I Love Burgers, Pie and my Friends

It's been awhile since I've made a pie, so I ignored Raoul's suggestion that I bring cookies to our rooftop dinner with friends (I know you liked this better anyway, love). He made one of the best burgers I've ever had and Paul brought a fruit tray that included a fruit which none of us could identify. After much sniffing, poking and unhygienic inspection, Amanda and Google helped us figure out that it was...some kind of passion fruit.
I tried a new crust recipe this time, it was supposed to be very flaky (mmm!). It was delicious, but ridiculously difficult to roll out. In fact, the top crust was really patchy b/c everytime I tried to lift it off the counter, it broke so I gave up, threw it over the filling and placed extra pieces over the holes. The filling was mostly blueberry (my favorite!) with some peaches tossed in as well. At the end I decided to add a layer of candied pecans on top of the pie. I just wanted an extra delicious touch, but it masked the lumpy-ness of the crust as well (which was made worse by the fact that I made an amateur mistake and completely forgot to cut slits in the top to vent the pie). This pie really survived a lot...including my knocking it off the bench where I was sitting, after a few too many drinks!





Just look at these beautiful, natural-hair-color people!

Chewy Toffee Pecan Cookies

Ok, these don't look like much, but I'm proud of them b/c they are deliciously addicting and I came up with the recipe myself. The name pretty much tells you all you need to know! I'll definitely make these again (soon).

An Experiment in Tarts

My cousin had a day-after-a-holiday party last night. She put together a fantastic spread of delicious food:





I offered to bring dessert (obviously). I made a chocolate ganache and caramel-hazelnut tart and a berry tart. Both of these were on my list of dishes to try so I got to knock off two in one shot. I didn't love the chocolate tart because the chocolate was really bitter, although it was good if you got some of the caramel-hazelnut filling on your fork at the same time. The berry tart turned out very well and was really easy to make.

My office loves cake :)

I've mentioned before that I wanted to make a chocolate hazelnut cake and I finally had the chance to do so for our receptionist's birthday last week. Nothing difficult, I added a little bit of hazelnut extract to the cake batter, but made the frosting much more hazelnut-y! It was really good-there is some espresso powder in the cake batter as well, so it was like a delicious hazelnut mocha...or something. I really hope there are still leftovers when I go to work tomorrow!

More Blueberries and Lemon...

I seem to be on this blueberry and lemon kick lately-they're so fantastic together! This weekend I baked for no reason at all...for fun, I guess. On Friday I made blueberry + lemon cream streusel bars. A friend came over to help get rid of some (she's very selfless that way!) and felt I needed pictures of me working, so:




Finished product...




And after enjoyment began...

Congratulations Ashley!!!

My little sister graduated from high school last weekend! She accomplished a lot in 4 years-became a great runner and basketball player, wrote wonderful poetry, wrecked my car and was salutatorian of her class-she's very well rounded! (I joke, but I'm really extremely proud of her-she's an amazing girl).
She'll be going to Ball State (alma mater of David Letterman and "Papa John") this fall and rooming with one of her childhood friends. Instead of using her HS colors/mascot as a theme, we used Ball State's (red, white, black). I made a lot of red velvet cupcakes and frosted them with white chocolate frosting. Someone else made vanilla cupcakes and I frosted them with raspberry buttercream-the idea was to have red frosting, but I couldn't get it red without tons of food coloring. So let's pretend BSU's colors are white and pink-Dave would be proud. :)
Here I am with the lovely graduate:


In progress:




My best friend, the doctor-she guarantees this tub of raspberry frosting is good for you!


I expect Caution Hill to rock a song about cupcakes the next time I see them (don't worry boys, you have awhile!)

When life gives you lemons...

...make a really great French lemon cream tart!
But if you're impatient, just go with the lemonade. This is another recipe I wanted to try during my week off, which sadly ended on Monday...trust me, I'd much rather bake than study contract law. It's a tart filled with lemon cream; this cream is the creation of Parisian pâtissier Pierre Hermé (next goal: visiting his pastry shop in Paris!). I get really frustrated when something goes wrong in the kitchen so I wasn't sure how my patience would hold up in making this delicate treat! I made the tart shell in my new food processor, but probably wouldn't do so again unless absolutely necessary-I'm used to making crusts by hand and like being able to feel the consistency to know it's done. The cream required close monitoring, but it really wasn't hard to make. It's very tart, no sugary American cream here! It came out very well, if I do say so myself (and I do)!
I made this and the lemon meringue puffs that I've made before, for a friend's engagement party last weekend...here are the pictures:







Lemon Tart Being Enjoyed:


Sometimes I Have to Use a Little Force:

Campaign for a Sweeter America

Politics and baking...these are a few of my favorite things!
Pillsbury is currently promoting their new line of reduced sugar mixes and frostings (possibly the only time boxed atrocities shall be mentioned here). I check gothamist.com everyday and saw that the Pillsbury Doughboy would be passing out cake 4 blocks from my office. Of course I had to go!!! I dragged a co-worker with me and we took pictures and got pens and buttons! Because they are using a campaign theme, Doughboy had "Secret Service" protection as well...very cute.
Also, there is a picture of the croissants I made last weekend-learning to make puff pastry was one of my goals during this week free from school (the other you'll see in my next post). I ran low on chocolate, so I made some with strawberry jam and some with brown sugar & cinnamon filling. They did get a bit overdone, so they're darker than what I would have liked, but they still tasted really good!

Fluffernutter Cupcakes

Like most sane people, I love love love peanut butter. With jelly or honey on bread, in cookies, Reese's cups, any which way. I used to know kids who ate PB and fluff sandwiches-fluffernutters! We never had fluff at our house (why, Mom???) That doesn't sound so great to me for lunch, but I figured the PB and marshmallow combo would make a great dessert. So, I give you: peanut butter cupcakes with marshmallow frosting. This cake was really great-it's a butter cake, but very dense like pound cake. The frosting was a bit annoying to make because you start by heating egg whites along with corn syrup, sugar and some other things. The egg whites kept cooking and I had to strain them out. I eat egg whites every day for breakfast but didn't really want them in my frosting. :)

From Food Porn +

From Food Porn

=
Recipe from Sarah Phillips

Off to the Races!

I put before you a very profound question: which is more important to a good Kentucky Derby party-huge, fantastic hats or delicious Southern sweets? I'm tempted to say hats, because of these two lovely gentlemen whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making last Saturday:



For obvious reasons though, I must say that sugary goodness is of at least equal value. I made lavender meringue puffs with white chocolate chips, pecan tarts and fried apple dumplings (basically just took an apple pie recipe, made smaller portions, then deep-fried them). I don't have pictures of those because they just look like boring lumps of dough-looks are so deceiving! Below you can see the tarts and meringues (they look like clouds!). You can also see me in my hat! I do have eyes, I swear...they're just hidden under that blue monstrosity!
Oh, and for the first time ever, I placed money on a horse at the OTB-Eight Belles. Note to self: you are bad luck to horses! RIP.

60th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for a co-worker's 60th birthday. Chocolate cake, raspberry filling, chocolate-raspberry buttercream frosting...not a lot to say besides that! I think I'm going to alter the recipe sometime to make chocolate cake with hazelnut filling and lemon cake with blackberry filling.

Black + White=YUM!

I love this classic New York treat, which can be found in almost any deli or bodega in the city. The lemony cookie, topped with vanilla and chocolate frosting is a delicious treat! However, even though I use real butter and sugar in all of my baking, I do worry about trans fat and preservatives in foods that I buy. So I really wanted to try to make fresh black&white cookies. Because I love lemon, I flavored the frosting with lemon instead of vanilla. It was yummy!

Strawberry Cake!

Few things make me happier than the first beautiful spring day in New York. I know I'm not alone-you can just feel that everyone around is feeling good and being a little nicer. I went for a long run to Astoria Park and it was nice to see many other runners, bikers, kids on the playground, ice cream trucks and the usual crowd of guys who bring their lawn chair with them just to sit and watch girls run by.
I had dinner plans with some friends and figured I would have them over for dessert afterwards. The gorgeous weather called for a change of pace from the chocolate and cream-heavy desserts that I feel like I made all winter. I recently found a recipe for strawberry cupcakes and decided I would convert it into a 2-layer cake.
The cake itself was delicious-very moist and full of strawberries (I used nearly 2 1/2 cups in the recipe). However, next time I make this I'll use a different frosting recipe. I hardly ever follow recipes to the letter, preferring to change things a bit and make the recipe "mine." This time I did follow the recipe and was unhappy with the frosting. It was very runny and just kind of slid down the sides of the cake into a puddle (you can see this in the pictures). When the cake was sliced, the top layer wouldn't stay-it kept sliding off the bottom layer onto the plate. No big deal, though-it still tasted great and next time I'll improve the frosting!