What's Baking? Gingerbread Round-up!

I was the host for this month's What's Baking? Challenge! I chose gingerbread, for a somewhat selfish reason: our little gingerbread man celebrated his birthday in December and I wanted some gingerbread inspiration for his gingerbread birthday party! I got so many delicious submissions to inspire me that I'll probably be baking gingerbread until his 2nd birthday.

Jaida from Sweet Beginnings made gingerbread muffins with lemon glaze. I love this way to add gingerbread to my favorite meal of the day, breakfast!

Liz from Books N Cooks made these pretty soft gingerbread cookies. They look like something from a bakery!

Jenni from Dough See Dough made these decadent apple cinnamon gingerbread rolls. They're overnight cinnamon rolls, the best kind! The next wintry weekend we have, I'm making these to enjoy for breakfast.

Joanna from Kosher Kitchen made iced gingerbread snowflake cookies for her cookie swap, and shares a clever idea for measuring sticky ingredients like molasses. Thanks for the tip!

Nicole from Cookies on Friday made gingerbread sandwich cookies. The filling includes marshmallow fluff, 'nuff said. I can't wait to try these for my next cookie occasion.

Nicole from Seven Ate Nine made classic cut-out gingerbread cookies. Nothing beats the original gingerbread cookie!

Alison from Sparks from the Kitchen made classic cut-out gingerbread cookies, then invited everyone to decorate their own cookie as a party activity! I borrowed this idea for our gingerbread birthday party :)

Jessie from The Dinner Pages made gingerbread blossom cookies. I've made these too, and I can tell you, they are delicious! Also, hers are much prettier than mine. She also mentions pistachio blossom cookies and I'm really intrigued by those! Once we get out of gingerbread season, of course.

Eva of Eva Bakes made gingerbread cookie dough fudge. Oh my! I've never successfully made fudge (not that I've tried more than once, though) and I was recently thinking about trying again. Now I'm definitely going to try some fudge using this recipe.

Nichole from The Cookaholic Wife made classic gingerbread snowflakes. She decorated them so prettily, with icing and sparkly sanding sugar. This is a great addition to a cookie plate!

Ashley of Cheese Curd in Paradise made a gingerbread cake with bourbon frosting. The other day I took a poll on facebook, about what frosting to use with gingerbread birthday cake, and several people suggested bourbon frosting! I never thought of that combination, so I definitely need to try this recipe!

And I made these gingerbread blondies that I love. They're so decadent, and a fun twist on the classic gingerbread flavors if you want something different for a cookie swap (which is why I made these).

Thanks to all the bakers who participated! You all really helped me decide what to make for our gingerbread birthday party!

What's Baking? August: Celebrate Summer

Our August What's Baking? theme was chosen by Jade from The Mess Pot. Celebrate Summer is baking with things that remind you of summer, or that are in season. So of course I had to choose one of my favorite summer fruits, peaches.

I went to Tougas Farm on Thursday to pick peaches, and I was surprised by how crowded it was! Especially on a Thursday! But perhaps part of it was everyone hurrying to do it before the hurricane comes and destroys what's left. I planned to pick a peck of peaches, because I'm not so thrilled about canning this summer (no reason), but when I got there I picked a half bushel.

I felt I needed to bake something for the hurricane (i.e. something to eat if we lose power), and Clint's not a huge peach fan but I wanted something he might eat, too. Normally it'd be a no-brainer to bake a peach pie (YUM) or cobbler (also YUM), but I just didn't feel like it. So I looked around, and found a recipe for peach upside-down cake. I'd never think to use peaches in this, but they take really well to this recipe. I was also very clever and cooked up more peaches before adding the cake batter so that I had to eat them (well ok, that wasn't so much planning ahead as the pan just happening to be too crowded), and I honestly think I'd do step 1 as a quick dessert over pound cake or ice cream some day. The caramel sauce from the peaches also soaks into the cake nicely and gives it a delicious flavor.

Peach and Cornmeal Upside-down Cake

from What's On My Plate

For the peach topping:

3 peaches, cut into wedges (12 wedges per peach) (I left the skin on)

3T butter

1/4 cup sugar

For the cake:

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

1t vanilla

1/2 cup cream (I used fat free 1/2&1/2)

3/4 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

1t baking powder

3/4t salt

1t lavender (I skipped, couldn't find my lavender! I know I have some)

Step 1, for the peach topping:

in a 10in cast iron skillet (I used my Le Creuset braiser), melt the butter over medium heat. Sprinkle the sugar over, and stir around a bit and cook for 3min, until it starts to caramelize. Add the peaches and arrange in circles. I actually just dumped the peaches in, it was too hard with the spattering caramel when the cold peaches hit to arrange them, so I dumped them all in and then arranged them with the wooden spoon. Cook until they're soft, about 15min. Remove from heat.

Step 2, for the cake:

Cream together butter and sugar, for about 3 min, til fluffy. Then add eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla and cream. Whisk together remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then add in 2 batches to the cake batter.

Step 3, for assembly:

Drop spoonfuls of the cake batter over the peaches, then spread around with a spatula. Bake at 350F for... well, the original recipe said 20-22min. It took me about 40. Set the timer for 20 and keep checking.

Let the cake rest about 10 min, then run a knife along the edge, and invert on a serving plate.

Yum!

What's Baking? June: Layer Cakes

This month's What's Baking? theme is layer cakes, chosen by Heather. It's perfect timing for me, since I had a couple birthday cakes to bake! For my own birthday, I baked a strawberry cake, using allllll the strawberries I'd picked the week before. For Clint's birthday, I made a red velvet cake- my very first one! Usually I leave the red velvet to him, but it was his birthday so I had to give it a try.

Before I tell you about my cakes, though, let me show you the view from where I'm blogging.

Jealous?

Strawberry Cake
from Confections of a Foodie Bride

Note: the blogger's comments on this cake mention that it's nearly impossible to find a strawberry cake recipe from scratch. Clint looked at that and scoffed, but it's true. I had 13lbs of strawberries at my disposal, but the only recipes I could find involved adding strawberry jello to a box of cake mix. Seriously? Not for my birthday! So I was pleased to find this recipe. It's a hardier cake, not super sweet but I think it would make great cupcakes. It also has a nice, natural pink color. Not neon pink, like strawberry jello.

Also, I cut this recipe in half to make 3 6in layers. You can find the original recipe, for 8in pans, in the link above.

Ingredients:
6T cup strawberry puree (slice strawberries, toss with a bit of sugar and let sit for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Then puree. Use the puree for the cake and the frosting)
2T milk
2 eggs
1t vanilla
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup + 2T cake flour
3/4 cup + 2T sugar
dash of salt
2t baking powder
6T butter, softened

In a small bowl, whisk together the puree, milk, eggs and vanilla.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, sift together the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat in the butter at low speed, and mix until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Stir in the liquids til combined.

Divide the batter among 3 6 inch cake pans. Bake at 350F for 25-35 minutes (the original recipe, in 8 inch pans, said to bake 25min, but it took 35 min for me. Sometimes I really wonder about my oven- maybe I need a second thermometer to make sure the first is right).

Let the cakes cool in the pans, then remove. Frost each layer with strawberry buttercream and top with sliced strawberries, then add the next layer and repeat, etc.

I used Martha's strawberry buttercream. I don't want to tell you about mine, since it totally failed- even though I've made this recipe many, many times before. :-/

A week later, we had Clint's birthday cake





Montclair Martha's Red Velvet Cake
from Martha Stewart

1 and 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 and 1/2 cups cake flour
3T cocoa powder (I used dutch process, Clint normally uses Hershey's)
1 and 1/2 t baking powder
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1t vanilla
pinch of salt
red food coloring (I used gel)
3T warm water
1 cup buttermilk
1t baking soda
1T white vinegar

Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder (otherwise you'll get big lumps of powdery cocoa, not so fun).

Cream together the butter and sugar, and beat for 15 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla, salt and food coloring. Now alternate adding the sifted flour/etc with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour. Finally, in a small bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda, then add to the batter.

Divide among 2 8 inch cake pans and bake at 350F for 25-35 min. Cool in pans, then remove.

Frosting
Suzi-Q Filling/Ermine Frosting (my mom's had this recipe so long she doesn't know where it came from).
Note: Clint, the resident red velvet expert, insists that this frosting is the only appropriate frosting for red velvet. He calls it "red velvet cake frosting", since this is the only thing he's ever had it on. I recently discovered its more-or-less official name is "Ermine Frosting", but I grew up knowing it as "Suzi-Q Filling". I've only seen this frosting on chocolate cake, and it's kind of the only way I want my chocolate cake. It's totally unsuitable for piping, but oh well.

5T flour
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
pinch of salt
1t vanilla

In a small saucepan, cook the milk and flour, whisking often, until it's thick like paste. Let cool.

Beat the butter, shortening and sugar together until fluffy. Add the flour/milk paste, salt and vanilla. Beat until fluffy (or my mom's direction: "beat like hell".)

The cake is frosted very simply: 2 layers of cake with this frosting in between the layers and all over the outside of the cake. Simple and classic!


This is a great red velvet cake. It's not Clint's mom's recipe (which is for a 9x13 pan and I wasn't in the mood for math when it came time to bake this, and obviously it had to be a layer cake this time), but the texture was lovely.

Gotta bake... a coffee cake

I had this crazy idea that once I was unemployed, I'd have all sorts of free time for cooking, organizing, blogging, crafting.... instead, I had an identity crisis. Well, not exactly, but I just don't really know how to structure my day and include everything I should be doing. I've been knitting a lot, and emptying out all the stuff I've had stored on the DVR for months. But cleaning? Organizing? Even cooking? With the exception of some very failed granola bars (sigh), nothing. A full week of being a lazy bum. I did, however, exercise daily (go me!), so it wasn't a complete loss.

Yesterday I snapped out of it... a little. Today was better. But yesterday I decided I required cookies. I browsed, I perused, I found things I'd like but Clint wouldn't, I found things Clint would eat but I wasn't thrilled with... then I found a coffee cake. Not a cookie, but tasty.

And today I've gotten off my lazy butt (finally) and begun to work on the seminar I'll give at a job interview next week. I'm off to a rough start, but hopefully once I settle back in to seminar-preparing it'll be smooth going.

Note: I've never made a coffee cake. Crazy, right? No one in my family has ever made one (that I've tasted, at least). I used to get so excited when someone brought in a slice of a plain vanilla cake with a cinnamony, sugary walnut swirl in the middle, it was such a rare treat. There's no reason I can't make one myself! I'm glad to have fixed that little problem.

Maple Coffee Cake
taken from Miss in the Kitchen

(part of the reason this caught my eye on tastespotting, aside from that beautiful nutty swirl, is because Miss has photographed her coffee cake slice on my mother's every day china. Have you ever seen that china before? No? Me either. I love little coincidences like this!)

Cinnamony Sugary Walnuty Swirl
1/2 cup flour
2T butter, softened
1t cinnamon
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 and 1/4 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the flour, butter and cinnamon until it's crumbly. Stir in the nuts and syrup, and set aside.

Cake
2 cups flour
1t baking powder
1t baking soda
1/2t salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1t vanilla
1 cup nonfat yogurt or sour cream (I used half greek yogurt and half sour cream; the original recipe suggested vanilla yogurt, which I think would be interesting (in a good way))

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar, add in the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla and beat until well-combined and a little fluffy (a few minutes). Add in half the flour, then the yogurt, then the rest of the flour. The batter will be pretty thick.

Grease a bundt pan. Pour in half the batter, spread in an even layer. On top of that, spread the maple walnut mixture in an even layer, and top with the remaining batter. Spreading everything evenly is kind of a pain, just to warn you.

Bake in a 350F oven for 35-40 min. Cool about 10 min before removing from the pan.


This cake has a lovely texture, it's not super soft like other coffee cakes, but has a hearty yet fluffy texture. The cake itself isn't super sweet, so it might be nice with a simple sugar/milk glaze if the maple walnut filling isn't enough.

November What's Baking?

I hosted our What's Baking bake-along this month, and since I knew everyone would be busy baking goodies for Thanksgiving, I chose Thanksgiving as our theme. I love the variety in what everyone chose!

Amanda from Our Italian Kitchen made an Edible Cornucopia. What a cute idea, it's both a centerpiece and simple snack for later!
Dunne' from With a Cherry on Top made apple pecan cheesecake, a nice change from the traditional apple pie!

Cara from The Boys Made Me Do it made a rustic apple crostata, an easy twist on apple pie.

Jen, the Beantown Baker, made pumpkin cranberry pecan upside down cake- I can't wait to try this one!Ange from the Tiny Tyrant's Kitchen made The Pie That Won't Die (aka pumpkin cream pie). Who can resist trying a recipe with a name like that?

Heather Lynne from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks made cranberry apple mini pies. So cute!

Carrie from Carrie's Sweet Life takes a break from pies and cakes with a sweet potato trifle.

Jey of The Jey of Cooking really mixed things up with a bacon and cheddar apple pie.
Lindsey from Our Share of the Harvest made a beautiful pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling.

And I made Pilgrim Bread.
I love the variety we got this month, and I can't wait to try all of these delicious looking recipes!


Stephanie will host next, and she has chosen that December's What's Baking? theme will be Holiday Colors! (such as red and green for Christmas, etc). Happy baking!

Food Disasters

Hello, my lovelies! Sorry for the terrible lack of posts- I'm on the second-to-last night of a rather long road trip. I'm finally back in the eastern time zone after hanging out with family, family friends, and Old Faithful. I have some food tales from my trip to share, but today, we were watching Julie and Julia in the car (I know, finally!) and one scene reminded me that I never shared this story, from the end of May- where Julie make some sort of raspberry thing for dinner where the guest never shows, decides to bring it to work, and the bag gives way on her way to work and the dessert ends up all over the sidewalk.

I made my mom a birthday cake, as I tend to do. I make everyone a birthday cake, to be honest. Birthdays are a valid excuse to bake fancy things.

Mom said she would like something with Aunt Gertie's chocolate frosting (a fudgy chocolate buttercream, with my favorite instruction: "beat like hell"). Since I'd recently discovered dulce de leche and figured out how I could make it all by myself, I used a batch of that as the filling. The cake itself was my great grandma Anna's vanilla cake recipe (the same cake as our wedding cake). And it was lovely. I made the mistake of watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy (you remember, where everyone got shot) while making the cake and neglected to sufficiently spray the parchment-lined cake tins, so the layers had some issues coming out of the tins, but I got everything to stick. And it frosted beautifully.

See how nice?

Then we drove it from Worcester, MA to Westbrook, CT, a 90 or so minute trip on essentially 2 highways and one country road. We got a great parking space, right at the end of the walkway towards my parents' timeshare condo, and since we were only staying with them one night, were able to bring everything in in one trip. Only...

my caketaker is apparently worthless. The bottom clips on to the top, and the handle is on the top. With 3 other bags to carry, I couldn't support the caketaker from the bottom as I would prefer to do, and one of the two clips came undone, possibly from being jostled as I walked.

Fortunately, I'd stuck 3 bamboo skewers in the cake to prevent the layers from slipping (dulce de leche is pretty runny, and I've had many problems of transporting cakes filled with something other than frosting in the car), so the cake held together after landing, the only problem was that half of it was on the sidewalk. So I picked it up, got the still-clean half, and 6 of us celebrating mom's birthday enjoyed that for dessert.

The cake was good, and 2 months later, we're still laughing about this food horror story.