crumb here. The word ‘moist’ comes to mind, although I wish it didn’t because not only is it an overused adjective, it just a…

• 

  Bunny's Warm Oven

• Chicken Sausage and Pepper Rice

  10 May 2012 | 9:19 pm

  Chicken Sausage and Pepper RiceI don't normally do blog posts about dinners.  For some reason I have a hard time taking pictures of cooked food.  It's so much easier taking pictures of baked goods as opposed to trying to make a dinner dish look fresh and appealing and still keep it hot so you can eat it.  I made the effort for this recipe because it was outstanding.  This is a one dish meal that's easy to prepare and is done in 25 minutes.  You could chop the vegetables ahead of time and refrigerate them until you're ready to start the dish.  The recipe called…

• French Baguettes - Homemade Garlic Parmesan Croutons - Sweet Cornbread

  27 Apr 2012 | 3:36 pm

  French Baguettes     I was extremely happy with my first attempt at making french baguettes! The process was made very easy by Baking Banter's ( King Arthur's baking blog) recipe and picture tutorial.  Baguettes redux: an easy (almost no knead) recipe for the kneading challenged,  was just what I needed for my first attempt..  This dough can be kept in the refrigerator for a week, you can make, as far as I can figure, about 4 fresh baguettes from this recipe.  Enough to have fresh bread any day that you want it during the week.  Read the whole blog…

• Apple Crumb Coffee Cakes

  6 Apr 2012 | 1:15 pm

  My younger brother Kevin and I spend a lot of evenings talking on Facebook and playing Words with Friends.  In one of our conversations I told him I was going to bake a coffee cake but couldn't decided which one of the two recipes I had found online I wanted to make.  I picked this one because I liked the idea of individual coffee cakes. I also liked that Chef Spike Gjerde makes this coffee cake for his Baltimore spot called Artifact Coffee.  These little crumb cakes are light, feather light and delicious.  The streusel topping, the cake ,everything about this recipe is…

• Soft and Chewy Molasses Cookies ...and a Dog's Eye View of Gilbert's Creek

  2 Apr 2012 | 8:50 pm

  Your gonna love this moist, soft, chewy molasses cookie!  But before we talk about this divine little morsel , I wanted to introduce you to some of our canine characters on Gilbert's Creek.When you come off the highway onto Gilbert's Creek you start to descend.  And you keep descending about 6 miles.  The road gets smaller...like if a car is coming , one of you have to go onto the side of the road so the other one can pass...yeah that  small.  The trees extend over the road on both sides to form a literal tunnel of green.We don't get a lot of traffic down here, the…

• Absolutely The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER!

  22 Mar 2012 | 8:37 pm

  I love living in Kentucky.  The people here are amazing.  When I first got here, whenever my husband and I would get in the truck to run errands I noticed that every car that passed us would wave to us.  I commented to Paul that he must know everybody around here.  He said , why do you think that?  I said, cause every car that passes us waves at you.   He said, they'll wave at you whether they know you or not, it's just what they do here.  I was amazed, totally amazed.  Every person , man or woman young or old that I was introduced to shook my hand…

• 

  loveandflour.com

• April Showers Brought May Flowers

  Love & Flour

  16 May 2012 | 8:31 am

  I quickly tire of swirls of icing, so I am always looking for new ways to decorate those small pieces of wonderful called cupcakes. When I saw McCormick’s Hello Flower Cupcakes, using sliced marshmallows and colored sugar, sprinkles, and coconut to create flowers on cupcakes, I knew I would give them a try. It seemed like [...]

• Thank You to Mom & Breakfast in Bed

  Love & Flour

  13 May 2012 | 9:48 am

  Mom, Thank you waiting to give birth to me until December 26. I really don’t think I would have liked being born on Christmas. Thank you for always buying me new clothes at the start of the school year. I know my new clothes often meant you went without. Thank you for making me enroll [...]

• 2012′s 12 Months of Giveaways {Giveaway 5: Whitley’s Peanuts}

  Love & Flour

  12 May 2012 | 9:43 am

  If you have not yet selected a gift for Mother’s Day tomorrow, I cannot help – you are on your own. What I, along with Whitley’s Peanuts can do, is make sure you don’t find yourself left scrambling for a Father’s Day gift next month. Whitley’s Peanuts has offered to give the father of one lucky [...]

• Slice It Up! Tropical Fruit Galette

  Love & Flour

  9 May 2012 | 8:32 pm

  There’s nothing like waiting until the last minute. Technically, there’s nothing like waiting until the day before the last minute, which is what I’ve done with my contribution to the OXO Slice It Up recipe contest. I saw the contest advertised on Pinterest a while back, and though I had every intention to enter because [...]

• Three Recipes for a Homemade Taco Bell Bean Burrito

  Love & Flour

  8 May 2012 | 10:05 pm

  While planning a Cinco de Mayo menu, I received a request to recreate the red sauce Taco Bell serves in their bean burritos. The request for the sauce itself seemed fairly tame, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to try two new DIY recipes – homemade tortillas and homemade refried beans. I first saw [...]

• 

  Cakies

• Pastry Course Day 28: Finishing the tragacanth piece

  Rachel

  10 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

  On the 28th day it was time to finish the tragacanth piece. All the pieces we cut out a week earlier were nice and hard and ready to sand down. Next it was a matter of assembling all the pieces and stick them together with royal icing and, in my case, colour in all the pieces because I left all my pieces white. I made giftboxes in three sizes which I put on top of each other. Assembling the pieces was little challenging, you had to make sure your piece had somewhere to lean on to, because the royal icing needed time to dry and harden. Once assembled and hardened I painted the boxes in…

• Pastry Course Day 27: Sugar eggs and the start of a tragacanth piece

  Rachel

  8 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

  I actually don’t have much to show for this day. We were busy making a piece out of tragacanth. Tragacanth is an old technique used to make sugar pieces with. For example, you can make a house out of tragacanth. Tragacanth is as hard as a piece of peppermint. Sturdy enough to build something with it, but fragile enough to break when it’s dropped. So the rule of the day was, don’t touch other people’s work, because, before you know it, it breaks! Working with tragacanth takes up quite some time. That’s why this day we only made a start of our tragacanth piece. We…

• Pastry Course Day 26: Pulled sugar

  Rachel

  6 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

  Day 26 was the first day of the sixth module. In this module we’re not baking stuff, but focusing more on techniques. This day we started working with sugar. Pulling sugar is a really fun, but also extremely hot job. The sugar has to stay warm so you’re working under a hot red lamp. The lamp ensures that the sugar stays warm. You shouldn’t touch hot sugar with your hands so you’re wearing gloves. However, even with the gloves on you can still feel the heat of the sugar. It was really fun to do, by pulling and kneading the sugar you will get the desired shape. The…

• Pastry Course Day 25: Four types of friandises

  Rachel

  5 May 2012 | 11:00 pm

  On the 25th day of the course I was out snowboarding in France! I went and had fun in the snow with friends, it was awesome! Unfortunately I did end up missing the final assignment of the fourth module, but whether I missed it or not, I did want to do the final assignment! I eventually did the assignment at home. We had to make four types of friandises. Friandises are small pastries. At a restaurant they would normally be served after dessert with your coffee or tea. I decided to create my friandises around a theme. I chose The Netherlands as theme. I made mini apricot bavarois, mini orange…

• Pastry Course Day 24: Oscar cake

  Rachel

  5 May 2012 | 6:29 am

  On this day we didn’t get any lessons, we had to get started immediately. We were handed a recipe and were left to our own devices. It was a really fun day, especially because we were making a really fun and delicious recipe. We made Rudolph van Veen‘s Oscar cake. Rudolph is a Master Pastry Chef from the Netherlands. The cake is a delicious chocolate cake. This is a cake which he designed and was served as dessert at the Oscars (Academy Awards) in 2005. That’s why it’s called Oscar cake. His version also had a little Oscar statue molded out of chocolate on top of it.

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  Bakery Industry

• Daily Production Report In Bakery

  8 May 2012 | 1:40 pm

  So you  are  handling bakery operations  then you need to have daily production report  first thing you look for on your desk . Now days  most the bakeries rely  on ERP  software which  collects all the vital information for daily production . Smaller  or  conventional  bakeries still  have report  presented  in  excel sheets from their executives Here  are the important elements  which makes  a complete daily  bakery production  report Production -  ( loaves / numbers/cbbs/ kgs / tonnes )…

• Good Day - Brand Going Strong

  30 Apr 2012 | 1:26 pm

  Good Day  Cookies   from  Britannia  Industries  is  second largest  brand of biscuit  sold in India   the sales turnover is estimated to be Rs 1500 crore . This  single brand of biscuit  is second most popular brand after  Parle - G   and is still growing with  new set s of packaging and flavor . It started the concept of Indulgence in biscuit  industry . It all started with   Britannia  team  launching  indulgence  biscuits market in 1986  where people were …

• Bakers Look For Egg Replacers

  30 Apr 2012 | 12:00 pm

  Recent  ban  on  battery cages   in European  countries had  made egg availability scarce   for  bakers . Bakers are now  using  egg substitutes for their  recipes  . European  union ban  on battery hen  cages is   due  to protest  against  stuffing  hens together in   cages  . Poultry owners have asked for some time  to switch over to alternative methods  to house  hens .  This made egg  shortages in market  and  egg costlier  to…

• Sandwich Biscuit In Single Pouch

  23 Apr 2012 | 12:49 pm

  Strolling in suburban  area  of   Bangalore   I  could lay my hand on  single sandwich biscuit packed in pouches similar  to  snack pouches  displayed  at various  retail  shop . The concept  was selling bigger size cookies  or single serving for  the consumer on go should have  a  market , its  just reverse of companies promoting smaller pouches  with  2-3 biscuits  for  price tag of Rs 5/-. The product has  been  marketed by INBISCO India Pvt Ltd , Chennai …

• Automation In Bread Plant

  14 Apr 2012 | 7:44 am

  Indian bread  plants  in majority  are labour  dependent with most of the process done manually  its high time that  manufacturers think of   automating  the whole proces or  in parts to eliminate dependence on labour eliminate waste have consistent quality to eliminate human errors increase productivity safety  In ingredient section automatic feeding  to mixer  with help  of  bulk handling , load cell based weigh hoppers  and pneumatic or screw conveyors ( flour , fat, chemicals  and sugar ) Auto greasing of…

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  Gourmet Cookie Bouquets Recipe Blog

• Fortune Cookie Wedding Favors

  Sarah

  3 May 2012 | 1:37 pm

  You are fun, playful, and unique – so why should your wedding favors be boring, more-of-the-same trinkets that guests don’t bother taking home?  Fortune cookies are the ideal favor: they are small, relatively inexpensive, and customizable. If guests don’t take them home, it’s because they’ve already eaten them!  Here are some tips for having fortune cookie wedding favors for your big day. The average couple spends between $231 on their wedding favors; it is not a huge piece of the overall wedding budget but every cent helps when you’re saving for a honeymoon!  Fortune cookies…

• Giant Fortune Cookies - Customize For Any Occasion

  Sarah

  18 Apr 2012 | 1:05 pm

  Unlike our traditional cookie favorites – chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar – fortune cookies are thin, crisp, crunchy, and perfectly packaged for one.  If your favorite part of a trip to a Chinese restaurant is the fortune cookie at the end, you probably wish that these treats were just a little bigger! Your wish has come true: giant fortune cookies offer all the fun and even more of the taste.  These delightful outsized cookies can be customized to suit your recipient and the occasion. You can purchase a gourmet, customized fortune cookie – but why not get adventurous and try to…

• Brighten Someone's Day with Cookies

  Sarah

  4 Apr 2012 | 1:38 pm

  Do you have a friend who is going through a rough patch?  A family member who you haven’t seen in a while? A buddy who you just want to make a bit happier?  This is the perfect time to send a thoughtful just because gift.  You can easily – and deliciously – brighten someone’s day with cookies, especially when they are homemade with an extra helping of love and appreciation. Bring on the Fun While a pile of fresh, moist chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies is sure to brighten anyone’s day, why not try something a bit different?  Sometimes, just a push out of the ordinary brings a…

• Make Your Own Colored Decorating Sugar

  Sarah

  8 Mar 2012 | 10:09 am

  Colored decorating sugar is a terrific way to jazz up baked goods.  Next time you need to make yummy decorated cookies to serve friends or a gift to give that hard-to-shop-for someone, pull out the sugar and make some magic.  You can purchase pre-made decorating sugar; but if you want to whip up a batch of tasty treats and the store is closed, or you just love to DIY, try making your own.  It’s easy, fun, and well worth the efforts! No Fuss Colored Sugar A small jar of sugar, containing four colors, costs almost $7.  Higher-end brands can cost up to $10 for a single color.  Save some…

• Tips For Rolling Out Sugar Cookie Dough

  Sarah

  23 Feb 2012 | 1:02 pm

  Making perfect sugar cookies seems easy.  You mix up the dough, roll it out, cut out your shapes, bake, and decorate.  Before you know it, you have cookies that deserve to be in a beautiful cookie box or the display case at an upscale bakery… but not so fast.  In reality, your dough sticks. Your shapes get torn up as you scrape them off your work surface. You add more flour, which helps – but it makes your cookies dry, which means they don’t taste or look as good.  Making perfect sugar cookies can be easy; you just need to know a few tricks.  Rolling out sugar cookie dough right is…

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  anecdotes and apple cores - Eats and Treats

• Coconut Walnut Tarts

  27 Apr 2012 | 9:42 am

  Isn't it always the case that life gets REALLY busy just before you're about to take off for a trip?Papers, baby shower invitations, recipe writing, doctor's appointments, meals with friends. I'm running from one obligation to the next, not even thinking about packing, about which dress will look best on the streets of Paris (and yes, this is worth serious consideration).For once, I don't already have my suitcase packed. I haven't started a list of essential items that must be checked off before departure. We don't have a single tour book, and I doubt we'll buy one before next Friday. I'm…

• Blueberry Cream Muffins

  23 Apr 2012 | 9:03 am

  Isn't this beveled glass lovely? I found 8 panes at a city-wide garage sale, and I'm planning on converting the vintage glass into stands for wedding treats. I'm hoping I can find wood bases to attach to each plane. Or even stack a few old books underneath a couple for a unique literary display (us writers have plenty of books to spare).  But today, they're simply holding blueberry and cream muffins. A fitting beginning, I think. As a baker, I make a lot of muffins. Muffins are ideal for two reasons:1. They are easy.2. They please almost anyone.But because I make a lot of muffins, I've…

• Lemon and Lime Delight

  19 Apr 2012 | 6:38 pm

  Two more weeks till Paris! Hard to believe but my semester is almost over and summer is soon to begin. Of course, I'll still be working, but like most of us (at least I think) the excitement bred in childhood over warm summer months doesn't dissipate once you reach adulthood. Paris will be cool. Cooler than here (which really shouldn't be shocking). But nonetheless, I was surprised when I checked the weather forecast and saw highs only in the 60s. Here's to cute dresses AND cotton sweaters. I haven't been overseas since I went on my whirlwind tour of Egypt, Jordan, Spain, and Portugal in…

• Baby Ryan's Bike

  19 Apr 2012 | 11:09 am

  Baby Ry with his big sister, Halley. Despite the brain damage, Ryan is still the most joyful little boy I know. Many of you remember when my 2 year old nephew was in a drowning accident 18 months ago. You sent emails, gift packages, and prayers. Your support meant the world to me. As you know, baby Ryan was revived, but he suffered extensive brain damage. My sister, a tireless example of grace and determination, has been sharing his story on her caring bridge site. The ups and downs, the trials and joys.http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ryanhoffmanJust yesterday, Ryan had the opportunity to…

• Sour Cream Muffins

  16 Apr 2012 | 6:17 pm

  Well, Ryan and I had a lovely weekend. Complete with baby birds, pounds of butter cream, and Neapolitan style pizza (we like variety). But truly, it was a good weekend, a much-needed fun weekend, in which we forgot about our stress/anxiety and embraced the simple pleasure of doing life with each other.In small moments, we watched Cricket engage in her favorite afternoon pastime. In quiet moments, we watched the beginnings of a new life. In thankful moments, we spent time with new friends, sharing over freshly baked food and perfect (thank you, Ryan Kulp) scrambled eggs. And in exciting…

• 

  Sweetopia

• Wedding Cookie Cakes

  sweetopia@inbox.com (Marian (Sweetopia))

  29 Apr 2012 | 10:16 pm

  My baby brother Norman got married. I guess he’s not a baby anymore. And he married a wonderful woman, Stefanie. She’s beautiful… Inside and out. I love these two. For the wedding... Visit sweetopia.net to view the entire post.

• Buttercream Frosting Recipe & An Untold Sugar Flower Secret Revealed

  sweetopia@inbox.com (Marian (Sweetopia))

  25 Apr 2012 | 8:48 pm

  It’s my second day of attempting roses, and I’m feeling the pressure. I thought I could do it. After all, the instructions are laid out in front of me in a beautiful photographic... Visit sweetopia.net to view the entire post.

• Chocolate Beehive Cupcakes & Sweet Designs {Giveaway!}

  sweetopia@inbox.com (Marian (Sweetopia))

  24 Apr 2012 | 8:04 am

  Beauty. Elegance. Style. Amy Atlas, the creator of these gorgeous sweet tables, is releasing her first book, Sweet Designs, today. I think it’s easy to see from these photos, just a tiny taste... Visit sweetopia.net to view the entire post.

• Making ‘dew drops’ for your sweets…

  sweetopia@inbox.com (Marian (Sweetopia))

  15 Apr 2012 | 9:51 pm

    I entered Hallmark with the intention of finding a card for a friend, and discovered a happy thing. The perfect cookie platter.  There it was, in all it’s red and pink glory… The... Visit sweetopia.net to view the entire post.

• Cookie Cravings {Giveaway!}

  sweetopia@inbox.com (Marian (Sweetopia))

  12 Apr 2012 | 4:35 pm

  Top 10 Comfort Foods Comfort food faves in order… #1 being the best. 1. Chocolate chip cookies (soft and chewy) 2. Peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies 3. Mom’s plum tart 4. Dad’s... Visit sweetopia.net to view the entire post.