I’m Back

I’m back! After a long hiatus I’m going to attempt to start blogging again. Life here has changed greatly in the last two years. We bought, renovated, and moved into our first home...

We were lucky enough to visit Disney World a few times...

But most importantly, I became a mom to the most wonderful little boy.

My son Ryan is 21 months old now and a pure joy.

I’m still baking, cooking, and working full time but I’m going to try to post more of my daily on goings. So get ready, here come the posts...

Mother's Day Sugar Cookies and a Recipe for Tropical Trifle

For Mother's Day a couple of years ago I made some really cool monarch butterflies from Hello Cupcake. They were my favorite cupcakes to make by far and I wanted to try and recreate them into a sugar cookie for Mother's Day this year.

I hosted a Mother's Day BBQ for my mother and mother-in-law and decided to make my cousin Jeff's trifle to accompany the cookies for dessert. Every year his trifle is requested at all of the family holidays and it's a perfect springtime dessert with hints of coconut, crushed pineapple, and mandarin oranges. The best part is you can cook the components the night before and assemble it the day-of to make the day even less stressful.

 Jeff's Tropical Trifle

2 cans crushed pineapple, juice reserved

2 cans mandarin oranges

1 box yellow cake mix

1 box vanilla cook and serve pudding, not instant pudding

1 box coconut cook and serve pudding, not instant pudding (can used 2nd box of vanilla if coconut isn't available)

3 cans Goya coconut milk

2 cup shredded coconut, divided

1 cup malibu rum

1 pint heavy cream

Night before/morning of

1. Substituting coconut milk for regular milk, make pudding according to package directions (mix powders from both packets into one pot). While the pudding is cooking make sure to stir the pudding constantly so the bottom of the pot doesn't get scorched. Once pudding has thickened add 1 cup of shredded coconut to pudding and place on counter to cool. To prevent a skin from forming, place plastic wrap directly on the pudding. 

(If making the night before, once the bowl is cool to the touch, place in refrigerator until you're ready to assemble the trifle)

2. Drain the two cans of crushed pineapple, saving the juice, and place solids into a non reactive bowl. Prepare the cake mix replacing the water with an equal amount of pineapple juice and bake on a jelly roll sheet following the box instructions.

3. Drain the mandarin oranges and add the fruit to the bowl of crush pineapple. Add 1 cup Malibu rum and allow to soak into the fruit as long as possible (night before would be best). If there's any left over pineapple juice after the cake is baked, you can add it back into the fruit mixture. Refrigerate mixture if making the night before. 

Day of

4. Assemble trifle by cutting a circle of cake using the trifle bowl as a guide. Build by placing a layer of cake into trifle bowl, topping that with a layer of mixed fruit (approximately half) and drizzling some of the leftover juices onto the cake. Top the fruit with a layer of pudding and repeat until you reach the top of the trifle bowl.

(I actually had enough left over to make one more mini trifle in a canning jar for lunch the next day... Yum!)

5. Top trifle with fresh whipped cream and remaining coconut.

Enjoy!

Happy Star Wars Day: May the Forth Be With You

Happy Star Wars day everyone! Ever since I found out this was a real thing I've been wanting to make cookies for it. The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle has a bunch of really awesome cookie pictures and tutorials for Star Wars cookies including what cookie cutters you can use, R2-D2 and Yoda tutorials, and a post of the whole set. If you haven't been to her site before, you need to take a look at her work, it's simply amazing. Anyway, here are some pictures of the Star Wars cookie set I did for Star Wars day.

Enjoy!

Happy Easter and Some Bunny Themed Sugar Cookies

Spring is finally here and my Easter wouldn't be complete without some sugar cookies.

I love all of the designs from Cookies with Character but when I saw the Peek-a-Boo Bunnies, my heart flip flopped. An animator by trade, her designs are adorable and original and I could spend hours looking through her blog.

I also drew my inspiration for my Easter bunny cookies from the Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle. If you haven't been to her site before she has a ton of information on cookies and cookie decorating.

The recipes for sugar cookies and royal icing are both from Sugar Belle's and can be found here and here.

Enjoy!

Southern Pecan Pie

I usually like to make a pecan pie each year around Thanksgiving since they taste soo much better homemade. Since I didn't have much time for baking this past year with boards right around the corner, I decided to make some for dessert last night.

Southern Pecan Pie

1 piecrust, homemade or frozen
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 1/3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
2 1/2 cups toasted pecan halves


1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cook pie crust for 10 minutes then remove from oven (leave oven on). While piecrust is baking, combine corn syrup, brown sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and butter in a medium bowl. Beat eggs and add to mixture.

2. Finely chop 1/2 cup of toasted pecans and line the bottom of the cooled piecrust with them. Rough chop 1 cup of pecans and add to the wet ingredients. Reserve 1 cup of pecans for decorative top.

3. Pour wet ingredients into the pie crust over the finely chopped pecans.





4. Add whole pecan halves in a decorative pattern starting with the outer row. For each row I like to put the fatter end of the nut towards the outside of the pie so they fit a little better.





5. Bake for 40-50 minutes until a sharp knife inserted into the pie comes out clean. Cool completely before serving.




I like to serve my pecan pie with vanilla bean ice cream and whipped cream, but this pie is so good to almost don't need it.

Hope you enjoyed!

Crusty Homemade Artisan Bread

This recipe is super simple and a great way to get into bread making if you've never done it before or have trepidations about kneading dough. Each time I've made it I've gotten a crusty, flaky, delicious artisan loaf that goes great with anything from breakfast in the morning to a nice bowl of hot soup.

Here's the recipe and directions to make this great bread.

No Knead Crusty Bread- takes approx 9 hours including rising and baking time
3 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
A dutch oven or heavy baking casserole dish with lid

1. Combine all dry ingredients and mix. Add warm water and mix well. Dough will appear shaggy and that's normal.

Dough after just mixing together

2. Spray top with cooking spray and flip over in he mixing bowl. Spray the bottom of the dough and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Cover the bowl with a towel and set in a warm corner of the kitchen to rise for 6-8 hours.

Dough after rising 6 hours

3. Remove dough from mixing bowl and fold over and press together a few times until it comes together and forms a ball. (Dough will feel pretty loose at first but with a couple folds will feel more like a normal dough). Place ball back into mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for another hour.

Ball of dough that has just been formed

Ball of dough after rising an additional hour

4. 20 minutes before the hour of rising is up, place a Dutch oven or heavy casserole dish in the oven and preheat to 450 F.

5. Once oven is preheated roughly shape the dough into a ball by stretching the top of the dough and pulling it up under it's self. A great video of how to do this can be found here. Drop the taunt ball into the dish/Dutch oven and cover with the lid. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the top of the bread is golden brown.

6. Remove the bread from the oven and allow to cool in the dish for a couple of minutes. Remove from the dish and wrap in a kitchen towel. Slice and serve once mostly cool.

Toasted, this crusty, homemade bread would also go great with my mussels in white wine recipe instead of using a store bought baguette.

Enjoy!

Vanilla Sprinkle French Macarons

This post has been a long time coming. I've been wanting to write it forever but couldn't muster up the energy and courage to do it. These cookies are not easy to perfect. If you are a perfectionist like me when it comes to baking, they will give you headaches and make you want to cry. That said, if you can accept that you will have delicious cookies that may not look perfect every single time you make them, they are definitely a cookie you should try. 

I first started making macarons last fall after paying $2.97 for a single cookie. I knew I was decent at baking and figured I could figure out how to make them. I read, I researched, I googled and youtubed, and after all of that I found out they were difficult but not impossible to make. My entire first batch exploded save for two lone shells. I sought out different recipes, some called for all the ingredients to be weighed, others using measuring cups. The frustrating part was that I had success and failures with both. There would be weeks when my shells came out right and others where I couldn't make a single cookie, even when using the same recipe. I felt so overwhelmed that I was almost ready to quit making them when I found the right recipe just at the right time.

Knock on wood, each time I've made this recipe I've had pretty little feet and smooth tops on every shell. It doesn't call for weighing ingredients but as long as your consistent with your measuring methods, it shouldn't be a problem.

So here's the recipe I've been using, no scale required.

Vanilla French Macarons- total recipe time 1-2 days *

1 3/4 cup powdered sugar**

1 cup almond flour**

3 large egg whites, room temperature

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

pinch of salt

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

* Completed cookies take 1 day to mature and be perfect to eat, overbaked shells take 2 days

* *Fluff with a spoon before delicately scooping out and placing in measuring cups making sure to level off with the flat edge of a butter knife

Vanilla Buttercream:

1 stick of butter, softened

1 1/4 cup powder sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp milk

Additional things you will need: 3 baking sheets, parchment paper, 12" piping bag, 1/2" piping tip, decorative sprinkles

1.  Combine powdered sugar and almond flour. Sift and discard any pieces too large to pass through sieve (approximately 1-2 TBSP). Set aside.

2. Combine egg whites, cream of tartar, and pinch of salt in the metal bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (a clean, metal bowl is necessary for producing a nice meringue, it keeps the egg whites cool and gives them more volume). Beat the egg whites on speed 6 until frothy (a minute or two). Bump up the speed to 8 and slowly add granulated sugar. Whip until a firm meringue forms an additional 5 minutes (approximately 8 minutes from turning the mixer on). The meringue should clump together on the interior of the whisk attachment as shown below.

3. Add the almond-powder sugar mixture to the meringue and begin folding together by swiping along the bottom edge of the bowl with a flexible spatula and pressing back down firmly on center of the path that was drawn in the batter. Add the vanilla extract. 

The motion of the folding will be like drawing a letter 'p' using the edge of the bowl for the straight part of the letter and folding back over on itself for the loop of the p. Mix until batter flows like lava off the edge of the spatula in a ribbon-like fashion (takes approximately 1-2 minutes depending on how hard you are deflating the batter). The whole purpose of the folding the batter is to deflate it and get rid of the air, so no need to be gentle.

4. Fit a 12" piping bag with a 1/2" round piping tip and twist the tip-end to prevent batter from leaking out. Place bag tip first into a large drinking glass and fold bag over edge of the cup to make for easy batter transfer. 

Piping bag fitted with tip before I twisted the tip to close it off

5. Pipe quarter size circles onto a parchment lined baking sheet (if the first couple of piped shells have peaks that do not flatten out, the batter is not mixed enough. Squeeze batter back into bowl and fold a few more times until consistency is right and pipe again). Slam baking sheet on the counter top to release any air bubbles to prevent shells from exploding. Add any decorative sprinkles to half of the shells now and allow to rest for 30 minutes or until tops are no longer tacky to the touch (can take up to an hour depending on humidity). Preheat oven to 290 F.

6. Place a second baking sheet underneath the first tray of macaron shells and bake for 22 minutes. Repeat with other sheets of shells. During the first 4-6 minutes the foot of the macaron will begin to form, this is the most nerve wracking part. You can check for doneness by trying to remove a shell from the parchment paper. If it comes away clean, they're done. It's better to over bake then under bake macarons, as the latter can't be fixed later. Allow shells to cool on baking sheets.

7. While shells are cooling mix together the butter, powder sugar, milk, and vanilla extract for the buttercream icing.

8. After shells have cooled, remove from parchment paper and match up like sized shells, sprinkles for the top and plain shells for the bottom. Pipe a quarter size swirl of buttercream on one of the paired shells and top with its match.

9. Place macarons in an airtight container and allow to mature for 1-2 days. It's horrible to wait, I know, but the buttercream softens the shell and everything melds together during this time. It's especially necessary if the shells are over baked, as the buttercream will take away the bite of a overly crisp shell.

Here are two great websites for macaron troubleshooting that really helped me out when I started baking them. They use different recipes with different ingredients but are really great sources if you run into a problem.

Food Nouveau

Not So Humble Pie

Give it a try and let me know how it goes! Enjoy!

Click here for some pictures of my past macaron projects

Be sure to follow me on instagram @rocky092 for more macaron, cookie, and baking posts