Let's address the fact that it's been over 14 months since my last post. I did bake a few times during this break, but never had the time or energy to blog about it. With 5 classes last spring, and moving into an apartment with an itty-bitty kitchen, I lost a lot of time and motivation to bake. My fabulously full social calendar (which, let's face it, mostly includes my few regular readers-so don't blame me, you guys) still doesn't afford me much time, but I realized recently how much I miss baking, so doll house kitchen be damned, here we go again.

For starters this morning I was inspired at the grocery store by a bag of pumpkin pancake mix...but I would ruin my reputation if I used a mix, so I bribed my lovely roommate for a can of pumpkin, in exchange for breakfast, and made pumpkin-chocolate-walnut pancakes. I think the chocolate overwhelmed the pumpkin flavor, so I probably wouldn't use that next time.

(man, I need lighting advice for these pictures!)

Ok, the main event...during the summer of 2009, my massive extended family had a reunion. I was unable to go, but one of my aunts solicited recipes from the whole family, and put together a really amazing cookbook. My family is Serbian, and to give you an idea of what we find important in life, the cookbook is (literally) half desserts-there are no less than 4 baklava recipes. Anyway, the point is that my goal over the next few months is to try out some of the recipes that I loved as a kid, but have never baked, and barely know how to pronounce! Take one, baklava:

I used my grandmother's recipe, which calls for walnuts but I used pistachios instead. I actually cut the sugar in half (that's just the white sugar-obviously there's still lots of sugar in all that honey) and it was completely delicious. I I also added cinnamon to the melted butter that is brushed on each phyllo sheet, so it would be extra cinnamon-y. There are lots of horror stories about working with that phyllo, but I used to help my mom make the layers in her baklava, so I've had some experience and it went better than I expected. Still, the assembly took an hour! Whatever, it's incredibly delicious.

Spiced and sugared pistachios

You have to cut it before baking...

....so that you can pour this delicious syrup over it

And, yum!!!

P.S., I must call attention to one of my recent sugar-high discoveries. If you live in NY (you probably do, if I've forced you to read this) and are as dessert-obsessed as I am, you have to go to Sweet Revenge in the West Village. It's cupcake paradise. They actually have really delicious sandwiches and savory cupcakes (kind of a biscuit texture), but their thing is cupcake and wine or beer pairings. I went with some of the best company I can imagine (hi San Francisco!) and we polished off an embarrassing amount of food and alcohol (while laughing at the six tiny girls by the door, sharing one cupcake).

Another incarnation...

of lemon and berries. I can't stop.
I took a break from my recent craziness on Saturday to make a birthday cake for my cousin. She's lucky it fell during my 2 week break from classes! I really wanted something light in color and considered making a white cake, but I'm not a big fan because I don't think they're very flavorful. I found a great recipe (from Dorie Greenspan, as I often do) for lemon cake and butter cream frosting, both really light (I don't like when lemon cake is yellow-y, I think it looks fake). It was actually the "Perfect Party Cake" recipe, which is somewhat well-known in the strange little world of obsessed bakers.
I was surprised by the cake-very light and fluffy...almost melt-y (sorry, other baking bloggers-I can't bring myself to use the term "mouth feel"). Yum! I was worried about the frosting at first because when I tried it, I thought it just tasted like butter. But once it covered the cake, the combination of the two was delicious and very lemony! I filled the cake with blackberry jam, and decorated the top with fresh blackberries and homemade candied lemon slices. I think it came out quite beautifully, if I may say so!

Then we sliced it with a cleaver.

Such a little tart...

I suppose 11 months is long enough to let pass by without a new post. I've become slightly obsessed with photograzing lately (take a look, it's practically food erotica). I saw a picture of strawberry tarts (Confabulation in the Kitchen) and decide I had to make them. I used a different pâte brisée, but it's a pretty universal recipe. I followed her suggestion of eliminating the butter and cutting the sugar in the filling (I used 1/3 c. instead of a full cup).

Ingredients:

2 lb sliced strawberries

1/3 c. sugar

1 recipe double layer pâte brisée

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Toss sugar with strawberries.

3. Use 3/4 of the pâte brisée for the bottom crust in 4 small tart pans. Allow some dough to hang over the edges, as the dough will shrink during baking. Weigh bottom of crust with pie beads; bake for 15 minutes.

4. Dust flour over bottom crusts.

5. Divide strawberries and sugar into the tart pans
6. Cut remaining dough into slices and arrange into lattice work over top of strawberries.

Bake 30 more minutes.

The star of the show:


Tools of the trade:
f

Preparing the dough:




Ready for the oven:


And, I present you with delicious:


Actually, I haven't tasted it yet...it could be awful!

I also decided I want to make some sort of rosemary-olive oil bread soon, so I bought a rosemary plant...the nearby spearmint smelled so good, I had to buy that as well. Here are my new additions! Let's all cross our fingers that I don't kill them, as I do every other living thing I've tried to care for (except children).





Now I'm done, as Marie says it's rude for me to blog while watching a movie with her.

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!